A Florida high school will dish out refunds after parents and students whined that the yearbook staff went woke and included “inappropriate” LGBTQ+ content in its annual publication.
This spring, Lyman High School, part of Seminole County Public Schools, released a 256-page yearbook. Two of those pages spotlighted LGBTQ+ students and highlighted gender identity terms, like “genderfluid” and “nonbinary,” according to the Orlando Sentinel.
It was enough to send Seminole County Moms for Liberty Chair Jessica Tillmann into a hissy fit, and she submitted a complaint, forcing the district administration to say they would offer alternatives to people who already paid for, but didn’t want, a copy of the current “school-sponsored student” yearbook.
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“Two pages [published in the Lyman High School yearbook] included information regarding sexual orientation/gender identity. A few students and parents have reported that they found this content to be inappropriate,” Seminole County Public Schools Superintendent Serita Beamon wrote in a letter, according to CBS affiliate WKMG-TV Orlando. “While this matter is being reviewed further at the district level, any student or parent who purchased a copy of the 2022-23 Lyman yearbook may choose to return it to the school for a full refund or request an exchange for a re-printed yearbook that omits the pages in question.”
Parents and students have until June 29 to request a canceled order or modified yearbook, the letter added.
Members of the Lyman High School community were quick to voice their frustration with the yearbook’s content.
“This gender ideology crap has parents in an uproar because it’s disgusting and wrong for an adult to sexualize a minor,” parent Sharman Craft posted on Facebook. “The district superintendent is ordering the school to give full refunds or have the books reprinted without the glossary of perverse sexual attractions and pronouns. We are just getting started.”
“As a former public school teacher, I was taught by [Seminole County Public Schools]… that the public schools need to be NEUTRAL,” Nina Sandberg responded. “This is a violation of public school professional educator ethics. It does not matter which side [of] the issue you are on. This is NOT appropriate.”
However, not everyone agreed.
One Seminole County Public Schools parent who wished to remain anonymous told The Daily Beast in an email that the yearbook uproar “is of extraordinary concern.”
“What they are proposing is wiping out a massive swath of the student body as, in this case, literally erased,” she said. “Erasing LGBTQ students from their own yearbook, erasing their own words and personal stories explaining their lives, is unacceptable under any circumstances. There was nothing inappropriate about that yearbook. It is appropriate, necessary, crucial, and lifesaving for LGBTQ youth to be able to see themselves represented and accepted in every part of their communities.”
Lyman High School faculty yearbook adviser Danielle Pomeranz told the Orlando Sentinel that the district’s decision to modify the yearbook was “unacceptable” and gives “into the bigotry.”
(According to the Orlando Sentinel, LGBTQ+ terms included in the yearbook were taken from pro-LGBTQ+ organizations, like GLAAD and The Trevor Project, and featured students from LGBTQ advocacy groups.)
“They shouldn’t have any sexual definitions in a yearbook,” Tillmann said, the Orlando Sentinel reported. “This is a yearbook that goes to every student as young as 14.”
However, Pomeranz said the section was dedicated to a specific group of students, like any other club at the school, had nothing “about sex at all,” and that a draft of the yearbook was approved by Lyman Principal Michael Hunter. Other student interests were featured, like the Dungeons & Dragons Club and Black History Month activities, she added.
“The student yearbook staff thought it was important to represent their LGBTQ+ classmates,” yearbook editor-in-chief Sara Ward told the Orlando Sentinel. “Our job as journalists and members of the yearbook staff is to provide coverage of the entire school and that includes all of the communities, including the LGBTQ+ community.”
Others chimed in on social media in support. “Lyman High is just 25 minutes from Pulse,” one Twitter user said. “Kids are being punished for their own words in a metro where 49 people were killed in a gay club. If you think you’re ‘protecting kids,’ I want you to seriously get a grip.”
Lyman High School, Seminole County Public Schools, and the Moms for Liberty Seminole County chapter did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment Friday.
