Sex education in schools, a new cultural battle in the US

Do not talk about gender identity or sexual orientation in class, ban books that deal with these issues in libraries… In U.S bills are multiplying to limit discussions of homosexuality or transidentity of children, relaunching a cultural war that is fracturing the country.

The educational system, a mirror of a divided country, has been the scene of confrontations for months over the teaching of racism, history or sexuality.

The latest battle is taking place in Florida, where a bill that prohibits teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation to a certain degree or in a way deemed inappropriate for young audiences moved forward in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. southeastern state of the country.

The text -whose detractors call “Don’t say gay” (“Do not say gay”) while it has the support of Governor Ron DeSantis, a figure of the Republican Party- provoked the reaction of the White House.

“Republican leaders seek to regulate what children can read, what they can learn and, more worryingly, what they can be,” a spokeswoman for the Joe Biden administration said Tuesday.

The bill conveys the idea that people LGBT “They are indecent simply because of what they are,” denounces Brandon Wolf, of the organization Equality Florida.

“This is going to kill kids,” tweeted Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transport Minister Pete Buttigieg, citing a Trevor Project study that found 42% of LGBT youth seriously considered suicide in 2021.

“Talk about these issues in a framework of tolerance reduces the number of suicide attempts,” said Natasha Poulopoulos, a child psychologist in Miami.

From the age of seven, children can have “a pretty clear idea of ​​their gender identity,” he says. Therefore, banning these subjects in the school environment “would only lock them more in the closet.”

“The idea is not to encourage children to talk about sex”, but to give them the opportunity to reflect on “how they feel” and to “know that they can talk if they want to”, he stressed.

“external forces”

Tina Descovich, whose organization Moms for Liberty defends the law, denies that the text is discriminatory. “This is about allowing parents to raise their children and have a say in what happens to them,” she said.

Citing the example of a woman who learned that her 13-year-old daughter had been having meetings at her school about her gender identity during which she was informed of the possibility of using “the men’s bathroom,” she proclaims: “This is not normal”.

These discussions, like those about sexual orientation, should be held “at home”, “at an appropriate age”, he insists.

A Californian mother, Jessica Konen, took legal action against school authorities in her county. She accuses two teachers of having encouraged her daughter, then in sixth grade, to use a male first name and complains that she was excluded from those discussions.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) expressed its “concern” about a climate in which “external political forces” seek to “divide” parents, teachers and schools.

“Indoctrination”

Projects similar to the one in Florida have sprung up in other states. In Arizona, a text under discussion would force teachers to warn parents if their son talks about her gender identity.

In Indiana, a lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require parental permission before talking to students about sexual orientation or trans identity.

In Oklahoma, another bill seeks to ban “sexual preference” or “gender identity” books from school libraries.

LGBT activists remember that the country experienced a similar offensive in the late 1980s, when AIDS was an epidemic. The authorities were then forced to establish sexual education courses on HIV.

But conservatives made sure that homosexuality was not discussed in schools for fear of “indoctrinating” children, notes Clifford Rosky, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Utah.