As Florida legislators in the state House recently approved a controversial measure further restricting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, students — and, evidently, Equality Florida, which is an organization that supports LGBTQ+ rights — held a protest that saw students gather inside the Florida Capitol.
Since, unlike the U.S. Capitol on January 6, there was no limit on entering that building beyond ordinary security precautions, this show of opposition was in no way an insurrection or even any attempt at such action, no matter any potential Republican interest in depicting protests from liberals and Democrats as such a thing. As explained in a summary from the ACLU of Florida, the law that legislators had under consideration would, it seems, restrict sex education courses from acknowledging the well-documented realities of transgender people. As of that same summary, the bill allowed for objections to materials included or available in certain school settings or courses, with those materials apparently to be removed as an investigation proceeds forward. The objections allowed are any tied to any sexual references outside health courses, whether such were intended pornographically or not.
The measure requires “sex ed programs to teach that sex is determined by reproductive function at birth and is binary and unchangeable and to use only materials approved by the state Department of Education,” that advocacy organization said. “The bill also allows anyone in the district to object to any material in the classroom or school library or on a reading list that depicts or describes any sexual conduct, even if it is not pornographic, if it is not for a health course. Such material would be removed pending investigation and subject to permanent removal.”
Elsewhere, it’s also come out that DeSantis and his team would be pursuing an expansion of his legislative initiative known as “Don’t Say Gay” into all grades. (That’s not what its proponents called the bill.) The measure broadly restricts classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity, and as the thematically related legislation suggests, the at least feared idea is that such a framework would be specifically applied against LGBTQ+ people, groups obviously including students, who could find even formal classroom discussion of elements of their experiences of life forbidden. The expansion of the original restrictions was set for a vote by the state Board of Education, according to the Associated Press. In education policy in general, DeSantis and his allies have also faced criticism over the upheaval in the administration of the New College of Florida and what are now fellow institutions of higher learning in the state’s system of public colleges and universities.
"Hey hey. Ho ho. Ron DeSantis has got to go!" pic.twitter.com/lB4fzlbW0j
— Equality Florida (@equalityfl) March 31, 2023
Students chant "this is what democracy looks like." pic.twitter.com/OT7yLMwHqH
— Equality Florida (@equalityfl) March 31, 2023
