A bill in Florida introduced by Republican state Rep. Ryan Chamberlin tackles pronoun mandates in the workplaces that receive taxpayer funding, essentially prohibiting those employees from being penalized for refusing to use an individual’s preferred pronouns.
Chamberlin, who won his special election in May, introduced HB 599, directly addressing one of the emerging facets of the leftist woke agenda. The bill broadly aims to deal with gender identity in employment relating to government institutions, businesses or non-profit organizations that receive taxpayer funding and essentially protects those employees from being targeted or punished for refusing to use an individual’s personal pronouns in the workplace.
The bill clearly defines sex — a reality the far-left has attempted to dismiss — by making it clear that “it is the policy of the state that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
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The legislation makes it clear that this does not apply to individuals “born with a genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sex development.”
That aside, the legislation clearly states that an employee or contractor shall not be required to use an individual’s “personal pronoun” if it does not correspond to that individual’s biological sex. Further, employees or contractors cannot demand the use of personal pronouns from their employer, either.
“An employee or a contractor may not be asked by an employer to provide his or her preferred personal title or pronouns or be penalized or subjected to adverse personnel action for not providing his or her preferred personal title or pronouns,” the legislation states, essentially protecting employees from potential employer backlash.
The legislation protects employees from potential “adverse personnel action” — which includes suspension, transfer, discharge, and demotion, in part — against an employee for his or her “religious or biology-based beliefs, including a belief in traditional or Biblical views of sexuality and marriage, or the employee’s or contractor’s disagreement with gender ideology, whether those views are expressed by the employee or contractor at or away from the worksite,” per the text of the bill.
Breitbart News reached out to Chamberlain’s office, which said HB 599 is “gaining a large amount of support.”
“We are either born as a male or female based on our reproductive organs. This biological fact never changes. It is unconstitutional to force people to acknowledge anything otherwise. This bill simply establishes that with any government institution, business or non-profit organization that receives tax payer funding that they would be violating a Floridians personal rights by forcing any employee to take a pronoun, gender identity or ‘woke training’ to maintain employment,” the statement read.
“Furthermore, no taxpayer funded organization can require or discipline an employee in an attempt to get them to use pronouns or gender identity in any specific way other than their birth established gender,” it concluded.
This is not the first bill of its kind to come through the Florida legislature, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1069 into law this year after it passed through the House and Senate. That legislation, specifically, defines “sex” as an “immutable biological trait” and similarly tackles issues related to gender identity, making it clear that “every K-12 school must recognize sex as an ‘immutable biological trait,’ emphasizing that it is ‘false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex,’” as Breitbart News reported in April.
That section of the bill reads:
It shall be the policy of every public K-12 educational institution that is provided or authorized by the Constitution and laws of Florida that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex. This section does not apply to individuals born with a genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sex development, including, but not limited to, XX disorder of sex development; XY disorder of sex development; sex 98 chromosome disorder of sex development; XX or XY sex reversal; and ovotesticular disorder.
DeSantis signed a package of bills in May designed to “protect the innocence of Florida’s children” as the leftist woke agenda continues to target the nation’s youth.
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This post has been updated.