What is Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill?

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The bill came up for debate in the Senate on 7 March, where Shevrin Jones – the first openly LGBT+ member of Florida’s Republican-dominated Senate – made an emotional appeal for proponents of the bill to shoot it down because it could forcibly “out” LGBT+ students and have a chilling effect on LGBT+ people and issues in Florida schools. Following several hours of debate ahead of a vote in the state Senate, bill supporter Ileana Garcia claimed “gay is not a permanent thing” and “LGBT is not a permanent thing.” Equality Florida and a group of Florida families filed their lawsuit to block enforcement of the bill in US District Court on 31 March, calling the measure an “unlawful attempt to stigmatize, silence, and erase LGBTQ people in Florida’s public schools”. Florida state Rep Spencer Roach said a group of state legislators met at least twice to discuss potentially changing municipal government agreements affecting Disney in retaliation for what he called the company’s “woke ideology.” In April, Governor DeSantis expanded the scope of a special legislative session on the state’s redistricting plans to also consider the “termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968,” including the municipal taxing and government district created in 1967 that allows Disney to tax and regulate its sprawling park and resort properties in the Orlando area. She said the measure is among “misinformed, hateful policies that do absolutely nothing to address the real issues” facing American families, and in an emotional interview released in April, she condemned legislation targeting LGBT+ people used as a “political wedge issue, an attempt to win a culture war, and they’re doing that in a way that is harsh and cruel to a community – of kids, especially.” More than 300 pieces of state-level legislation in 2022 target transgender student athletes, healthcare for transgender young people, and classroom instruction on “sexual orientation and gender identity”, among other measures targeting LGBT+ people, mostly young transgender people.