Gay Teachers Shouldn't Have to Hi Who They Are - We Are Teachers

Contents:

• GAY TEACHERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HI WHO THEY ARE
• ‘I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO THE GAY ONE’: LGBTQ TEACHERS SAY THEY ARE FIGHTG ERASURE THEIR OWN CLASSROOMS
• ‘I’M AAID TO RETURN TO THE CLASSROOM': A GAY TEACHER OF THE YEAR SPEAKS OUT
• ‘IT’S HAD A CHILLG EFFECT’: FLORIDA TEACHERS ANX ABOUT ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ BILL
• TEACHERS ARE ALREADY GETTG FIRED, RIGNG & SPEAKG OUT AGAST DON’T SAY GAY MOVEMENT
• FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
• CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARD ADOPTS SOCIAL STUDI TEXTBOOKS THAT CLU GAY RIGHTS AFTER WARNGS OM ERNOR
• COLUMN: HOW 2.8 LN CALIFORNIA VOTERS NEARLY BANNED GAY TEACHERS OM PUBLIC SCHOOLS
• GAY TEACHERS
• GAY SUBSTUTE TEACHER SAYS HE WAS FIRED AFTER HANDG OUT PRI BRACELETS TO STUNTS
• THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER
• A TEXAS TEACHER FAC LOSG HER JOB AFTER FIGHTG FOR GAY PRI SYMBOLS SCHOOL
• TEACHER: I WAS FIRED FOR BEG GAY. NOW IT CAN’T HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE

GAY TEACHERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HI WHO THEY ARE

After about a the classroom, he was named the bt tor Kentucky September 2021 -- but at the same time, he said, a small but vol mory his ral town Montgomery County went after, who is gay, told ABC News that he was sgled out for actually protectg LGBTQ kids his school and their fai, which ma him a said that earlier this year, a muny member who was postg about him on social media also repeatedly went to unty school board meetgs to report predatn and so-lled child "groomg" -- a term that has bee popular nservative circl for allegatns of adults sexually manipulatg said this person, who had not named him at the board meetgs but repeatedly referenced him by name onle, also "doxxed" him and some of his stunts on Facebook by sharg their private, acrdg to Carver, he and some stunts' parents asked Montgomery County Supertennt Dr.

Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights Edutn bill -- which don't specifilly e the word "gay, " though broadly rtricts talk of sexualy and genr -- to law earlier this year rponse to "woke genr iology. "Joshua Block is a staff attorney wh the Natnal ACLU’s Lbian Gay Bisexual Transgenr & HIV "We need to be teachg them to read or wre, to add, to subtract, " he said -- addg that "the purpose of our schools is to te kids not to doctrate them.

Before the bill was passed, some Democrats unsuccsfully attempted to make more specific -- rtrictg stctn on sexual activy rather than orientatn, for though many who spoke wh ABC News said they are disappoted the law's lack of clary, some gay teachers don't see an issue wh . Pancholy's Stonewall Honor-wng novel "The Bt at It" follows 12-year-old Rahul Kapoor, who is not only figurg out his cultural inty as an Indian-Amerin but is also jt begng to realize that he might be gay. For Damon Zuima, a former K–8 mic tor, was important for his stunts to know that he is gay and for his admistratn to be supportive of his cisn to share so openly wh his class.

‘I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO THE GAY ONE’: LGBTQ TEACHERS SAY THEY ARE FIGHTG ERASURE THEIR OWN CLASSROOMS

When asked if he felt prsure to hi his sexualy to his stunts, Connor Schmidt, a primary school teacher Beijg who is openly gay, shared:. Jonny Vriema, a physil tn teacher Jacksonville, Florida, who intifi as a gay Christian, fears that his sire to live out his fah and teach wh relig schools will create nflict.

But wasn’t until this school year that a parent me to her school’s office and said, referrg to Cz, “I don’t want to talk to the gay one.

Florida’s HB 1557, lloquially known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which kickstarted a trend of attempted legislative bans on discsn of LGBTQ topics schools, was expand April to rtrict some discsns of genr inty and sexual orientatn public classrooms om krgarten to 12th gra.

‘I’M AAID TO RETURN TO THE CLASSROOM': A GAY TEACHER OF THE YEAR SPEAKS OUT

And though he matas his optimism the classroom wh his young stunts, the realy of beg a gay teacher a polil climate that’s bee creasgly hostile toward LGBTQ people n be much more challengg, even dangero, he said. He’s psed lsons after overhearg a stunt e the term “gay” a pejorative way, takg time to addrs the stunt and their qutns about the word.

