Florida teachers told to hide their same-sex spouses due to "Don't Say Gay" law
Teachers in Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) say that they’re being told not to display pictures of their same-sex spouses, not to wear rainbows, and to remove safe-space stickers from their classroom doors in order to avoid violating Florida’s broadly written “Don’t Say Gay” law.
These suggestions were made by OCPS attorneys to administrators in closed-door seminars earlier this summer. The seminars covered “what behaviors would and would not be legal under the law,” representatives of the county’s teacher association told WFTV.
Officially known as the Parental Rights in Education Bill, the “Don’t Say Gay” law says teachers cannot “encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.” The law allows parents to sue their children’s schools if they mention LGBTQ issues in the classroom.
As a result, OCPS principals are suggesting that teachers not even mention their same-sex spouses if schoolchildren ask about them. Teachers will also have to tell parents if a student “comes out” to them. Furthermore, teachers must use the pronouns associated with the sex students were assigned at birth, regardless of even what their parents want, the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association (CTA) told the publication.
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