The Damaging Ramifications of Discriminatory ‘Don’t Say Gay or Trans’ Legislation in Florida [Video]

The Human Rights Campaign, Equality Florida, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Education Association and affected individuals will take part in a press call to discuss how Florida youth and teachers will be impacted by the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” legislation signed into law in Florida this week by Gov. DeSantis. The discriminatory and dangerous legislation seeks to silence teachers from talking about LGBTQ+ issues or people, further stigmatizing and isolating LGBTQ+ kids and also undermining existing protections for LGBTQ+ students. The legislation — which has triggered major backlash from educators and students across Florida and the country — would prevent teachers from providing a safe, inclusive classroom for all students.

There will be a Q+A opportunity with Cathryn Oakley, HRC’s State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel, and others after remarks.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:00
welcome everybody and thank you for uh joining us this morning for this uh
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briefing um to get us started i’m gonna hand things off to hrc’s joni madison
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hi good morning thank you for joining us for this press conference my name is
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joni madison i use pronouns she hears and i’m the hrc interim president
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you’ve probably guessed already that the image you’re seeing as i speak is not my
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face it’s the face of a florida student who is worried about being silenced by florida’s new don’t say gay or trans
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legislation each of our speakers today has agreed to put up a photo submitted by a student
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instead of appearing on camera so that we can call attention to the very real
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fears that this law has sparked in the classrooms and hallways of florida schools
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let me be clear every student deserves to be seen every student deserves an education that prepares them for help
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then success and every student deserves leaders who will stand with them not bully or attack
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them by signing the don’t say gay or trans bill ron desantis is doing just that
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this dangerous new law will mean the government can effectively force lgbtq plus students their families and
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educators to go into the closet to hide in the shadows even when they are at school trying to learn
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young people with lgbtq plus family members could be forced to remain silent about their families while others can
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speak freely and lgbtq plus school staff may be forbidden from so much as
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mentioning their loved ones kids have one job when they go to school
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that’s to learn instead lgbtq plus kids the kids who might feel different but they don’t know
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the words yet will spend their days forced to hide key parts of themselves and their families they’ll be forced to
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hide or risk breaking the law we’re calling on ron desantis
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and the state of florida to repeal the dangerous and backward don’t say gay or trans law and let kids learn
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of course this attempt to erase lgbtq plus families from schools won’t work
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there will be lawsuits and defiance from those who refuse to comply with such an impossible and discriminatory policy
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we know that so long as this policy is in effect it’s going to harm the mental health and well-being being of school
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children studies have shown repeatedly that lgbt plus kids in accepting affirming
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environments have similar mental health outcomes to the rest of the population but when they are subject to lies hate
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and discrimination the statistics for depression drug abuse and suicidal
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thoughts skyrocket to lgbtq plus kids in florida
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i know this is scary and i know this is hard i know because i’ve been where you are
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40 years ago i was a young queer kid in the south coming out to my high school english teacher
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changed all that and it changed my life even though i was so scared to come out
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to my teacher my teacher told me joanie there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you you are perfect just the way you are
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so it really breaks my heart that lawmakers in florida and elsewhere are trying to take this support away
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but they can’t change the truth which is that so many of your teachers coaches and peers support and affirm you
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there is no time to waste a chilling message has been sent to every lgbtq plus kid in florida and the damage has
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already been done we call on ron desantis to prevent further harm to florida’s most vulnerable children we join with our
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partners here today and the families of children served by governor desantis and the state of florida and we demand a
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full repeal of the law but it’s not just florida hrc is tracking more than 583
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new laws being introduced in state legislation of which 310 are anti-lgbtq
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plus pieces of legislation around this country that’s over half and more than 135 of those are
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specifically anti-transgender bills this week alone governors in south dakota arizona and
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oklahoma all signed bills into law that would censor school curricula ban some type of medical care for transgender
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youth and prevent transgender kids from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity
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similar bills are awaiting their governor’s signature in kentucky and south dakota and the discriminatory stop
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woke act remains on governor desantis desk in florida the other speakers joining me here today
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can go into even greater detail about the harms that the students and educators face from the don’t say gay or
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trans bill i hope you’ll all agree by the end of this briefing that as long as this policy is in effect it is a stain on the
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state of florida and on ongoing unwarranted attack on vulnerable people
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who did nothing to deserve it and i’ll hand it back to delphine
