Amendment to Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill would require schools to out students within six weeks

‘This will have devastating consequences for our youth’

An amendment to a widely criticised Florida bill that proposes banning discussions about sex or gender identity in classrooms would require schools to disclose whether a child is LGBT+ to their parents within six weeks of learning if they are not straight.

Opponents of an amendment from state Rep Joe Harding to the “Parental Rights in Education” bill – labelled “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics – have warned that it intentionally targets LGBT+ children.

School districts “may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students,” according to the bill, which passed a Florida state legislative committee on 20 January. State legislators will debate the bill on 22 February.

A previous draft of the bill granted protections to students who shared personal information with school staff if “a reasonably prudent person would believe that such disclosure would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect”.

But under the new amendment, “the school principal or his or her designee shall develop a plan, using all available governmental resources, to disclose such information within [six] weeks after the decision to withhold such information from the parent.”

The bill would require disclosure “through an open dialogue in a safe, supportive, and judgment-free environment that respects the parent-child relationship and protects the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of the student,” according to the amendment.

Florida Rep Carlos Guillermo Smith condemned the amendment as “state-mandated” outing of LGBT+ students to parents that will have “devastating consequences for our youth”, he said on Twitter.

The bill’s language also suggests that parental disclosure requirements could apply to any sensitive information, he told the Tampa Bay Times.

“This is about disclosure of anything a child shares with the school,” he said.

State Rep Michael Grieco called the amendment “patently offensive” and part of “another red meat pandering bill, and it has nothing to do with parental rights,” he told the newspaper. “It is empowering mean people to be more mean.”

The bill is among more than a dozen state-level proposals to ban discussion of LGBT+ issues in classrooms.

LGBT+ advocates have warned such measures – promoted by Republicans looking to make “parents rights” a focal point of midterm election messaging – will endanger young people who already face a greater risk of mental health issues, homelessness, self-harm and suicide.

A 2021 report from LGBT+ suicide prevention and crisis intervention group The Trevor Project found that LGBT+ young people who learned about LGBT+ people or issues in school were 23 per cent less likely to report a suicide attempt within the last year.

Another report from the organisation found that LGBT+ youth are four times more likely to seriously consider, plan or attempt suicide than their peers, while LGBT+ young people between the ages of 13 and 24 attempt to kill themselves every 45 seconds within the US.