"House Bill 616 would ban discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity until fourth grade in all public and most private schools. The proposed legislation would also ban 'divisive concepts' such as the 1619 Project and critical race theory. Supporters say the bill is about parental rights; opponents say it will alienate LGBTQ and Black Ohioans.”
(Jessie Balmert. “Where Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, his challengers stand on controversial HB 616.” Cincinnati Enquirer. April 6, 2022.)
Why are lawmakers attempting to erase the gay narrative in the classroom? Answering that question requires a deep dive into both history and recent political developments.
Toxic homophobia remains pervasive. It continues to perpetuate alienation, denial, and suffering in public schools. Bullying and harassment toward LGBTQ+ people is commonplace – a recent survey by Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that 59.1% of LGBTQ+ students felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, 42.5% because of their gender expression, and 37.4% because of their gender.
In erasing any gay narrative in schools, the LGBTQ+ child may suffer even more. The greatest source of resilience for LGBTQ+ students experiencing stress is the presence of a supportive adult. A teacher may be the only source of support some of these students have, especially those who are rejected at home, in their communities and by their peers. In addition to providing individual support, teachers can help create a safe, welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment.
Statistical Note:
According to a 2021 report published by the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, more than 40% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. The report was based on a survey of nearly 35,000 LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S. ages 13-24. Of those surveyed, 94% said recent politics negatively impacted their mental health.
When LGBTQ+ people grow up in a society without an historical context in which to project their lives, they are weaned on the notion that they have no culture and no history. These thing have long been intentionally hidden from students, from us all, by socially dominant individuals and groups through measures of neglect, deletion, erasure, omission, banning, censorship, distortion, alteration, trivialization and other unauthorized means.
(Warren Blumenfeld. “UnErasing LGBTQ History in Schools.” The Good Men Project. October 13, 2015.)
Wishing to wipe out all traces of gay existence, social groups have sprung up to fight any trace of LGBTQ+ mention in schools. For example, MassResistance is a hate group which promotes anti-LGBT+ and socially conservative positions. The group is designated an anti-LGBT+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in part for claims linking LGBT+ people with pedophilia and zoophilia, and claims that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth were created by homosexual activists to normalize and "lure" children into homosexuality.
Straight from MassResistance – which calls itself a “pro-family organization” – here is some of their online propaganda:
“'Gay history' is an important psychological tool that homosexual movement uses to convince schoolchildren that homosexual behavior is a normal and positive influence in society. By making it part of the school curriculum – with lectures, exams, term papers, etc. – it becomes ingrained in kids’ minds. Thus, students would never question its legitimacy – and legitimacy is an obsessive goal of the homosexual movement.
“Perhaps more disturbing, “gay history” introduces deviant figures such as Harvey Milk (a sexual predator of teenage boys), pro-NAMBLA activist Harry Hay, and other “gay pioneers” (some of whom were pornographers) as legitimate historical figures worthy of admiration. Plus it often teaches kids the unproven political 'quackery' that famous people such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Julius Caesar, and even Abraham Lincoln were homosexual.”
(“LGBT movement organizing to mandate 'gay history' in schools across America.” www.massresistance.org. September 18, 2014.)
History Note:
Though Eleanor Roosevelt was an extraordinary champion of African-American and women's rights, she also did more than almost anyone in the pre-Stonewall era to model acceptance of gay relationships – and she did it in the White House.
Some would argue that was because the First Lady was a closeted lesbian. The most often-cited evidence is her intense friendship with an openly lesbian reporter named Lorena Hickok. Roosevelt and Hick worked together, vacationed together and wrote each other hundreds of letters, many of them as purple as a late-summer eggplant. "Gee! What wouldn't I give to talk to you & hear you now, oh, dear one," said one from Eleanor. "It is all the little things, tones in your voice, the feel of your hair, gestures, these are the things I think about & long for."
The First Lady got Hick a job reporting from around the country on the progress of the New Deal. Back in Washington, she bunked in a guest room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And the rumors began. "And so you think they gossip about us?" Eleanor wrote to Lorena in November 1933. "I am always so much more optimistic than you are. I suppose because I care so little what 'they' say!"
