16: Manufacturing Hysteria: Gender, Sex, Sexuality, and Parental Rights in Florida

The parental rights movement in Florida, prominent during Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration, represents the most recent iteration of the long-standing tensions in the United States between the family and the State as well as the family and the school. The historical tensions can be understood through a long list of state and federal court cases that have taken up compulsory education, parental custody, and the nature of parental rights over their children. Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), Stanley v. Illinois (1972), Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), Troxel v. Granville (2000), and Routten v. Routten (2020) all co-mingle to create a persistent question of what role does the State have in the life of a family, and what obligations does the State have to ensure the flourishing of children? The tension between the family and the State has centered on “parents’ fundamental rights in directing the care, custody, and control of their children as a family and the State’s power to affect, limit, or even terminate those rights” (Parker et al., 2020). Although recent events in Florida (and beyond) feel as if the parental rights movement is ushering in new debates, these are in fact very old debates within the U.S.