Anti-Transgender and LGBTQ Bills filled in 2023

This bill would prohibit certain governmental agencies and units of local government from displaying flags that do not follow a certain protocol or comply with specified requirements, etc.

This bill makes it illegal to display any unauthorized flags, such as pride flags in government buildings and in K-20 schools. 

House Bill Text: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1011/BillText/Filed/PDF

House Sponsor: David Borrero

House Committees Assigned: Referred to Constitutional Rights, Rule of Law & Government Operations Subcommittee; State Affairs Committee 

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/668/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsor: Jay Collins

Senate Committees Assigned: Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee; Community Affairs Committee; Rules Committee 

This bill would require employers that provide coverage of gender dysphoria treatment to also cover the full costs associated with treatment that reverses such gender dysphoria treatment.  Even if the employee no longer works for the employer and even if the employee no longer lives in the State of Florida.

This bill makes it undesirable to offer coverage for Gender Dysphoria and could also create another barrier to the already arduous task of finding employment as a transgender or gender non-conforming person.

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1265/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsor: Taylor Yarkosky

House Committees Assigned: Regulatory Reform & Economic Development Subcommittee; Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee; Commerce Committee 

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/952/billtext/filed/html

Senate Sponsor: Blaise Ingoglia

Senate Committees Assigned: Health Policy Committee; Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government Committee; Fiscal Policy Committee 

This bill makes it essentially automatic defamation for anyone to say they've been discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. It also eliminates the ability to prove the truth that the discrimination occurred if the perpetrator is citing religious or scientific beliefs. Though, it seems that the inability to prove the truth of the allegation of discrimination is limited to sexual orientation and gender identity.  There's a minimum damages amount of $35,000 if the charge of defamation is proven. 

This means that if a person calls someone homophobic or transphobic for discriminating against them, they can be sued for defamation.  Further, even if it is true that the discrimination happened but the perpetrator claims that it is their religious belief or their “scientific belief” then the truth can not be used as a defense against defamation.

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/991/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsors: Alex Andrade, Mike Beltran

House Committees Assigned: Civil Justice Subcommittee; Judiciary Committee

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1220/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsors: Jason Brodeur, Keith Perry

Senate Committees Assigned: Judiciary Committee; Rules Committee 

 This bill removes gender studies classes and departments.  As well as race studies classes and departments.  This means that Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, and Intersectionality majors/minors will be removed if this passes.  

This bill also takes the ability to hire and retain facilty away from the school and gives the hiring and retention decisions to the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors includes 17 members, 14 of whom are appointed by the Florida Governor and confirmed by the Florida Senate for a term of seven years. The members of the board also include the Commissioner of Education, the chair of the Advisory Council of Faculty Senates (or its equivalent), and the president of the Florida Student Association (or its equivalent).

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/999/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsor: Alex Andrade

House Committees Assigned: Postsecondary Education & Workforce Subcommittee; Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee; Education & Employment Committee

Senator Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/266/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsor: Erin Grall

Senate Committees Assigned: Education Postsecondary Committee; Appropriations Subcommittee on Education; Fiscal Policy Committee 

This bill would require Florida schools to teach only that sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth. Lessons would have to teach specifically that biological males impregnate biological females through fertilization of female eggs with male sperm. The lessons would include the gestation process, as well as that reproductive roles “are binary, stable, and unchangeable.” Officially, the bill would define “sex” as “the binary division of individuals based upon reproductive function.”

This bill also broadens district school board oversight to include responsibility for materials available in “classroom libraries”, going beyond their current oversight of “school libraries and instructional materials.” The bill also expands Florida’s existing mechanisms for challenging books. The bill mandates that all challenged books be removed from shelves immediately pending review.  Meaning that  they would be banned as soon as they were challenged. This requirement violates procedural best practices from the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the American Library Association (ALA), which state that a book should remain in circulation while undergoing a reconsideration process.

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1069/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsor: Stan McClain

House Committees Assigned: Education & Employment Committee; Education Quality Subcommittee 

This bill is basically an expansion of the 2022 bill HB 1557 which was known as the “Don’t Say Gay” or more properly titled the “Don’t Say or Be LGBTQ+” bill.  HB 1557 prohibits classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in Kindergarten through third grade "or in a manner that is not age-appropriate."

