While Tennessee does not have the most progressive history when it comes to legislation, it was not the proposal of the pride flag ban in schools that recently passed, but it was the vote that passed the legislation that shocked me.
The vote that passed it was 70 to 24, and if that is any indication of the sentiment of the state population as a whole, it concerns me a little.
In recent years, the media, especially in Tennessee, has pushed a negative narrative surrounding the LGTBQ+ community, specifically surrounding the drag industry, contributing to themes of hypersexuality, perversion, and pedophilia that misrepresent the community as a whole. This is why legislation is prone to passing these laws and why children grow up ashamed and suppress who they are.
Simplifying that ratio, that means only 1 in every 4 people are even okay with the idea LGBTQ+ visibility, not to mention maybe a fraction of those people are true allies, and only a fraction of that are LGTQB+ themselves. That can be very isolating, especially for young and impressionable minds.
When I was younger and in school, I have always had people putting assumptions onto me, and I would say that created this negative mindset for a young impressionable mind. I already faced my own adversity growing up Asian in a predominantly white area and, also, facing mental turmoil being adopted into the family I grew up in, so this just really made me feel othered.
I always had people ask me as early as middle school if I was gay, because of the way I spoke. I also just connected with girls more than the guys, so people just always assumed things about me, even older people in my brother’s grade.
I have had crushes on girls growing up, but growing up a part of the southern bible belt, it almost felt wrong to have any interest in boys, so I denied all the questions. However, being a little flamboyant did not help my case; the closet door was made of glass.
Growing up, even my family used derogatory terms as the punchline for jokes about me, even though I had never come out as gay, because I wasn’t. Sexuality is not typically discussed as a spectrum but more in a matter of black and white, but even as a young boy, I knew I lived on the greyscale.
While I agree that certain aspects of sexuality and gender should not be discussed early in childhood development, such as the more adult, mature, or vulgar topics, eradication of any representation will only lead to curiosity which can be harmful, but accessibility to information and awareness can help guide children.
LGBTQ+ children will always exist whether legislation wants to admit it or not, and when children want to learn more about who they are without guidance, they can fall into sticky situations too quickly when they do not know what they are looking for. That is why representation and allyship are so important to developing young minds.
Safe spaces need to be held for these kids so they may express themselves freely as they figure out who they are, but with this ban, I am unsure kids will have that accessibility. Like, what does this mean for GSA or other LGBTQ student groups?
However, like the saying, “birds of a feather flock together,” these kids eventually find each other, but there are ways to help show pride or allyship other than flags, not only in schools but also in everyday life.
Visual cues could be as simple as wearing a pin or wearing clothing resembling pride flag colors. The implementation of certain inclusive vocabulary could also be beneficial, such as the use of pronouns, for students to create a safer, non-heternormative environment.
Of course these are just preliminary thoughts, but the sentiment is still the same, in that visibility is important, and the country could benefit from more inclusivity other than defining differences. I hope that this is not a segway into furthering discriminatory legislation, but rather just a minor school regulation.
- Protect LGTBQ+ Children – by William Chen - April 6, 2024