don't say gay

March 8, 2022 10:00 AM

House bill 1557, aka the Parental Rights in Education bill, otherwise known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, passed the Florida Senate today. This bill "prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels [kindergarten through grade 3]" and would allow parents to sue schools or teachers who engage in these topics. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has expressed support for the bill. Students in Florida have participated in walkouts and demonstrations to protest it. Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Chapek has not explicitly spoken out against the bill, generating backlash from Disney employees and supporters.
posted by fight or flight (54 comments total)

Additional notes:

This is just one of many items of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the works across the US, much of it being explicitly anti-trans legislation (including legislation in Idaho which will send provisioners of gender affirming care to young people to jail for life).
posted by fight or flight at 10:06 AM on March 8, 2022 [14 favorites]

Seems a bit late to put the jeeny back in the bottle
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 10:13 AM on March 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

"Disney and homophobia is trending, so here's a reminder that within a year of becoming CEO, Bob Chapek cancelled The Owl House, Nimona, and the theatrical release of Everybody's Talking about Jamie."

Link is just the tweet that's quoted.
posted by explosion at 10:20 AM on March 8, 2022 [22 favorites]

Also, not to derail into an anti-Disney conversation too much, but for some further context on that particular point: Disney has also donated thousands of dollars to Florida Republican legislators, including sponsors of this bill.

Last year, at least three Disney entities gave the chief sponsors of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation $4,000 combined for their 2022 re-election campaigns.

State campaign finance records show Disney Destinations LLC, Disney Gift Card Services Inc and Disney Photo Imaging Inc each gave Florida state Rep Joe Harding’s campaign $1,000.

State Senator Dennis Baxley’s 2022 campaign also received $1,000 from Disney Photo Imaging. In 2018, he received $1,000 each from Disney Vacation Development Inc and Disney Destinations LLC.

posted by fight or flight at 10:21 AM on March 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

Not only has Disney not condemned this garbage legislation written by garbage people, it has financially supported it.
posted by xedrik at 10:22 AM on March 8, 2022 [6 favorites]

I grew up in Scotland under Section 2A. You would be amazed at the incredible amount of shite a kid can pick up when the only people unafraid to talk about gay people are the gay bashers. Fuck these scumbags.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:23 AM on March 8, 2022 [75 favorites]

Between Disney moving more and more of their staff to FL (shuttering Imagineering and moving the ones willing to go to FL), and Bob Chapek's tepid-at-best opposition to this bill and support for DeSantis, I think that Disney is pivoting back to courting the American cultural right wing. This is only the beginning, I suspect.
posted by tclark at 10:25 AM on March 8, 2022 [8 favorites]

I don't quite understand why this recent flurry of homophobic and transphobic hate in Florida, Texas, and elsewhere is making me just really, really, really angry, but it is. It's not like this shit is new. But this right now feels, I don't know, so egregious and spiteful. Fuck DeSantis and his droopy cockface smirk in particular.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:30 AM on March 8, 2022 [32 favorites]

Just a note that for the past few weeks, Judd Legum has been all over the corporate funding connections for this odious bill. Not just Disney, (e.g. "The Inside Story of How Disney Turned Its Back on the LGBTQ Community") but also more generally (e.g. here from Feb 17).

His stories on corporate donation hypocrisy here and on other topics (Russia, anti-trans bills, etc) are rage-inducing, but do seem to help draw bigger news outlets' attentions. He seems to punch above his weight in putting public pressure on companies.
posted by col_pogo at 10:32 AM on March 8, 2022 [12 favorites]

This is just one of many items of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the works across the US...

Often, I think it would be helpful if the thinktanks, PACs, and other conservative orgs who actually write the legislation like this would be fully exposed. I mean, it's not as if republicans across the country are somehow magically coming up with this crap on their own, all at the same time. This shit is packaged and distributed.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:33 AM on March 8, 2022 [44 favorites]

I cling to the sour hope that all this hate will backfire on these horrible people in the long run. I just know it's going to hurt so many in the meantime.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:47 AM on March 8, 2022 [7 favorites]

So sick of companies who fund Republicans saying they'll be "reassesing... strategies" about their bribery. Has there been one single case where they've actually stopped?
posted by No One Ever Does at 10:52 AM on March 8, 2022 [7 favorites]

I'm guessing the actual language of the bill isn't as neutral as it sounds? Because it sounds like even talking about cis heteronormative gender and sexuality is banned and it is going to be fun to watch cheerleaders of the bill flip out when a kindergarten teacher can't discuss the difference between the girls and boys washroom. A little malicious compliance where they just let kids use whatever washroom they want because they can't discuss it.

