{"id":31216,"date":"2023-03-17T14:58:22","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T18:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=31216"},"modified":"2023-03-17T14:58:26","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T18:58:26","slug":"nonbinary-6th-grader-speaks-out-against-new-education-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/03\/17\/nonbinary-6th-grader-speaks-out-against-new-education-measures\/","title":{"rendered":"Nonbinary 6th-grader speaks out against new education measures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Florida lawmakers are considering House Bill 1223 and Senate Bill 1320, which would ban discussions in schools about gender and sexuality until ninth grade and bar teachers and contractors from referring to someone by a pronoun that doesn\u2019t correspond with that person\u2019s biological sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But one Polk County nonbinary student whose pronouns are them\/they is touring around other rural Florida counties sharing perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Lola Smyth, opening up a sketchbook takes their creativity to a whole new world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s a good way to keep your mind off stuff when things get really hard,\u201d Smyth said. \u201cPersonally, I feel like art is a beautiful way to keep things simple and easy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smyth identifies as queer and nonbinary, something they knew since third grade. They use art to decompress from what\u2019s going on in schools right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There\u2019s a bunch of stress happening with the bills being passed and stuff,\u201d Smyth said. \u201cSometimes you just need to take your brain off of it. Sometimes I just sketch to keep my mind off of things.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smyth is talking about Florida\u2019s Stop Woke Act and the Parental Rights in Education Act. The Stop Woke Act prohibits the teaching of critical race theory. While the Parental Rights in Education law prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten through third grade, a law Smyth is speaking against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I can make just the same amount of change as an adult can,\u201d Smyth said. \u201cI may not have as much power. But you can show people you\u2019re capable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smyth told us that these laws are damaging to students, especially those who identify as LGBTQ+.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“When your rights are under attack and people are just trying to erase you and people aren\u2019t representing you, you feel like you aren\u2019t even a person anymore,” Smyth said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why Smyth is taking a stand \u2014 speaking at Polk County School Board meetings, in Lake County, and even in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Polk County is very much \u2018don\u2019t say gay. No, don’t do that. We don\u2019t want you here if you\u2019re not like everyone else.\u2019 But it\u2019s good that I\u2019m here because sooner or later, that\u2019ll change,” Smyth said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smyth said they hope by using their voice, will create change in other rural counties, as well as around the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida lawmakers are considering House Bill 1223 and Senate Bill 1320, which would ban discussions in schools about gender and sexuality until ninth grade and bar teachers and contractors from… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}