Tennessee ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Now Requires Teachers To Inform Parents If Their Child Is Gay

From Think Progress, courtesy of AlterNet:

The bill, SB 234, still bars Tennessee teachers from discussing any facet of “non-heterosexual” sexuality with children in grades K-8. But the newest iteration also includes a provision requiring teachers or counselors to inform the parents of some students who identify themselves as LGBT. State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R), who authored the bill the first time around and again introduced it this time, calls out students who might be “at risk,” but leaves the interpretation of that behavior to the teacher

More here.

This is totally awful for all sorts of reasons, with the suicide factor, as observed by the article, being only one of many.  But the thing that occurs to me first is how I might deal with this bullshit if I was still teaching.  Okay, I was teaching in Texas, not Tennessee, but Texas gets loopy like this, too, so it's worth considering.  Especially because I really am thinking of returning to teaching in the Lone Star State in a year or so.

So how would I handle this?

For starters, back in the day, I made some effort to make my classroom gay friendly.  This was mostly in the form of rhetoric, hassling people with misconceptions, going after people who said "fag" and the like with venom in their voices, but I also had a poster or two up on the walls with some out gay celebrity of some sort.  So that's the context in which I would have to handle this, one where I'm already known as someone who strongly supports gay rights.  And given such a persona, I would have to put my money where my mouth is.

First thing I would do is warn all my students.  I would tell them about the law, and assert that they cannot trust anyone in the schools with any institutional power.  Just don't talk about it.  If you need counseling, find somebody outside the schools to do it.  Maybe I would make some literature with information about this available, or maybe just post links to websites.  But overall, I would do my damnedest to let my kids know that they cannot trust any school authority, that school authority is required by the law to rat them out to their families.

Of course, there's also the matter of the law itself and my own personal relationship with it as a teacher.  But that's easy.  Given my firm belief that sexuality is fluid, and that everyone is potentially gay, or, at least, bisexual, given the circumstances of their lives, I would feel duty-bound to report every single one of my students to their parents.  All of them.  Hopefully this would not only allow me to stay within the letter of the law, but it would also give some cover to students who are actually actively exploring their sexual orientations--if everyone is guilty, then everyone is innocent, right?  And, ideally, it would make the law look like the bullshit it is.

Would they fire me over this?  Maybe, but not without a lot of trouble and unwanted attention.  I mean, like I said, such action would keep me within the letter of the law, and my employers would be hard pressed to get the necessary paperwork together to get me ousted.  At least, on this.  Sure, I wouldn't be making any friends in the administration, but why should I when they're enforcing a heinous and potentially deadly fucked up redneck homophobic law?  They should squirm.  It's what they get.  No sympathy from me on this.

Actually, this kind of has me raring to get back into the classroom.  Got to fight the good fight.

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