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thank you joni our next speaker is nadine smith from equality florida media
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hi i’m nadine smith i’m the executive director of equality florida and i am a parent
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my son has done what elementary school students have done for decades he
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has gone to school and drawn pictures of his parents our dogs and himself
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and under this don’t say gay bill teachers are being told that his picture
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of his family has to be erased or handled gingerly as though his family is
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something sinister many students now enrolled in florida schools were born after a bourgeois
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the 2015 supreme court decision that made marriage equality the law of the land nationwide
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and they’ve grown up taking acceptance of lgbtq people for granted as their
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fellow classmates their family their friends as a result of this law
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students in florida may now for the first time be made to feel shame and stigma about their families or their own
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identities and we should be clear that we’re already seeing the harmful effects on
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the ground in florida even before governor desantis signed this bill into
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law the rhetoric from the legislature the
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extreme rhetoric coming from the governor’s office itself where he describes
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opponents of this bill as groomers aka pedophiles we’ve heard this before we saw it in
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florida during the john’s committee in the 50s the mccarthy-esque committee put together by the
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legislature to find and purge
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gay people on university campuses and civil rights activists on university campuses
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we saw it again with anita bryant and her so-called save our children campaign that did no such thing in the wake of
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that campaign rooted in the same uh premise that there’s something inherently sinister about the existence
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of lgbt people that we have to be hidden from children and in the wake of that florida became
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the only state with a 28-year ban on the ability to adopt a
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ban that denied children permanent homes and now we see this hateful logic
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taken to its inevitable and twisted conclusion in texas where parents of trans kids
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there’s a bounty on them and and the idea that you will criminalize and then take away the
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children [Music] of our our families is not a
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it’s not hyperbolic we’re seeing it unfold and we’ve seen it in our in our own state
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we are also seeing the effects of this not just because of the text of the bill
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but because of the context of the hateful rhetoric especially amplified by the governor’s
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office as he seeks to position himself for a presidential run
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we see it where teachers are being told to remove posters that show support for lgbtq
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students we see it in districts school districts where the same people pushing this legislation
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have been systematically challenging any books that deal with racism or include
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lgbtq characters and labeling those books pornographic
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and just to give you an idea of the how extreme they are they’ve actually labeled the book
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and tango makes three the true story of two male penguins
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raising a penguin chick at a new york zoo they’ve labeled that pornographic
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so even though people say this is about k-3 as though
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my son and other families don’t exist with our kids in school who ought to be able to
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talk about their families without hesitation and should expect their teacher
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to intervene if they’re being bullied or even if a student has a question you have two moms yeah
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and a teacher ought to be in the position to affirm that all families
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matter ought to be included and respected but this law also goes further and
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beyond k through 3 it says that anything that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate k through
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12. if you label everything that includes lgbtq content
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lgbtq families any reflection of our community that is positive as pornography you see very quickly the
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slippery slope to eliminating any positive mention so with that i will turn
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it back to our emcee for today as you know equality florida has taken this flight to court
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we’re prepared to battle it in the legislature and we will never turn our backs on the
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students and the parents who are who are standing with us in this lawsuit and i do want to just end with a shout
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out to all of the students across florida who organize themselves to walk out of class to
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hold protests some of them marched to the capitol and formed a gauntlet and made the legislators walk between them
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on their way to cast their their vote i want to just say to those leaders those students who will bear the brunt
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of this bill your leadership is going to make all the difference
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thank you thank you so much nadine next i’m going to pass it to princess moss of the
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national education association thank you so much delphine and good
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morning everyone my name is princess moss and i am
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vice president of the 3 million member national education association
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we are the nation’s largest labor union and my pronouns are she her hers
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you know our members work every level of education and they stand upon
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one core belief and that core belief is that every
