Florida Teachers Develop Workaround For Don’t Say Gay Law

A memo is being floated around between Florida teachers explaining a clever sabotage of the state’s hateful new “Don’t Say Gay” legislation recently signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

From Yahoo News:

Since it’s now illegal to address gender identity or sexual orientation issues in schools for students from kindergarten through third grade, the letter recommends referring to all students as “they” and “them” to avoid “gendered pronouns” like “he” and “she.”

Also, “Mr.” and “Mrs.” should clearly be dropped for all teachers to conform with the law, the letter argues.

The strategy was spelled out in a “template” letter for teachers in Palm Beach County, according to the right-wing Moms for Liberty organization, which obtained a copy of the memo. The group posted the template on its Twitter site, and it’s now tearing through social media.

The “Don’t Say Gay” Florida law in fact does not mention the word “gay” anywhere in the text. And since it now bans addressing gender identity and sexual orientation issues in lower grades, the law could convincingly be understood to apply to all genders and sexual orientations.

Here’s the outraged tweet from Moms for Liberty plus several of the responses regarding the plan by Florida teachers.

Attention Parents! 🚨

A teacher in Palm Beach County, FL shared this template with us. It is being shared among teachers to use for grades K-3. How do you feel about this? What will you do when this arrives home in your child’s backpack? Time to take a Stand. pic.twitter.com/Zo39SrxoJc — Moms for Liberty (@Moms4Liberty) April 1, 2022

Florida: You’re not allowed to discuss sexuality or gender in school Teachers: Okay, we will diligently avoid reference to sexuality and gender Florida: Not like that

— ¢älv¡n (@CDG_GTR) April 1, 2022

I guess you guys didn’t realize that “heterosexual” is ALSO a sexual orientation, huh?

— Cat Food Casserole (@CasseroleFood) April 1, 2022

Bathrooms will have to be labeled without gender now, because “gender identity” is a prohibited topic, so no child is permitted to identify as a boy and use the boy’s bathroom, or identify as a girl and use the girl’s bathroom. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED.

— Al Peṭṭerson (@eyelessgame) April 1, 2022

Critical thinking is very tough. And they DID NOT think this thru to the inevitable conclusion. Its actually pretty fun to watch this.

— (((Raymond Cruddas))) (@raycruddas) April 2, 2022

Remember when DeSantis and others insisted that this wasn’t homophobic but would be applied equally to heteronormative content? Well, there you go. But thanks for admitting that the intent was to ensure heteronormative content only, confirming the criticisms.👍

— Joshua Stein, philosophy, ethics, politics (@thephilosotroll) April 1, 2022

Have you noticed that groups with the word “Liberty” in their names usually want to be in charge of just how much liberty YOU should be allowed to have?

— Susan 🕊🇺🇦 (@LoveYourLifeHon) April 3, 2022

If you’re butthurt now, wait till you find out the elementary schools cancel their Christmas programs because a nativity scene involves “birth” and a “virgin”. Congratulations, you killed Christmas. Even the word “Christmas”, is a translation of Christ’s Mass, aka his BIRTH.

— STEMtheBleeding (@STEMthebleeding) April 1, 2022