(Miami) The Florida Senate passed a controversial law on Tuesday that bans teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation in public elementary schools, a decision that critics say could harm young people in the LGBT + community.
Posted at 4:29 p.m.
Nicknamed by its opponents “Don’t say gay” (“do not talk about homosexuals”), the text which has yet to be signed by the Republican Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, favorable to the initiative, applies to the classes of kindergarten to CE2 where the children are between 8 and 9 years old.
Law bars teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation ‘in a manner inappropriate for students’ age or development’, language that critics say could extend scope to school children older.
The Republicans, however, ensure that the law does not prohibit spontaneous discussions on these subjects between teachers and students, but only the inclusion of courses in school programs.
“Leaders in Florida have decided that laws based on hate and discrimination are more important than our students recovering from the pandemic,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona tweeted on Tuesday.
The LGBT+ advocacy group, Equality Florida, accused “parliamentarians of siding with hate mobs hurling anti-LGBTQ slurs at people simply seeking sanctuary at school where they can be who they are.” are without hiding.
Hundreds of students had demonstrated against this law in recent days in front of the Florida Parliament in Tallahassee.
Conservatives in this state in the southeastern United States have been on an educational offensive for several months.
The Florida House of Representatives adopted a law on February 24 restricting teaching on race-related subjects in public schools.
The text aims without naming it “the critical theory of race”, which analyzes racism as a system with its laws and logics of power, rather than at the level of individual prejudices.