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public school student black white brown and indigenous
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aapi lgbtq plus and differently abled
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every every every student should receive the preparation they need
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to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world and that includes izzy
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his image i am displaying today and whose voice supporters of the don’t
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say gay or trans law want to silence in florida and all across our nation
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educators help students fuse together their skills abilities interests and
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experiences they become the tools with which our students stand in their authenticity
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build their dreams and set out toward the future confident that those dreams
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will be achieved but thanks to the don’t say gay or trans
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law educators may have to abandon their own authenticity by being forced to
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conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity the law may also prohibit educators from
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mentioning a same-sex partner in addition the legislation’s call for educators to
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only mention what is age appropriate to students third grade and above
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that’s murky at best the law leaves educators to determine
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for themselves what they are able to say a wrong guess could result in a lawsuit
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our lgbtq plus educators are role models for our lgbtq plus students
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every educator who wants to come out should be able to do that
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every educator who wants to talk about sexual orientation or gender identity
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should be able to do that rather than putting into place harmful laws that
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create fear and promote dishonesty florida should be focused on creating
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public schools that are places of safety hope and promise so that every student
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every student every student and every educator every educator
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every educator will feel safe welcome encouraged and supported thank you i’ll
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give it back to you delphine thank you thank you very much princess
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i’m next going to pass it on to rodrigo hang lightning who’s with the national center for transgender equality
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hello everyone and thank you for being here today my name is rodrigo henleyton
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my pronouns are he and him and i’m the executive director of the national center for transgender equality
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i was born and raised in florida i am a proud miamian if you could see my office
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you’d see a sign that says 90 miles from cuba right over my shoulder which for uh
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you all from south florida would recognize but today transgender people like me
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have to be fearful in florida and unfortunately not only in florida
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so far this year more than 135 anti-transgender bills have been
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introduced around the country the reason is that anti-lgbtq
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ideologues have shocked these copycat bills around the nation
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taking advantage of the fact that most americans still don’t realize they know a transgender person
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it can be hard to understand what it means to be a transgender it’s understandable to have questions
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no matter how familiar or unfamiliar you are with transgender people in your life we can all agree that everyone deserves
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to be treated with dignity and respect every student deserves to feel safe
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to feel protected and to feel like they belong unfortunately this don’t gay don’t say
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gay or bill trans sorry don’t say gay or trans bill does just the opposite
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here at the national center for transgender equality we conduct the largest and most comprehensive study of
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transgender people’s experiences it’s called the us transgender survey
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here are the findings from that study about transgender floridians experiences in schools to be clear this is not trans
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people nationally these statistics are regarding transgender people in florida specifically
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75 of those who were out or perceived as transgender at some point between
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kindergarten and 12th grade experienced mistreatment again that’s 75 percent
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50 percent of them were verbally harassed 23 were physically attacked
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15 were sexually assaulted in k-12 school because of being transgender
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and 19 faced such severe mistreatment as a transgender student that they left a
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k-12 school again that’s 19 were pushed out of a school simply for
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being who they are the florida i believe in is a place of opportunity and freedom
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where students who study and work hard have the chance to succeed this law runs against those values
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and the current wave of anti-lgbtq bills around the country isn’t an attack on lgbtq people alone
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it’s an attack on all of our freedoms and democratic ideals as a nation
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we all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect no matter who we are
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thank you and i’ll turn it back to delphine thank you rodrigo
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our next speaker is jennifer solomon she’s a florida mom and a member of hrc’s parents for transgender equality
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counsel good morning hi my name is jennifer and
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i use she and her pronouns and i have the incredible honor of being cooper’s mom
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right now i’m speaking as a parent of an lgbtq plus child in florida and i’m
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terrified i feel my family is being targeted and that my child is being used as a
