Extreme "Don't Say Gay" Bill Introduced By Pennsylvania Republicans

State representatives in Pennsylvania have introduced a bill regulating classroom instruction that is even more controlling than Florida’s "don’t say gay" law, Advocate reports.

“It is patterned after the Florida bill, but mine goes further,” Republican Representative Stephanie Borowicz said at a rally, Harrisburg’s Patriot-News reports.

House Bill 2813 would stipulate that public and charter schools “may not offer instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to a student in kindergarten through fifth grade.”

The Florida law bans instruction on these topics in grades K-3 and says any lessons in higher grades must be age-appropriate. Borowicz said she would like the prohibition to go through 12th grade. “It really needs to be protected up through 12th grade; we need to go all the way,” she told reporters.

SB 1278, which she endorsed, has passed the Senate, but Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, has promised to veto it or any bill like it, including HB 2813, which he said “denies humanity by reinforcing homophobic ideologies,” according to news site Local Today. Wolf is not up for reelection this year due to term limits, but the Democratic nominee for governor, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, opposes this type of legislation as well. Lawmakers should stop “wasting time and tax dollars on these attempts to bully LGBTQ Pennsylvanians,” a spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign said in an interview.

Republican nominee for governor, Doug Mastriano, attended the rally to voice support for HB 2813, SB 1278, and restrictions on LGBTQ+ content in general, the Patriot-News reports.

HB 2813 would require schools to notify parents of any health services, including mental health services, a student receives. It would also allow parents to sue if information is withheld. While the bill does not go into detail, Borowicz said that she has “gender ideology” in mind.

Representative Milou MacKenzie, another Republican, said HB 2813 was required as students are exposed to obscene materials. She said schools carry these materials because “these ideologies have crept into the curriculum and into the mindset of the faculty.” Parents who’ve tried to have certain books removed from school libraries were also in attendance.

Casey Pick, senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, said, “Laws like this put [schools] in a terrible position where they have to act very cautiously and create broad buffer zones where they may restrict more speech than they’re required to just to avoid being sued.”

While the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” apply to heterosexual and cisgender identities as well as LGBTQ+ ones, the bill is clearly directed at LGBTQ+ students and materials, Pick added. “What you ultimately wind up with is a climate where schools and teachers feel unable to address the needs of students.”

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