The Miami-Dade County School board voted against recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month, according to ABC News. The month hasn’t been recognized on the federal level, like Black History Month. However, against students’ wishes, the board declined their ability to acknowledge the history of the LGBTQ for just four weeks.
The Parental Rights in Education bill requires a student’s parents to be in the loop about the policies a school district or board decides to adopt. Though, we know this bill is really just the product of a group of white parents who think racism and gender studies is a detriment to the education system. Gov. DeSantis hasn’t been helping.
In the school board meeting, students and parents voiced their concerns in a tense debate about whether October should be recognized as LGBTQ History Month. According to Local 10 News, tensions rose. “Why are you pressuring our students to pick a sexuality at 11 years old?!” said one parent, tearfully.
“Some of you in this room may have children that are gay. You may not know it but please I hope you support them,” said another parent.
More on the six-hour meeting from ABC News:
Andrea S. Pita Mendez, the 17-year-old school board’s student advisor, said after weeks of speaking to students, to teachers and others, she hoped the board would pass the initiative.
“Our students want this to pass,” said Mendez, who is not a voting member of the board. In an impassioned speech that stoked both applause and upset, Mendez told the board that LGBTQ history plays an important role in U.S. history.
“I heard many of you speak of the fact that in your generations this wasn’t seen, this wasn’t heard – you grew up in a very different time than we are,” she said.
Though the country is highly polarized, she said it “does not take away from the fact that we are the ones that sit in those classrooms, that we embrace diversity and inclusivity because we do love each other and we do support each other and we do want to see each other go very far in the world.”
The resolution regarding LGBTQ History Month wasn’t as extreme as people were assuming. Schools were encouraged to go about teaching about LGBTQ history as if it was Black History Month - which you know was already a watered down, washed over version anyway.
Florida is swiftly becoming an unsafe state for LGBTQ youth. Right in their faces, their schools are turning their backs on them, refusing to help them learn more about their history and identities because of a few fussy cis-gender parents.