This is an incredible guest essay by a high school junior - Will Larkins - in Winter Park, Florida.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/12/opinion/florida-dont-say-gay-bill.html

One thing that stands out is that, less than a decade ago, the author didn't even have the "vocabulary to articulate" who he was - and, apparently, didn't even know what LGBTQ meant until four years ago. Sounds like a very insular community. I mean, aside from the obvious lack of sex education that that implies, I wonder if secular TV was discouraged as well. Or something like that.

Anyway, here are the more on-topic excerpts (last paragraphs):

....L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers are four times as likely to attempt suicide as their straight counterparts. According to the Trevor Project, a crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization for young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people, teenagers who learned about L.G.B.T.Q. issues or people in school were 23 percent less likely to attempt suicide. We have a mental health crisis in the queer community, and Governor DeSantis and the Republican Party want to outlaw the solution.

I am lucky to have supportive parents, but I am in the minority among my peers. Research has shown that L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers have a higher risk of experiencing some form of homelessness, with family conflict being the primary cause. Many of my close friends have been thrown out of their homes after coming out to their parents or being outed by others. One of my best friends even stayed with my family for three weeks after he was kicked out of his home because his parents refused to accept that he was trans. Other friends have told me disturbing stories of being physically abused or worse because they strayed from traditional gender norms.

On Feb. 28, I spoke out against the bill on the Florida Senate floor, and on Monday my friend Maddi Zornek and I led a walkout of more than 500 students at our high school. Republican lawmakers have been echoing the idea that parents know what is best for their kids, not the schools. In some cases that may be true. But parents aren’t trained professionals; unlike schools, they aren’t made to follow a set of standards. For many of my friends in dangerous situations because of their sexuality or gender identity, school has been a space where they could be themselves.

Now, under threat of lawsuits, districts, schools and teachers may be hesitant to talk at all with students about gender identity and sexuality, even if the conversation is “age-appropriate.” The bill also allows the state commissioner of education to establish a “special magistrate” so that prosecuting those in violation of the law would happen much faster than in a normal court.

When I look back to elementary school, I wonder how different my childhood would have been had my classmates and I known that I wasn’t some tragic anomaly, a strange fluke that needed to be fixed. People in support of the bill always ask, “Why do these subjects NEED to be taught in schools?” To them I would say that if we understand ourselves, and those around us understand us, so many lives will be saved.

(end)

It reminds me of how sex columnist Dan Savage has said that the president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, has blood on his hands because of all the suicides he's pretty much encouraged LGBTQ teens to commit. (Perkins didn't say that in so many words, of course. But, apparently, the likelihood of suicide, for those teens, DOUBLES when they are rejected by their parents.)

From Oct. 2012:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/10/03/tony-perkins-is-threatening-to-sue-me

(From what I can tell, there was no lawsuit.)

And, to get back to the guest essay, I had never heard of the story of Georgia Black (1906-1951), so I looked it up. What was amazing was the fierce support by all the locals, black and white, in 1951. It reminds me of what Butterfly McQueen once said: "The only thing I want to know is whether a person is kind or unkind."

(But I'm guessing that the fact that Black was "one of the most important leaders in the (Methodist) church” was probably the main reason for all the support. Had Black not been a churchgoer...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cIbomI1EjQ
(short video of a woman, born circa 1941, who knew Georgia Black - be sure to pull down the whole description. I think it's also on Facebook.)

https://transgriot.blogspot.com/2012/03/story-of-georgia-black.html
(about Black's life)

https://medium.com/@florence.ashley/georgia-black-a-life-un-told-471ec523056e
(this includes the story in Ebony Magazine, from 1951)