Critics of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill have done their best to explain over and over again why it’s so important children hear that LGBTQ+ people exist and are accepted from a young age. If they fall somewhere under that umbrella, talking or not talking about it won’t change that fact, but feeling seen can help kids grow up to be comfortable with themselves instead of hiding in shame about who they are.
Recently, Rhian Beutler shared her own experience with why she feels “we can’t stop saying gay,” based on a series of events from her high school years.
She explained that a new student transferred to her public school her senior year, with no explanation and seemingly no willingness to talk about why he had left his exclusive private school. Beutler befriended him, they quickly became very close, and she wound up asking him if he was gay.
“I explained that my uncle was gay and that I had grown up around queer people and that I didn’t care and that we could obviously still be friends and that I wouldn’t tell ANYONE,” Beutler wrote.
Her new friend came clean about his sexuality while also admitting his parents found out, pulled him out of his school, and subsequently “called him horrible names [and] abused him” for being himself.
It’s an unfortunately familiar story, but in this scenario, when the friend turned 18, he came to live with Beutler’s family. And the acceptance and love he felt during his short time there, it sounds like, made all of the difference.
“There are kids like him across the US who are SCARED with the new legislation passing,” she pointed out. “If they thought they were safe they no longer think that.”
In a world where so much of society can still be close-minded and homophobic, including one’s own family, making sure that schools are also a hostile place towards LGBTQ+ children and teens is unthinkable. But that is where we seem to be moving.
As Beutler said, “Every kid and every person deserves to feel safe."
