“Don’t Say Gay” bill passed in Florida legislature

Disney criticized for lack of immediate response

JENNY HAN / ASST. NEWS EDITOR / THE USD VISTA

Despite its controversial nature, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill: Parental Rights in Education, more colloquially referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law on March 28. This bill covers several aspects pertaining to the procedures that district school boards must follow in order to ensure that parents can make their own choices in how to raise their child. This nickname comes from a section in the bill that states, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” This new law will go into effect in July. 

This bill has been heavily criticized. On Feb. 21, CA Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted: “This is nothing short of a state-sponsored intimidation of LGBTQ children. It will put kids – who are already navigating stress – in physical and psychological danger. For the sake of these kids, don’t do this Florida.” 

President Joe Biden also criticized the bill by tweeting on March 28, “Every student deserves to feel safe and welcome in the classroom. Our LGBTQI+ youth deserve to be affirmed and accepted just as they are. My Administration will continue to fight for dignity and opportunity for every student and family — in Florida and around the country.”

The Parental Rights in Education bill is one of many anti-LGBTQ+ bills that were enacted this year. NBC News stated, “State lawmakers have proposed a record 238 bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ Americans this year — or more than three per day — with about half of them targeting transgender people specifically.” 

For Pauline Herring, a Queer graduate student who works for both the LGBTQ+ and Women’s Commons as the Graduate Assistant for Gender Identity resources at USD, this is not a coincidence. 

“I think the reason that’s happening now is that people both feel empowered and terrified,” Herring said. “A lot of heteronormative cis[gender] white men specifically because that’s who’s making these laws are terrified. They both feel super powered because that’s how they’re getting their voice. And also, they’re terrified that they’re going to lose that power.”

Herring believes that one primary reason for this is because of more queer visibility on the internet and mainstream media inherently challenges the standard. 

“Growing up, think about how cis, white hetero men you have seen in media. Now I want you to think of Queer, Asian men. How many have you seen in the media?” Herring said. “So now, flip it on its reverse: you’re a white person that’s always seeing white people around you. There’s comfort in that right? And now all of a sudden, you see people that aren’t like you. You see Queer people, you see BIPOC people, you see trans people, you see, you see all these non binary people, right? You see this happening, and it freaks you out.” 

Herring’s main concern is for  the future generation of LGBTQ+ kids. 

“It took me 25 years [to realize I wasn’t straight]. Not because people told me I couldn’t be gay, but because people showed me I couldn’t be gay,” Herring said.

Because of her own experiences, Herring expressed fear that current Queer youth will have to go through what she did. 

“Kids are sponges and we don’t give them enough credit for how smart they are. Kids will observe and they will learn [that being queer is not acceptable],” Herring said. “What I think this is going to do to a lot of our youth is that we’re going to see even more of a spike in a lot of negative statistics. We’re going to see a spike in suicides. We’re gonna see a spike in self-harm. We’re gonna see a spike in drug use and a spike in alcohol abuse.” 

One major player in the“Don’t Say Gay” bill controversy is Disney. Originally, Disney’s CEO, Bob Chapek, chose not to speak out publicly regarding the new bill. However, this strategy appeared to backfire when the Orlando Sentinel published an op-ed titled “Florida’s anti-gay crusade is funded by the Disneys of the world” on Feb. 22. This fueled a public uproar and the beginning of what would become active disdain against Disney’s choice to not speak out against the bill. 

Later on March 9, journalist Judd Legum of Popular Information tweeted an open letter that Pixar employees published titled “A Statement to Leadership from the LGBTQIA+ Employees of Pixar & Their Allies’’ where employees criticized their inability to create diverse stories due to management. 

Building resentment against the company resulted in major backlash. According to CNBC, hundreds of Disney Employees in Disney’s headquarters in Burbank, CA participated in a full-scale walkout protesting Disney’s lack of action on March 22. There were a series of smaller, scheduled walkouts from March 15-18 and March 21. In an interview with CNN+, Former Disney CEO Bob Iger also spoke out against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, stating, “When you’re dealing with right and wrong or when you’re dealing with something that does have profound impact on your business, I just think you have to do what is right and not worry about the potential backlash to it.”

Eventually on March 11, Chapek released a public statement apologizing for the company’s lack of response and action steps he would take to mitigate the damage he caused. 

For Dr. Amitkumar Kakkad, a Clinical professor for the USD School of Business and a former Disney intern, although he state that Disney should make a stance for the LGBTQ+, it’s more complicated than it seems.

“Disney content is what most kids grew up with: Movies, watch shows, you know, theme parks, all of that. So they have a profound fact in some of them during the formative years of the next generation which increases the responsibility even more,” Dr. Kakkad said. “But as a company, they are going to respond to how they perceive the environment around them is working. If they feel that as a business, they cannot actually lose profit revenue customers by taking what we might consider to be the right stand, it’s unrealistic to expect that.”

In contrast, Dr. Abby Berk, Clinical Professor of Management in the Knauss School of Business, stated that Disney absolutely had a moral obligation to make a clear stance in support for the LGBTQ+ community. 

“Their customer base ranges from little children to families to elderly; they touched so many lives and they even acknowledged that,” Dr. Berk said. “When you look at their documents, their mission statement, their purpose, and what they articulate as their corporate values, they always talk about [being] the positive role on society and who they can impact, and trying to be a positive factor. Their statements say that it’s core to their business.”

However, Berk stated that Disney’s current response in condemning the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is largely because of the value Disney has for their employees.

 “What is meaningful to them [Disney] is when their employees speak up and when their employees voice disapproval, and then their employees say that they’re going to walk off the job. For consumers there’s a lot of talk, but consumers don’t always follow through with their dollars,” Dr. Berk said. “Disney says they value their employees and they want to create an inclusive respectful workplace. And employees are the ones that call them out on this; you can’t say that about that internally and then operate in an environment that promotes this lack of understanding of tolerance, so from what I’ve read, what I’ve seen, and looking at CEO statements, they’re responding to employees for sure.” 

Both professors emphasized the importance of looking at Disney, and any other corporation, not as a singular entity, but rather as a part of the bigger picture. 

“You can’t look at anything in isolation because everything exists as part of a system,” Dr. Kakkad said. “If you look at what Disney is doing by itself, we might feel like passing judgment or, you know, having a view on whether they should do this or that. But if you look at it, from the system’s perspective, in terms of where do they exist? What is their role? What they are doing and what society has made them do?” 

Kakkad continued to explain his point.

“And how their actions are driven by influences around them and how their actions influence others around them, then you’re going to get a much more nuanced picture,” Kakkad said. “And when we do that, it becomes a little bit more difficult to point a finger squarely at a company because they don’t exist in isolation.”

But regardless of how Disney stands, Herring finds it pivotal for everyone, even non-Floridians and those who don’t identify as being LGBTQ+, to care about it. 

“The Queer community and trans community are international. What affects us in Florida, affects us in California,” Herring said. “We can say all that we want that ‘Oh, we made so much progress during Obama’s era.’ We didn’t make jack; We didn’t even scratch the surface of what we should be doing and could be doing. We shouldn’t have to do it; It should just be given. And the fact that we’re having to fight just to be here tells me that our allies aren’t working hard enough.”

House Bill: Parental Rights in Education is considered to be controversial due to the section that aims to eliminate conversations about gender and sexuality in lower grades. Although Disney originally funded politicians that enacted this bill, the company has stated that they will do what they can to repeal it.