Coming out as LGBTQ+ is an exceptionally difficult moment, and Republicans in Florida want to make it even harder. An amendment to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that Florida Republicans are currently working on would actually force teachers to tell the families of students that their child is LGBTQ+ within 6 weeks of learning about it. This is an attack on the personal lives of students, and Republicans are quickly turning Florida into a brutal dictatorship. Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

Link – https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/595218-amendment-to-dont-say-gay-bill-in-florida-requires-schools-to-out

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Florida Republicans are at it again with their, don’t say gay bill, which of course is not the official name of the bill. That is what media and critics have dubbed it because basically what it does is it Outlaws teachers and other school officials from discussing sexuality or gender identity in Florida, public schools, schools that many of these students who may be grappling with how they feel inside need somebody trusted to talk to. They often will turn to teachers in schools because they don’t want their family to know they’re not yet. Some of them may never get there. And now Florida wants to criminalize teachers for talking with these students about it. And the piece of legislation just got so much worse. The Republican lawmaker who introduced the original bill slapped on an amendment this week, an amendment that would force teachers legally force the teachers to out the child, to the family.

So if the child approaches the teacher and says, listen, I’m L LGBTQ. The teacher has to say, okay, now I gotta go tell your family. And we all now have to have a sit down, talk where you are now forced to come out to your family. And I basically have to out you, if you are not willing to sit down and have this big discussion with everybody, we’re taking an already vulnerable part of the pot population, a part of the population that statistically is far more likely to engage in self harm and other self destructive habits, because they do not have the support that they need. And the state of Florida, the Republicans in the state of Florida are taking that group in making their lives intentionally harder for no other reason than to gain political points.

I posted this story by the way, on my Twitter account on Tuesday. And a lot of the comments said the same thing. And it’s exactly what I thought when I first saw it too. Uh, we’re gonna see a lot more people take their own lives because of this. Again, this is already a portion of the population that has a much higher rate of doing that than the rest of the population. And we’re forcing them to have these uncomfortable talks, talks that they are not yet ready for. And if they were, they would’ve had them. And now we’re forcing legally forcing the teachers to force those conversations onto those families. An earlier version of the amendment amendment actually carved out an exception, right? If you know that the kid could be ostracized from the family, if they could possibly be kicking the kid out, if they may abuse the kid, then you don’t have to tell ’em well, they stripped that part out.

So even if the teacher knows that I have to go out this kid to their family and this family is gonna turn around and beat the outta this kid, because that’s who they are. I still have to do it under penalty of law here in the state of Florida. If this thing passes well, luckily a very clever democratic representative, a woman by the name of, uh, Anna Eskimo Eskimo, um, has introduced another amendment to it. And her amendment would allow students to Sue the, uh, Florida department of education for damages, for irreparable harm caused by the disclosure of their sexual orientation. And unfortunately, because this state is solidly, 100% controlled by Republicans is the best we can do. The Democrats don’t have the numbers to kill this legislation. Ron DeSantis, our idiot, Republican autocratic, governor has already said he supports it. It’s going to pass.

In fact, I think it’s actually supposed to pass the house today, whether or not this amendment is part of it remains to be seen whether or not Eskimo’s amendment becomes a part of it. I seriously doubted it’s a democratic amendment. They’re not gonna do it, but at least she tried something we can’t kill. It may as well, make it to where these students can Sue the schools, right? Or school, uh, Sue the Florida department of education. This is insane. People will die. Teachers will lose their jobs to protect these kids. So we’re gonna have a teaching crisis, a crisis, excuse me, I’m sorry. I, I I’m so freaking off ab

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