Or sample text: "Ron DeSantis lives in a house with Casey Black but I'm not allowed to comment on their marital status". (Extra delicious because Casey is a female and male name.)
posted by Mitheral at 11:04 AM on March 8, 2022 [26 favorites]

It's always a good day to talk about Howard Ashman, lyricist for Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin, a man who deserves a tremendous amount of credit for pulling Disney out of its late-80s commercial and artistic malaise, and also a gay man who died of AIDS in 1991.

On Twitter, Josh Beames has been collating a list of LGBTQ+ creatives who made important contributions to Disney, but...

Look, I'm just saying, if I made billions of dollars in profit on the back of Howard Ashman's talent (seriously: one of the all-time great ones) and then gave even one penny of that money to the lobbyists and legislators behind this bill, I would fully expect to get my ass kicked by Howard Ashman's ghost.
posted by Jeanne at 11:35 AM on March 8, 2022 [35 favorites]

Often, I think it would be helpful if the thinktanks, PACs, and other conservative orgs who actually write the legislation like this would be fully exposed.

There have been a zillion articles writing about this, but none of them gain traction in the general public because mostly the general public doesn't care to try to follow all these ins and outs. We're talking marginalized groups fighting for existence against a radicalized fringe. For 80% of people none of this matters, and most of those aren't following any of this closely.
posted by hippybear at 11:35 AM on March 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

I'm sure it's been said before, but it is frightening how the right is starting codify the use of lawsuits as a way to punish people who haven't actually committed any crime (Texas's abortion bill being another example of this). Obviously this creates a contradictory landscape where things are technically legal but doing them could still financially ruin you, if not land you in jail. But it also creates a vigilante society, where ordinary people are pitted against each other in the service of different ideologies. Really terrible example of how frayed our social fabric is becoming.
posted by TurnKey at 11:37 AM on March 8, 2022 [35 favorites]

But it also creates a vigilante society, where ordinary people are pitted against each other in the service of different ideologies. Really terrible example of how frayed our social fabric is becoming.

I hear regularly about Komprimat in Russia and wonder how much this resembles that.
posted by hippybear at 11:38 AM on March 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

I'm guessing the actual language of the bill isn't as neutral as it sounds?

The text of the bill is available in the first link. I assume this is what is construed as the "don't say gay" part: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

So yes, they will be able to say Ron DeSantis lives in a house with his wife and that there is a difference between the girls and boys washrooms, as both of those topics are age appropriate for K-3. They are less likely to be able to have drag queen story hour on Thursdays.
posted by King Bee at 11:49 AM on March 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

So yes, they will be able to say Ron DeSantis lives in a house with his wife...

But expect a lawsuit if they name a man who lives in a house with his husband?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:01 PM on March 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I mean, the problem is that "age appropriate" is completely subjective. If an infant can get adopted by two dads, then the notion of a kid having two dads is inherently age-appropriate for infants up. Drag queen story hour is a person dressing up and reading to children so if that's inappropriate for kids in grades K-3, so too is the entirety of Disney World where plenty of the masked characters are cast gender-blind as appropriate body-shape is the determining factor of who wears what costume, not gender.
posted by gee_the_riot at 12:01 PM on March 8, 2022 [37 favorites]

The text of the bill is available in the first link. I assume this is what is construed as the "don't say gay" part: "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

So yes, they will be able to say Ron DeSantis lives in a house with his wife and that there is a difference between the girls and boys washrooms, as both of those topics are age appropriate for K-3.

That's not how I would interpret that sentence, and I don't think it's what the legislature intended or how a judge would interpret it, either. If being age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate could override the flat prohibition on K-3, then it would render the first clause superfluous. There's a very strong rule of statutory interpretation that judges should avoid reading-away a section of a statute (no "surplusage").

Further, there is a rule of statutory interpretation (the "rule of the last antecedent") that states that "a limiting clause or phrase . . . should ordinarily be read as modifying only the noun or phrase that it immediately follows." A typical example:

Consider, for example, the case of parents who, before leaving their teenage son alone in the house for the weekend, warn him, "You will be punished if you throw a party or engage in any other activity that damages the house." If the son nevertheless throws a party and is caught, he should hardly be able to avoid punishment by arguing that the house was not damaged. The parents proscribed (1) a party, and (2) any other activity that damages the house.

