Opinion | How we talk about the harmful effects of anti-LGBTQ laws has a gaping hole

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.