Florida GOP aims to nix school lessons on sex, gender

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republicans want to forbid discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools with a bill that activists say endangers children and echoes a previous wave of laws that sought to squelch LGBTQ conversations in the classroom.

Activists have dubbed the proposal moving through Florida’s GOP-controlled Statehouse as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and it has attracted condemnation on social media and from Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

If passed, the measure would “effectively silence students from speaking about their LGBTQ family members, friends, neighbors and icons,” said Kara Gross of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The bill emerged amid a national debate over how U.S. schools should teach about race, gender and history. The broad reexamination of public education has often turned contentious and led to books being pulled from school library shelves.

As written, the proposal states that school districts “may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.” A parent could sue a district for violations.

In a committee hearing last week, Democrats peppered bill sponsor Rep. Joe Harding with questions about whether kids would be able to talk freely about LGBTQ people or history.

Harding repeatedly said his bill is meant to give parents more control over what their children learn. He maintained that it would not silence spontaneous discussions but instead stop a district from integrating such topics into the curriculum. He added that schools could still have lessons on Pride Month and events such as the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in which a gunman killed 49 people in Orlando.