During my experience as a high schooler, many books and content in my libraries were censored because parents considered it “explicit content” due to anti-racist, anti-nazi, or pro-LGBT themes. This bill only serves to increase unjustified censorship and increase the ostracization of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC children.
I know many LGBTQ+ people in my graduating class that would have been severely at risk if SB-656 had been in place. Many of those kids came from devout Christian or otherwise very religious families that oppose the LGBTQ+ community. If they had been outed by their schools, they would have been subject to extreme physical, verbal, and emotional abuse at the hands of their extreme families. Some would have been sent away to horrific conversion therapy camps as well, which have long been proven to be unsuccessful, abusive, and not to mention useless.
Please protect all of our children, including the ones that aren’t cookie cutter straight white Christians.