I believe it should be okay to teach that this all exists, but not to teach any morality concerning gender/sexuality issues.

Orientation should also only be taught in non sexual terms. Like "some people like boys more and other people like girls more" would suffice.

I also think that teachers should not keep secrets for students from parents, since the parents are the legal guardian of the child they should be able to know everything about their own child.

Not sure what that means.

Teacher: “Gay people exist—Some people love people of the same gender. Trans people exist—some people are born into bodies that conflict with their experience of gender. Some of these people might be in this class. Let’s treat everyone with respect.”

Student: “My mom taught me that’s gross and wrong. I hate them. I don’t have to respect or accept them because they’re evil and disgusting. I won’t sit by or talk to any tranny or fag because they’re a freak!”

Teacher: “Okay Sam! [literally no further comment because teachers teach math and english, not morality].”

In that situation, I would just tell the child regardless of our personal beliefs we must be kind to the other students. Just as in any situation. That wouldn't be an endorsement of any ideology to just tell the child to use nice words and not bully.

I don't think if you'd feel quite the same way if you worked in mental health and were aware of how much abuse goes on at home, especially with homo/trans-phobic, fearful, angry, traumatized parents taking out their own traumas, fears, misconceptions, and shame on their still-developing children. It is horrifying and it is everywhere. This shit is incredibly damaging and can take lifetimes to heal, or, in many cases it contributes to suicide. I suppose that's the parents' right to raise their child in an environment of fear, hate, rigidity and intolerance?

You're literally espousing a "woke" ideology -- acknowledging that gay/trans people exist and we should be kind to them. That's it! That's the radical, leftist, progressive mind-control shit that's "infiltrating our schools and institutions" and causing reactive, uneducated, hate-mongers to lose their shit.

There are definitely teachers saying more than "don't bully" even if it's not common. Just look at the viral "Libs of Tiktok" tiktok page for examples. I don't really think the law is necessary, as I would say that parents should know better than to hand their children over to the state school system 7 hrs a day, if they're really worried about something like this.

It's mostly a virtue signal bill, just like the recent anti lynching bill that passed, even though lynching is obviously already illegal and has not been common in 40 years.

A better solution would just be to provide parents a way to Zoom into the class if they wanted and then individual issues could be dealt with rather than sweeping legislation being passed.

The biggest issue of the bill remains that the school is required to contact the parents if they believe a student is LGBTQ. Not just K-3. It's at all grade levels in this bill.

Why aren't they also contacting parents if their kid is showing signs that they're straight?

Any kid who is fearful of their parents' reactions will be forced to hide and be ashamed of who they are. You're teaching these kids to feel inferior, weird, wrong, for no reason whatsoever. And if they go to a school counselor now, I presume that counselor must now inform the parents their kid is LGBTQ, otherwise get sued/fired? Parents that could lash out at them? Many kids will have no one to console in. Even friends and classmates may shun them in fear of being outed themselves.

This leads to so many problems, lifelong problems, and, as Steve said, sometimes suicide. No one, regardless of age, should have a fear of being themselves. I haven't read the Georgia version of this bill, but they've drafted one that appears to be similar, and now that it's passed in Florida, all these other states are going to follow suit. It's disgusting.

Defenders always say let kids be kids. Well, bills like this is literally telling some of these kids they can't be.

I think teachers should tell parents everything that happens in the classroom, so yeah straight included.

Anyway, this is mostly a moot point because most kids do not experience attraction until puberty, though I know there are exceptions.

There should not ever be something the state knows about your child that you do not. The child is the parent's responsibility. not the state

It's not a moot point because even if it's a small percentage, you're singling them out and discriminating against them. Again, this bill impacts all grade levels. You either drafts rules that apply to all, or none.

Until LGBTQ individuals become just as accepted and acknowledged as everyone else, where being yourself is normalized, bills like this are damaging and make things worse.

You, and most everyone in support of this bill, have zero experience with how big a deal it remains even today to open yourself to others. Times have changed, more are accepting (as if needing to be accepted should even be a problem anyway...), but it remains a private thing for many. Pushing someone out of the closet into a potentially dangerous environment can be damaging, even deadly. And that's wrong.

