We call my son and daughter by shortened versions of their first names. Both are in High School in OCPS. Today they brought home the forms for us to sign to allow them to go by those shortened names in school. I was shocked.
Perhaps Ronald DeSantis should be forced to get permission from his family inorder to continue to be called Ron.
The sad thing is, my brother has a name like "Benjamin". My mother is a very mentally ill individual and is extremely militant about her children's names "I chose your names and you will go by exactly what I named you!" and refused to let him go by "Ben" or let us call him "Ben". Except, outside of the house he always went by Ben, she just didn't know it. I always called him Ben when we weren't home, because it's what he wanted to be called. So kids like this would have to bring a form home and get their ass kicked by mom for going by a name they aren't supposed to? Fuck that.
The amount of abject cruelty that is being leveled at trans children in Florida is fucking horrifying. This is legally enforced humiliation and bullying. This alone would have been more than enough to drive me to suicide when I was a child myself. And they are absolutely aware that this will cause that. Ron plans to orchestrate a genocide in Florida. He's essentially forced every single person, company, doctor, politician, educator, teacher, any professional human being or group of human beings who values human life out of the state. When he's done all that will remain are the most openly violent fascists and all the people who are too impoverished to leave the state. Of which many such impoverished disenfranchised people are trans children. How such open fascist power has not been internationally condemned and how he himself has not faced expulsion from any political office and faced serious legal actions from the government of the United States is beyond me. I thought world War 2 and the rise of fascism in Europe was supposed to have taught us something. Evidently not.
I know I did the numbers once and if you just lined up the dead combatants from the USSR side head to toe it would cover a distance from NYC to LA multiple times.
I thought world War 2 and the rise of fascism in Europe was supposed to have taught us something.
They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em.
WWII might have been the end, but they've slowly been worsening education especially in places like Florida. I think at this point, capitalist social media is also a significant cause of the rise in fascism. When Zuck decides to platform holocaust deniers or twitter decides "free speech [for nazis]" it legitimizes it. It doesn't take much before this translates into real life. You surround yourself online in your little bubble with all of the other crazies (yay Facebook is bringing people together) long enough and it's nearly impossible not to translate that into the real world.
History is pretty fuckin' easy to repeat if you don't know the history.
Did you know that in the worst case sea level scenario due to climate change, all of Florida will be completely underwater? That means that while the world IS headed toward an inhospitable hellscape, at least we have the silver lining of seeing Florida completely eradicated.
That would entail admitting that climate change is real and that GQP mythos was wrong about something. Based on the way we handled covid, I wouldn't worry about most floridians migrating due to climate change
Did you know that most voters in Florida don't agree with this shit and that taking glee in the potential eradication of an entire people and their home is exactly the same kind of shit that racists do when they blame all Muslims for terrorism or Hitler and the Nazis did when they targeted a population for their religion (or for simply being related to someone who was a Jew)?
The examples of this "they're the bad guys" generalism is part of the problem. If you're really so enlightened, don't be part of the problem, too, it only alienates more who might be part of solving the problem if they weren't ostracized over something as stupid as their birthplace or where they choose to live.
That was when they were just psychopathically neoliberal and "small government" was code for "we want gut regulations so corporations can put formaldehyde in milk again".
Which they'll still do of course, it just won't win them elections these days. So they pander to bigots to make up the numbers.
It's extra ironic because conservatives want you to believe that people are somehow forcing them to use certain pronouns, but they're the only ones passing fascist laws that dictate what pronouns you're required to use.
You'd think that half the population of Florida is trans with the disproportional amount of effort the gremlins in charge undetake to inflict cruelty on them.
When are the people of Florida going to put their precious second amendment rights to good use?
Under the guidance, published Monday (7 August), teachers at schools in Orange County must use pronouns and titles that correspond to their “biological sex” at birth, and parents must fill out a form to let teachers know of any deviation from their child’s legal name, even if this is a simple nickname.
So if the governor of Florida was subjected to this “guidance”, he would need permission to go by Ron.