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political pawn we are just a regular family raising a
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terrific fabulous child and he deserves respect and not to be
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harmed for living as his authentic self what really keeps me up at night is his
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safety the powerful forces in tallahassee are targeting him and creating an
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environment that allows hate and discrimination in our schools
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cooper’s in fifth grade and he has not only survived his elementary school years he has thrived and that’s because
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of the guidance and protection that the trusted educators in his life were able
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to provide imagine being a pre-teen and trying to navigate adolescence and now learning
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that is illegal to talk about who you are that is going to be my child’s reality
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next year as he enters middle school my real fear isn’t only for cooper but
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for the thousands of kids who don’t have a trusted adult to talk to teachers are that source for so many and
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with this new law they could be fired or sued for that and that just breaks my heart
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the thing is this doesn’t just affect lgbtq plus youth but it affects all kids
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because banning books and silencing voices is not how we prepare kids for
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the future i don’t know about you but i want to live in a world where this generation is
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the majority so that acceptance of all is the norm each year the florida legislature and
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those across the country are passing more and more bills that attack lgbtq
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youth they’re creating a solution to something that’s just not a problem
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look i see the pain and confusion on cooper’s face when he asked me why are
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the adults that are supposed to be representing us being bullies and i truly can’t answer that
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if i could talk to the legislators who passed the don’t say gay bill i’d ask this one thing
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is the comfort of a select few parents worth the detrimental impact this will
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have on an already vulnerable population my child and all children deserve to be
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celebrated and not targeted he needs to be seen as equal to other children and he has the right to be
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heard as a parent i will never stop advocating for a society where all children can
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feel safe so that they can learn thank you
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thank you so much jennifer our final speaker today is florida teacher corey bernard
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and corey actually couldn’t be here because he’s um in school teaching right now so i am going to share my screen and
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play a video that corey uh recorded just last night hello everyone my name is corey bernard
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and i am a kindergarten teacher here in bradenton florida at um the wonderful barbara a harvey um elementary school
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and um i’m just going to speak about how we as teachers and i as
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a an educator in florida today um with the passage of the don’t say gay bill are being affected uh personally and
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professionally um one of the biggest things uh professionally is that you
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know our school motto is literally family memory and passion that is what
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we live by here at harvey elementary school it’s what we do every day it’s what we focus on and part of doing that
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is sharing our family and sharing our experiences at home sharing our our love
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for our passions and our hobbies and sometimes those hobbies include our spouses and include our significant uh
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significant others and in my case that includes my partner and one of the biggest things that i’m struggling with
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right now is how am i going to respond to when my
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students ask me about mr bernard what did you do over the weekend mr bernard who is that
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um boy in the picture next to you right outside your classroom and you guys are both at disney world because they’re
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kindergarten and we foster discussion and we foster asking questions and so i
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am so worried as to how i’m going to respond to those now now that we have this legislation in place
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because there can be a very uh fine line between what a parent might consider discussion
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what a parent might consider instruction and teaching and um so that is a huge concern for me
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it’s a huge concern for my students too like i said in my interview with msnbc
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i i have a little girl with two moms this year and the kids are curious uh example i i overheard some of my kids
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talking the other day just as we were packing up one of the little boys just said uh to
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another little boy did you know that cadence has two moms and so you know these conversations are
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happening whether you know we want them to or not and it’s okay for them to happen but they’re also
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going to come to me about it and and that happens they do come to me and they want to know well why does cadence have
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two moms am i going to be able to answer that and and i should be able to answer that
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but this these law this law is so unclear as to um
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what i what could happen to me if i am having those discussions with my kids
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and personally i am very personally affected by the words um that are being used with
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this bill injecting and indoctrinating because when you start using those words with
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lgbtq plus people it sends a clear message to how they really feel about us
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as human beings and just because we love differently i i feel that
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my love is less or is is a less love than what their love may be because they
