Okay, so you know the Don’t Say Gay bill in Florida? The one that prohibits “gender ideology” in schools?
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
The words “he” and “she” are gender identities. “Mister” and “Missus” are gender identities. It’s illegal for a teacher in Florida to introduce themself as Mr or Mrs. It’s illegal for a teacher in Florida to tell a student another child’s pronouns, even inadvertently.
If a concern is not resolved by the school district, a parent may …. Bring an action against the school district to obtain a declaratory judgment that the school district procedure or practice violates this paragraph and seek injunctive relief. A court may award damages and shall award reasonable attorney fees and court costs to a parent who receives declaratory or injunctive relief.
As far as I can tell, this is exactly the kind of situation the Satanic Temple exists to help with. All it takes is one single parent in Florida to ask the Satanic Temple’s help suing a school for using the words “he” and “she” in the classroom.
BOOM. Overnight, the headlines “DeSantis law forces school to use gender neutral pronouns” would appear. It would be the biggest scandal and loss of face for the Republican party in the eyes of their voters since ever.
Why hasn’t this already been done?
No it doesn’t. What if I’m a woman who prefers Mr as my title.
No they aren’t. These words tell you the gender identity of someone, but they don’t explain what gender identity is.
Using words like “Mr,” “Mrs,” “man,” “she,” etc. does not constitute “classroom instruction … on … gender identity.”
If a teacher puts their lunchbag under their desk, they aren’t necessarily giving instruction on object permanence. Just because a psychological concept is associated with an act or phrase does not mean that the mere presence of this act or phrase in a classroom constitutes “instruction” on that act or phrase.
So you’re making the argument that if I were a Florida teacher, I introduced myself as Mx Endocrinous, wore nonbinary and trans and gay flag pins, had an it/its pronoun pin, and referred to myself as dronegender, this would all be perfectly legal so long as I didn’t explain what any of these words or symbols meant?
Nope, because now you’ve started to provide more information than is necessary to identify yourself.
My interpretations of the Florida law for your examples, but of course I’m not a lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, and my interpretation of the law is different than what I believe is ethical:
This is fine. You’re just giving students knowledge to identify yourself.
I think this is probably on the borderline, but I don’t believe the law would allow this. You’re conveying information beyond what the students need to know to identify you.
On the other hand, I think the law also prevents someone from wearing anti-trans and anti-gay flag pins (if those exist? I’m not up-to-date on hate symbols).
Legal IMO. At it’s core, it’s just two English words on a pin which have meaning far outside the sphere of gender identity. If you’re using it to indicate how students should refer to you, it’s also legal IMO.
Not legal IMO. It’s outside of the basic information necessary to have a conversation with or about you.
I don’t personally this is a particularly good law, but I also don’t believe it is as restrictive as you’ve described it. And I’m not a lawyer. The law is written about “classroom instruction,” so as long as what you’re doing doesn’t constitute that, you’re fine. The difficulty, as you’ve pointed out, is defining what that means.
Well if the bare minimum is identification, then all you need is a first name and a last name. No gendered pronouns or titles necessary.