High school GSA presidents continue to carry the entire LGBTQ+ community on their backs, as one high school student demonstrated in a viral video from this past weekend.
On Sunday, 17-year-old Will Larkins posted a short clip of themself educating their fourth period U.S. history class on the history of the Stonewall riots. This might be otherwise unremarkable if it wasn’t for the fact that Larkins attends Winter Park High School in Florida, the state that recently signed a so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law. The law outright bans discussion of gender and sexuality in kindergarten through third grade classes, or “age-inappropriate” discussions of seuxality or gender at any educational level. And judging from the number of insane conservative replies to Larkins’ tweet, including accusations of pedophilia and grooming, it’s safe to say that “age-appropriate” discussion of LGBTQ+ issues amounts to none at all in the eyes of the proponents of the law.
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Larkins’ school was studying the ‘60s and ‘70s period of U.S. history when they noticed that their curriculum did not include anything about the Stonewall riots, which are widely considered the spark that lit the fire of the queer and trans liberation movement. When Larkins asked if they were going to learn about it, their teacher responded that they didn’t know what Stonewall was. That’s why Larkins tweeted that “LGBTQ American history is not taught in Floridas public schools, so [he] took it upon [himself]” to educate his peers, ending the tweet with a #SayGayAnyway hashtag.
In the video, Larkins stands in front of a classroom, explaining a PowerPoint presentation while wearing a red dress and a white jacket. This led people in the comments to ask Larkins why they were wearing a dress, to which they responded “because I wanted to,” accompanied by a few different pictures of them wearing other dresses and skirts.
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Larkins says they’ve also engaged in plenty of external activism against the Don’t Say Gay legislation as well. According to the Washington Post, he’s not only the president of the Queer Student Alliance, but is also one of its founders. He also testified against the bill at its final Senate hearing and led over 500 students in walking out of school to protest the legislation. In fact, as this article was being written, Larkins was leading a voter registration drive for seniors who will be eligible to vote in the forthcoming midterms at their high school.
He’s just one of a number of students in Florida and nationwide who are protesting the bill’s chilling effects on LGBTQ+ visibility and education. From Stroudsburg, Florida to Avondale Estates, Georgia to Marin County, California, rallies and walkouts have drawn widespread attention to the legislation, which has also triggered a federal lawsuit and the creation of pro-LGBTQ+ resources and ad campaigns across the state. Yet with similar bills now being introduced or considered in state legislatures like Ohio, Louisiana, and Texas, it’s clear that the fight to ensure LGBTQ+ equality in education is just getting started.
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