Eachsingleday, conservatives attempt new methods to make the queer group much less seen through the use of the language of indoctrination. In lots of circumstances, it’s by spreading the idea that cisgender straight folks might be influenced into “turning” homosexual or transgender. On Tuesday, the Central Bucks faculty board, which oversees the third-largest faculty district in Pennsylvania, exemplified this concept by banning lecturers from displaying rainbow flags as half of a bigger effort to cease educators from advocating for “political” points.
The Central Bucks faculty board is simply the most recent group to border LGBTQ-plus folks as polarizing political topics, quite than precise folks simply attempting to dwell. Prior to now yr, districts in Wisconsin, Michigan and New York have all cracked down on delight flags in colleges, sometimes citing the idea that they're political in nature.
At first look, the logic behind banning political symbols at college might sound cheap sufficient. The issue is that the delight flag doesn’t symbolize a single establishment, neither is it a harmful device to push a political agenda; it's a community-driven image of humanity and inclusion that may point out to college students of all gender and sexual identities that they're in a welcoming and open-minded area.
What’s extra, it could actually present queer college students that they're in an area that gained’t be actively hostile towards them. In a 2019 survey, the training group GLSEN discovered that 86% of LGBTQ college students skilled harassment or assault at college. The group has additionally stated that LGBTQ college students who've supportive educators skip fewer lessons and get higher grades.
You may’t indoctrinate somebody into the LGBTQ group, and queer visibility is a human rights problem, not an ideological one. Not like a political group, there isn't a central LGBTQ organ, headquarters or single consultant whom LGBTQ folks take orders from (besides possibly Cher). For these causes and plenty of others, the designation of delight flags as political symbols doesn’t make a lot sense. The argument is one more pretense to pathologize and exclude queer and trans folks and to impress voters towards a standard enemy.
It’s exhausting to not see parallels between what conservatives are doing and what some violently oppressive international locations do to justify silencing the queer group. For instance, finally yr’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar, followers stated they have been prohibited from taking rainbow flags into soccer stadiums. Seeing the U.S. mirror elements of totalitarian nations shouldn’t simply be regarding for queer folks; it ought to freak everybody out.
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