Last year, after Florida troduced what crics lled s “Don’t Say Gay” legislatn, several other stat followed su and filed siar bills that affect whether teachers n e pronouns or nam stunts ask them to e. NBC News reported on two teachers Florida and Kentucky, rpectively, the latter of whom was named Kentucky Teacher of the Year 2022, who qu their jobs after some parents and muny members cricized them for beg out gay men and sharg tails about their personal liv wh stunts. Other queer and trans teachers, particularly after Florida passed s “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year, have said they no longer feel supported or mentally healthy enough to ntue teachg, acrdg to reportg om CNN affiliate WPTV.

Michael Woods, a high school special tn teacher Palm Beach unty, Florida, wh 30 years of experience teachg and who grew up as a stunt the area who was bullied for beg gay, said he cried the night before this school year began Augt 2022 bee of anxiety related to Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill that went to effect July 2022. “The bills are all based on false pretens, they’re li, they’re based on li, they make assumptns that somethg is happeng our schools area, that teachers are somehow doctratg our stunts, teachg them to be gay, or whatever the se may be, ” said Andrew Spar, print of the Florida Edutn add: “I thk the biggt thg gog to the school year is the unknown, bee this bill and the other bills that are out there, give parents the abily to brg plats agast teachers, brg lawsus agast school districts, and we jt don’t know how ’s gog to play out.

‘IT’S HAD A CHILLG EFFECT’: FLORIDA TEACHERS ANX ABOUT ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ BILL

It wasn't until I was llege and had profsors who were gay that I really had any picture of what was like to be a gay adult a regular relatnship wh a fay. “This year I've been very openly out wh stunts, but a lot of that was motivated by my first year of teachg where I was tryg to bat issu of homophobia and transphobia.

” I did a home vis where I spoke to the mom and I remember tellg her that I was actually gay and I thk really helped her and ma her feel more relieved.

TEACHERS ARE ALREADY GETTG FIRED, RIGNG & SPEAKG OUT AGAST DON’T SAY GAY MOVEMENT

A gay teacher and a lbian teacher are speakg out agast the harassment and censorship they’ve faced as school boards and state legislatur ban LGBTQ and anti-racist ntent om classrooms. Even before Florida passed s “Don’t Say Gay” law banng LGBTQ discsns om krgarten through third-gra classrooms, Solomon only ever mentned her wife to a select handful of stunts: Those who had asked after disverg proof of her wife onle and those who approached her to discs their own queer inti. Solomon overheard another lleague say that she’d never vote for Solomon to receive a state Rookie Teacher of the Year award bee she’s gay.

To his close iends and fay he was a young gay man a steady relatnship, while at the primary school where he worked his home life was a secret. It sentially forba schools and lol thori om acknowledgg that gay people existed, and even today high-profile s of gay teachers beg hound by relig groups create a climate of fear. Robson, who had hidn her own sexualy when she started teachg the 1980s, started the Courageo Lears programme bee she believed LGBT teachers were missg out on promotn, as they were aaid to put their heads above the year-long programme volv three days of face-to-face trag, cludg lectur, gut speakers and workshops, wh the aim of stillg learship skills and boostg nfince through sharg experienc and mutual summaris the succs a new book, Courage the Classroom, that clus chapters by lbian, gay and transgenr teachers about overg prejudice and learng to be themselv.

FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

“Then we put on thgs such as the big gay bake sale and really took off and attracted girls of all ag and their iends, who me to support them, ” she says. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circu Richmond is an early tt of how that major Supreme Court cisn ptg ee speech agast anti-discrimatn laws will play out beyond the hypothetil suatn that se, which volved a platiff who had never actually ma weddg webs or been asked to do so by a gay person. “The Court rejected the dissent’s assertn that s cisn opened the door to discrimatn employment, ” ACLU attorney Josh Block wrote a reply to Becket’s the exampl raised the Supreme Court did not clu a relig anizatn or a gay employee, and Gorsuch repeatedly voked a 2000 cisn allowg the Boy Suts to expel a gay volunteer on “exprsive associatn” grounds.