That's not just out of touch, that's Stalinist purge level dystopian. And those despicable fucks have the gall to go on about how they're in favour of "freedom".
At the least this law will protect teachers that bully trans students, at the most they could start actively prosecuting teachers for using a student's preferred pronouns.
It and the rest of america's dystopian history makes me think america would have been better if they lost the revolutionary war and later gained independence peacefully like Australia for example
It wouldn't have. The American Revolution inspired revolutions in 60 other countries, including the French, Haitian and Mexican revolutions, and it's what helped kickstart modern-day democracy in much of the world for that fact. Had the U.S. lost, it would have forever cemented the idea that the crown is all-powerful, beyond reproach, and the only way to get anything in life is to kiss the ring.
No matter how evil the U.S. turned out to be, the way it began will always be its true importance imo.
I left Florida in '93, and there were times I regretted it. There were a lot of good things about Florida, and it was always interesting. And once you adapt to the weather, it's nice (if a bit dull).
Now though? Holy fuck I'm glad I'm not there. I don't even understand what's going on there - it's like some sort of mass psychosis. It's gone way beyond a political shift - it's more as if someone decided that the thing to do was to establish some sort of right-wing version of the Khmer Rouge and a bunch of Floridians said, "Yeah! That'd be great!"
At the rate they're going, it's only a matter if time before they start systematically killing "undesirables".
I lived there from 2010-2012 and it was more than enough to realize I would never do that again, esp with a funny foreign name, brown skin, and mixed race daughters. It's sad too, thinking about e.g. Carl Hiaasen or Tim Dorsey, or time I've spent camping in the keys or swimming in fresh water springs in Central Florida. There's clearly some real majestic environmental beauty and culture there but jesus christ has the states human culture gone absolutely to shit.
How do you ban nicknames? What if they just state this is the name I prefer to be called? People named William being called will or bill, is that a nickname? Why are Republicans so damn stupid? Mfers trying to block porn hub like most the Internet isn't filled with porn.
What about kids that prefer to be called by their middle name? Would that need permission to not be called by their first name? What if they go by their middle name, Edward, but prefer to be called Ed? Would they need two permission forms? Lol
I imagine enforcement would be selective, so Thomas can be Tom and Michael can be Mike, but some cis kids will still get caught in it. (Like, I knew a girl whose legal name was Roberta and that was shortened to Bobbie. She wasn't trans, her nickname was just usually given to boys rather than girls.)
Not a law talking guy, I thought that one of the constantly brought up issues in civil rights cases is selective enforcement of rules. Schools allowed hats but suddenly decided a turban wasn't allowed for example.
youth have been turned into political cannon fodder for generations. we're creating mass poverty and homelessness on a hockey stick curve yet we have to continue to focus all our attention on garbage engineered to divide the population like this. really cool stuff
As an outsider (and someone with this name situation), I'm morbidly curious about what happens when a kid has a name that's the opposite gender as them, either because it's a gender neutral name in their culture, or because their parents just named them like that? Because I have a sneaking suspicion they're suddenly going to be fine with 'unapproved nicknames' when their alternative is calling a boy Vyvian or a girl Terrance
I always thought homeschooling was for kids with crazy parents, but if I had a child in OC Florida I would absolutely homeschool them until we could move somewhere less insane.
Lol kids should give each other nicknames that are classroom objects and terms from the text. Or names of historical figures. "oh, now we can't say Abraham Lincoln because it's a nickname"
The fact that they say "nickname" is insulting. As kids that are trans discover and explore their identity they change their name to match where they're at in their journey. It's not a nickname, it's just simply their name.
The Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) system in Florida has announced new guidance that means trans teachers will be misgendered and students will need parental consent for “any deviation” from their legal name.
BRB: moving to Florida and renaming my child “His-Royal-Highness-And-Most-Eminent-The-Great-And-Sexy-Bartholomew-Mayweather-George-Anderson-Chaplet-RonDesantisIsAFucknutt I II III.