The bottom line is that the bill is extremely limiting but perhaps in a way that would enable, e.g., parents to sue a school district for directing kindergarteners to use gender-specific washrooms, particularly because the bill does not define "gender identity" (or "sexual orientation" for that matter). That could be a good, immediate test case.

the problem is that "age appropriate" is completely subjective

The bill limits it to age appropriate or developmentally appropriate "in accordance with state standards", which I'm sure are extremely narrow. It's a truly awful law, and I'm not especially hopeful that the Supreme Court as currently constituted will overturn it on First Amendment grounds.
posted by jedicus at 12:10 PM on March 8, 2022 [22 favorites]

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

State standards had to be added, because I assume those standards are written like "BOYS ARE BOYS AND GIRLS ARE GIRLS NANNYNANNYBOOBOO."
Because it is age appropriate always to affirm a trans kid's identity and hurts no one.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:10 PM on March 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

Per the bill, what is age appropriate will be based on what the state department of education says. All school district polices on counseling, educator practices and and professional conduct, and any other standards are subject to DoE review and update.

So it's not that it's subjective, it's that it's fully in the hands of conservatives. the Flordia DoE, which recently removed anti-bullying materiall that linked to stopbullying.gov's page on LGBTQI+ Youth. The Florida DoE, whose voucher program funds dozens of schools that prohibit LGBTQI+ students. Cocoran, now educational commissioner, when he was the house speaker in Florida, tweeted about the Pulse night club shooting with no mention of the LGBTQi+ community.

The second part of the bill is also really bad, if a student tells a counselor, teacher or other staff member they are gay or trans, or anything that can be construed as health related, they have to tell their parents. Taken from this article:

The second part of this bill is that parents must be notified if their child comes out as LGBTQ+ to any staff member, as they don’t want to prevent parents from knowing about their child’s mental health. According to CBS News, “…the bills would extend to student support services, including counseling, and would require school district personnel to give parents all information related to a student’s “mental, emotional or physical health or well-being…”

If any parent finds that their school violates these rules, they can bring an action against the district. Every school district’s training materials must fall under these guidelines. "

The language is intentionally neutral sounding, the implementation won't be.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 12:27 PM on March 8, 2022 [21 favorites]

It’s like they’re passing all these bills while everyone is distracted by Ukraine.

My 1st grader asked me if boys can marry boys. I said yes it happens sometimes. He then told me he was going to marry his two friends (boys). I told him I’m glad he loves his friends and that generally you decide who to marry when you’re older and know yourself better. Then we talked about Paw Patrol.

This is the level of conversation of a 1st grader. No need for pearl clutching panic bill passing hysteria.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:28 PM on March 8, 2022 [63 favorites]

My impression of Disney over the years is that they want to make the most money and appeal to the most people and most of the time seem to be trying to walk a fine line between appealing to the liberals/gays/etc and also the conservatives. But if forced to pick a side, they are definitely going to pick the bigots/conservatives because they make more money off those people and their children. Hence, this whole um, response from Disney that doesn't say much of anything.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:37 PM on March 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

"Age-appropriate" and the rest of the legal language they use is meaningless. Don't bother trying to find any reason or loophole behind it. This law exists so that bigoted rich conservatives can fund bigoted parents into directly targeting individual teachers and scare them into silence, without having to pass a law that is clearly censorship.

Mainstream Republicans are jackbooted fascists and always have been. Trump merely stop bothering with the mask. Here in Texas they're fine with sending government agents into peoples' homes to separate trans kids from their parents. Stop pointing out the hypocrisy in the law; fascists don't give a shit about being hypocrites because they never had any principles to betray. Fascists only want power, and they will not stop until they are forced to stop.

Corporations, like fascists, have no principles aside from money. If people want rainbow flags, they'll sell you rainbow flags. If bigoted conservative politicians will give them a tax break, they'll ensure bigoted conservative politicians get elected and reelected.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:04 PM on March 8, 2022 [28 favorites]

From twitter:

After nearly four hours of discussion on HB 1557, the parental rights bill that critics call Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, had this exchange with the bill's sponsor, Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

tl;dr, they're uncomfortable with the idea of kids being LGBT+, so they think if they stop them talking about it and "encouraging" it, it will magically mean fewer kids turn out to be LGBT+.

