Touted by critics as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill, the law restricting discussion of sex and gender with school kids was passed in both the chambers of the legislature in the American state of Florida. While Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has supported the bill, employees of Disney are mounting pressure on CEO Bob Chapek for not condemning the ‘homophobic’ bill enough.
Since March 15, a section of workers employed at various offices of Disney has participated in scheduled walkouts during breaks to protest against the company’s official stance regarding the legislation. However, on Tuesday, March 22, the protestors went on a full-day strike at the Burbank Headquarters to show their collective solidarity against the bill. The employees of Disney have painted their company’s policies as anti-LGBTQ since Disney happens to be one of the political donors to senators who have participated in drafting this bill, including Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.
What is the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill?
On March 8, The Florida State Senate passed a bill that restricts sex education on gender for kids during school instructions. The bill prohibits teaching concepts like ‘Sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ to school children with an intent to regulate age-inappropriate content in accordance with the state standards. While Republican lawmakers have argued that discussions over such issues could be done spontaneously, formalising them into school curricula is unjust given its impact on young minds.
Ron DeSantis, in a press conference earlier reiterated that the bill will bring more control to the parents in their child’s education. “We are going to make sure parents are able to send their kid to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into some of their school curricula,” he added. While the bill has been passed in both the legislations of the Florida state, it is upon Governor DeSantis to sign it, who has shown his green signal to the bill.
LGBTQ activists and Democrats have opposed the bill with a view that it will badly affect the gay community. LGBTQ advocates and sympathizers have dubbed the bill ‘Don’t Say Gay’ as it bars teaching children sexual identities like ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘queer’ and others. Opponents think that the proposition of the bill discriminates against minors who do not identify themselves through gender binaries such as ‘a boy’ or ‘a girl.’
Various advocacy groups, students, democrat lawmakers and activists in the state of Florida have opposed the law through agitations and protests conducted across America. US Secretary for Education Miguel Cardona who serves under the Biden administration has tweeted, “Leaders in Florida have decided that bills based on hate & discrimination take priority over our students’ pandemic recovery. My team & I stand with our LGBTQ+ students in Florida & across the country & urge Florida leaders to protect & support all students.”
“Leaders in Florida have decided that bills based on hate & discrimination take priority over our students’ pandemic recovery. My team & I stand with our LGBTQ+ students in Florida & across the country & urge Florida leaders to protect & support all students.
— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) March 8, 2022
The political protests at Disney Campuses
However, the politics of gender has grappled Disney with the outrage on a different level. Disney is being bullied by a section of its employees for not taking a definitive stand against the so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill which they have termed homophobic. The Disney leadership including CEO Bob Chapek are being criticized severely for not taking a strong stance against the state-legislated bill. Agitators have pointed out that the bill affects them personally as Disney employees since the company funds many of the legislators who have supported the bill.
The outrage increased so much that one fine day in the woke world, Disney wakes up to widespread agitations of its workers demanding it to criticise the bill across its campuses in America. From March 15, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) workers have organised planned ‘walkouts‘ from the company during breaks from the official schedule. Already on March 9, CEO Chapek had sent out a message to his employees assuring his firm solidarity with LGBTQ issues.
Today, our CEO Bob Chapek sent an important message to Disney employees about our support for the LGBTQ+ community: https://t.co/l6jwsIgGHj pic.twitter.com/twxXNBhv2u
— Walt Disney Company (@WaltDisneyCo) March 11, 2022
However, the employees who were on a protest spree were not convinced. They thought Bob’s message came very late and failed to condemn the homophobic nature of the bill outrightly. While Bob Chapek of Disney is forced to take a political stance out of workforce pressure, on the other hand, he also has governer DeSantis criticising him for bending over the cancel culture espoused by his ‘woke’ employees.
While Disney officials have confirmed that there was no disruption in their operations, herds of its employees could be seen protesting in front of Orlando’s Walt Disney World and Walt Disney Studios. The company’s ‘LGBTQIA+ community’ and its allies have released their demands over a website whereischapek.com. The website lists that the community of protestors is ‘determined to take a stand against TWDC’s apathy in the face of the bigoted bill.’ “The recent statements and lack of action by TWDC leadership regarding the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” bill have utterly failed to match the magnitude of the threat to LGBTQIA+ safety represented by this legislation,” the website states.
In a razor-sharp direction, the workforce has demanded certain steps to be taken by Disney ‘in order to regain the trust of the LGBTQIA+ community and employees.’ The protestors have demanded a commitment from Disney to defund its donations to the politicians listed involved directly or indirectly ‘to clear the passage for the bill’. The list includes names of 22 politicians including Ron DeSantis, Ben Albritton, Dennis Baxley among others.
Wrapped under the cover of gay rights activism, the protests by the employees have turned political secured by their hardwired left agenda. The protesting employees have further demanded Disney stop all its construction and investments in the state of Florida until the resolution is repealed. Another demand is that no employee should be terminated if he opposes his relocation to Florida.
Furthermore, TWDC’s supposed inaction should be made up by making monetary contributions to ‘The Trevor Project’ – an LGBTQ support NGO and other human rights advocacy groups in order to ‘regain the trust’ to its LGBTQ employees. The protestors have also demanded a share in Disney’s content catalogue which will represent stories from the community in form of movies, ads and TV Series.
The LGBTQIA+ workers and allies at The Walt Disney Company are standing in solidarity together over the coming weeks. Here is our open statement and website.https://t.co/hdvFds7Bw6
— Disney Walkout (@DisneyWalkout) March 14, 2022
Petition: https://t.co/B6OWRGmlTF#DisneyDoBetter #DisneySayTrans #DisneySayGay #WhereIsChapek pic.twitter.com/uhQLMl5FJG
Forcing a private company for taking a compulsory stand against state-approved legislation has been normalised as activism in today’s America. The demand for the politicization of inert institutions and sexualization of young minds with concepts like gender identity talks about how the global left rules the roost through narrative or by grabbing control over it through sheer street power.
Gender identity and the Critical Race theory
This is not the first time the politicisation of the school syllabus has been a talking point in America – especially Florida. Last year, parents in the state voiced out severe criticism over the left’s assistance on the inclusion of ‘The Critical Race Theory’ in school syllabi. The theory examines through the prism of ‘intersectionality’ the relationship of Race and society, and fundamentally believes that the foundation of Western society is based upon Racism and discrimination against non-whites.
The concepts of Gender Identity and Sexual identity too stem from Intersectionality where the former refers to one’s personal perception of one’s own gender. It argues that while sex and sexual attraction are biological concepts, the identification of it through ‘gender’ is a social construct. Hence, according to one’s own will, one can determine his/her own gender i.e Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, Trans. Queer among innumerable others which exist today.
While the bill passed in Florida does not discriminate against the LGBTQ community necessarily as a policy, it does threaten the objectives of the hard-left, in a sense, it stops way for its ideological indoctrination influencing young minds.
