Across Florida, support for LGBTQ+ students is crumpling like gift-bag tissue paper, as state education officials demand that school districts erase protections — many just a few years old, adopted after long and sometimes contentious public debate and heartfelt testimony by students and parents pleading that schools be safe for all students.
The changes LGBTQ+ students and families asked for might have seemed radical at first to school board members — the right to be addressed by the gender they identified with, and use appropriate bathroom and locker-room facilities; the right to be protected from bullies; the chance to use texts and read library books that are inclusive of their experience; the assurance that they have access to the same counseling services and confidentiality that protect heterosexual students.
Yet in district after the district, Floridians saw compassion and dignity win. Even the most conservative school districts — places like deep-red Flagler County — adopted protections to ensure that the fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ students weren’t violated.
Letting students down
Why have those same districts now abandoned their own students — the same ones they acknowledged were vulnerable to bullying, depression, even suicide? Why aren’t they fighting back?
There’s no doubt that these students are now under determined attack by state leaders. As reported by the Florida Phoenix, the state Department of Education sent out letters last month demanding that 10 school districts across the state amend policies that were too supportive of students’ rights to privacy and respectful treatment. This time, the list of districts includes Alachua, Broward, Brevard, Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, which operates as an independent district.
The depressing news: Local school officials keep surrendering, or appears ready to do so. Most if not all of the districts have stripped their websites of “offending” material. Gone are promises to provide locker rooms or even restrooms for transgender students, along with confidentiality for students who fear that revealing their sexuality to their parents could subject them to abuse. Some districts require students to be addressed only by the gender they were assigned at birth.
State officials have been harassing some districts for months over policies related to gender-divergent or non-heterosexual students. That’s a sharp change in and of itself: previously, school districts (which are governed by duly elected school boards) were largely responsible for interpreting and implementing state law on their own.
It’s a shameful display of top-down bigotry, and exactly what many feared would happen after Gov. Ron DeSantis arm-twisted lawmakers into passing the hateful legislation (HB 1557), which incorporates deliberately vague and over-broad language meant to stifle discussion of sexuality at all grade levels. During the session, the bill came to be known as “Don’t Say Gay,” but it’s clear now that the moniker missed the mark. The state is directing much of its ire toward policies intended to protect gender-divergent students — not just classroom discussion, but anti-bullying measures as well. That aligns with DeSantis’ obsessive (and deceptive) insistence that there’s a pervasive, perverted industry flourishing in Florida aimed at “mutilating” very young children. Previously, he and his official communications director insisted that anyone opposed to HB 1577 supported “grooming” small children for sexual abuse.
Where are the champions?
The truly depressing part of this saga is that local school board officials aren’t fighting back. They’re rolling back policies — many developed after extensive community discussion — meant to ensure that all students are treated with respect. Some districts, including Orange County, are even siding with the state in lawsuits challenging the law’s validity. And all of them are repeatedly buckling under to the state’s demands, led by the Board of Education’s bully-in-chief, education chancellor Jacob Oliva.
In the months after the annual legislative session ended, many teachers stripped their classrooms of stickers and posters that promise to protect all students. Some teachers removed pictures of their own families from their desks.
Many LGBTQ+ students have taken to social media with their fears. Here’s what they’re not doing. They aren’t storming local meetings, brandishing flags and homemade signs. They aren’t demanding that local school officials keep the promises they made.
That hush should speak, more loudly than anything, to local officials. It should tell them that the students under their care feel defeated. That they are afraid. That they need to be, deserve to be, defended.
It took courage for many of Florida’s local officials to acknowledge the need to protect LGBTQ+ students. We hope that same courage surfaces again, and soon.
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The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
