Life

Students stage school walkouts across Florida over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

By Conor Clark

4th March 2022

YouTube [FOX 13 Tampa Bay]

Students in Florida walked out of school in protest of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill after it recently passed through the state’s House of Representatives.

The legislation, which is officially called the Parental Rights in Education bill, seeks to restrict “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in primary schools.

Republicans hold a majority of 78 seats to the Democrat’s 40 in Florida’s House of Representatives, which passed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ by a vote of 69-47 on 24 February.

In response to the legislation continuing to advance, Flagler Palm Coast High School senior Jack Petocz used social media to coordinate statewide protests against it on 3 March.

“The language and the supporters of the bill and the rhetoric around the bill really shows what this bill is, and it’s an attempt to hurt queer people like me,” he explained to NBC News.

Those demonstrating across the state held Pride flags and placards with slogans such as “we’re tired of your no homo promo” and “say gay” on them.

Roughly 100 of those protesting went to the Florida State Capitol in the afternoon to challenge the legislation.

“Thank you all so much for doing this, for standing up for the LGBTQ community,” Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith told students. “We have been fighting against the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill for so many months, and you being here today, actually sends a really strong message. The students who are impacted, those of you who are LGBTQ youth, we stand with you, we see you, you matter and we get up and fight for you every single day.”

Smith, who is the first openly LGBTQ+ Latin person elected to the Florida Legislature, has been battling against the bill since it was first proposed.

“The [‘Don’t Say Gay’] bill is proposing to censor conversations about people like me in the classroom,” he recently told GAY TIMES. “So of course, it’s personal, because it sends a message to young people that conversations about LGBTQ people are dangerous, they’re not dangerous.”

Although exactly how many students got involved in the protests across the state remains unclear, videos and pictures suggest that the number is in the thousands.

‘Don’t Say Gay’ now heads to the aforementioned Senate, where it is expected to pass and ultimately be signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, who has heavily suggested that he supports the bill.

You can find more videos and pictures of demonstrations against it below: