Daily US Times, Florida: A Florida teacher came under fire after she asked two female fifth grade students if they were in a relationship in front of class, leading one of the students to withdraw from school.
One of the student’s mother, Jezinia Gambino told WPTV, a NBC affiliate that “the rumor was that my daughter and another fifth grade little girl were dating.”
After the teacher learned of the rumor, she asked the children before the class if they were a couple “in a way that they felt they were in trouble”. Gambino said the other student texted her daughtersaying she “wasn’t sure if they should hang out together anymore because of what happened in school.”
Gambino said of the other student that she didn’t want anyone to think they were gay
Gambino said her daughter felt humiliated the way she was asked and is homeschooled for at least the rest of the year.
“What they did affected my daughter in a way that now I’m having to go back and fix,” she added.
The teacher came under fire and was given a verbal warning for engaging in inappropriate communication with students from the Florida Department of Education.
A 2016 report by Human Rights Watch revealed that many U.S. public schools have hostile environments for LGBTQ youth, with the report documenting multiple examples of school administrators lobbing homophobic abuse at students.
An LGBTQ researcher at Human Rights Watch Ryan Thoreson said these incidents happen because so few schools train teachers and administrators on LGBTQ cultural competency.
Last year, a number of incidents involving school officials mistreating LGBTQ students have made national news while an assistant principal at a West Virginia public school was accused of harassing and following a 15-year-old transgender boy into the bathroom, telling him “you freak me out.”
A kentucky girl was expelled from a pricate school last month for “behavioral issues” after she was pictured in a photograph with a rainbow birthday cake. Her mother filed a lawsuit to the school claiming her daughter was expelled for her “perceived sexuality.”
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