After nearly seven hours of debate, the Orange County School Board voted to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the district’s nondiscrimination policy. More than 200 people packed into the Board’s headquarters Dec. 11, about evenly split between supporters of the inclusive policy wearing red and opposition wearing blue.
The discussion was heated because in the past few weeks, anti-gay group Florida Family Council (FFC) got wind of the proposed changes and launched an attack. In an action alert, the FFC called the changes a “dangerous and outrageous proposal creating special rights for homosexuals, transsexuals” and urged their supporters to contact school board members asking them to vote against the inclusive policy.
In the meantime, LGBTs and allies encouraged supporters of the inclusive policy to contact board members and request they vote in favor of the inclusive policy.
The school board members voted twice. A proposed amendment to remove gender identity or expression failed on a 5-3 vote, with Christine Moore, Bill Sublette and Pam Gould voting to remove the gender-related language. The final, inclusive nondiscrimination policy was approved with a 6-2 vote, with Gould and Moore opposed.
“Policy takes effect immediately,” said Kathy Marsh, the district’s senior manager for media relations. “It’s already on the website.”
So how did the whole issue get started?
Clinton McCracken, an art teacher at Howard Middle School said he got this ball rolling two years ago. On Sept. 20, he urged the Board to include gender identity, as they initially were just going to include sexual orientation. Board member Daryl Flynn made the motion to include both protections, and board member Nancy Robbinson seconded the motion.
The issue went from touchy to contentious with the involvement of Florida Family Council, including some questionable media coverage by Fox 35 and WKMG Local 6 that framed the issue in the context of “cross-dressing teachers,” inciting fear that young students would have to deal with their teachers changing their gender mid-school year.
In reality, this type of protection is quite common. Schools in 11 Florida counties already have similarly inclusive nondiscrimination policies including Osceola, Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Orange County and the city of Orlando also have similar protections.
