Legislation on Personal Pronouns Submitted in Florida Senate

This blog originally appeared at CBS News.

In alignment with a House bill introduced in November, a Senate Republican presented a proposal on Thursday that aims to impose limitations on the use of personal pronouns by government agencies.

Senator Jonathan Martin, representing Fort Myers and a member of the Republican party, submitted the proposal (SB 1382) for deliberation in the upcoming 2024 legislative session, commencing this Tuesday. The identical House bill (HB 599) has been filed by Representative Ryan Chamberlin, a Republican from Belleview.

The introduction of these bills may contribute to ongoing legislative debates on matters concerning gender identity. The bills assert, in essence, that the state policy recognizes a person’s sex as an unchangeable biological characteristic. It further states that assigning a pronoun not corresponding to the person’s sex is considered inaccurate.

These bills would prohibit state and local government agencies from mandating employees and contractors to use a person’s preferred personal title or pronouns if they don’t align with the sex assigned to that person at birth.

Furthermore, these bills would bar employees of government agencies and contractors from presenting preferred pronouns to their employers that “do not correspond to his or her sex.” Additionally, employers would be prohibited from requesting workers to provide personal pronouns.