Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of March 28

Warning: what follows is a full-on rant. Any and all ire contained in it is not at all aimed at you in the slightest, HotPants!

The bill doesn't apply to sex education at all (which doesn't happen in early grades anyway) and instead refers to "classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity" up through 3rd grade.

It's genuinely hard to say what effect it will have in particular because the bill is doing that very Republican thing where it's hiding discriminatory intent behind seemingly neutral language. That's what enables the double meaning behind calling it the "Don't Say Gay" bill -- it's not just trying to prevent teachers like me from bringing up LGBTQ topics (trying to stop us from "saying gay"), but the legislators are also careful not to specifically name LGBTQ people as a target because admitting to that in the bill -- "saying gay" in the legislation -- would directly highlight that this is discriminatory.

As such, it's written with the placeholder language mentioned above where "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" are the focus. If we take the bill at face value, it actually could have some pretty progressive (even radical) consequences. Lining up classes into boys' and girls' lines? That's over! Gendered restrooms? A thing of the past! Each of those has instructive qualities for students and directly highlights concepts of gender identity to them. Plus, no longer can we tell little boys "when you get a girlfriend" or little girls "one day your husband..." because sexual orientation is off the table. Everybody's treated as pan and we should uphold the neutral norm that anyone can date anyone. Heteronormativity takes a big hit when discussion of sexual orientation is off-limits!

Of course, if all this sounds absurd, it's because it is. The bill clearly doesn't intend to use those terms as they're actually meant. "Sexual orientation" is meant to apply to non-straight identities and "gender identity" is meant to apply to non-cis identities. Everybody who knows anything about this bill knows that its purpose and intent is to specifically target LGBTQ people and concepts. This bill could conceivably be used to protect a trans girl whose teacher continually misgenders her with male pronouns in front of the class, but everybody knows that's not how it's going to be used.

Its purpose is discrimination. Its introduction inflamed discrimination. Its implementation will be discriminatory. This sounds conspiratorial but really all of this is out in the open. Go on any right-leaning news site and you'll find people outright celebrating the bill explicitly for its discriminatory intent and effect. They're not excited about the "parental rights" angle or high-level abstractions of "sexual orientation" or "gender identity". They're excited that this "anti-grooming" bill is going to keep gay and trans predators from recruiting children.

This baldly prejudicial hyperbolic scaremongering isn't just the domain of extremely online trolls lurking in the darkest corners of the internet, by the way. Here's DeSantis's own press secretary on the bill:

The bill that liberals inaccurately call “Don’t Say Gay” would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill.

If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children. Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the rules.

In a normal informational environment, this line of argument would never even get off the ground due to its backfire potential. Pushaw should be embarrassed to say this out loud because, if it's true, that means the state of Florida is admitting that there are a large number of predators already employed in elementary schools statewide and that they're taking action against them NOT by getting rid of them but by... micromanaging their curriculum? If the allegations of "grooming" are to be even slightly believed then this bill is an embarassing misfire and DeSantis and his administration should be under the microscope for not taking actual action against a known harm.

Unfortunately, we live in a garbage informational environment where an entire segment of the American population relishes having their prejudices reinforced and enacted. They don't actually care about getting "groomers" out of the schools because this bill isn't about doing that -- it's instead about framing us in the worst possible light so they can justify putting us under fire. Republicans in particular have pushed hard towards activating prejudice and celebrating malice while trying to hide it under "neutral" language and this bill is just another brick in their very large, very discriminatory wall.

Will it specifically have much effect? It'll definitely make teachers and schools more cautious about bringing up LGBTQ topics or having classroom materials -- like news articles and books -- that include LGBTQ-related content. I guarantee you nobody will attempt to remove materials referencing cis and straight people from schools because we all know that's not what this bill is about despite it being written that way. Targeting LGBTQ people specifically always has a chilling effect, as it's essentially an attempt to get us to re-close our closet door. It's telling people like us that we need to go back to hiding, and it's preventing kids who are like us from seeing the examples they need to understand their place in the world.

It also hurts straight and cis students too. Discrimination doesn't just impact the target population -- it also embeds itself in the broader population and deals a different kind of damage. If people grow up alongside other trans people, they end up learning that, hey, trans people are, you know, people. Sure, that one person in your class is trans, but it turns out they like some of the same music as you and they also think that Stranger Things was dope and, best of all, they are willing to trade pieces of their lunch so that you can get those fruit snacks you really like but that your mom never buys for you. Living alongside them lets you come to understand them as a person, just like you are, but if that person is not given the space, support, and dignity they need to be their full self, then what do we learn about them?

That they're "different" in some harrowing way. That they "should be hidden". That there's something "secretly shameful" about them -- a part of them that isn't good to share. In attempting to hide LGBTQ people from the world, especially from kids, Republicans are ultimately attempting to prevent people from connecting with and understanding them. This separation divorces not just LGBTQ people from their own representation in society, but it divorces straight and cis people from valuable perspectives, friendships, and understandings -- the biggest of which is the realization of a mundane but profound truth that we are all more similar than we are different. Without that though -- with active separations -- we see prejudice grow. Separation doesn't allow shared experiences to be a counterbalance. If kids grow up absent trans friends, it is much easier for them to view trans people as this distinct, different other rather than an standard, everyday part of us.

That said, this bill is a genuinely tepid way to go about this. Sadly, it could be far worse. The fact that it's not the worst thing in the world isn't much of a salve though, as we also know it represents far more than just its own scope. Probably the worst thing about the bill isn't anything I've said but the idea that it encourages parents to sue school districts. Education is the new battleground for the Republican culture war, and this bill gives parents more leverage over schools and a framework in which to threaten them.

Also, even worse is the idea that Florida also wasn't the first and won't be the last place to have a law like this on the books. In fact, we're seeing a terrifying increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation nationwide.

For a while now, things had genuinely been getting better for LGBTQ people in the US. Unfortunately, we've taken a very abrupt and very dark turn, to the point that it honestly sucks pretty badly to be LGBTQ in America again -- especially so for those of us who are trans. This article captures the tenor of things really well right now.

I used to be on the front lines of queer advocacy, emboldened by optimism and a belief in justice, but now that I'm older and more tired and way more jaded I honestly just want this country to leave us the fuck alone.