State education committee drops guidance on LGBTQ inclusion after handful of adults whine

This post was originally published on this site

We know LGBTQ+ rights are under attack. While some allies relaxed after marriage equality became the law of the land a few years back, the reality is LGBTQ+ people have continued to face oppression, discrimination, and violence—especially queer people who live with multiple marginalized identities, like queer trans people of color and trans unhoused folks. LGBTQ+ youth have also continued to report higher rates of bullying and harassment than their non-queer peers, with trans youth in particular facing an onslaught of hateful legislation based around health care and sports.

Thanks largely to Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his discriminatory Don’t Say Gay bill, a number of conservatives across the nation are eager to push similar legislation. There’s also an overlap with the critical race theory (CRT) hysteria and the big push to pull and ban books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color. These decisions don’t always have to get to the governor’s desk, either. One committee in Colorado, for example, which reports to the state’s board of education, recently made the call to eliminate guidance to direct social studies teachers to cover LGBTQ+ issues at every grade level, as reported by Colorado Public Radio. This decision is the result of a minority of parents making an enormous fuss, by the way.

RELATED: Dad says stranger spewed anti-LGBTQ hate at his young children while trapped on a train

Here’s how this went down: Back in November, the committee proposed that teachers should make an effort to highlight more diverse communities including LGBTQ+ folks, Black, Indigenous, and Latino populations in social studies and civics classes. They also proposed changes to how genocides, including the Holocaust, are covered. Makes sense.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

In Colorado, academic standards are reviewed every six years. These reviews can, of course, involve revisions. And it’s not just social studies and civics; for example, right now art, music, dance, drama, and visual arts are being reviewed. Next up includes health, physical education, languages, and computer science. Overall, these standards are supposed to establish baseline norms for what students will learn at each grade level before advancing to the next, but school districts create their own curriculums. Again, makes sense. 

According to the outlet, the committee received “hundreds” of responses via public comment, which were largely submitted online. These comments were reportedly positive, except those from 11 people whose responses made up nearly 50% of replies. About 25% of that feedback did not want to see these moves be more inclusive. In particular, comments said they didn’t want to see LGBTQ+ content taught in lower grades, leading the committee to remove references to LGBTQ+ issues for fourth-graders and below.

Mind you, there were still plenty of respondents who were either happy about the LGBTQ+ inclusion or indifferent to it. 

Democrat Karla Esser, who serves the 7th District, told the outlet that removing LGBTQ+ identities and references leads to gender stereotypes. “We genderize kids beginning in preschool,” she told CPR, saying that adults assume girls will play with dolls and boys will play with trucks.

Lisa Escárcega, who serves the 1st District, said they must be “bold” in supporting LGBTQ+ students along with all other students.

Even still, LGBTQ+ content was removed because enough committee members saw it as sex education, not a matter of inclusion or exclusion. Mind you, this comes down to people seeing LGBTQ+ identities and histories as inherently sexual and therefore inappropriate. And that feeds into the dangerous “grooming” rhetoric the right has been pushing lately.

There is nothing inappropriate about being LGBTQ+. Students, teachers, family members, neighbors, and other community members are queer, no matter where you live, or no matter how “out” they are to folks while at work or at school. Children do not “turn” or “become” queer because they see or hear LGBTQ+ people discussed in a positive way—they simply don’t hate themselves or their friends. 

But when it comes down to it, conservatives would love nothing more than to teach hate as young as possible, so it’s nice and embedded in the brains of developing children, who they hope will grow up and vote red. And if that sounds overly harsh, remember that conservatives build platforms and win entire elections by weaponizing their hate.