BJ Colangelo is a former teacher that recently took it to social media to explain how coming out to her students changed the culture at her school, and how students started to make conscious efforts not to use anti-gay slurs.
She was teaching theater education with an emphasis on social-emotional learning in an Ohio school (she now works as a journalist). She recalled her time and school, and how her coming out as gay changed how students see the LGBTQ+ community.
Florida’s conservative ‘Don’t Say Gay’ prohibits ‘classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity’ in ‘kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.’
Other conservative states lawmakers across the country have been trying to introduce their own versions of the bill ever since, which is what inspired Colangelo to share her story.
Coming out to my students changed the culture of the school. They stopped calling each other “fags” and apologized if they slipped up. Many of them didn’t know a gay person IRL and their desire to not use hate speech that impacted me inspired them to stop using it altogether. https://t.co/B5VfTslQt4
— BJ Colangelo (@bjcolangelo) April 7, 2022
And before the pearl-clutchers get involved–I came out to my students because a couple of them saw my wife and I at a store outside of school hours. It was not “part of my curriculum” or whatever nonsense y’all wanna push. They asked, and I wasn’t going to lie to them.
— BJ Colangelo (@bjcolangelo) April 7, 2022
It’s absolutely what they want. They view equitable treatment as political indoctrination. It’s disgusting.
— BJ Colangelo (@bjcolangelo) April 7, 2022
In an interview with Upworthy, she said that her students apologized for their usage in the past, and they all promised to try and be better about the language they used. She said that there were even moments when a student would come visit her during her lunch break to apologize for calling another student the f-slur.
“It genuinely changed the culture of the school, because the kids would catch themselves about to spew hatred, pause, and by the time they came up with a new reason to roast their classmate, the moment had passed and they just moved on.” – she concluded.
She believes that conservatives want to keep gay people painted as monsters and dangerous, so they can use that fear to turn it into hatred.
She thinks that this is the reason for the anti-LGBTQ bills, as they (conservatives) want to maintain the status quo, as they’re terrified of progress.
Source: Upworthy
The post Teacher Shares How Coming Out as Gay Changed How Their Students Use Anti-Gay Slurs appeared first on Femalista.
0 Comments