Desantis' rainbow sticker police score a huge win

Not the sticker itself, but having a safe place for LTGB children does seem to work. This says LGTB kids in schools That allow support programs show a 70% reduction in contemplating suicide, and not just for LGTB students.

“Students in Canadian schools with gay-straight alliances were less likely to be discriminated against, had lower odds of suicidal thoughts and had fewer suicide attempts—regardless of whether they were gay or straight.”

And…

There's definitely something to be said for having school that would support and implement a GSA in the first place. But the effects that the study documented were stronger for longer-lived GSAs, which suggests that GSAs themselves are helping, too. When GSAs were around for three years or more, the numbers the researchers documented were even more impressive. Gay and bisexual boys had 70 percent lower odds of suicidal thoughts.




Simply Having a Gay Straight Alliance Reduces Suicide Risk for All Students | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine

 

You can’t say “gay” in Florida schools, how the hell are we going to get a wholistic program to help LGTB kids like other states and countries have? That’s what this is about. Florida is moving in the wrong direction in this. 180 degrees in the wrong direction. If they can’t even allow rainbow stickers and some form of given gay kids a safe place to be comfortable, the. Florida is stomping out the last of the support system these kids had at school.

 

I don’t think it was. The stickers have been around a lot longer than the don’t say gay bill.

here is a 2019 article about a school health councilor who said she’s had one since 2002.

For 17 years, the office of Jackie Jackson-Dean has featured a familiar ornament of welcome: a safe space sticker, adorned with stars, a rainbow motif and an implicit message.

“I want these kids to be able to come to school,” she says, “and feel like at least one person here is safe to talk to.”

Jackson-Dean serves as a school psychologist and the LGBTQ liaison for Pasco County Schools in Florida. As a registered mental health counselor intern and member of the district’s crisis team, she knows better than most straight, cisgender allies what LGBTQ students face. She knows firsthand that safe spaces can be compromised. She also knows they can be reclaimed.