When Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Bill (widely known to the public as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill”), into law, he was met with a flurry of legal challenges pertaining to the contents of the bill’s provisions. The Parental Rights in Education Bill has been wrongfully misrepresented to the public by claiming that conversations relating to gender identity, sexual orientation, and the LGBTQ community are entirely banned from public school classrooms.[i] Rather, the bill itself prohibits schools from adopting procedures that would prevent parents from making decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children, prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity at certain grade levels, and authorizes parents to bring actions against a school district in the event schools to violate these provisions.[ii]

Equality Florida, the largest civil rights organization in the state advocating for the protection of the LGBTQ community, was one of the most vocal challengers to HB 1557.[iii] Equality Florida claims this bill “is an effort to control young minds through state censorship and to demean LGBTQ lives by denying their reality.” The complaint further alleges that by passing this bill, Florida inadvertently “treats LGTBQ members as outcasts and their allies as outlaws” by “deterring and banning any discussion about LGBTQ identities in public schools.”[iv] At face value, such an allegation would lead one to believe that Florida’s passage of this bill is a flagrant violation of the civil rights of the LGTBQ community. However, this Bill aims to restrict these teachings to certain grade levels, particularly children that are in the age range of five to nine years old. Regardless of whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, queer, trans, or otherwise, what would be the purpose of teaching anything relating to sexual education to children this young? The most likely response would be “to promote more inclusion among members of the LGBTQ community and aim to make them feel less ostracized by their counterparts.” The allegations made by Equality Florida assume that there is no other way to achieve this goal without allowing schools to teach sexual orientation and gender identity to these age groups. Teaching such advanced concepts to children ages five to nine is unlikely to achieve the ultimate goal: promoting a greater sense of inclusion and respect among the LGBTQ community. Instead, teaching these children to be compassionate, understanding, and empathetic in the classroom will achieve this outcome.

Equality Florida claims that HB 1557 restricts public schools’ curriculums because it prohibits topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation from being taught to younger students. Consider the following: Would a first-grade student take calculus before understanding the basic framework of the multiplication table? Of course not, but why? These are concepts simply beyond the scope of this age group’s understanding. The same rationale can be applied to concepts like sexual orientation and gender identity when applied to five- to nine-year-old children who have not even begun to learn about, let alone experience, the beginning stages of puberty. Concepts such as gender identity and sexual orientation are highly complex and private matters.

In upper age groups, such as sixth to eighth grade, sexual education courses are often first introduced to students. In these age groups, there would be no reason to exclude teachings regarding the LGBTQ community, gender identity, and sexual orientation from the learning environment. This age group would make the most sense to begin considering teaching these concepts, as it would be much more reflective of that age group’s point in sexual development.[v]However, even at these higher grade levels, parents should not be left in the dark about these concepts taught to their children in a public school. Likely, many parents do not share the same belief as what may be taught in these classrooms and should retain their ability to opt their child out should they choose. A parent’s ability to opt their child out of sexual education classes is already established law in Florida. House Bill 545 “requires that parents be notified of the right to request an exemption for lessons involving reproductive health and disease through website homepage language and links to review instructional materials. Parents are enabled to send in written requests to exempt their children from learning about sex or sexual diseases such as HIV or AIDS.”[vi] If a teacher or school board were to violate the provisions of either of these bills, parents should be made aware of the violation and be afforded the ability to take appropriate legal action. After all, it is the law in Florida.

While it is understandable that the LGBTQ community views this as an attack on civil liberties, it is not a matter of schools refraining from teaching students about sexual orientation, gender identity, or matters relating to the LGBTQ community as a whole. Rather, this bill deals with the appropriateness of when these concepts are brought into the classroom environment while affording parents the power to object to these teachings in the event schools stray from this law.

[i] See Matt Lavietes, Here’s what Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill would do and what it wouldn’t do, NBC News, (Mar. 16, 2022, 6:34 AM), https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/floridas-dont-say-gay-bill-actually-says-rcna19929 (explaining certain provisions of HB 1557, but omitting the specific age groups the bill aims to prohibit these teachings from).

[ii] See H.B. 1557 Reg. Sess. (Fl. 2022) (listing the state of Florida’s reasoning behind enacting HB 1557).

[iii] See Equality Florida Mission Statement, Equality Florida Action Inc., https://www.eqfl.org/press_kit, (last visited Oct. 17, 2022). (highlighting Equality Florida’s prominent role as an advocate for the LGBTQ community in the state of Florida).

[iv] See Complaint at 2–4, Equality Florida et al. v. DeSantis et al., No. 4:22-cv-00134 (N.D.F.L. filed Mar. 31, 2022), https://www.nclrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Equality-Florida-et-al.-v.-DeSantis-et-al.-Complaint.pdf.

[v] See For Parents: What to Expect When Your Child Goes Through Puberty, FamilyDoctor.org, (Aug. 11, 2020), https://familydoctor.org/for-parents-what-to-expect-when-your-child-goes-through-puberty/.

[vi] See H.B. 545 Reg. Sess. (Fl. 2021) (highlighting the average age female and males begin developing sexually).