A Florida legislator has introduced a bill that would expand the state’s “Don’t Say Gay/LGBTQ” law to completely ban instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity from pre-K through eighth grade classrooms and ban the use of pronouns and names aligned with transgender and nonbinary students’ gender identities in schools.
The “Don’t Say Gay/LGBTQ” law (actually titled “Parental Rights in Education”) that went into effect last July (HB 1557), prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grades and restricts it to an undefined age-appropriateness in higher grades. Yesterday, Florida State Rep. Adam Anderson (R-Tarpon Springs) introduced legislation (HB 1223) to expand that law, adding even more restrictions on discussion of or even acknowledgement of LGBTQ identities.
Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, said in a statement:
The Don’t Say LGBTQ policies are part of a coordinated campaign by the DeSantis Administration…. Florida stands in the midst of an unprecedented campaign of censorship and surveillance, targeting anyone who doesn’t share the increasingly extremist ideology of Governor Ron DeSantis.
Among other things, the bill would:
- Ban classroom instruction in public schools (including charter schools) on sexual orientation or gender identity in pre-K through grade 8.
- Extend the ban to charter schools and private prekindergarten providers.
- Make it the policy of every public school that “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
- State that employees, contractors, and students of public K-12 institutions “may not be required, as a condition of employment or enrollment or participation in any program, to refer to another person using that person’s preferred personal title or pronouns” if they don’t correspond to the person’s sex.
- Forbid employees and contractors of public K-12 institutions from providing “his or her preferred personal title or pronouns” to students if they don’t correspond to the employee or contractor’s sex.
- Forbid employees and contractors of public K-12 institutions from asking students their “preferred personal title or pronouns” or from penalizing students if they do not provide them.
“’Don’t Say LGBTQ’ policies have already resulted in sweeping censorship, book banning, rainbow Safe Space stickers being peeled from classroom windows, districts refusing to recognize LGBTQ History Month, and LGBTQ families preparing to leave the state altogether. This legislation is about a fake moral panic, cooked up by Governor DeSantis to demonize LGBTQ people for his own political career,” said Equality Florida Public Policy Director Jon Harris Maurer. “Governor DeSantis and the lawmakers following him are hellbent on policing language, curriculum, and culture. Free states don’t ban books or people.”
“The DeSantis regime isn’t satisfied with a hostile takeover of traditional public schools. They envision a future where LGBTQ families have no school choice to find dignity or respect,” Maurer added.
Florida is not the only state to see such legislation introduced. For example, a Missouri bill (SB 134) is also attempting to ban all discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity by teachers and other public school personnel, except for licensed mental health care providers “with prior permission from the student’s parent or legal guardian.” A variety of other educational censorship bills are being put forward in many states, as PEN America recently reported.
Yet some states have considered similar legislation, but tempered it as being too extreme. For example, a Utah bill would still prohibit any discussion of sexuality in kindergarten through third grade classrooms, but removed a proposed ban on discussing “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
We can fight these bills, but it’s going to take work. Follow Equality Florida for updates and action steps in the (not-as-much)-Sunshine State, and visit the ACLU’s tracker for the status of anti-LGBTQ bills across the country.