Florida sees deluge of legislation targeting trans rights and controlling public education as governor steps up courtship of Trump voters
o public school teacher or college professor in Florida has been more outspoken in his criticism of Governorthan Don Falls. In the spring of 2022, the 62-year-old social studies high school teacher became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the governor to block enforcement of the recently approved Stop Woke Act.
Observers note Ron DeSantis’s politics have shifted to the right since his first year as Florida’s governor.Falls continued to resist. Confronted with a choice of either removing the estimated 250 to 300 books in his classroom or submitting them to the vetting process, he and other colleagues at the school opted to conceal their covers by enveloping them in plain brown paper, thereby shielding themselves from possible criminal prosecution or civil liability.
The sweeping scope of that legislation, coupled with three other education bills that would, among other things, forbid school staff and students from using “pronouns that do not correspond with a person’s sex”, has left educators in Florida feeling incensed and dumbfounded. DeSantis called a press conference on 8 March to debunk what he termed “the ‘book ban’ hoax” in relation to the Stop Woke Act, asserting that books containing pornographic content and other kinds of violent or age-inappropriate content had been discovered in libraries and classrooms in 23 school districts statewide.
Not to be outdone, state senator Clay Yarborough introduced senate bill 254 that would allow the state to take temporary custody of children who may be receiving gender-affirming care now or in the future. DeSantis issued a proclamation on the third anniversary of the 2016 mass shooting in an Orlando gay nightclub that paid tribute to the 49 people who died but failed to mention the targeting of the LGBTQ+ community as a possible motive of the killer.
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