Bill Expanding the Scope of the “Don’t Say Gay” Law Keeps Moving Forward in Florida | news today

Ron DeSantis with his wife Casey while celebrating his re-election as Governor of Florida.

Photo: EFE – Courtesy

A legislative proposal that expands the scope of the law that prohibits speaking in Florida elementary classrooms about sexual identity, known colloquially as “Don’t Say Gay” (“Do not say gay”), advances in the Congress of this state after be approved by a subcommittee.

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The rule, promulgated last year by the Florida governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, prohibits gender identity from being addressed in public schools until the third grade of primary school, but the HB 1223 project that was approved this Tuesday in the Election Subcommittee and House Innovation extends that limitation to eighth grade.

State Congressman Adam Anderson’s bill also includes restrictions on the use of pronouns in classrooms and among school faculty, who are prohibited from referring to any pronoun other than “biological sex.”

“The bill reinforces that it is better to leave the instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to parents and guardians within the home,” the author of the proposal explained to the specialized media Florida Politics, who during his discussion today in the subcommittee of the Congress deserved the rejection of the Democratic opposition.

Democratic Rep. Angie Nixon called the bill “anti-liberty.” “This is not about parental rights. It is not about children’s rights. It is about adding political points. It’s about power and control,” she added.

The proposal defines in state education law that sex is “the classification of a person as female or male based on the organization of that person’s body for a reproductive function, as indicated by the person’s sex chromosomes, hormones natural sexual relations and internal and external genital conditions at birth”.

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The bill includes exceptions for “persons born with a genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sexual development.” The proposal still has to be debated in the Education and Employment Committee of the lower house before being discussed in plenary.

In the state Senate, a similar bill by Republican Sen. Clay Yarborough, SB 1320, is expected to be discussed in the first of two committees in which it is scheduled.

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