Why not ask the people this (or any bill, rules, etc.) impacts the most, in this case very clearly the LGBTQ community, their concerns over it and what they think would make it better? If a group of people are telling you it's harmful, you listen to them. You don't ignore their concerns and push on. Very simple.

To all these parents saying they have full responsibility over their child, then I suggest they pull their kids out of school and teach them themselves. Why are you letting others teach your kids in the first place? Discriminating against other kids because you're afraid your kid might catch the gay isn't the way to do it. Besides, these parents clearly know little about parenting if they think keeping their kids in a bubble is somehow going to "protect" them. They're openly inviting far more problems in both their lives than learning that people of different orientations and genders exist and are no different than them.

I'm pretty sure the bill impacts K-3 only.

I'm inclined to agree pulling you child out of public schools is better course of action.This whole thing is a great reason to have vouchers and school choice so taxpayers don't have to fund schools that teach things they don't agree with. Then teachers could teach whatever they want

I would prefer if the bill made it more clear the age ranges, it only says K-3 is for teaching for people in the classroom. I agree that if any of it applies to people that are teenagers it's more sketchy than if it's all little kids. I have no problem with parents of elementary school age kids something being told anything that happens that happens at school in terms of LGBTQ.

Bill text: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through [third grade]” or “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” in other grades.

Sexual orientation and gender identify isn't even taught in K-3. And I haven't seen anything proposing it's being considered. You can say this is rather moot, I guess, as it helps to affirm it won't be taught. But was Sex Ed really being taught in K-3? No. This still puts the teachers in a weird place (where they can be subject of a lawsuit) if one of their students asks questions about this. Saying it isn't appropriate to talk about is wrong, of course, and many kids will grow up thinking it is as these ages are vital in learning. So there'll have to find ways to avoid it without it impacting the learning process. It all just feels unnecessary.

The concern is the OR part of the bill. It's very vague. I read that it's up to the school (or state standards) to determine what's age or developmentally appropriate for students in other grades. It opens the gates to a flood of problems if undefined. Why is it here? Language targeting the LGBTQ community is clearly concerning, and you can see (at least I hope) why it's getting so much pushback.

The good news is that I read that the school is still allowed to keep information from parents if they believe abuse, abandonment, or neglect could result at home. So that answers my "what is a kid goes to a school counselor over concerns, or bullying, about being LGBTQ" question. That's good to know. Home isn't a safe place for many kids, LGBTQ or otherwise, so having this still available to these kids is vital.

And better news, although I'm looking this up now, is that it seems the House removed the amendment requiring the school to inform parents of their kid is LGBTQ within six weeks before it was voted on (note, this amendment didn't even mention if they were straight, so that tells you the intent of many here).

This bill just shouldn't exist. It's creating potential problems, harmful problems, when there was none (or at least none that couldn't be dealt with as they occur). But it does exist now because of lawmakers in Florida like that one idiot who ranted about LGBTQ not being permanent on the senate floor.

Don’t say gay bill is garbage culture war bait that the right-wing politicians like to use.

Not really going to be able to convince you here - all I can tell is what the view from the right is, which is that it's more of a mass psychological event in human history/cult/etc. and that there are legions of leftists online who are coming off as brainwashed/propagandized "NPCs". Every day I read twitter replies from people who seem completely mentally inaccessible to me at this point.

If you want to believe that's crazy, go ahead. It's harder to tell when you're in the bubble on either side. I personally trust my instincts but obviously there are left wing people who would do the same.

During the run up to 2016 election while I had already considered myself a libertarian I had one foot inside the left wing bubble, I followed left wing posters on twitter and not right wing posters, and I wanted Hillary to win. When I look back at it now I find it interesting to think about some of the right wing posters I follow now, but how it felt to read their posts from the perspective of the left. It's not just that that they make more sense, but the entire energy level/pace/etc. of their posts, seems different, when the right was supposed to be the "crazy guys". It's like if you are in a car, and it seems like you are not moving and the outside is, but in reality you are moving and the outside isn't. That's my guess of what people in the left wing bubble feel like. They see the right wing people are operating at a wild cult like intensity, but in my opinion it's an illusion, their emotional intensity is the one that's way too high and therefore the calmer ones seem crazy to them.

