The Florida Senate passed a controversial law on Tuesday, March 8, which bans teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation in public elementary schools.
Nicknamed by his opponents « Don’t say gay » (“don’t talk about gays”), the text which has yet to be signed by the Republican Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, favorable to the initiative, applies to classes from kindergarten to CE2, where children are between 8 and 9 years old.
Law prevents teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation “in a manner inappropriate for the age or development of the students”, a wording that critics say could extend the reach of the text to older schoolchildren. The Republicans, however, ensure that the law does not prohibit spontaneous discussions on these subjects between teachers and students but only the inclusion of courses in school programs.
An alliance with the “hate mobs”
“Florida leaders have decided that laws based on hate and discrimination are more important than our students recovering from the pandemic”lambasted Tuesday on Twitter the Minister of Education of the United States, Miguel Cardona.
The association for the defense of LGBT + people, Equality Florida, accused on its side “Parliamentarians to ally with hateful mobs hurling anti-LGBTQ slurs at people simply seeking refuge in school where they can be who they are without hiding”. Hundreds of students had demonstrated against this law in recent days in front of the Florida Parliament in Tallahassee.
The conservatives of this state in the south-east of the United States have been leading an offensive for several months in the educational field. The Florida House of Representatives adopted a law on February 24 restricting teaching on subjects related to skin color in public schools. The text aims without naming it “critical race theory”which analyzes racism as a system with its laws and logics of power, rather than at the level of individual prejudices.
“Gays, clandestine years”, a story in 5 parts
