A LGBTQ pride flag.
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A Florida GOP state representative filed a proposal expanding the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The bill, HB 1223, would prohibit instruction on sexual orientation and gender up to eighth grade.
Advocacy groups slammed the proposal, saying it polices schools and demonizes LGBTQ people.
Florida lawmakers will consider a major expansion to the state’s controversial gender and education law — which critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” — that would target transgender and nonbinary students and ban schools from teaching about gender until high school.
The bill, HB 1223, forbids “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” from pre-K through eighth grade, and would expand the restriction to apply to private programs and charter schools.
HB 1223 would also require “every public K-12 educational institution” to acknowledge 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.”
If passed, the bill would bar teachers from calling students by pronouns that don’t align with their sex at birth and students from asking for a teacher to use preferred pronouns.
HB 1223 was filed by, R-Palm Harbor.
The bill’s creator, GOP Rep. Adam Anderson, said in a statement to the Orlando Sentinel that the bill “promotes parental rights, transparency, and state standards in Florida schools.”
He added the bill would keep schools “free from sexualization and indoctrination,” echoing the statements of Republican lawmakers across the country who have proposed and passed bills targeting LGBTQ people and education.
Anderson’s office did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
LGBTQ advocacy groups, like Equality Florida, condemned the bill. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Equality Florida Public Policy Director Jon Harris Maurer said, “This legislation is about a fake moral panic, cooked up by Governor [Ron] DeSantis to demonize LGBTQ people for his own political career.”
DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond when asked if they supported the bill.
The original law, which DeSantis signed into law in February 2022, banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and led to a national backlash from LGBTQ advocates and Democratic lawmakers.
The law also sparked a feud between DeSantis and Disney — one of Florida’s biggest employers — who initially stayed silent about the law but later denounced it.
DeSantis and Florida Republicans responded by stripping Disney of its special tax district and taking control of the area around Disney World.