“We all said that thoands of relig anizatns all across the untry ask their employe to uphold their tradnal view of marriage word and ed, and if you terpret the statute that way, ’s gog to unleash lots of lawsus agast them, ” Goodrich the Supreme Court has specifilly said preventg racial discrimatn is a pellg ernment tert that jtifi rtrictg First Amendment eedoms, he noted that the Supreme Court has rejected such a fdg on discrimatn agast gay or transgenr people. Over the past four s, the natn has seen an explosn of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) activism, now touchg nearly every llege mp.

We are bted to anizatns such as Camp Pri for rourc such as the 2010 State of Higher Edutn for Lbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgenr People, a survey nducted wh more than 5, 000 stunts, faculty and staff at lleg and universi all 50 stat, which let rponnts intify their sexual inty, genr inty and genr exprsn multiple perceptns of mp climate for LGBT people at a particular stutn n have an impact on LGBT stunts and faculty there. “Today’s cisive lg will help ensure that LGBTQ tors n fully participate school life, ee om fear, and help build school muni that enurage rpect and support for all stunts and tors, no matter their sexual orientatn, genr inty, or genr exprsn, ” Eliza Byard, the executive director of GLSEN, formerly the Gay, Lbian, and Straight Edutn Network, said a statement. But opponents to those laws tend to attack gay teachers their mpaigns, sayg that protectg them would endanger California, for example, 1978, state Sen.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARD ADOPTS SOCIAL STUDI TEXTBOOKS THAT CLU GAY RIGHTS AFTER WARNGS OM ERNOR

John Briggs sponsored a ballot referendum that tried to ban lbian and gay people om workg the state’s public schools, argug that openly gay teachers uld “entice young imprsnable children to their liftyle.

COLUMN: HOW 2.8 LN CALIFORNIA VOTERS NEARLY BANNED GAY TEACHERS OM PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Pl, Mn., voters rejected ordanc that would have protected gay and lbian workers om discrimatn, wh teachers at the foreont of the 2018, 32 percent of non-LGBTQ Amerins said they would be “very” or “somewhat” unfortable if their child had an LGBTQ teacher, acrdg to a survey by GLAAD and the Harris Poll. A parent plaed that Bailey was “promotg the homosexual agenda, ” and a statement, the Mansfield Inpennt school district said nversatns about sexual orientatn are not age-appropriate for elementary stunts, and “parents have the right to ntrol the nversatn wh their children.

” Image: Josh Thompson, a gay man, teach at Blacksburg High School Blacksburg, Va., a state that until the Supreme Court’s June 15 cisn had no employment discrimatn protectns for LGBTQ workers. A Southern California school board on Friday adopted a social studi curriculum that clus gay rights that was approved by parents and teachers after ially rejectg . “Unr the headg ‘Protts, ’ one paragraph discs gay rights California and unr the headg ‘Court Cas, ’ there are two paragraphs that discs the urt s that allowed gay marriage California.

She said a supplemental rource lists Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist and polician who was assassated 1978, along wh San Francis Mayor Gee Mosne.

GAY TEACHERS

In 1978, Proposn 6 roiled California, ptg the gay rights movement agast the state’s moralists and brachild, if you n ll that, of State Sen. Briggs was spired to lnch the iative by sger Ana Bryant’s homophobic “Save Our Children” mpaign a year earlier Florida’s Da did California need to ban homosexuals om teachg s schools? In an terview wh the Los Angel Tim’ Robert Scheer, he claimed that San Francis’s welfare rolls were growg bee homosexuals “tend to have more tert their sexual activi than workg.

“Believe or not, ” said Briggs, “right now California, a teacher n stand up the classroom and say he is homosexual and troduce his wife, Harry, and not a sgle thg n be done about . ”You n wre Briggs off as a nut or a Neanrthal, but fact he reprented lns of people a televised bate, Gearhart asked Briggs why he wanted to remove homosexuals om schools “when is more than overwhelmgly te that is the heterosexual men … that are the child molters? It was probably not the work of Gearhart and Milk that won the day so much as a late--the-game statement opposg the ballot measure by a former ernor and future print, Ronald Reagan, acrdg to Dudley Clenden and Adam Nagourney “Out for Good, ” their history of the gay rights movement Ameri.

“Whatever else is, homosexualy is not a ntag disease like the measl, ” Reagan wrote a lumn the Los Angel Herald-Examer jt before the electn.