I think that calmness comes with the "I'm gonna believe what I want to believe" mentality.

Meanwhile, on the left, we're watching the world die simultaneously with certain people thinking the biggest problem is multiculturalism. It's easy to get hot.

I think a lot of the antagonism people have towards what they call "woke" is how drastic the reaction to any perceived slight can be, and how it makes people unable to discuss basic reality and differences between groups. For example, I'm gay, and I *know* that many gay men have an issue with promiscuity and STDs. Every gay man knows this is a problem. And yet if a straight person were to discuss this they could lose their career for being homophobic. I understand where that comes from, because in the past it was used to demonize everyone that was gay regardless of how they were actually behaving, but it is still reality and it will still affect reality and not being able to talk about basic reality makes people feel like they're prisoners. Reality will always win whether you acknowledge it or not. In the 80s, reality winning took the form of a deadly new virus called HIV/AIDS sweeping through the gay community and murdering tens of thousands of young men, because activists pressured to not close bathhouses where people would go to casual sex out of total ignorance about the disease and a deluded mindset that it was oppressive to close them and sexual freedom was more important. Only when the corpses were mounting endlessly was reality acknowledged and by then it was too late. You see this same pattern with many other issues. Sometimes it's the right that refuses to acknowledge reality as well, like how gay conversion therapy is pointless torture and does not work.

We have to find a way to be able to talk about the reality of the world we live in and the people in it while also not using it to hurt huge swaths of people and creating the need to live in a fantasy world out of that fear. And I think people perceive a lot of the discussion around 'white privilege' and such to be the inverse of that, where it's no problem to ascribe negative traits to certain groups even though it's not accurate at all. It's a blatant hypocrisy that cannot be reconciled. You cannot expect people to be ok with the idea that if you say the N word you lose your job, but if you say white men should die you don't (an asian woman NYT editor said this and did not lose her job). People are not sheep and they are not lapdogs. No one will buy into an ideology that they see objectively wants to harm them.

The benefit of the doubt version is that they're offended by everything. Some of them surely are, but the cynical explanation is that claiming "I'm offended" is actually the vicious attack in this case, not the defense, and that it's meant to prey on people's deep rooted fear of being called a racist/homophobe to make them bend the knee, either directly by hitting them in the shame, or making them grovel to save their public reputation and job. Attacking someone for racism/transphobia/etc. operates as an intimidation technique making people terrified to challenge their ideology online and hide their true feelings, and it's a great way to purge dissidents from institutions they want to control (eg. eliminating conservative teachers).

Yes, I understand that sounds extreme and people don't have to believe it. It's hard to have such a cynical view on fellow human beings. It's not how I saw things only a few years ago. Unfortunately though ideologies when they go bad can take people over and give up those moral checks and balances to support the ideology/cult.

I agree that woke culture goes overboard often, but seriously, how hard is it to not say the N word at work? This isn't just about 'freedom of speech', we have enough evidence to see the negative impact this has on mental health. It shouldn't be illegal to say it, but I think its fair to label people who do as "pieces of shit" and also fair that employers wouldn't want those "pieces of shit" on their payroll.

My point is that we wouldn't need woke culture if it wasn't for the actual racists out there in the same way we wouldn't need police if it wasn't for the criminals.

"Woke Culture" is as real as "Cancel Culture".

Both are made up fantasies by the right wing.

"Woke" used to be called the Golden Rule. But I guess religion isn't something the right wing follows anymore. Jesus was too woke for them.

Jesus did spend a lot of his time giving free shit to poor people....

Chippy, it's so nice you've returned to the board. We missed you lol

Republicans love giving free shit to poor people of their own free will. But Jesus didn't hold a gun to people's head and take stuff to give to others

Labeling all Republicans as anti-poor is ignorant, as many Republicans including my own father have spent a large portion of their life doing services for the poor, just that they don’t like the government mandating it. A lot of the Republican mentality is against the government forcing it upon people and often times the corruption that comes with an inflated government that often times is out of sync with the public where as a more organic approach works better in their minds.

Problem is, there is also a large chunk of voters that vote Republican that believe the poor can go fuck themselves and why should they help anyone else but themselves or possibly their family. The other problem is, sometimes it takes something as big as the government to create a better state for all including the poor.