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Not content to only target transgender students and staff during school hours, a Florida Republican introduced a state bill this week that would effectively expand Gov. Ron DeSantis’ infamous “Don’t Say Gay” rules to include government workplaces and nonprofits.
House Bill 599, introduced on Tuesday by freshman representative Ryan Chamberlin, makes sweeping changes to Florida employment statutes to declare that “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait.” The bill would prohibit government employees or contractors from being compelled to use a person’s pronouns if those pronouns “do not correspond to his or her sex.” It would also bar employers from asking any worker to state their own pronouns. Even more draconian, the bill would prevent trans employees from sharing their pronouns at all. Under the proposed law, employees and contractors cannot “provide to an employer his or her preferred personal title or pronouns” if, again, they do not match the worker’s assigned sex.
Chamberlin’s bill would also ban any tax-exempt nonprofit or employer that receives state funds from requiring “any training, instruction, or other activity on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” Instead, the bill would establish nondiscrimination protections for what it calls “deeply held biology-based beliefs,” a new spin on religious exemptions that are commonplace in other anti-LGBTQ+ bills and conservative talking points.
Advocates say the bill, if passed, could have dramatic consequences for LGBTQ+ organizations and individuals across Florida. Writing on Truthout, independent trans journalist Erin Reed speculated that the bill could effectively torpedo LGBTQ+ nonprofits and activist programs, comparable to Russian laws that outlaw gay and trans “propaganda.”
“Virtually every LGBTQ+ organization would be radically affected by [H.B. 599] and would likely have to shut down,” Reed argued, as it would be “nearly impossible” to continue even basic operations legally. “It would be a blatant power grab by the state targeting organizations critical to the government and would further drive LGBTQ+ activism and organizing underground in the state.”
Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani, the state’s first elected Iranian American lawmaker, echoed Reed’s analysis in a Tuesday post on X, formerly Twitter. H.B. 599 “would basically ban [LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Florida] from existing,” Eskamani wrote, calling the bill “bigoted, unnecessary and highly unconstitutional.”
The Lawmaker Who Wrote Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law Is Going to Prison for Fraud
Rep. Joseph Harding will serve four months in prison after being convicted of COVID-19 relief fraud.
The Florida legislature is not currently in session, though lawmakers are still allowed to file bills for consideration next year. Any action on H.B. 599 will likely take place during the legislature’s next regular session, which is scheduled to begin in March 2024.
Since the original “Don’t Say Gay” legislation passed in 2022, trans Floridians’ lives and their families’ have been upended, with many finding no choice but to flee the state entirely. But all hasn’t been rosy for its main architect, either; Rep. Joseph Harding was sentenced to four months in prison last month, after pleading guilty to multiple charges of COVID-19 relief fraud.
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