Well, if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
signs the states don't say gay bill,
the law would soon take effect this
summer in fact, but no one quite
knows the full extent of what would
happen and that might be the point.
Joining me now are two members of
the Kuhla Association of Seattle,
Dana Savage and Jeremy Walker.
Thanks to you both for being here.
Thank you, so we've heard a lot
about this bill being called.
Don't say gay. What would it actually do?
So that is an interesting question because.
Bill Bill is very intentionally
written to be vague.
What it would do is ban in
K through three education.
The discussion of any kind of LGBTQ,
plus identities with children and then
as children go into further grades,
it would make it so that the schools
are not allowed to discuss anything
that would be deemed inappropriate with
respect to gender identity or sexuality.
And then on top of that,
if a child expresses any sort of.
I guess like leanings towards
being queer of any kind,
then it would require the teacher to
report it to them to the parents,
and so it's basically like a forcible
outing of children in the bills.
And yeah,
and that could be very dangerous
for a child who is struggling
with their own sexuality.
They may not have a safe
environment for them to, you know,
grow up and you know to go home to and
back and lead to all sorts of issues.
Scary, scary, scary things.
You mentioned it was
written vague on purpose.
From a legal standpoint,
why would that be done?
It would be done that way specifically
to try and survive any kind of
challenges in the Supreme Court.
This has been a new trend that we are
seeing across conservative lawmaking
circles where rather than writing
bills that specifically outlaw
or criminalize certain behavior,
they make it so that folks can
interpret it all wishy washy.
And when you go into conservative
areas where there's control there.
That means they get carte blanche
authority to interpret it.
Another thing that's really vague
about this bill that I forgot to
mention is it also allows students
to sue schools that provide their
kid with inappropriate education.
So it's another take on the
bounty system that we're seeing,
like out of Texas.
So this would mean teachers could
be attacked, possibly for teaching
anything that has to do with being gay.
Well, the school would get
attacked, but yeah, by extension
the teacher. Yes, yes.
Jeremy, you grew up in the
South as a gay young man.
How would a law like this have
impacted your experience?
So I actually didn't come to terms
with my sexuality until I was older,
but imagine growing up in an environment
where it's not OK for you to be you,
you know. Fortunately,
I had the opportunity to move away,
you know, and grow into to
myself for these children.
They can't do that.
So that could be incredibly
damaging to the growing up into
the person that you should be.
Well that was just, you know,
a topic we talked about earlier.
If you don't know if no
one is talking about this,
how do you know if you are OK?
If you're normal and without
that you can really get into
some dangerous territory, right?
Definitely definitely.
What do you expect to see on
this from like challenges,
legal challenges that standpoint?
Well, it's going to depend on
how it is enforced. Ultimately,
if it does get signed into law,
if it is being used the way
that the lawmakers and Governor
DeSantis are purporting,
it's going to be because, again,
it's very neutral language.
Then we we are going to see
challenges by folks like the ACLU.
There's also gonna be a lot of Title
9 violations for sex discrimination,
and I think our state Supreme Court,
not our state.
Sorry our national Supreme
Court has been very clear,
at least in this realm that they
consider gender identity and sexuality
to consist of sexual discrimination.
And so I would expect that if
it's being used in that way,
that they can find a discriminatory
effect or purpose in writing it.
But until that point,
families are going to suffer.
Not only that,
you know what's going to happen
when you've got children that are?
Are you know of a queer family
that they have two moms or two
dads or one parent is trans?
Can they not talk about that?
Their family in class while
everyone else is sharing what their,
what their they did over summer break?
And so in?
In general,
it's going to have a very chilling
and silencing effect until
it gets sorted out
until it gets sorted out.
But let's talk about the
argument on the other side.
They say this is about empowering
parents and them having a say
in the education. How is that?
Argument, either strong or flawed.
I disagree with that.
School does teach you some things,
but a lot of education happens at home,
so I don't think it's about
empowering the parents.
I really think it's about trying to
delegitimize one group trying to say,
look, we're going to talk about
these things, but not not this.
So I think it's discriminatory in its effect.
Are you seeing any national
trends in this area? I mean,
I know you all are watching this culot.
Yes, not only in this bill,
but for instance in Idaho.
They're trying to criminalize.
The treatment of transgender youths,
and especially you know in my day job,
which I'm here as President of Kula.
But my day job I I work at.
The attorney general's
office in child protection.
So when I see things of of this caliber,
I just all of my wheels start
turning alarms going off where?
How how can a A a government decide
what's best for children decide
what's best for an individual
family on such a systemic level,
and the answer is they can't,
but they're going to try anyways,
and so Idaho is trying to get rid
of any kind of gender firming
treatment for trans children.
You know Texas.
They just recently got stopped from
doing that with that executive order,
which you know there's the
injunction in place,
but we don't know if that's
going to get struck down or not.
As it goes through the chords and it may
be the same thing that happened with.
The the Supreme Court with
the the abortion bill.
The heartbeat bill where they're
just gonna decline to rule on it
unless and until something gets to
them on the merits at the very end.
And so we may find ourselves in a
situation where if any one of these
survives like the heartbeat bill did,
then you're going to see just a whole.
A bunch of states running running
the gamut of these bills.
OK,
we only have about 30 seconds left.
What organizations or what can
anyone do that want to take action
or or let their voice be heard?
I would say don't be a silent ally.
This is a time to be vocal.
This is a time to donate
to various organizations.
Yeah, just like stay involved.
Stay aware I I think
that's the the the best way
and we thank you so much for
coming on the show to help others.
Be aware thank you so much and thank
you for spending time with us today.
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