Following reports of a eight of anti-LGBTQ bills filed earlier this week, several of which were heard in committee meetings today, Commissioner Nikki Fried offered the following statement:
“From gutting employment protections, to jailing doctors for providing care to LGBTQ youth, to enabling the evil pseudoscience of conversion therapy, these bills are designed to extinguish the equality of millions of Floridians. Freedom has many enemies, even among those who proclaim to cherish it. I encourage every lawmaker who stands for liberty to vote against these legislative affronts to humanity.”
In total, Equality Florida has identified eight bills attacking the rights of LGBTQ Floridians which have been filed for consideration in Florida’s 2020 legislative session, several of the bills were up for a hearing in committee meetings today.
- House Bill 1365 / Senate Bill 1864: makes providing best practice medical care to transgender youth a second degree felony.
- House Bill 305 / Senate Bill 1126: repeals employment protections that currently cover 13 million Floridians. The legislation threatens city and county nondiscrimination ordinances that ensure Floridians aren’t discriminated against in employment based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (Scheduled for House Workforce Development & Tourism Subcommittee on January 15, 2020.)
- House Bill 3 / Senate Bill 1336: repeals 22 existing local ordinances protecting vulnerable LGBTQ youth from so-called “conversion therapy” that seeks to change a persons sexual orientation or gender identity and bans any local governments from establishing conversion therapy bans in the future. (Scheduled for House Business & Professions Subcommittee on January 15, 2020.)
- House Bill 537 / Senate Bill 778: as written rolls back critical protections for LGBTQ youth by enabling conversion therapy even where cities and counties have already instituted protections, as long as the therapy occurs in a home. Conversion therapy is no less fraudulent or dangerous because it is practiced in a home setting.
