TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida Republican is making moves to expand restrictions on the use of preferred pronouns from schools to workplaces.
On Tuesday, State Rep. Ryan Chamberlin filed HB 599, a bill that would both ban government employees from using pronouns that don't align with their biological sex and stop certain non-profits from training employees on sexual orientation or gender identity.
“It is the policy of the state 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 reads.
Under the proposed legislation, government employees would not be allowed to disclose their pronouns to their employers if those pronouns don't correspond to their biological sex at birth. Other employees or contractors would also not be required to refer to that person by their preferred pronouns.
The bill would ban government agencies from firing, suspending or taking any action against an employee for their religious or "biology-based beliefs." This includes “traditional or Biblical views of sexuality and marriage" and "disagreement with gender ideology," according to the bill text.
When it comes to non-profits or organizations that receive funding from the state, the legislation would make it illegal for them to train employees on topics of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
Much of the language in HB 599 mirrors what is used in HB 1577 — the controversial Florida law commonly referred to as "Don't Say Gay." When signed by DeSantis in 2022, that law prohibited classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade. It was later expanded in 2023 to include all grade levels and place restrictions on the use of preferred pronouns by students and school staffers.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, called the bill "bigoted, unnecessary and highly unconstitutional," in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. She said the bill "would basically ban" Equality Florida, the state's largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, from existing.
In a statement, Carlos Guillermo Smith, a senior policy advisor at Equality Florida, called the proposed legislation "an alarming escalation of right-wing extremism in Florida."
Here is Smith's full statement on behalf of Equality Florida:
HB 599 is an alarming escalation of right-wing extremism in Florida. The bill imposes unprecedented government control over the work of nonprofit organizations disfavored by the DeSantis administration and goes far beyond its proposed regulation of pronouns to aggressively target the rights of transgender government employees to simply exist as themselves.
This latest attack is a continuation of DeSantis's censorship agenda that attempts to erode our basic democratic freedoms in order to appeal to a far-right base.
