Florida's new "Don't Say Gay" law is now in effect. That means Florida schools can't discuss "sexual orientation or gender identity ... in a manner that is not age appropriate." This vague wording could prohibit or scare teachers from referencing LGBTQ people at all and from providing support when kids explore their identities or come out.
For LGBTQ kids in Florida, things are about to get a lot worse. And they weren't great to begin with, as journalist Nico Lang reported for HuffPost.
They talked to LGBTQ students in Florida about bullying and the lack of support they already face in school, as well as their fears about what will happen next.
We asked Lang about the report.
You spoke to a number of students for your piece. How did you find teens willing to share their stories?
I probably emailed everyone with a pulse in the state of Florida to find young people to speak with for this piece: LGBTQ advocacy groups, lawmakers and virtually any person I happen to know in the area. My mode as a journalist is to speak to as many people as possible for my reporting, and I interviewed a dozen students for this piece. Only a handful of those conversations made it into the final copy, and I think that illustrates that even this piece — as troubling and distressing as it may be — is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. For every student who was willing to go on the record to talk about the overwhelming bullying and harassment they experience, there are countless more like them.
What patterns stood out to you from their experiences?
I sometimes say that you know you have a story when all your sources start telling you the same thing. What I was most struck by is that even though these students span a wide range of geographies across the state, their experiences were so similar to one another. So many of the young people I spoke to experienced absolutely relentless abuse from their peers — everything from being stalked on campus to rape and death threats — and found that the adults in charge were unequipped to deal with the incidents in a meaningful way. To me, that suggested the real harm of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law: LGBTQ students have found, again and again, that no one is willing to stick up for them, and this policy gives schools an excuse to ignore the psychological violence they already endure on a daily basis.
What do you hope readers take away from the story?
The LGBTQ community is sometimes a victim of its own progress. Because dedicated LGBTQ activists have made so many critical strides toward equality in recent decades — culminating in a pair of historic rulings from the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage and workplace discrimination — it can seem as if the battle has been won. Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law is proof that isn't true, and these students' experiences further testify to the work that remains left to be done. As a reporter working in LGBTQ news for 10 years, I admit to sometimes being blinded by the myth that it already got better: Before writing this story, there was a part of me that naively clung to the idea that LGBTQ kids, who are part of the queerest generation in history, no longer experienced the bullying I grew up with. I am heartbroken to be so wrong. It's time for all of us to wake up and start being better advocates for them.