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use those words so like i’ve said before i’m worried for myself i’m worried for my colleagues i’m
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worried for my students and it is a really scary time to be teaching and
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um i i will say that ever since coming out with um you know
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with the interview i i it’s been it it has been pretty
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amazing to see the support that my school community is rallying around me but it’s also been very
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disheartening to see the hate and the cruelty that is coming out from
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the community really the whole country um however i i know that doing things like
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what we’re doing right now in this press conference we’re moving forward we’re getting the word out there that that
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we us as teachers we we do feel this bill it’s not just something that’s
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on paper it’s not just something that they think is helping to protect parents it is affecting us in the classroom
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every day it’s affecting the mental health of educators like myself it’s
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affecting parents who are part of the lgbtq plus community who have children inside the
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schools so that means at this point we can move on to our uh q a portion with uh the
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media um so thank you so much to all of our speakers and [Music]
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at this point we’re going to be joined by catherine oakley who is hrc’s state legislative director and senior council
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we want to ask that reporters put their name and outlet into the chat so that we can call on each of you in turn so if
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anybody wants to ask questions at this time go ahead and jump into the chat
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and serena since you’re first why don’t you go ahead great thank you all for doing this um
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yesterday the administration president biden and his address said that the administration is standing up for you
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against all these hateful bills i’m just wondering what outreach you’ve heard from the administration if there
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has been any connection with the justice department and if you feel that the administration is standing up against
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these bills in an appropriate and meaningful way
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this is um kate oakley at hrc i’m the state legislative director um as
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delphine said and i’ll just start by that and others certainly may want to add more one of the things that i would
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add is that yesterday among the many things that came from the administration
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as part of trans day of visibility um the department of justice this happened
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separately from the things that were happening from the white house so it was not quite as
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noticeable i think yesterday uh with all of the many things happily that the administration did yesterday but the
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department of justice sent a letter to state attorneys general reminding them that transgender students
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in fact do have rights under both federal civil rights law and the united states constitution um you know a
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letter in and of itself is of course only just one small piece of the puzzle but i think it’s
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important to say that while the president has been an incredibly um uh
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has been a vocal supporter of uh transgender rights and has on multiple occasions uh stated his support for
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transgender youth um he also is uh is ha the administration has weighed in on
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several of the cases pending uh in states around the country regarding some of the discriminatory
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laws that have passed over the last few years related to trans youth including trans youth um playing sports and uh you
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know i think yesterday’s letter is a helpful um piece of information uh regarding
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what you know where the administration is it is intending to go so i definitely would direct folks to that and we can
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share that link out of uh if people need this is rodrigo hang leighton in with
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the national center for transgender equality i can add to that and welcome many of my other colleagues here today
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to do so as well um kate alluded to some of this but one of the uh actions the biden harris
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administration took yesterday that i would highlight is that they had an in-person event uh hosting transgender
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young people and their parents who are facing the
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real life damage of laws like this or in some states bills that are
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still going through their legislative process these were families from around the country everywhere from
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alabama to illinois who were even though they were from all different
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parts of the nation they were experiencing the same kinds of barriers they were all experiencing the kind of
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um stigmatization that we’ve all talked about here today as something that florida families are going through so i
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think it really shows the human stakes of this um at ncte we’ve been working
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very closely with the biden administration to determine what other actions they can
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take um what things they can do uh from the bully pulpit frankly um to
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demonstrate leadership and and that symbolic value of uh reaching out to trans youth as well as the practical
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things of intervening we’re working with the department of education to see if there’s what else
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they can do especially through the lens of title ix protections um to help lgbtq youth in
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florida um but really i would just lift up that the bud administration is is
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doing so much um and i think it shows that seeing that so many families from
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around the country experiencing the same kinds of things shows the humanity behind these policies
