What Florida's 'Don’t Say Gay' bill actually says

Contents:

• GAY MEN MAY HOLD THE KEY TO CLOSG THE AMIC GENR GAP, STUDY FDS
• WHILE STRAIGHT MEN FACE TNAL CRISIS, GAY MEN EXCEL AMILLY, STUDY FDS
• WHAT'S LIFE LIKE FOR GAY KIDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
• HERE'S WHAT FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL WOULD DO AND WHAT WOULDN'T DO

GAY MEN MAY HOLD THE KEY TO CLOSG THE AMIC GENR GAP, STUDY FDS

Florida ernor Ron DeSantis signed the state’s much-discsed Parental Rights Edutn bill—much more equently lled the Don’t Say Gay bill—to law on Monday, makg the state the fifth the natn where tors and staff are explicly prohibed om discsg LGBTQ people and issu as part of curriculums public schools.

Olr Don’t Say Gay laws had generally also rtricted stctn for all age levels, wh their wordg rangg om “homosexualy is not a liftyle acceptable to the general public” (Texas) to puttg LGBTQ sexualy the same tegory as tn about “current state laws related to sexual nduct, cludg forcible rape, statutory rape” (Mississippi), even though gay sex is no longer an offense the state as of 2003. This is jt htg you the face, ” said Chris Sanrs, the executive director of the Tennsee Equaly Project, a gay-rights group, potg to a bill that statethat would prohib materials that “promote, normalize, support, or addrs” LGBTQ issu.

Those that did, though, varly say they’re troducg them to guard parents’ rights or prevent doctratn by teachers, though they were often unclear about what specific impact they expect the laws to John Kavanagh, Arizona, was one of the few lawmakers who agreed to speak on the rerd about the bill he sponsored, which would require parents to give approval for their children to jo gay-straight allianc at schools or other such clubs.

WHILE STRAIGHT MEN FACE TNAL CRISIS, GAY MEN EXCEL AMILLY, STUDY FDS

“Some of this is polil grandstandg and vote-panrg, but there’s also an thentic anxiety around parents and nonparents alike that Ameri’s children are beg Pied-Pipered by the vague and distant threats, they’re vadg the muny through the schools, ” said Adam Laats, a profsor of tn and history at the State Universy of New York, ia that gay teachers are recg stunts who need to be protected is a particularly vic theme that rells the latter half of the 20th century, Laats said, which at that time rulted thefirg of sr of teachers—a procs ually spearhead by state lawmakers, but was also supported by teachers’ unns, ci, and others. “And I thk there is a very strong iologil current that really do believe the heart and soul of Ameri is at stake and beg threatened by trans people, by gays and lbians, by undocumented people, that is lookg to stutnalize the versn of Ameri they want to see.

What mak the surge of legislative tert particularly plited is that stat have historilly not provid much guidance on how their schools should addrs LGBTQ the 1980s and 1990s, durg the height of the HIV epimic, a number of stat passed laws proscribg mentn of homosexualy; many, but not all, have sce been rolled back. Natnal pollg shows most Amerins are fortable wh gay and lbian teachers and about six 10 say they are fortable wh an elementary level transgenr teacher, acrdg to an analysis by the Survey Center on Amerin Life, a project of the Amerin Enterprise Instute, a thk tank.

But gay men, who tend to excel the classroom, uld hold the key to closg the genr gap, Universy of Notre Dame soclogist Joel Mtleman argu. Ranks nth the world llege pletn, but “if Ameri’s gay men … formed their own untry, would be the world’s most highly ted by far, ” Joel Mtleman, a Universy of Notre Dame soclogist and the study’s thor, wrote a recent Washgton Post op-ed. Importantly, Mtleman not that his fdgs are not limed to whe gay men, and gay men nsistently outpace straight men llege pletn regardls of racial or ethnic background.

WHAT'S LIFE LIKE FOR GAY KIDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

His fdgs aren’t limed to higher tn eher, and gay male high school stunts are more likely than their heterosexual unterparts to earn better gras more advanced class and mata better study habs. It’s likely that the succs of gay boys and men the classroom is tied to the fact that they often feel like “outsirs to the culture of masculy enforced by their straight peers, ” acrdg to Mtleman, which ultimately leads them to be more nscient stunts – somethg straight men are often tght not to be. Usg data om roughly 7, 000 stunt surveys, Mtleman found that while many straight boys valued time spent playg vio gam or sports, gay boys reported puttg a premium on amic succs.

