Teacher fired after talking to high school class about gay bears

A South Carolina high school fired a teacher after she handed out leaflets to her students about gay bears.

Officials at Spartanburg School District 6 said the language arts teacher at Dorman High School handed out “inappropriate and unapproved content” to sophonores. Namely, a leaflet detailing the “International Bear Brotherhood” that explained what the bear subset of the LGBTQ+ community is.

“Although the term ‘bear’ is slang for a larger, hairier gay or bisexual man, the International Bear Brotherhood takes the idea of a community much farther than that,” the leaflet noted. “They host events for men to come and enjoy themselves and meet new people within their community. You can always find someone friendly and welcoming at a bear event!”

The literature contained no images, just text on the history of the bear scene and its global reach. You can read a web version here.

It seems the lesson did not go down well with some parents.

One parent of a child at the school told Fox 8, “It would be really disturbing for me, because it’s not in line with my views, or my family’s views. We would be open for discussion and conversation afterwards. But it’s not something that I feel like should be brought up and it would aggravate me that it happened to my child.”

The teacher told officials it had been her personal choice to share the information to help facilitate a discussion.

She was then placed on administrative leave while an investigation took place. The educator in question had recently been in attendance when the school had a meeting with all staff about the importance of only using approved materials.

At the conclusion of the investigation a couple of weeks ago, the teacher was fired.

According to ACLU, South Carolina lawmakers are currently mulling 19 different pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Several of these relate to schools and education. Some codify the importance of parental approval of teaching materials and threaten schools with reduced funding for potential violations. Others, such as H.4047, target trans youth and criminalize medical professionals providing gender-affirming care.