‘Don’t Say Gay’ Is Not Here to Stay

How Florida valedictorian Zander Moricz represents a cultural shift against sexual repression

Ever since the passage of Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law (H.B. 1557; the so-called Parental Rights in Education Act), members of the LGBT+ community and our allies have worried what that will mean for our rights and liberties. On paper, the bill prohibits educators in Kindergarten through the Third Grade classes from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classroom settings, and makes doing so difficult or ill advised for older grades.

Correction: they’re still allowed to discuss such topics if they pertain to heterosexual and/or cisgender people.

Last month, ABC’s Good Morning America gave us a glimpse of how that could morbidly transform our future.

Building a Legislative Closet

Zander Moricz — valedictorian and senior class president of Pine View High School in Osprey, Florida — gave a pair of interviews on the network’s popular morning program.

During these separate interviews, one with Robin Roberts and the other with T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach, we heard Moricz outline how Florida’s passage of the Don’t Say Gay bill led to direct censorship of his valedictory speech.

Moricz’s interview with Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes:

Moricz’s interview with Robin Roberts:

Prior to his class graduation ceremony, Moricz was told by school administrators that he couldn’t speak about his queer-affirming activism or directly reference his sexual orientation itself. This, they specified, was necessary in order to comply with the Florida legislature’s new standards. They informed Moricz that his microphone would be cut if he diverted from these guidelines.

However, they also confirmed for Moricz that, if he spoke in euphemisms during his speech, that would still be technically following the letter of the law.

Moricz, being resourceful and intelligent, found a way around Don’t Say Gay. Throughout his speech, he substituted references to his curly hair in lieu of where he otherwise would have invoked his homosexuality.

The audience laughed, knowingly. Obviously, the administrators in attendance didn’t censor him because his speech was technically following Don’t Say Gay’s guidelines — but they obviously knew the intent behind Moricz’s euphemisms. (They had to approve his speech beforehand, so how could they NOT realize it?)

Afterward, he received a standing ovation.

Still, Moricz admitted to his ABC interviewers how dehumanizing it felt to have to cloak what he’d truly wanted to say in metaphorical window-dressing. He believed this was the best possible compromise, given the situation. Moricz was able to find a way to utilize his platform without ruining the celebration for his friends and classmates and their families.

However, Moricz’s ingenuity speaks to the legislation’s damning impact on queer people. Defenders of the bill might argue that its text refers specifically to lesson plans for K-3 students.

But, in practice, the bill’s anti-LGBT+ focus is being extrapolated to apply to students beyond the Third Grade.

Here, the architects of Don’t Say Gay clearly intend for the bill to have a chilling effect across all of K-12 education. The default outcome would be for state-funded education in Florida to promote a heterosexual ideal.

Dr. Stephen Covert (the principal of Pine View) is probably terrified of being removed by Florida’s education commissioner if his faculty were to allow even the slightest infraction of Don’t Say Gay’s parameters. After all, Moricz has suggested that Dr. Covert was personally supportive of him, in private.

Tearing Down the Legislative Closet

As campaign season heats up, all of us in the LGBT+ community should be asking incumbent Governor Ron DeSantis, who shamelessly pushed Don’t Say Gay through the legislature, this question:

Governor DeSantis — were you going to instruct Manny Diaz Jr. to remove or penalize Dr. Covert, if he *had* allowed Zander to give his original gay-friendly valedictory speech in its full entirety?

Candid sexual references and all!

In fact, let’s ask him several questions…

Governor DeSantis — if a Second Grader shares details in class about their weekend with two same-sex parents, is that grounds for the seven-year-old to be punished? Would you sanction their teacher for failing to shut the kid up? Or, is it permissible…as long as the Second Grader’s teacher remains deadly silent themselves?

Governor DeSantis — can a school reprimand one of its faculty members solely for becoming an adviser to an LGBT+ student alliance?

Governor DeSantis — could a high school English teacher be fired if they mentioned the fact that Walt Whitman happened to be gay?

Governor DeSantis — if a middle school student wears a Transgender Pride shirt during classroom instructional time, are they going to be forced to change clothes? Will they face expulsion, if they refuse to remove or cover that shirt?

With states beyond Florida passing similar Don’t Say Gay-style laws: how long will it be before we see masses of students (and even some brave educators) risking their reputations and livelihoods in order to defy your ridiculous slippery slope?

James Finn has already documented how Wyoming’s Fremont County saw its school board vote to remove sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes.

In his interview with Roberts, Moricz mentioned how several of his classmates were wearing “Say Gay” stickers during his valedictory speech to support him.

Members of the Zoomer and Alpha generations aren’t having it when puritanical adults try to re-entrench social conservatism within our country’s institutions.

Eventually, you’re going to see mass demonstrations of students across all grade levels — in a variety of states — proudly shouting “GAY!” (and “LESBIAN!” and “BI!” and “TRANS!” and “GENDERQUEER!”), just to push the envelope.

Just to remind you how justice-minded folks are *NOT* going to allow you to turn the United States into the Republic of Gilead.

What are you going to do, then? Expel hundreds of students en masse? Fire dozens upon dozens of teachers who eventually, courageously, step forward to support their Queer (and allied) students?

Renovating This Closet Into a Gender-Affirming, Sexually-Inclusive Salon

While interviewing Moricz, GMA’s Holmes and Robach also spoke to attorney Roberta Kaplan, who described her work representing queer-affirming groups and individuals in a class-action lawsuit filed against DeSantis and the state of Florida.

Kaplan explained that it was unconstitutional for Pine View to tell Moricz he had to use coded language in his speech. She asked, if you take this chilling effect to its logical conclusion, are kids with same-sex parents going to be punished for talking about their two moms or two dads? Even if the actual teachers within classrooms don’t utter a peep, in response?

As Kaplan said to Roberts: the Don’t Say Gay law was written deliberately to be as vague and broad as possible. Thus, the anti-LGBT+ chilling effect will usually be the only result…unless individuals are gutsy enough to risk their personal security by openly challenging and mocking it.

Moricz is going on to Harvard University to study government and politics. This will hopefully enable him to become an even more skilled and experienced advocate into adulthood, on behalf of social justice.

In the meantime, the rest of us can use his Curly Hair Speech as a watershed moment to demand progress, accountability, and protection.

As a fellow curly-haired dude myself: I say that students and parents should be flooding school board meetings throughout Sarasota County, wearing Dolly Parton wigs while requesting lesson plans that highlight the accomplishments of LGBT+ historical figures.

Anti-LGBT+ mouthpieces want to push Queer people back into the closet, permanently. They hope to create a national climate where anyone who fails to adhere to heteronormative perfection is too intimidated or frightened to openly share our true selves with the world.

We are going to bite back. They will feel our teeth.

Even when the supportive teachers cannot…students and community members will.

You think bad publicity is better than no publicity? Be careful what you wish for…

In the words of Stark Raving:

Say “Gay!” Say it louder than ever!