What's the so-lled 'Don't Say Gay' bill that uld impact the whole untry : NPR

Contents:

• WHAT A NATNAL 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL WOULD MEAN FOR TN
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
• IT’S OK TO SAY “GAY” BUT PLEASE DON’T USE OFFENSIVE WORDS LIKE “BOY” OR “GIRL”
• WHAT'S THE SO-LLED DON'T SAY GAY BILL THAT ULD IMPACT THE WHOLE UNTRY
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• LAKERS AMONG TEAMS LKED TO RUDY GAY

WHAT A NATNAL 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL WOULD MEAN FOR TN

I am a gay man of 66 years wh many iends and acquatanc, and know no one who would refer to themselv as queer. Parents would be allowed to file a lawsu agast any public or private enty that feral funds to display or facilate ntent featurg LGBTQ an agency or anizatn vlat the rtrictns more than once a five-year perd, uld lose accs to feral funds for three years, acrdg to the bill specifilly mentns drag shows, which have been the recent target of cricism by nservative groups advotg for laws such as this prott ont of Florida State Senator Ileana Garcia's office after the passage of the Parental Rights Edutn bill, dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by LGBTQ activists Miami, March 09, Raedle/Getty Imag, FILEProposed bill prompts cricismThe bill sparked immediate backlash om some LGBTQ people and activists across the untry, who say this legislatn misreprents the inti as herently sexual, shameful or assert that this kd of legislatn will silence and harm LGBTQ teachers and stunts, while stigmatizg the muny and threateng ferally fund programs on cln.

"A feral 'Don't Say Gay or Trans' bill – moled after the ntroversial discrimatory law Florida and aimg to drive LGBTQ+ fai and teachers out of the tn system – is their latt cel attempt to stigmatize and margalize the muny, not an attempt to solve actual problems but only to rile up their extremist base, " said David Stacy, the ernment affairs director of LGBTQ advocy group Human Rights Campaign. Supporters rally to ph back agast the so-lled "Don't Say Gay" at the Pri Center Wilton Manors, Fla., Feb. Several stat have followed Florida's lead, cludg Alabama, which has implemented so-lled "Don't Say Gay" polici of s own.

Kev Maxen, an assistant ach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, ma sports history after publicly g out as gay. Maxen’s announcement two years after NFL star Carl Nassib beme the league’s first active openly gay player.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

“I jt wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay, ” the former Las Vegas Rairs player, 30, revealed a June 2021 Instagram vio. You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. I me out at a nservative Christian llege the US and was a gay relatnship for around two years wh a basketball player who end up marryg a woman.

Well, you mt have been gay the whole time, some might thk, and bee of some relig shame, you cid to lie to yourself and experiment wh a girl. But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

” Vios started circulatg on the ter featurg gay people askg straight people “when they chose to be straight. ” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy. ”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns.

“Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy.

” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame. In a 2012 terview wh New York Tim Magaze, the actrs sually mentned that homosexualy was, for her, a choice.

IT’S OK TO SAY “GAY” BUT PLEASE DON’T USE OFFENSIVE WORDS LIKE “BOY” OR “GIRL”

“I unrstand that for many people ’s not, but for me ’s a choice, and you don’t get to fe my gayns for me.

Callg me “idtic” and “patently absurd”, Aravosis wrote, “The gay haters at the relig right uldn’t have wrten any better. ”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.

Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays.

WHAT'S THE SO-LLED DON'T SAY GAY BILL THAT ULD IMPACT THE WHOLE UNTRY

In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance. Instead, she suggts hg on the fact that far more people are now personally acquated wh someone who is gay. In 1985, only 24% of Amerin rponnts said they had a gay iend, relative or -worker —  2013, that number was at 75%.

“It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists. Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. And when I published my say on choosg to be gay, an irate Amerin lbian activist wrote me that had “jt been nfirmed” to her that my wrg was “directly rponsible for four gay aths Rsia.

There is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejectedLet’s first be clear that whatever the origs of our sexual orientatn, there is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejected. The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

— but bee they’re qutn of what leads to homosexualy the first place, however, is obscure, even to the experts. The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors.

LAKERS AMONG TEAMS LKED TO RUDY GAY

”Siarly, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn wr a 2013 statement that while the of heterosexualy and homosexualy are currently unknown, they are likely “multifactorial cludg blogil and behavral roots which may vary between different dividuals and may even vary over time. ”Te, var eye-grabbg headl over the years have claimed that some scientists have found somethg like The Gay Gene.

” Acrdg to LeVay’s rearch, a specific part of the bra, the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3), is smaller homosexual men than is heterosexual as they might, scientists have stggled to inty any particular gen that nsistently predict the directns of our love and sire (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Read moreYou n spot the problem wh this study a e away: were the gay bras LeVay studied born that way, or did they bee that way? Another landmark paper on the origs of homosexualy was published 1993 by a geicist named Dean Hamer, who was terted to learn whether homosexualy uld be hered. Begng om his observatn that there are more gay relativ on a mother’s si than a father’s, Hamer turned his attentn to the X chromosome (which is passed on by the mother).

”A 2015 study sought to nfirm Hamer’s fdgs, this time wh a much larger sample: 409 pairs of gay brothers. ”And as Allen pots out, there have also been studi that found no “X-lked gene unrlyg male homosexualy.