The so-called “Individual Freedom” bill proposed by Republican sponsor, Representative Bryan Avila attempts to ban conversations and reading that address racism, colorism, xenophobia, misogyny and transphobia while whitewashing history.

“We’re calling it the Destruction of Florida Education Act.. The bill is entitled ‘Individual Freedoms’ under the false notion that somehow discriminating and oppressing people and not allowing students to learn about systemic racism and transphobia would elevate individual freedoms. Of course, only for those that are privileged, white, cisgender and straight people,” Lakey Love from Florida Coalition for Transgender Liberation said in a press conference.

The bill attempts to protect concepts like ‘reverse racism’ by prohibiting teaching critical race theory, about implicit biases, white privilege, historic and systemic discrimination, oppression and violence.

It would require transgender girls and women to sit with cisgender boys and men in unnecessarily gender-seggregated sex-education classes, and would ban girls and women who are trans from participating in school and college sports like wrestling, boxing, rugby, ice hockey, football, and basketball.

“I just think it’s just so absurd that they’re focusing on this and but they can’t even focus on housing issues, they can’t focus on rent issues, they can’t focus on people literally being homeless,” Ash Soto, a student who is affected by the legislation and has advocated against anti-LGBTQ+ bills, said in the conference.

Excluding trans girls and femme youth from participating in sports has negative outcomes for all youth. It invites a systemic policing of gender against all youth through bio-essentialist ideas that perpetuate white supremicist-patriarchal that mold cisgender women and girls into a category that needs ‘protection.’

The current bill is a re-write of past bills, and replaces the word ‘gender’ with ‘sex’, following the common theme of erasure in the legislative attacks that attack trans youth by dismissing that trans and intersex people exist.

HB 7 is in the Education and Employment Committee.

Four facts debunking common myths about trans athletes: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbt-rights/four-myths-about-trans-athletes-debunked/

More from folks in Florida about what this bill means:
https://www.facebook.com/fc4tl/videos/477358010503669/
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/491857-lbgtq-advocates-slam-individual-freedom-bill-that-removes-gender-from-florida-schools/
https://www.wmnf.org/florida-republicans-advance-hb-7-silence-classroom-topics/