Solomon did it on her own, scared of sparking “drama,” she said. Solomon thought about how, under the new law, a parent lawsuit could stem from just one awkward exchange about her personal life.įor the first three years of her teaching job, no one told her explicitly to conceal the fact she was married to a woman. She remembered the time some of her students Googled her name and somehow found her wedding video on Vimeo, which she hadn’t realized was publicly available.
Pondering the impact of the new Florida law, Solomon recalled how fourth-graders love to ask questions about their teachers’ private lives. Although Solomon’s straight colleagues often made casual references to their husbands in the course of teaching, she had never dared to mention her wife to students. She found it upsetting, but not because she planned to talk - or had ever talked - about gender identity, sexual orientation or LGBTQ issues in the classroom. In Miami, Solomon read the text of the law closely. Even when she shit down conversation because she didn't want to bring up her wife, the kids found evidence of her marriage online. As discussed here on DL, a middle-school art teach lost job after acknowledging her pansexuality.ĭon't think teachers should mention their private lives at school-the teacher in this article says that kids ask all the time. Already a 6th grade science teacher decided to resign after parents wrote a letter complaining that he had acknowledged his same sex marriage at school.
This is how insidious Florida's Don't Say Gay Law will be.