New Florida Bill: Ban “Preferred Pronouns,” LGBTQ Training at Taxpayer Funded Workplaces

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — A Republican lawmaker wants to disarm the pronoun police at taxpayer-funded workplaces in Florida.

State Rep. Ryan Chamberlin (R-Belleview) filed a bill on Tuesday that would give job security to certain employees who refuse to perpetuate the myth of gender fluidity.

HB 599 would make it illegal for any taxpayer funded institution – such as public schools, colleges and universities, municipal governments and some nonprofits – to punish an employee or contractor for refusing to refer to a coworker by pronouns that do not align with his/her biological sex. 

Specifically, the bill bans “adverse personnel actions” such as termination, demotion, suspension, transfer or the withholding of bonuses. 

“An employee or a contractor may not be required, as a condition of employment, to refer to another person using that person's preferred personal title or pronouns if such personal title or pronouns do not correspond to that person's sex,” the initial bill text states.

Chamberlin’s proposal codifies what was once taken for granted in America and across the Western world, stating explicitly: “It is the policy of the state 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.”

Protected from discrimination are the employee or contractor’s “deeply held religious or biology-based beliefs, including a belief in traditional or Biblical views of sexuality and marriage” or “disagreement with gender ideology.” 

Chamberlin hopes to protect the expression of these views “at or away from the worksite.”

In addition to protecting traditional views on sex and gender, the bill also seeks to ban mandatory workplace training on “sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”