Grown adults afraid of children being able to express themselves. You can't make this shit up. This is the outcome of the right spending so long screaming to each other about "snowflakes".
posted by fight or flight at 1:15 PM on March 8, 2022 [24 favorites]

Faggotry and being gay as the subject of school yard bullying and endless character jokes in movies and on television, not to mention the onset of a fucking plague, did nothing to discourage queer kids for generations even before HIV/AIDS. Why would this bill make anything different now from what it was then?
posted by hippybear at 1:46 PM on March 8, 2022 [17 favorites]

I don't think it gets pointed out enough that the "parental rights" ideology being used to justify these bills is a deeply fucked up and toxic belief system in itself, even aside from the way it's being used to justify bigotry. It's about giving parents near-absolute authority over their children, rather than treating kids as independent social beings who are embedded in a community beyond their family and whose best interests may be different from their parents'.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 1:54 PM on March 8, 2022 [40 favorites]

Presumably the idea is just to send queer people back into the closet and living in fear, so at least they don't have to be bothered by our existence. I wouldn't be shocked if their next strategy might be to see if they can get it reclassified as a mental disorder.
posted by fight or flight at 1:54 PM on March 8, 2022 [7 favorites]

I don't have a lot of optimism about the future for people like me, really.
posted by hippybear at 1:57 PM on March 8, 2022 [14 favorites]

That's not how I would interpret that sentence, and I don't think it's what the legislature intended or how a judge would interpret it, either.

While anyone with a reasonable understanding of English grammar and of basic logic would indeed understand “NOT ((in grades K-3) OR (NOT age appropriate)) = (in grade 4 or above) AND (age-appropriate)”, I have a lower opinion of whether either of those characteristics apply to the majority of the Florida state legislature or to conservative judges who might be called upon to rule on this law.
posted by eviemath at 1:57 PM on March 8, 2022

The 'parental rights' push, as constituted in the U.S., is Christian Dominionism plus whoever can be pulled along in their cultural wake. Dominionist groups are who fund and support it.
posted by away for regrooving at 2:05 PM on March 8, 2022 [22 favorites]

Fascism and capitalism find a common enemy in equality and justice. Disney's CEO would be failing his duty if he did not support these bills
posted by kzin602 at 2:06 PM on March 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Florida's surgeon general just advised that healthy children should NOT get vaccinated, so Florida has gone full-on death cult. There is no depth to which these people will not stoop.
posted by rikschell at 2:20 PM on March 8, 2022 [18 favorites]

This is the level of conversation of a 1st grader. No need for pearl clutching panic bill passing hysteria

This. I chatted with a young friend recently who was in kindergarten around the time 20 years ago when being gay was becoming acceptable in his area. He remembered how his teacher went on too long about “Two men can be like mommy and daddy! They can hug and kiss!” At 5, he was revolted by it. “I had only just discovered that I had a penis, and kids that age really, really do not think about what their parents are doing.”
posted by Melismata at 2:46 PM on March 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Like any such rule where the cruelty is the point, this one will undoubtedly be selectively applied to intimidate those with most to lose and punish those with the least amount of safety net.

People with relative privilege will sometimes be tolerated in *slightly* pushing the boundaries, and this will be cited as evidence that the law isn't really that draconian.
posted by desuetude at 2:48 PM on March 8, 2022 [10 favorites]

The language is intentionally neutral sounding, the implementation won't be.

This is something that, in an ideal world, our schools would be preparing students to understand with a close examination of the Jim Crow laws and how they were designed. Laws that sound neutral but intentionally put discretion in the hands of certain people to use in certain ways are an old tradition that ought to be immediately recognizable by now.

The saving grace and something I think aligns with hippybear's comment above, every kid is "queer" in some way even if it isn't in an LGBTQIA+ dimension. Everyone has something that's weird that is the gateway to empathy for all the other ways kids and adults can be weird, nonconforming, and still worthy of common humanity.
posted by traveler_ at 2:53 PM on March 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

every kid is "queer" in some way even if it isn't in an LGBTQIA+ dimension

I understand where this is coming from, but can we please not do this in a thread that is about specific anti-queer legislation?
posted by rhymedirective at 3:36 PM on March 8, 2022 [15 favorites]

The language of the bill is intentionally vague because the purpose is to install an anti LGBTQI+ panopticon of the mind.

They want people to police thier own thoughts, and they want Queer kids to not even have access to the language that enables them to express thier differences.

The cruelty is the point and it's fucking dystopian and Facist.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:33 PM on March 8, 2022 [13 favorites]

As for Disney, Bob Chapeck probably thinks of the Cultural jugggernaught as being to big to fail

Every queer and queer ally could boycott Disney but .. Disney has a near monopoly on modern media juggernaughts.

Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, decades of back catalogue, the theme parks. The majority of consumers can't/won't be bothered to boycott Disney - which would be the only way to persuade them to change thier stance because Money - and so Disney Can conceivably do whatever it likes.

