New Florida bill could bring “don’t say gay” into the workplace

A new Florida bill, HB599, seeks to broaden Ron DeSantis’s reign of terror by bringing “don’t say gay” mandates into the workplace. Not only that, the new bill would make it illegal for government employees to share their pronouns, journalist Erin Reed reports.

As a revamped version of the original “Don’t Say Gay” law, the new bill would essentially make it illegal for government workers to share pronouns and sexual identity with their coworkers. It would also make it impossible for government employees to publicly transition while holding office.

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This won’t just apply to government employees, but potentially all the contractors they work with as well. Republican Florida rep. Ryan Chamberlin introduced specific anti-trans language into the bill, which should come as no surprise by now. The bill also seeks to protect not only religious bigotry, but “biology-based” bigotry. Which means that you don’t even have to pretend to be Christian anymore to get away with voicing anti-trans beliefs free of consequence in the state.

If the language and tactics seem familiar, that’s because they are: Reed suggests in her reporting that HB599 takes its cues from anti-gay laws in Russia that use a similar framework to criminalize gayness.

Basically, it ain’t looking good.