Florida bill ensures students are "free from sexualization and indoctrination" in schools

Florida’s House of Representatives submitted a bill on Tuesday that aims to expand the ban on teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity at schools by restricting the use of gender pronouns through eighth grade. 

The bill, proposed by Representative Adam Anderson with support from Representative Randy Fine, would define “sex” as “the binary division of individuals based upon reproductive functions.”

"This bill promotes parental rights, transparency, and state standards in Florida schools.

It requires that lessons for Florida’s students are age-appropriate, focused on education, and free from sexualization and indoctrination," Anderson, District 57, said in a statement. 

The bill, HB 1223, proposes changes to the Parental Rights Education law signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last March. Known by its critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the law currently restricts gender identity and sexuality discussions in schools up to the third grade.

The new bill would expand the regulation by banning the instruction of gender identity and orientation up to the eighth grade. Additionally, the law would prevent employees, contractors, and students of public schools from being required to refer to someone by pronouns that do not match their sex. 

“It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the Constitution and laws of Florida 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,” the bill states.