Tldr: What ya gonna do bycott Disney? That's never gonna achieve critical mass.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:40 PM on March 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Are consumers going to boycott Disney in sufficient numbers as to make a difference? I doubt it. A more interesting question, to me, is whether Disney employees can exert any pressure on the company. Because animators are mad, and in the words of Dana Terrace, the creator of Owl House, "I'm fucking tired of making Disney look good."
posted by Jeanne at 5:50 PM on March 8, 2022 [8 favorites]

Kate McKinnon misunderstands “don’t say gay” on Weekend Update.
posted by bendy at 9:39 PM on March 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I understand where this is coming from, but can we please not do this in a thread that is about specific anti-queer legislation?

Would it help if I elaborated that I was speaking from my experience growing up queer in an extremely conservative, rural community, and how I saw the paths people walked to bring themselves to be tolerant though a culture that tried everything it could to stop them?
posted by traveler_ at 10:08 PM on March 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Famous (now) Disney actor checks in.
posted by chavenet at 1:11 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

Disney has long tried to play both sides of the fence, and I am longing for the day it backfires on them.

Conservative-leaning families with small children may be their target audience, but their queer customers are also legion.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:36 AM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

Maybe this should be an AskMe, but I've been brainstorming with friends on how to protest Disney's donations towards the sponsors of that bill. I'm sure MeFites would have suggestions? I'm seeing some "boycotting Disney is pointless" type comments, but MeFites have made all kinds of projects and organized all kinds of things, so surely we can do something constructive here, right?

I think a possible pressure point is movie theaters. Movie chains are struggling due to the pandemic. They rely on big superhero tentpoles: Marvel movies. Protesting the next big Marvel movie might generate press and put pressure on the theaters that screen Disney's stuff. I don't know if that necessarily hurts Disney directly, though, but it could generate attention.

Canceling Disney+ en masse via taking a screenshot of the cancellation screen, printing that out and mailing it to Disney? Maybe on paper that's a certain color or something? Something uniform. But inside the envelope so they can't just see it and throw it out.

Calling one's cable company and saying they're cancelling their cable package because it carries ESPN, which is owned by Disney?

I'm just spitballing, but I bet people could come up with lots of suggestions.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:02 AM on March 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

It’s really not *that* hard to boycott both Disney and the state of Florida.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:09 PM on March 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

Backtracked: Disney CEO called the governor of Florida to oppose ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

It’s totally not the strongest statement of support for queer people, but it leans very heavily in that direction. (I didn’t see an explicit, “We stand by our targeted LGBTQIA+ employees, visitors, and fans”… more like, “Well, we messed this up quite a bit and are donating $5 million to HRC”) I mean, thanks! But also.
posted by hijinx at 6:46 PM on March 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

“Well, we messed this up quite a bit and are donating $5 million to HRC”

The HRC declined the donation:

“The Human Rights Campaign will not accept this money from Disney until we see them build on their public commitment and work with LGBTQ+ advocates to ensure that dangerous proposals, like Florida’s Don’t Say Gay or Trans bill, don’t become dangerous laws, and if they do, to work to get them off the books,”

There was also a pretty damning internal letter from Pixar employees dissecting Disney corporate's bullshit stance.
posted by jedicus at 8:14 AM on March 10, 2022 [13 favorites]

Loved this in the comments section of jedicus's second link:

Chapek is turning what was a s***show into a masterclass in live-streaming a public staged colonic irrigation.

posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:40 PM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

The bullshit continues: "Disney’s CEO said Friday the company is ceasing its political donations in Florida due to the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill"

Ceasing all political donations in Florida, not just to the Republican behind this and other hateful legislation. There's no both sides here, but Disney is still trying to appease the unappeasable. Witness DeSantis's response:

“You have companies, like at Disney, that are going to say and criticize parents’ rights, they’re going to criticize the fact that we don’t want transgenderism in kindergarten in first-grade classrooms,” he said.

“If that’s the hill they’re going to die on, then how do they possibly explain lining their pockets with their relationship from the Communist Party of China? Because that’s what they do, and they make a fortune, and they don’t say a word about the really brutal practices that you see over there at the hands of the CCP.”

“And so in Florida, our policies got to be based on the best interest of Florida citizens, not on the musing of woke corporations,”

An actual stance from Disney would be creating freely available gender- and sexuality-affirming content for a wide range of ages and (just as important) stop making and distributing content that isn't. Make positive LGBTQIA representation culturally inescapable.
posted by jedicus at 2:25 PM on March 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

As of yesterday, the "Don't Say Gay" bill has been signed into law.

But it's not going to be the last time this legislation is weaponised in the US.
posted by fight or flight at 4:51 AM on March 29, 2022

As usual, Mark Hamill's tweet on the subject was pure gold.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:09 PM on March 29, 2022