HB 1223 expands that to include PreK through eighth grade. Further, this bill doesn’t just apply to public schools, it also expands this to charter schools and private PreK.  This would mean that LGBTQ+ people would be erased from the classroom all the way through middle school, which is a critical period of social and emotional development for students.

The bill states, “It shall be the policy of every K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the constitution and laws of Florida 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.”  If passed, the bill would prevent the use of pronouns that align with transgender students’ gender identities up through 12th grade

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1223/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsors: Adam Anderson, Carey Baker

House Committees Assigned: Choice & Innovation Subcommittee; Education & Employment Committee

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1320/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsors: Clay Yarborough, Kieth Perry

Senate Committees Assigned: Education Pre-K -12 Committee; Fiscal Policy Committee

This bill would legalize the kidnapping trans kids from supportive parents in better states if they come to Florida and would override custody orders written in other states. It “Grants courts of this state temporary emergency jurisdiction over children present in this state if they are at risk of or are being subjected to the provision of sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures”

This bill also introduced prohibition on public funds for gender affirming care of any kind including state health insurance, a state agency, etc.  Licensed health care facilities, hospitals, physicians offices, and physicians would be forced to attest that they are not providing gender affirming care to children under 18 and will have their license revoked if they do not sign.

Further, it would require children already receiving care to sign an informed consent form (does not create a registry) and adopts the Board of Medicine grandfather clause for children.

Finally, it would make it a 3rd degree felony for violations of statute for healthcare providers who violate in Section 1 of the statute involving minors/children under the age of 18 and first degree misdemeanor for healthcare providers who violate Section 2-3 restrictions on gender affirming care for adults

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/254/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsors: Clay Yarborough, Kieth Perry

Senate Committees Assigned: Health Policy Committee; Fiscal Policy Committee

This bill would ban gender neutral bathrooms. It would only allow places to have gendered or single use non-gendered stalls. This would apply to all state agencies, schools, local jails, and homeless shelters. The way that the bill is written it would also effectively apply to domestic violence shelters, 

Note: Violence against women act is a federal law that govern the non-discrimination provisions covering domestic violence shelters.

This bill would also forces schools to have a code of conduct with disciplinary procedures for a trans person using the correct bathroom.

*It would be a 2nd degree misdemeanor for anyone who violates this law.*

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1521/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsor: Saunders Plakon

House Committee Assigned: TBD

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1674/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsor: Erin Grall

Senate Committee Assigned: TBD

This bill would remove the ability to change your gender on a birth certificate (except for intersex people) - and will inadvertently exclude adopted children. 

Note: All laws are presumed to be prospective and not retrospective unless otherwise stated so this only bars future gender marker changes on birth certificates for those born in Florida and will not retrospectively change those birth certificates already changed by the effective date.

The bill states that only a physician can offer “gender clinical interventions” closing a loop hole for nurse practitioners who can currently prescribe gender affirming prescriptions such as puberty blockers and hormones. It redefines “Gender clinical interventions” to isolate transgender and gender non-conforming care from the cisgender patients that can receive the same treatments.

Finally, it would require “informed consent” provisions with penalties for clinicians who do not follow informed consent rules.  Similar to abortion laws that promote the same false information. Meaning that any transgender person that receives any health affirming care must read and sign a form that contains false and inaccurate information about gender affirming care - at every single appointment.

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1421/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsors: Randy Fine, Ralph Massullo, Berny Jacques

House Committee Assigned: TBD

This Bill uses language to exclude and protect children from lewd or pornographic or sexual behavior.  The Bill sponsor thinks of the bill as a ban on drag performances that involve children (drag queen book reading, etc) but the language of the Bill would only reiterate previous language already in statute to protect children from entering strip bars and having interactions with sex workers.

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1423/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsors: Randy Fine

House Committee Assigned: TBD

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1438/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsor: Clay Yarborough, Kieth Perry

Senate Committee Assigned: TBD

This Bill gives medical and healthcare providers; and health insurance officials and companies the ability to object to and deny care (gender affirming care, abortion or reproductive care, etc) for a patient on the basis of loosely defined "moral, ethical or religious" reasons.  The would be an amendment to current legislation that states only religious reasons will be covered and you also have to prove that your religion actually objects.

House Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1403/billtext/filed/pdf

House Sponsors: Dr. Joel Rudman

House Committee Assigned: TBD

Senate Bill Text: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2023/1580/billtext/filed/pdf

Senate Sponsor: Jay Trumbull

Senate Committee Assigned: TBD