GAY SUBSTUTE TEACHER SAYS HE WAS FIRED AFTER HANDG OUT PRI BRACELETS TO STUNTS

Ined, Amanda Machado wr The Plight of Beg a Gay Teacher The Atlantic that gay teachers were equently fired when state tn partments purged their rolls of LGBT teachers. As the Supreme Court noted s cisn which ma same-sex marriage legal, "Well to the 20th century, many Stat nmned same-sex timacy as immoral, and homosexualy was treated as an illns.

THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER

" The Supreme Court cisn of June 26, 2015, legalizg same-sex marriag has had a major impact on how gay and lbian cizens are treated legally. That is certaly the se wh the perceptn of gay and lbian this vio, David Wton, CEO of the Teacher Development Tst and former science and maths teacher, talks about g out as an LGBT and lbian teachersWe have always had gay and lbian teachers.

How do gay and lbian teachers negotiate their profsnal and sexual inti at work, given that the inti are nstcted as mutually exclive, even as mutually opposed? Usg terviews and other ethnographic materials om Texas and California, School’s Out explor how teachers stggle to create a classroom persona that balanc who they are and what’s expected of them a climate of pervasive homophobia.

Cathere Connell’s examatn of the tensn between the rhetoric of gay pri and the profsnal ethic of discretn sightfully nnects and nsirs plitg factors, om lol law and polics to genr privilege. By Cathere Connell, thor of School’s Out: Gay and Lbian Teachers the Classroom This Q&A, origally published by Boston Universy Today, is posted  advance of the Amerin Soclogil Associatn nference  Chigo.

A TEXAS TEACHER FAC LOSG HER JOB AFTER FIGHTG FOR GAY PRI SYMBOLS SCHOOL

"—Women's Review of Books“Cathere Connell’s study of gay and lbian teachers California and Texas giv the lie to the ia that the closet is no longer relevant Amerin culture. ”—Arlene Ste, Department of Soclogy, Rutgers Universy “Through terviews wh and observatns of public school teachers California and Texas, Cathere Connell brilliantly highlights how—unr the guise of ‘profsnalism’—gay and lbian teachers are subject to homophobilly motivated disciple and dismissal. “Cathere Connell’s fascatg study of teachers’ classroom experienc wh g out reveals the challeng and opportuni faced by lbian and gay teachers.

This clear and sightful book rais important qutns for tors, policy makers, scholars, and activists about what a gay- or queer-iendly school means and which strategi are tly transformative.

TEACHER: I WAS FIRED FOR BEG GAY. NOW IT CAN’T HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE

From Gay-Friendly to Queer-Friendly: New Possibili for Schools Appendix A: Methodology Appendix B: Interview Schle for Teachers Not Referenc Inx. A gay Oh substute teacher was fired last week after handg out Pri bracelets to high school stunts, the latt example of LGBTQ discsn schools sparkg ntroversy amid heated bat school boards and stat around the untry. In 1978, the state of California proposed a law—a ballot measure wily known as the Briggs Iniative—which would've prohibed openly gay and lbian teachers om workg the state’s public schools.

In five stat—Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virgia—gay people n get legally married but also legally fired by an employer for beg gay, a Washgton Post map shows. In San Bernado, California, for example, a lbian teacher challenged her school district urt wh help om the Amerin Civil Liberti Unn, allegg that she was fired after attemptg to help the school’s Gay Straight Alliance chapter. "My stunts mostly e om Caribbean scent, where homosexualy is tradnally owned upon, " said Lamar Shambley, a sixth-gra math teacher New York who hasn’t e out to his stunts.

Although the Amerin Psychologil Associatn and numero other rearch anizatns have nclud that homosexualy do not make someone more likely to sexually abe children, Conservative anizatns such the Fay Rearch Council and the Amerin College of Pediatricians—a group that requir s members to "hold te to the group's re beliefs of the tradnal fay un" before jog—argue that homosexualy is a threat to uld help expla why LGBT teachers who are married or mted relatnships sometim enjoy a level of legimacy and acceptance that sgle gay teachers often fail to secure. "But many LGBT teachers argue that nversatns about personal matters do happen classrooms all the time, that 's only bee society promot heterosexualy—vers homosexualy—as normal that discsns related to a teacher's sexual orientatn are kept out of class, of Teach for Ameri, agre that for herself and her lleagu, beg the closet wh an extra layer of work—and strs.