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Why hasn't The Satanic Temple used the Don't Say Gay bill against Republicans? (lemm.ee)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by exocrinous@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[-] exocrinous@lemm.ee 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I've seen that story before, and it doesn't answer my question. I don't think this is an issue teachers can solve by malicious compliance doing the right thing. This is an issue that parents need to solve. Because the bill allows parents to sue (and therefore establish legal precedent), not teachers. If a teacher uses genderless language, as you say, they'll get fired. But if a parent sues a school for having the words he and she, and wins, it is now an incontrovertible part of the law that he and she are forbidden in Florida schools. This means teachers can no longer be punished for following the law, it means they have to follow the law, and this will have a much bigger impact on headlines due to its wider and firmer scope.

Why hasn't a parent done this?

[-] memfree@lemmy.ml 15 points 8 months ago

Note that teachers have an open lawsuit. Specifically:

1. The initial letter was signed, "Thank you, Mx. XXXXXXXXXX"
1. Florida teacher fired for using gender-neutral title Mx.
1. That teach and two others challenged the law in federal court, arguing the state’s laws on titles and pronouns is unconstitutional.

[-] lily33@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago

Because judges are people, not robots mindlessly applying legislation. To succeed in such case you need the judges on the trial and all appeals to all decide to maliciously comply with the law.

[-] exocrinous@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

Or you need a lawyer to make the very easy case, and the judge to have a shred of integrity.

Why haven't they tried?

[-] lily33@lemm.ee 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Because it's not a very easy case. In fact, there is no real case.

It's not just a stretch, but a huge leap, to claim that using "he" or "she" counts as "instruction [...] on sexual orientation or gender identity".
And even if you did manage that, you also have to argue that it's also "not age appropriate".
And if you managed that as well somehow, you have the problem that judges can take into account things like the intent of the lawmakers, and what's reasonable, not just the raw text of the law.

this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024

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