https://hechingerreport.org/in-the-wake-of-dont-say-gay-lgbtq-students-wont-be-silenced/ Covering Innovation & Inequality in Education Sat, 16 Jul 2022 00:03:24 +0000 hourly 1 https://hechingerreport.org/in-the-wake-of-dont-say-gay-lgbtq-students-wont-be-silenced/comment-page-1/#comment-40109 Sat, 16 Jul 2022 00:03:24 +0000 https://hechingerreport.org/?p=87270#comment-40109 Did you honestly just write a whole article about backlash against the “don’t say gay bill”, without mentioning that this name is a gross mischaracterization of the bill, and that all it does is ensure that children don’t get taught sexual materials up to 3rd grade? Nor that the context for these bills is an exponential and unprecedented growth in the number of adolescents asking for hormone therapy? This article is extremely irresponsible. Parents’ apprehension about confusing sexual content taught to young children is well founded given the extreme and alarming growth and makeup in the population of those identifying as transgenders, and this article dismisses it with factually incorrect statements, a confusion of a complex issue with the completely different issue of gay rights, and an incomplete picture of the shifting reality.

]]> https://hechingerreport.org/in-the-wake-of-dont-say-gay-lgbtq-students-wont-be-silenced/comment-page-1/#comment-39786 Fri, 01 Jul 2022 19:41:09 +0000 https://hechingerreport.org/?p=87270#comment-39786 Dear Ariel Gilreath:
Thank you for your story, for giving these youths a voice. Although, I read these kids still focus on their future, it is disheartening for me to hear these same stories I have been living throughout my life; I am now retired, served 4 years in the Navy, did some college, then had a successful 30 year career in business management, fortunately for me, I had a mentor for my first 20 years, rare for someone who gave this kid a chance. I did not learn till 2010 that I had been living with PTSD, until things came to a head, and I just had to deal with what happened, how my upbringing forced me to accept the way I am, I also learned that no one person, not my parent, teachers, clergy, classmates, or sibling, not to mention complete strangers, was to blame for my woes. The problem is our society, our culture, and the church, and as long as these three continue to talk about the lgbtq community as ‘one of them’ we will always be second class citizens. Granted, some of keep hope in our perspective, maybe we wish and pray for a better day, maybe we learn while young enough to appreciate, that All lives matter; sadly, many of us turn to alcohol, substance abuse, we develop an excessive behavior on multiple levels, we attempt suicide, some succeed, and some just give up, become reclusive. What I have learned is that I am not alone, and we can survive our upbringing, but it does come with a price; I learned many years ago, that I couldn’t be gay/homosexual, I was unsuccessful at heterosexuality, and that I really did not fit, but in order to survive, I follow a thin line between the two; what makes my heart go out for others is when I read article’s by scholastically trained journalists, who make a hit with their readers by making light of all the jokes, sayings, comments about how what we do is so gay, or a parent/guardian who tortures their child to the point of death, just to break them from who they really are. I know there are parents who are loving, teach self respect, confidence, responsibility, compassion, encouragement, and many of these kids grow up with abilities within themselves to rise above, but what about those of us who had 1 out of every hundred, or those of us who had no safe harbor, and all we learned was resentment, now pick up the pieces, get out there and live.
Gerard

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