Imagine you're 13 years old living somewhere in suburban Florida. Your parents go to church regularly, and you grow up being told that homosexuality is a sin, but you can't repress the butterflies in your stomach when you think about kissing your best friend. You don't know what that means. You don't know any gay people, but you've seen some on TV—some of them look happy, normal and not sinful at all. You don't even know what to feel or think and you can't talk to anyone. You think that maybe there is something deeply wrong with you. There is a guidance counselor at school who wears cool jewelry, art posters on her wall, seems kind and relatable. But if you tell them what you're feeling... what you're not even sure of... then, by law, they have to tell your parents. That's not an option. You feel so alone, and the anxiety and loneliness becomes unbearable.

This is the nightmare for millions of children and teenagers in Florida right now, and in growing numbers of states across the country—states where Christian fascists are hammering into place biblically based patriarchal theocracy. Forced silence about anything having to do with “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” is the “new rule.” Attempts to purge people who are openly LGBTQ from public life is the order of the day.

Last year, fascists in Florida passed the law that came to be known as the “Don't Say Gay” bill—applicable for grades one through three. Just this week, they have expanded this all the way up to the 12^th grade—seniors in high school.

What the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill Does

So, from the age of 6 to 18, it is against the law for students to talk openly in their classrooms about being gay, trans, bi, to learn history having to do with gay people, to learn that gay authors were gay, or even to talk to their counselors about their questions—without those counselors being forced to report back to their parents. The existence of the Gay Straight Alliance student clubs are being purged from school yearbooks, and to participate, students have to get parent's permission! Children with gay parents cannot bring up their parents in discussions, teachers who are gay may not talk about their partners. One activist in Florida said that teachers cannot even teach the history of Supreme Court cases when it comes to the landmark case granting the right to gay marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges! According to the law, this is unless “instruction is expressly required by state academic standards or is part of a reproductive health course.” However, in terms of the “reproductive health course,” the state teaches “abstinence only” so one can assume there is very little valuable sex education of any kind for older students.

If a teacher violates this law, if a counselor allows a student to pour their hearts out about their anxiety and their sexuality—and this gets back to a parent or school administrator—the teacher could be suspended or even lose their license. This turns students, teachers, parents... everyone into potential snitches, one ratting out the other, and no one able to trust each other... or even do their job. This leaves students with further alienation and for many, it leaves them with the feeling that they'd rather be dead than gay.

In a 2022 national survey, the Trevor Project (which provides crisis and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth) reported that almost half of LGBTQ youth across the country seriously considered suicide in that year. These percentages are significantly lowered when youth are in “affirming” schools—in other words, when LGBTQ people are not despised and erased, youth are less likely to attempt suicide.

No one should accept this future for our youth—of hatred and demonization for those who don't conform to the suffocating patriarchal, and violently enforced, gender roles. These Christian fascists are rapidly moving to lock this future into place. Since 2021, versions of the “Don’t Say Gay” law have been introduced in 24 state legislatures. And these are the same Christian fascist theocrats that want to see women legally subordinated to be breeders of children against their will, and that are carrying out the purging of Black people from the history books and the voter rolls.

People Are Fighting Back... but Where Will This Lead?

There has been powerful resistance in Florida—with thousands of students walking out in over 300 schools across the state. Students broke out chanting: “We say gay! We say trans!” “Black history is American history.” “Ban guns, not gays.” At this point, much of this resistance is being channeled into signing petitions, lobbying politicians or registering to vote—despite the fact that the fascists have said that they will not respect elections they lose. This righteous protest and anger needs to break out of these confines—confines which will end up corralling and containing the fight.

The students, youth, and everyone in the streets determined not to accept a fascist future need to raise their sights: confront the extreme danger, stop clinging to the norms as they are being shredded by these fascists, and instead be part of fighting for a radically different, and far better world. This will require an actual revolution to overthrow the system of capitalism-imperialism which has oppression based on gender or sexual orientation woven into its fiber.

This revolution is not just necessary, but possible—and it has become more possible in this country today. One sharp example of this is what's happening in Florida—where these fascists no longer believe in, and are refusing to abide by, the political “norms” and “rules” that have held this country together for the last 150 years. Society is being ripped apart and these fascists are openly, rapidly, and forcefully moving to lock into place their theocratic rule... seeking revenge on the ways in which women, LGBTQ people, Black and brown people have wrenched out even just some freedoms within this oppressive society.

A Better World IS Possible—but Not Through THIS System

There is a possible future beyond suffering unimaginable horrors under fascism or fighting desperately to cling to rapidly vanishing rights within what is already, and always has been, a brutally unjust, exploitative and oppressive society.

Imagine you're 13 years old living in the southeast of the New Socialist Republic in North America. You grow up without stigma or shame, your curiosity is encouraged and you learn science, music and how to think critically, exploring everything—including different forms of sexuality, all rooted in equality and respect. You learn about degradation in the history books but you are part of a society where the standard is to learn from, and cherish, our differences. You are sometimes overwhelmed by the challenges in the future—how to heal our damaged planet, the clashing of ideas about how to fight forward—and you are sometimes tired. But unlike what you've read about in the old society, people aren't just in it for themselves, people aren't alienated from and all competing with and tearing each other down. You argue with your friends, classmates and neighbors... but you build each other up, help each other and celebrate cooperation and collectivity. You find strength in knowing you're not alone and in making real—with others all around the world—the struggle to uproot exploitation and oppression, building a world fit for future generations.

That future is possible—and it is charted out in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian. The strategy for the revolution we need to get to that new society—and the analysis that shows why this is more possible now than it has been in many decades—can be found in Bob Avakian’s work Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed. A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution. Get deeper into these. For the question is rapidly being posed to everyone:

Now's the time: which future will you accept? Which future will you fight for?