As a result of the state’s new “Don’t Say Gay” law, a Florida school district has adopted new rules requiring staff to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents.
The Sarasota County School District, which covers 62 schools with over 42,000 students, quietly adopted new guidelines this week requiring all staff members to notify parents if a child tells them they are gay or if they request to use a different name or pronouns than indicated in their records.
Craig Maniglia, the communications director for the district, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that Superintendent Brennan Asple created the guidelines without a board vote to comply with Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, popularly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which took effect in July.
On Tuesday, local NPR affiliate WUSF published a screenshot of a flowchart developed by the district explaining the process for handling students who request new names or pronouns. After receiving any such request, the document says staff must immediately notify the child’s parents or guardians. If they refuse consent for staff to respect the child’s wishes, “staff will NOT utilize the preferred name and/or pronouns,” the chart continues. If consent is issued, the school will schedule a conference with the student, their guardians, administration, and a guidance counselor to implement the district’s “Gender Support Plan.”
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Until this year, the Sarasota County board had maintained that “it is up to the student, and the student alone, to share her/his/their identity” in its guidelines, and allowed openly trans students to use gender-segregated facilities matching their identity.
Sarasota County follows several other school districts in Florida who are rapidly developing policies to comply with “Don’t Say Gay” requirements. In July, Leon County School Board members voted unanimously to require parental reporting “upon notification or determination of a student who is open about their gender identity,” not only for the child’s parent or guardian but for those of all “affected students” to discuss “reasonable accommodation options.” Several families have since filed suit to block the law from being enforced, and to hopefully slow the adoption of similar measures.
Unlike other policies, however, the new Sarasota guidance affects queer cisgender students as well. Though not covered in the flowchart obtained by WUSF, all staff must also notify parents or guardians if a child comes out to them as gay according to the policy as written. That’s alarmed even board member Bridget Ziegler, one of the biggest supporters of the new rules, who said at a board workshop this week that “[n]owhere in there [the law] does it talk about sexual orientation and notifying anyone.”
But that’s a problem with “Don’t Say Gay” itself, which many opponents have noted is vague in its wording. The law’s language states that parents or guardians must be notified “if there is a change in the student’s services or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being and the school's ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student.” That can be interpreted to apply to gay students just as easily as trans youth.
Gail Foreman, a history teacher at Booker High School in Sarasota, told WUSF that several of her students are trans and worried about the new policies. “[W]e had to tell them, ‘if you want to use your preferred name, I have got to call guidance, and they’re going to get a hold of your parents, and then your parents are going to meet with guidance,’” she said. “‘So guys, don’t say anything to me if you’re not out at home.’”
Foreman, who says she’ll use students’ last names to get around the new rules, pointed out that students who used to feel safe coming out to her are now being put in potential danger of physical or emotional abuse from unaccepting parents.
“I don’t want to come home every night and know that I may have contributed to one of my students being harmed,” she said.
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