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and shows what’s really on the line when these extremist state legislatures try
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to take advantage like this i also just want to point out i put it
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in the chat but secretary of education miguel cardano met with lgbtq students
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and parents in orlando yesterday and you know he did something that despite
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multiple requests governor desantis refused to do he sat with the actual families
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and came to understand even more deeply what this means in florida and we’ve
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heard from teachers who on the day of the signing um you know a student in her class got a text message
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alerting him that the governor had signed this and she said you know my students just
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burst out in tears and so i i think that we have to pay attention and call on our
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allies in at the federal level to to stand
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firmly not just against what is happening because of the specific language but what is happening
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because there are some places where unfortunately um while overwhelmingly people who work in
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the school system actually care about the kids and want a safe environment there are some bad actors who are
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emboldened to do things that go well beyond the scope but reflect the hostility so we’ve heard of schools
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where principles uh where a principal told a trans student they weren’t permitted to talk about being trans even
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privately to friends while on campus now these are the kinds of things that have prompted us to put together a a
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hotline that we’re going to be rolling out because we’re getting calls from parents from teachers from
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administrators because of how vague this thing is they’re they’re struggling to figure out
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how to navigate it and beyond that beyond the language of this bill there are things that are are now
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being said or done and i i posted um a twitter post
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uh saying the new florida board of education appointee praised a parent for reporting a teacher’s protect trans kids
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shirt that was worn on trans day invisibility so these are the kinds of things that are
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um emanating from the hostile rhetoric that uh surround passage of this bill and
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these are the places where the justice department and the department of education are going to be a critical allies in in
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pushing back
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thank you all for weighing in on that uh any further questions from our media friends
33:13
kate why don’t you go ahead
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hi we’re hearing from some teachers who are you know paying up on their union dues
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you know in advance of anticipating getting a potential complaint because of this law are you
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all developing legal guidance or legal support that you can offer educators on how to navigate
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this
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um this is uh kate oakley from hrc i’m i’m happy to start with that and i don’t know if um if others have more that they
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want to add here but uh you know i think one of the major
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challenges around this bill is how incredibly vague it is um and
34:11
i think there are so many outstanding questions about how it would be applied and frankly what
34:18
complying with this law looks like it very much seems to me
34:24
that a teacher could have a really different experience year over year depending on what
34:29
what the composition of their of their uh classroom and particularly the composition of the parents in their
34:35
classroom looks like um you know i suspect that a parent like nadine for example is
34:41
going to have a completely different set of ideas about what’s appropriate than a parent like you know for example ron
34:47
desantis if they both had kids in the same classroom right so um you know your
34:52
a teacher is going to have to be playing to the parents who are most likely to litigate whose sense of what’s
34:59
appropriate is the most limited that is the only way that the the school will save itself from being
35:06
subject to a lawsuit and i think that um what exactly the parameters of that are
35:11
so incredibly vague um in under this bill um even you know i think the
35:17
question of uh uh what’s what’s appropriate for a conversation in 11th grade um it’s going
35:24
to be really different from what’s what’s an appropriate conversation in fourth grade and then of course um from
35:30
one from kindergarten to third grade it’s obviously even a different uh standard and you know how teachers are supposed
35:36
to navigate this frankly i it could not be more confusing uh i think the idea of
35:42
trying to give people um parameters about how to comply is a really terrifying prospect and for for folks
35:49
who are directly involved in providing that um that legal legal advice i think it’s incredibly challenging um to
35:57
give teachers any um any guidance whatsoever about what they can talk about and not talk about it
36:02
it’s just simply not clear this is a law that is going to be impossible to comply with
36:10
so kane i mentioned that we’re setting up a hotline just to handle the volume of calls that we’re getting
36:16
um and a defense fund that is separate from the lawsuit because what we’re dealing with are not just things that
36:22
are are flowing specifically from this law but from a sense that
36:27
you know there’s nothing in this that required the taking down of stickers on on florida virtual classrooms but
36:34
we’re seeing things happen that we we want to provide support for school districts administrators
36:41
teachers and parents and students and
36:46
you know there are tons of questions you know one teacher said what happens if
36:52
i’m pregnant and a student asks are you having a boy or a girl am i supposed to say i can’t answer that that that deals
36:58
with gender identity and you should go uh ask your parents so i you know kate is correct that
37:05
it is so vaguely written so broadly written that how it’s going to be enforced
37:11
you know what we get from the legislative the language that um
37:17
and the rhetoric from the governor’s office the clear anti-lgbt hostility is there but the plain reading
37:25
of the bill i think is is where we you know we are well while the challenge
37:31
to the actual language is there i think the place we’re going to see a whole lot more activity is around
37:37
a general sense that anything that shows lgbtq people in a positive light
37:44
anywhere on campus are going to be subject to things that that violate the rights of
37:50
students i think we’re going to see a whole lot of that happening and we already are
37:59
hi this is princess from the national education association
38:04
and i would echo what my um colleagues have already said in that the
38:11
bill is very murky and the main thing
38:17
