Florida elementary schools won’t be allowed to teach sexual orientation or gender identity starting July 1, after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law Monday that critics say could hurt to the LGBTI community.
“We will make sure that parents can send their children to school so that they receive an education, not indoctrination,” the Republican governor declared before ratifying the law.
The text will apply from preschool through third grade, where students are typically eight or nine years old.
The Democratic opposition and LGTBI activists were unable to stop a law they nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” (“Don’t Say Gay”) and that caused a stir in the United States after its approval by the Florida Senate, with a Republican majority, on 8 of March.
The controversy even sparked protests among workers at the entertainment giant Disney for not strongly opposing the law.
The company, which employs about 75,000 people at its Orlando, Florida, amusement park, condemned its approval in a statement on Monday.
The day before, the three presenters of the Oscar galas in Hollywood, Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes, alluded to the educational law in their opening speech, in which they repeated the word “gay” numerous times.
For months, Florida Republicans have waged a battle over education, seeking to give parents more say over what their children learn in school.
The NGO Equality Florida, which defends the rights of the LGTBI community, criticized the governor after the law was signed.
“DeSantis has damaged our state’s reputation as a welcoming and inclusive place for all families, making us a laughing stock and the target of national ridicule,” he said in a statement.
“And worse yet, it has made schools less safe for children,” he added.
The educational battle in Florida is also focused on the Critical Race Theory, a doctrine that proposes to study the country’s past slavery and segregation as the origin of current racism.
On March 10, the state Parliament passed a bill to ban the teaching of racial issues in official school curricula.
