This state initiative is part of a broader trend across the United States in which conservative parents are trying to stop schools from teaching about LGBTQ people, discussing LGBTQ people in class, or supporting LGBTQ students.
For example the school district in Athens, Georgia is upholding parental objections right now to a piece of student art hanging on a wall that says 'gay is okay.'
When a conservative parent objected, an administrator ordered the art removed saying it’s as offensive to some parents as a swastika would be.
The school principal upheld the order, explaining to the classroom teacher that parents have a right for their children not to be exposed to discussions about sex that they don’t think they’re ready for or they don’t want to have with them. The principal explained that he has two boys in middle school, and he doesn’t think they’re old enough to hear about gay people or gay issues, because he doesn’t think they’re ready to have discussions about sex.
This is the framework that anti-LGBTQ activists are taking all over the country, calling the issue about parental rights, about having the right to teach children about sex on the parents' timetable.
This is, of course, absurd. Very young children know straight people form couples and relationships. Very young people know straight people have boyfriends and girlfriends. No one hesitates to talk to very young children about boyfriends and girlfriends or married couples.
The flaw in the parental-rights argument is that being gay has to be about sex, which is no more true for gay people than it is for straight people.
Gay and trans people exist. We enjoy in many respects equal civil rights to other people. That’s just a fact.
Prohibiting discussion or classroom instruction about us does only one thing — teach children that there is something negative or shameful about us.
The parental rights argument is wrong, based on the incorrect notion that you have to teach kids about sex to talk to them about gay or trans people.
That’s the big problem with the Florida law.