Over the years, the gossip has hardened into gospel. In 1998, Eleanor earned a spot alongside James Baldwin, Willa Cather and Cole Porter on a National Coming Out Day poster with the headline, "Unfortunately, history has set the record a little too straight."
(Marc Peyser. “Eleanor Roosevelt, The First Lady of Gay Rights.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-first-lady-of-gay-rights_b_7608122. June 20, 2015.)
Let's Get Real
The norm is that students learn only the non-LGBTQ+ version of curriculum throughout their school years – not just in early elementary grades. This exclusion denies equality. It denies the First Amendment that protects the right to express yourself in public schools.
It denies Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that bans discrimination on the basis of sex by public schools. And, most importantly, it dismantles diversity while attempting to eradicate LGBTQ+ sexual orientation and gender identity.
“When those who have the power to name and socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you,…when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.”
– Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) American poet, essayist and feminist.
And this year, with HB 616, Ohio lawmakers add to the historic tally labeled as the “worst year in recent history for LGBTQ+ state legislative attacks,” State lawmakers have proposed a record 238 bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ Americans this year — or more than three per day — with about half of them targeting transgender people specifically.
Nearly 670 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed since 2018, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ+ advocacy group Freedom for All Americans, with nearly all of the country’s 50 state legislatures all having weighed at least one bill.
Ohio HB 616 would ban both instruction and materials about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade in all public and most private schools.
Students in grades four and higher could discuss these issues, but "any curriculum or instructional materials on sexual orientation or gender identity" would be "age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
Teachers who violated these rules could lose their licenses and schools could lose their state funding.
The Republican legislation also restricts teacher discussion and training on other "divisive or inherently racist concepts" such as critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion learning outcomes and "any other concept that the state board of education defines as divisive or inherently racist."
Teachers' unions are lining up against the proposal.
"There are many more educational issues that we should be addressing," Cincinnati Federation of Teachers president Julie Sellers said. "The extremists are using (the bill) as a distraction instead of providing the necessary funding for all students to receive a quality education in a safe and supported environment."
The bill is also condemned by the Ohio Education Association, which worries the bill, if passed, would exacerbate the teacher shortage dilemma.
“House Bill 616 represents yet another example of how a national network of extremists is seeking to hijack the education conversation in our state to control a political narrative and distract Ohioans from the real issues facing our public schools,” OEA President Scott DiMauro wrote in a statement. “The architects of this bill, who have decided to copy and paste some of the most damaging parts of Florida’s ultra-divisive legislation, are targeting some of Ohio’s most vulnerable students and families and setting Ohio up for a Florida-like showdown with the businesses our state leaders have been working so hard to attract.”
(Madeline Mitchell. “House Bill 616 targets 'Ohio's most vulnerable students,' opponents say.” Cincinnati Enquirer. April 06, 2022.)
Revelers march through downtown Cincinnati during the Cincinnati Pride parade, Saturday, June 27, 2015.
Final Word
The Ohio bill is born of the reddest herring, an unfounded fear – the fear that children are being turned gay due to what they learn in school. Gender identity is a real thing and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer children and adults exist. Attempting to deny their very existence breeds hatred: it is so much easier to hate what one does not understand because you were never taught about their humanity.
Ohio can choose to join a disturbing wave of educational homophobia that has recently been emboldened by political interests. If the state does so by passing HB 616, it swallows the real reason behind such legislation – and, believe me, lawmakers know the real reason.
The Columbus Dispatch Editorial Board says, “By not saying gay, lawmakers are telling LGBTQ+ kids they are not worthy of love or liberty.” The board explains: “It is reprehensible that adults – in this case Republican lawmakers – want to shame and suppress children while they are developing into the people who will lead this state.
That's the indoctrination that should outrage parents and anyone else who cares about children or the future of Ohio.”
(Dispatch Editorial Board. “Our view: Ohio's LGBTQ kids would be forced in closet with lawmaker's 'Don't Say Gay' copy.” The Columbus Dispatch. April 05, 2022.)
Our nation has striven to make good on its promise that everyone is entitled to be treated with equal dignity under the law. We still fall far short on that promise, and HB 616 will do nothing to increase the esteem or worth of LGBTQ+ people. Please, don't be fooled.
What Kind of Times Are These
By Adrienne RichThere's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
(Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1995)
No comments:
Post a Comment