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Insight42 t1_ix4lr6b wrote

Reply to comment by PM_ur_Rump in Paramore Had Lots Of Fun Protesting The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law At Their Florida Show by [deleted]

Exactly. "Absolutely no sex education before 3rd grade" is a pointless law - who exactly is teaching kindergartners about sex? - but that's a reasonable stance.

Unfortunately that is not what the law actually states: "[c]lassroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate."

This, of course, is overly vague.

What constitutes instruction - answering a student question? A discussion of a topic? A full lesson?

What kind of specific content are we addressing - the existence of LGBTQ people? What that term means? Gender roles and place in culture? Sex education?

Who decides what's age or developmentally appropriate? How do we decide this for an entire class of kids in later grades?

Nothing here is nailed down at all, and attempts to do so were quickly shot down to intentionally keep the language vague. This gives the bill the quality of having equally viable interpretations: one can correctly say that it prevents discussion of safe sex with kindergartners (good!) as well as discussions of historical figures such as Joan of Arc (who have defied gender roles of their time - which may or may not be part of the banned instruction) straight up to graduation.

It is true that the law does not specifically state that you can't say gay. It's also true that it's vague enough that this is an entirely reasonable interpretation of the restrictions placed upon teachers in any grade; since any arbitrary breach will result in penalty, it is indeed safer to simply never come close to any topic even tangentially related to sex or gender in any way.

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PM_ur_Rump t1_ix4ou97 wrote

I generally agree, with all of this, though still think it's funny how squicky people get about discussing sex with kids in general. Like, yes, nobody is teaching kindergarteners about safe sex or sex toys or positions or anything explicit about the act. But kids from a pretty young age are completely capable of learning about the fact that it's a thing, it's (usually) how they came to be, and that it's a very personal subject that they themselves have control over regarding their own bodies. The more educated kids are about sex, the less likely they are to make risky decisions or allow someone to "groom" or otherwise take advantage of them. Actual "groomers" love it when young people are uneducated in the matter. And as for the whole "why would an unrelated adult want to talk to kids about sex, that's the parent's job" argument, most sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by family members, not teachers. The teachers are more likely to stop it than family is.

It's weird how there is this major, almost ubiquitous, often risky factor in life that we often attempt to completely hide from children until they stumble through it themselves unprepared. All because people are either so afraid of being seen as the "creep" or "groomer" or so afraid of the idea that their children will be doing it themselves someday, which ironically, is something they also pray for in the form of grandchildren.

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Insight42 t1_ix6e0px wrote

In fact - we used to. Not in great detail, but we used to; it's pretty much what you said. I grew up in the 80s, which was this time everyone seems to look back on with crazy nostalgia. And some of the other similarly old people out there might remember this whole thing we had back then called an AIDS epidemic.

We had assemblies at school to talk about it. Videos in the classroom. All sorts of stories all over the media explaining that if you have sex, you have to be safe. Songs on the radio. Famous athletes, musicians - hell, your favorite cartoon characters were out there telling you about it. This led to a huge bump in sex ed all through the 90s (at least in blue states) which were well thought out and highly regarded. This was replaced during Dubya's reign in most places for abstinence only, but it very much existed prior to the backlash.

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