for the nea a primary a primary piece
38:22
for the nea is that we believe that all educators and all
38:28
students deserve a safe and learning environment
38:33
and of course the students learning environment is an educator’s work
38:39
working environment so um we we already have a system in place
38:46
where um first of all our members if our members
38:51
um feel like they are impacted in any way at the
38:59
local level they can reach out to their um
39:05
association or their union representative for assistance
39:11
that is one of the benefits of membership of the national education association
39:18
the other piece is that we will continue to organize around
39:24
the issues that have been surfaced with this um with this bill
39:29
we will continue to organize to support our
39:35
lgbtq plus community um some of the other things that we are
39:42
doing um in regards to the to the legal being being there as the legal support for our
39:49
members is that we continue to speak out at our um and our at our national
39:58
education association board meetings and i know speaking out at a board meeting that sounds kind of like well yeah but
40:05
okay but it’s important to know that our board consists of almost 200
40:11
members from around the from around the country and including um um great
40:16
britain um so we you know when they we come together
40:22
we coalesce and we um talk about how to organize around the issues um the
40:30
the issues like we are talking about today we will continue to oppose harmful
40:36
legislation we will continue to ask our three million members to write what um
40:43
legislators and to show their advocacy for
40:48
a safe and healthy environment for all students and educators
40:54
and so um those are just some of the things that that the national education
41:00
association is doing um in addition to being that source for for our members
41:07
and thank you for the question
41:12
and it looks like we have a question from danielle brown from florida phoenix
41:18
um hi thank you uh so we’re seeing some of the um responses to
41:24
the um lawsuit filed against hb 1557 um particularly from governor desantis who
41:30
was saying that um that the the law is not restricting free
41:35
speech rather classroom instruction um and i just uh i was curious uh what is
41:41
the response to that um interpretation of of the law
41:55
well this is nadine smith i’ll just say that um just yesterday another bill championed
42:01
by governor desantis uh was substantially struck down by a judge you know basically for this
42:07
same reason for being vague and overbroad and i think it’s pretty clear when you see
42:13
the opposition for this the overwhelming opposition coming from
42:19
those that are closest to students who work with students most uh regularly
42:25
you know from the florida association of school nurses school counselors the florida association of
42:31
school social workers the pta the teachers union
42:36
even among republicans the nine republicans that took the rare step of breaking ranks to vote against this
42:43
included the head of one of the largest child welfare agencies so the folks who
42:48
are working with students day in and day out who have the closest proximity to the classroom are the ones saying
42:54
this is a vaguely written law that has already had a chilling effect
42:59
and will is and will continue to cause harm to students put their voices
43:05
above um a governor whose sole purpose in bringing this forward is his
43:12
presidential aspirations he’s playing to a national audience of donors he does
43:17
not put the focus on what’s happening in the classroom or even really what’s happening in florida at this
43:24
point yeah and this is um kate from hrc and i’ll add on to that and i think
43:30
nadine said it perfectly i mean it just because ron desantis says it doesn’t make it true and his legislative
43:38
analysis doesn’t appear to be all that consistent with the legislative analysis of the judicial branch and so
43:43
uh you know he can say all he wants that this isn’t doesn’t have uh first amendment implications but you
43:50
know i as nadine elevated you know where this is not because this v this bill is so vague and
43:57
because it is so over broad the chilling effect is an incredibly important aspect
44:02
of this because if the bill was meant to be only about curriculum um that’s not actually what
44:10
it says and it’s certainly already not even what the impact is if what we’re talking about is that teachers are
44:17
being reported for having stickers for having t-shirts um you know it’s not just about what the law was uh quote
44:24
unquote intended to do which is by the way its own conversation because if you look at the legislative history around
44:30
this bill this bill is absolutely intended to marginalize
44:35
youth to take conversation about lgbtq youth out of the classroom there were
44:41
limiting amendments that were introduced and then rejected so it is
44:47
it is clear that the overbroad and extremely vague language here um was an
44:53
intentional choice made by the proponents of this bill and therefore they they have to own the
44:58
consequences and the consequences include you know clearly major implications for
45:06
teachers who are who do have free speech rights even within the classroom so i think that’s incredibly important to to
45:13
say and i for one um do not take uh governor desantis at his word um in terms of how
45:21
the courts are going to interpret pieces of legislation uh he is he is absolutely incorrect on this
45:27
one and if i might add this is princess
45:32
again from the national education association one of the very frustrating pieces is here is
45:39
again another example of politicians and others trying to make decisions for public education and
45:47
educators and our students who have no idea what um what’s going on in the
45:53
classroom they have a political agenda and it is wrong it is wrong
45:58
and so you know i that the fact that we’re having to deal with
46:04
this yeah desantis is trying to further his own political agenda at the expense
46:09
of human beings who deserve the right to be loved and respected and to have this a
46:16
safe environment in which to work and learn and so i i am just so
46:23
honored to be here today to stand up um with my um with my siblings in order
46:30
to speak out against this thank you
46:38
if i may this is nadine i want i just want to make sure you see the this data point in
46:43
the in the chat that i just posted and part of why it’s so important is
46:48
because uh we have a safe and healthy schools program that we launched after the massacre at pulse
46:54
and from the time we launched it we’ve trained over 35 000 uh school district employees from
47:01
principals and classroom teachers to bus drivers and cafeteria workers and we saw an immediate decline in all
47:08
of the negative numbers associated with risk factors for students for lgbtq
47:13
students that positive trend began to reverse
47:19
and we saw it as the trans sports band for elementary school students
47:24
were introduced last year and these bills are being debated now and the
47:30
correlation between the dehumanizing rhetoric around these bills
47:35
has has a very um immediate impact on how safe
47:44
young people feel and so we can talk about it anecdotally but the data bears it out
47:54
and if i could um this is jennifer solomon um i am not only the parent of a fifth
48:00
grader but i’m also the parent of a 28 year old um daughter who identifies as
48:07
lesbian and was a miami-dade county public school teacher until recently
48:12
she resigned and it was for many reasons but this bill absolutely was the tipping point for her
48:19
she had students for years that felt close to her to
48:25
confide in her maybe feelings they had if they were struggling with maybe their sexual
48:31
identity she’s an elementary school teacher and she was that safe person and this law
48:36
was enough for her to say i can no longer do my job i’m fearful um that i
48:41
will be i could be fired if kids found out that i’m married to a woman and so this was
