Straight kids of LGBTQ parents face a unique kind of challenge right now

Straight kids of queer parents face a unique kind of isolation as harmful rhetoric about their families increases.

When children in Florida return to their elementary classrooms at the start of the school year, they will tell stories about going to camp or taking a summer trip with their families. They may not notice whether a rainbow sticker that was on their old teacher’s door is gone or whether their new teacher doesn’t have any family photos on his desk. But some of these children will be quiet. They will not know whether they, too, can talk about the water park they visited with their fathers or show a picture of the sidewalk chalk art they drew of both their moms. 

Many of them will be straight children with queer parents. And the ways anti-LGBTQ laws harm these kids specifically are a gaping hole in our national conversation about the impact of legislation like Florida’s recently implemented Parental Rights in Education law — what critics have called the “Don’t Say Gay” law — which limits discussion of LGBTQ issues in kindergarten through the third grade.

As the daughter of a gay man, I am devastated to imagine what it would have been like to keep my father’s identity a secret at school.

Without a doubt, these laws will harm LGBTQ children and LGBTQ parents. And queer children with queer parents will experience a particular type of double burden. But straight children of LGBTQ parents also face their own challenges. Some are born into queer families and will now attend schools where the family they have always known is put under scrutiny. Others have a parent come out as queer later in life, which was my experience with my father. These kids will have to adjust to their new family make-up in an oppressive educational environment. 

Within this diversity of experiences, straight children are often forgotten as adjacent members of the LGBTQ community who are also affected by anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric. That harmful impact starts with the dangerously vague language of these laws. In Florida, for example, legislators have claimed that the measure does not prevent children from speaking about their LGBTQ parents. Still, it enables parents to sue the school district if they suspect that there has been “encouraging” classroom discussion around sexual orientation, which leaves a broad umbrella of concern over facing lawsuits by already underfunded school districts. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/straight-kids-lgbtq-parents-face-unique-kind-challenge-right-now-rcna38768


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