The USA is changing its rules when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights and regulations. Earlier this year Florida introduced the “Don’t Say Gay” bill into Senate. Now they are adding a new clause to refrain teachers and schools to promote LGBTQ+ in kids as well.
This spring, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law HB 1557, the notorious “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The law takes effect on July 1, 2022. The “Don’t Say Gay” law was immediately challenged as unconstitutional on multiple grounds in a lawsuit filed on behalf of LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, Equality Florida and Family Equality, and several students, parents, and educators.
Republican lawmakers in Florida appear likely to expand provisions in the Parental Rights in Education Act, or so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law. With a host of new restrictions on what teachers can and cannot say in their classrooms about gender, sex, and sexual orientation.
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Bills currently being debated in the Florida state House would make it a statewide school policy to define sex as “an immutable biological trait.” Teachers would be banned from addressing students by pronouns that differ from those they were assigned at birth. Staff would also be unable to share their own preferred pronouns if they do not “correspond to his or her sex.”
The bills would also heavily restrict in-school discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity until ninth grade when most students are 14 or 15. The current “Don’t Say Gay” law bans such discussions through third grade.
Critics
DeSantis and other Republicans have repeatedly said the measure is reasonable and that parents. Not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children.
Critics of the law say its language — “classroom instruction,” “age appropriate” and “developmentally appropriate” — is overly broad and subject to interpretation. Consequently, teachers might opt to avoid the subjects entirely for fear of being sued, they say.
Returned Disney CEO Bob Iger made a rare public comment about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ moves to “punish” the company for its position against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year. Saying the decision “sounds not just anti-business, but it sounds anti-Florida.”