On Wednesday, The Florida Board of Education approved an extension to Gov. Ron DeSantis' "Don't Say Gay" agenda that will enforce a ban on classroom instruction or discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity through the 12th grade.
These new regulations will go into effect in one month after a "procedural comment period."
In addition to the classroom ban, the Florida House of Representatives passed three additional bills further targeting transgender youth, drag shows and transgender medical care.
In response to this attack on the LGBTQ+ community, Equality Florida, the state's leading LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, issued a statement saying:
"The GOP-led legislature has made clear that they see their role as little more than a rubber stamp for the anti-LGBTQ, anti-freedom agenda of Governor Ron DeSantis. Today, the House passed bills that will rip health insurance and Telehealth access away from transgender people, dissolve child custody agreements, forcibly detransition transgender young people, target small businesses and municipalities that dare to host drag performances, and empower people to monitor one another's genitals to ensure they are in the "right bathroom." Free states don't wield the power of government against the people. Free states don't criminalize health care or terrorize small business owners. The damage that DeSantis and his legislative cronies have done to Florida will outlast their career ambitions. Shame on Republican lawmakers for plunging our state into right wing chaos in service to one man with a desperation to be President."
"Gender ideology has no place in our K through 12 school system," DeSantis said on Wednesday in a quote obtained from CNN. "It's wrong for a teacher to tell a student that they may have been born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice and so we don't let that happen in Florida."
DeSantis is currently on his "Florida Blueprint" tour and stopped in South Carolina on Wednesday evening to pull topics from his book "The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival."