As adults, gay men also outperform women, likely bee they often work exceedgly hard to pensate for not meetg mascule expectatns, acrdg to Mtleman. Mtleman his rearch also found that gay women tend to perform more poorly school, and Black gay women have a much lower llege graduatn rate than whe gay women. ”A new study makg wav among LGBTQ-foced amics lends empiril crence to the inic Act Up -founr’s priful claims — not to the supposed sweepg superry of gay men, rather to the more narrow assertn that this group is remarkably cled to excel the paper, which was published the Amerin Soclogil Review on Feb.

Courty Amy LevJoel Mtleman, a Universy of Notre Dame soclogist and the paper’s sole thor, found that on an array of amic measur, gay mal outperform all other groups on average, across all major racial groups. Conversely, he nclud that lbians perform more poorly school overall and that Black gay women have a much lower llege graduatn rate than their whe unterparts. “This article is focg a lens on what we do to all kids, ” Lisa Diamond, a psychology profsor at the Universy of Utah, said of the societal prsur that appear to impe lbians school even as the strsors possibly unnerve gay mal to pensatg for homophobia through amic strivg.

HERE'S WHAT FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL WOULD DO AND WHAT WOULDN'T DO

The three surveys of Amerin adults nsistently dited that gay men are far more likely than straight men to have graduated om high school or llege, wh jt over half of gay men havg earned a llege gree, pared wh about 35 percent of straight men. What’s more, gay men’s llege graduatn rate dramatilly bts even that of straight women, about one-third of whom have a bachelor’s longudal survey showed that pared wh their straight male peers, gay mal earned higher GPAs high school and llege, enrolled harr class, took school more serly, had more amilly md iends and had a much lower rate of ever droppg out for a month or more.

But Mtleman found this advantage was limed almost entirely to whe lbians, and among women born more recently, gay women’s tnal edge has erod.

But as nstrictns on women’s potential have eased sce the 1960s, straight women’s llege graduatn rate has risen to the pot of statistil pary wh lbians among today’s young Nancy Drew effect Searchg for the drivers of the differenc school performance between straight and gay stunts, Mtleman ed a mache-learng algorhm to intify rponse patterns to survey qutns that predicted beg male vers female among members of the longudal hort.

This suggted that not jt sexual orientatn, but s tersectn wh genr affectatn uld have fluenced how well the gay and lbians stunts did school. “To the extent that ’s feme to study and appreciate validatn an amic sphere, the gay boys will have an advantage, ” Yale School of Public Health psychologist John Pachankis said.

“Girls who prent as mascule are seen as troublemakers, are seen as spic some way, ” Mtleman ‘Bt Ltle Boy the World’ phenomenon An addnal factor that Mtleman argued driv the average gay boy to surpass even the average straight girl amilly is what’s known queer psychology as the “Bt Ltle Boy the World” phenomenon. This refers to the tle of the 1973 memoir by former Democratic Natnal Commtee treasurer Andrew Tobias, which he chronicled his youthful csa to appease his ternalized homophobia through admissn to Harvard Universy and other feats of superlative a 2013 paper published Basic and Applied Social Psychology, psychologist Mark Hatzenbuehler, now of Harvard Universy, and Pachankis found evince suggtg that gay male llege stunts ed sought to pensate for anti-gay stigma by rivg their self-worth part through amic mastery and other forms of petn.

This psychologil paradigm also pris the bedrock of “The Velvet Rage, ” psychologist Alan Downs’ go-to bible for queer men, published 2005, on “overg the pa of growg up gay a straight man’s world. “From a young age, ” said Remishofsky, a rmatologist Sterlg Heights, Michigan, “I was termed to bee a doctor so I uld prove to everyone that I uld be succsful even though I was gay. ”An analysis by the Brookgs Instutn’s Haton Project published January found that gay male upl earn $30, 000 more annually than lbian Meyer, a rearcher at UCLA’s Williams Instute, exprsed trigue over the story Mtleman’s paper tells of many gay men apparently overg nsirable odds.

Meyer poted to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn’s Youth Risk Behavr Surveillance reports that have chronicled the myriad strsors lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr young people weather school and the lany of leter impacts, cludg prsn and, Mtleman found that on the whole, lbian, gay and bisexual young people reported feelg more unsafe school and suffered higher levels of discrimatn and what’s known as mory strs than their straight peers. ” The price queer youth payBrian Mtanski, a profsor of medil social scienc at Northwtern Universy, utned that the relative succs of gay men uld amount to a double-edged sword.

“While certaly, ’s good news for the young gay men that they’re able to succeed well amilly, I do have some real ncerns about what kd of prsure they’re puttg on themselv, ” he said.