What Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ settlement changes and what restrictions remain

Geoff Bennett:

Students and teachers in Florida can now discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in a classroom setting as long as it's not part of formal instruction. That's an important change that's part of a new settlement reached between state education officials and civil rights attorneys who challenged a law labeled by critics as the don't say gay law.

Here's Stephanie Sy.

Stephanie Sy:

Geoff, this may be a state law, but it has reached beyond Florida, with other conservative states inspired by the prohibitions.

What the law has meant in Florida is teachers afraid to even use the words gay or transgender when speaking to students outside the classroom or even celebrating their own identity or support of the LGBTQ community with, say, rainbow stickers. But with this settlement, at least some of those concerns may be put to rest.

Joe Saunders with Equality Florida, an LGBTQ advocacy group, told us this:

Joe Saunders, Equality Florida:

There is no question that, following this settlement, students, teachers, parents of LGBTQ students and LGBTQ parents can say gay, can say trans, can be gay, can be trans in Florida's public school system and not be afraid of the bullying and the weaponization of this law to lead to sweeping censorship.

Stephanie Sy:

However, the law was not repealed and still forbids explicit class curriculum dealing with LGBTQ topics. And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the settlement a major win this week.

For more on what this all means, I'm joined by Danielle Prieur, education reporter with WMFE, the NPR affiliate in Orlando.

Danielle, thank you for joining the "NewsHour."

Help us understand what this settlement actually changed. I understand the text of the law was altered.

Danielle Prieur, WMFE Reporter:

So it actually clarified the language of the law. The law was quite vague.

And moving forward, as we heard in your clip, parents and teachers and students will be able to speak freely and write freely about gender identity and sexuality in classroom discussions, on essays, on projects. Kids can read books again with gay characters. Teachers can put safe space stickers up and also have gay-straight alliances and other kind of LGBTQ clubs at schools.

So it really gutted large parts of the law and clarified it.

Stephanie Sy:

But, Danielle, the law does still remain in effect. What restrictions are still in place?

Danielle Prieur:

Yes, so the law still bans outright instruction about gender identity and sexuality here in Florida. So that would include like a class or a book or even a unit in a section of a textbook that would instruct people in any way about gender identity and sexuality.

So the law is still in effect, as well as a lot of the policies that were kind of inspired by the law, things like banning AP African American history because there was a queer theory unit, or making it so that sociology is no longer a core curriculum course for undergrads here because it talked about human sexuality.

So a lot of the law and the policies around the law still are very much in effect here in Florida.

Stephanie Sy:

It's interesting that it seems both sides of this, both LGBTQ advocates, as well as Governor DeSantis, seem to view this as a good thing. How do you figure that?

Danielle Prieur:

Yes, so, basically, the law, it's not overturned and it's not repealed. It's still very much in effect. So that's a win for the governor and for his party.

This was a big win for his conservative base in 2022, when it was passed. But it's also a big win for LGBTQ advocates, folks who have lived under this law for two years and were afraid to be out publicly in the school system, fearing what might happen if you said the wrong thing or as a teacher maybe have the wrong book in their classroom.

So, this is a really kind of huge moment for the state of Florida.

Stephanie Sy:

You have been reporting on the impacts, Danielle, of this law, the impacts it's had on kids and families who identify as LGBTQ.

What has it been like for them since this law passed and how are they reacting to the settlement?

Danielle Prieur:

I have spoken to so many people who, whether they're a teacher who's gay or a student who's gay, who felt like they really couldn't be gay, felt like they had to either stay in the closet or go back in the closet, felt just very hurt and very sad by the fact that a big part of their identity was something that was somehow not appropriate enough to have in Florida schools.

So this is such a win and such a celebratory time and celebration for them. I spoke with several plaintiffs who were on the lawsuit that kind of resulted in this settlement. And they said that their 10-year-old son just said: "Wow, does this mean we can finally say gay? Can we finally say gay, mom? And look what we did."

So this is a big moment, I think, for LGBTQ people throughout the state of Florida.

Stephanie Sy:

And yet other conservative states used this Florida law as a template for their own prohibitions.

When it comes to Florida, where does it go from here as far as legislation that would impact its LGBTQ citizens?

Danielle Prieur:

Well, our legislative session, our last one, just ended on Friday. And most of our strongest anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans bills actually died in session.

So there's kind of a trend that we're seeing that this kind of anti-LGBTQ push that was so strong before is weakening a bit here in Florida. And I know a lot of the plaintiffs on the lawsuit and people that were a part of the settlement really hope people in other states are paying close attention, because they said, look.

Look what we did.Look what we were able to accomplish. There were protests at local high schools when this bill became a law. And, obviously, this lawsuit itself shows, sometimes, when you speak up, and you speak up and fight for a long time, that things can change. So they're hoping to inspire other people in states that still have kind of strong anti-LGBTQ laws in place.

And, of course, Florida itself still has a lot of those laws in place, things like a ban on gender-affirming care. So, we will have to see kind of the ripple effects of this settlement here in Florida and throughout the country.

Stephanie Sy:

Absolutely.

Danielle Prieur with WMFE in Orlando, thanks so much for your reporting.

Danielle Prieur:

Thank you.