Chasten Buttigieg Rips Florida GOP For Endangering LGBTQ Children

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A proposed bill in Florida that would forbid schools from “encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students” — and would allow parents to bring lawsuits if they believe that such topics have been presented in a way that isn’t age-appropriate — has observers, including Chasten Buttigieg, worried. Buttigieg is the husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and during an appearance on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show over the weekend, he condemned Florida Republicans for their egregious efforts to restrict simple discussions about non-heterosexual people.

What messages are children of non-heterosexual parents supposed to take from this proposed legislation? What about children who are themselves non-heterosexual? Many individuals are aware in some way of their sexual orientation or gender identity from young ages, since obviously, there’s a lot more to these things than elements that would only be relevant later in life. Troublingly, Florida state legislators are moving the proposal forward — it was recently approved by the Florida state House Education & Employment Committee, leaving the state House Judiciary Committee to act. Chasten commented as follows on MSNBC this weekend:

‘If this bill passes, which we believe sadly that it will, it will tell young kids that something is wrong with you, so wrong and twisted that we can’t even talk about you in school. And sometimes, that trauma builds to the worst thing [suicide]… When you’re telling kids, and when you’re telling families, and essentially all LGBTQ Americans… [that] something about you is so wrong that we can’t even talk about it in school, that’s really embarrassing, I think, on behalf of the GOP that they’re focusing on something like that. And it can do the worst things to kids.’

Chasten went on to even more directly address what the whole thing shows about the nature of the GOP’s approach to governing, adding as follows:

‘This is a classic example of the other side of the aisle choosing a vulnerable community because they want to score some cheap political points… We all know why Governor DeSantis is doing this, and it’s really embarrassing, I think, that he’s choosing to pick on vulnerable kids and families rather than working on something that people actually care about… This is that kind of lazy leadership where you just throw something out there that now everybody’s talking about, and it fires up your base, but you’re not actually focusing on solving issues for families.’

Chasten previously wrote on Twitter that the bill, if enacted, “will kill kids.” Watch his comments on the matter below: