Florida High School Student Under Investigation for Stonewall History Presentation
At Winter Park High School on March 31, 17 year old Will Larkins gave a presentation to their history class on the 1969 Stonewall uprising.
Earlier in the month the class was learning about history from the 60s and 70s in the U. S., and Larkins reportedly asked the teacher if they’d be covering Stonewall. The teacher didn’t know what Stonewall was, so they took the initiative and made a 10 minute PowerPoint presentation on the subject.
The teacher reviewed the PowerPoint presentation Larkins put together before they spoke in front of the class and must have thought it worthy of viewing..
Well, suck my teeth and shush my doggies, some people are upset.
Maybe it wasn’t the content, as Larkins gave the presentation in a dress and pearls.
I somehow think if the subject was the Civil War and the presenter wore a gray soldier outfit there might not have been the same reaction.
Larkins gave a classmate permission to video the event and post it to social media later. That student received a “referral” from school officials. Several other students who filmed the presentation did not.
It’s not like anybody should have been surprised at the content of the presentation, since Larkins, who founded the Winter Park High’s Queer Student Union, has openly opposed Florida’s hateful Don’t Say Gay bill, and organized a walkout for students in protest of the discriminatory legislation.
They’ve also written about their perspective for The New York Times and even testified against the bill in the Senate in Tallahassee, Florida, at the end of February. Now, according to Metro Weekly, Larkins has been moved to a different class and placed under an “investigation.”
Supporters of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis have said the Don’t Say Gay bill is just about students, up to the third grade. They overlook the decidedly vague language in the legislation about age-appropriate curriculum for any level.
From the Washington Post:
Because of the ambiguity of the language used in the legislation, parents of students at any age can sue over perceived violations. Larkins’s fear, he said, is that teachers — even at high school grade levels — will refrain from openly discussing sexuality and gender identity in the classroom to avoid any potential conflicts with parents.
DeSantis and other proponents of the bill have said that the measure is reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with their children. “We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said before signing the bill on March 28.
Ah, the olde “let the parents (not) teach their kids about sex” routine. I’m sure that this concept somehow eluded the parents of hundreds of Boy Scouts that were molested over the years. Or the thousands of young people victimized by their church leaders in the Catholic Church and other institutions.
Who gets to decide what is age appropriate? The law doesn’t say. It’s safe to say its passage has served to inspire bigots nationwide to take up a crusade against LGBTQ+ inclusion since it dovetails into the narratives being pushed about pedophilia design to push outrage.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com