48:48
personal for me not only for a parent as a child in the school system but a parent of a teacher so this this has an
48:54
effect um way beyond and it’s going to affect so many people thank you
49:06
thank you jennifer the floor is open if there’s any other questions
49:11
perhaps while people are putting together questions i i would just like to reiterate a couple other points and
49:17
first of all i i this is an incredibly uh i think impactful conversation and i really
49:22
appreciate everybody for being here and for being part of it and i want to lift up something that both nadine and prince
49:28
has alluded to which is that you know this is an attack on transgender youth it is an
49:35
attack on teachers and i think it’s important to to name
49:41
both of those things very explicitly um you know joanie mentioned in her remarks that we are seeing this incredible
49:48
influx of anti-transgender legislation um across the country including more than 130 bills filed across the country
49:55
that explicitly target or specifically target transgender folks and we’re seeing i think in florida the
50:03
confluence of this national and politically motivated attack against transgender youth
50:11
that as i say is is evidenced by uh this 130 bills that have been filed
50:17
in 2022 across the country um which is on track to be a record-breaking uh
50:24
amount of legislation last year we had 150 specifically anti-trans bills filed
50:30
across the country and uh it’s only just today the first day of april so um we
50:35
are on track to i think unfortunately exceed that amount and you know what we’ve seen in legislatures around the
50:41
country particularly driven by folks like governor desantis who are as needing
50:47
said appealing to this very specific group of folks who um are they’re hoping
50:53
will help them with uh national ambitions so just really this sort of super super far right
50:59
element of the republican primary voter um and that folks like greg abbott in
51:05
texas and folks like ron desantis and christie gnome these are people who are
51:10
very um very clearly very explicitly putting the well-being of lgbtq youth
51:16
but specifically transgender youth um in the center of their campaigns
51:22
understanding how much harm will be uh will be visited upon these kids because they’re having
51:29
their rights taken away because they’re being put in the national spotlight in this way and and not caring about the
51:35
consequences as long as it serves their political ambitions and in florida i think what we’re seeing is the collision
51:41
of that movement without also this movement about uh that relates to a critical race
51:46
theory relates to the banning of books um relates to this idea that teachers are
51:53
are part of the problem in the sense that um the kids are learning
51:58
challenging concepts in schools um and you know that by educating children and
52:04
sharing with them the truth of what the world looks like that that’s in some way hurting the fabric of american society
52:09
instead of in fact strengthening it and that that movement is being
52:15
is colliding in florida with this movement to really harm trans youth um and to use trans youth as political
52:21
pawns in service of national political ambitions um both of those movements are
52:26
extremely misguided both of them are extremely inappropriate and they are colliding in florida to create this
52:32
don’t say gay or trans bill and and i think it’s important to name both of those different movements and to talk
52:39
about how frankly neither of them is in service of uh of the well-being of
52:45
america’s youth and in fact how deeply deeply deeply harmful um that is and and
52:50
i know that thank you for nadine for sharing some of those um statistics in the chat and in your remarks because
52:57
this is not a victimless crime this is a this truly will hurt
53:03
kids truly truly truly will hurt kids and the idea that this is something that
53:08
legislators are are are they’re mean-spirited they’re craving they’re cowardly
53:14
um they they are either reckless recklessly hurting these kids or intentionally
53:20
hurting these kids and they’re doing so in service of a political goal
53:26
that that even only impacts uh or even only uh is welcomed by a very small
53:32
section of the american electorate it’s it’s deeply unfortunate and it is truly alarming and frightening and um
53:41
and despicable yeah
53:47
i just want to echo that thank you for first um sharing that um so articulately
53:53
yeah this is this is about politics and i just want to remind folks that
53:59
the bills that we’re seeing come forward are appealing to a very specific segment of votes and that’s the
54:05
far-right republican primary voters and i need to re i i want to remind
54:11
everyone um that we have the 2020 the 20
54:17
the 2022 elections and the 24 presidential this what’s
54:24
going on is very intentional it is very intentional and it is very sad because
54:30
our students um are falling victim to
54:36
folks who are self-serving politicians who are self-serving and educators are you know
54:42
uh um being um victimized as well because they’re not being allowed to tell the truth and
54:51
every student deserves to be in an environment where the truth can be shared
54:57
thank you this is nadine smith with equality
55:03
florida i just wanted to point out i posted the link to the youth risk behavior survey somebody had requested
55:09
it earlier i also posted uh an explainer video that we we’ve used
55:15
that you know uses the language of the sponsors themselves and to be clear the sponsors of this
55:21
of this bill now law include dennis baxley who has a long
55:27
anti-lgbt history he equated uh being gay to being a um
55:34
a drug abuser um an addict and a drug
55:40
addicted he said he would never support anything that affirmed the existence of
55:46
gay families and he has kept that promise in this law the other thing i just want to point out
55:53
again this this is a concerted effort where they are attacking school districts
56:00
individual school board members they have gone district after district identifying
56:06
books that they consider pornographic i mentioned uh and tango and uh
56:13
and tango makes three the male penguins raising a nestling but when you look at how insidious the
56:21
language they use to describe children’s books simply because they have two two dads or
56:28
two moms you see how extreme they are where they describe a picture from my
56:34
two dads where the child is sitting on the on the dad’s lap as i hope any parent
56:40
um i really fear that that these are parents who’ve never hugged their kids but you see how they immediately turn
56:47
this into um an ugly trope that is why we
56:53
we take the slippery slope of passing this legislation having the
56:59
governor’s spokesperson call opponents rumors and pedophiles and
57:04
and the language of those pushing this bill school district by school district
57:10
um this this is very this is a very dangerous moment and it can’t be taken lightly and the harm that it is
57:16
inflicting on on young people it the the harm has arrived it is being
57:22
inflicted right now and uh it is a
57:28
it is a very dangerous moment for our community and and i think it’s uh really important that
57:35
at that end of the day past the politics of it um we understand that we have a duty to
57:41
stand between the intention of this and the safety of our kids
57:49
we are coming up right in an hour uh we could possibly take one more really quick question if if nicole i see that
57:55
you’re on muted did you have a question
58:03
if not i think we can just bring things to a close here and thanks
58:08
so much to all of our speakers for sharing such um emotional and informative uh
58:15
perspectives and uh to our media friends who attended if you have follow-up questions feel
58:21
free to reach out to me directly and i can respond or direct your question to somebody who
58:26
can so thank you all for being here

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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