While many of the controversial education bills in Florida have limited how schools teach about history or gender, the latest, House Bill 1069, is turning back to a more traditional target for conservatives: sex education.
If passed, the law would require that teachers get approval for materials used in sexual health classes, which can only be taught in grades six through 12 under the law. It would also require that schools teach a specific definition of “sex” and “reproductive roles.”
The bill advanced last week at a Florida House Education Quality Subcommittee hearing — bolstered by a Republican supermajority — and is on its way to a vote on the state House floor. Ultimately, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will likely sign it into law.
The bill joins DeSantis’s two other education initiatives — the “Don’t Say Gay” law and the Stop WOKE Act — in seeking to restrict what teachers can talk about in the classroom. And while it’s nominally about sex education, it would also reinforce those laws’ restrictions on what students learn about gender and relationships, and increase the state’s ability to restrict what students read in the school library by giving parents and community members the power to object to some materials.
During the subcommittee hearing last week, Democrats were aghast that lawmakers didn’t consider whether a topic as innocuous as menstrual cycles would be barred from discussions at school under the legislation. Rep. Ashley Viola Gantt asked Rep. Stan McClain, who proposed the legislation, whether the bill would prohibit young girls from talking about their periods in schools.
“Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles ― because we know that typically the age is between 10 and 15 ― so if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?” Gantt asked McClain during…
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