Lifestyle

This Florida teen went viral for his lesson on the Stonewall riots

Will Larkins, a student at Winter Park High School, gave the lesson just days after Gov. DeSantis signed a controversial bill limiting LGBTQ discussion in schools into law

By Sydney Page
April 4, 2022 at 6:31 p.m. EDT



Will Larkins at a student walkout on March 7 that he organized at Winter Park High School in Winter Park, Fla., to protest the Parental Rights in Education bill. (Macey Woodburn)

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the Parental Rights in Education bill — or, as critics call it, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — into law last week, Will Larkins was crushed. ... While he was unsurprised by the outcome, it was still “so defeating,” said Larkins, a 17-year-old junior at Winter Park High School in Winter Park, Fla. At the same time, he said, “it has energized me to fight even harder for as long as it takes until things are better.” ... Teen LGBTQ rights advocates have been at the forefront of the fight against the controversial law, which prohibits educators from teaching students in kindergarten through third grade about sexual orientation and gender identity. For older students, discussion about gay and transgender issues has to be “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”

[Florida’s law limiting LGBTQ discussion in schools, explained]

Larkins, president and co-founder of his school’s Queer Student Union, testified against the bill] in the Florida Senate on Feb. 28 and led a walkout of more than 500 high school students on March 7 in protest of the policy.

Link to tweet

And on Sunday, Larkins shared a now-viral video on Twitter, in which he is seen educating fellow students about the 1969 Stonewall uprising. As of Monday evening, the tweet had garnered more than 20,000 likes.

Link to tweet

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Larkins was motivated to make a PowerPoint presentation on the Stonewall riots — a series of uprisings in New York City in response to a police raid of a gay bar — when he realized the topic wasn’t being covered in the class curriculum, he said. (Winter Park High School did not respond to a request for comment.) ... Because Larkins’s class had recently been learning about pivotal historical events from the late 1960s and early 1970s in America, he said he asked his teacher: “Are we going to learn about Stonewall?” ... His teacher’s response, Larkins said, was, “What’s Stonewall?”

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About 500 students participated in the walkout at Winter Park High School on March 7. (Betzy Singleton)

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By Sydney Page
Sydney Page is a reporter who writes for The Washington Post’s Inspired Life blog, a collection of stories about humanity. She has been a contributor to The Post since 2018. Twitter https://twitter.com/sydneypage95