Florida Senate - 2025                                     SB 440
       
       
        
       By Senator McClain
       
       
       
       
       
       9-00748C-25                                            2025440__
    1                        A bill to be entitled                      
    2         An act relating to gender identity employment
    3         practices; providing a short title; creating s.
    4         110.1051, F.S.; defining terms; specifying an
    5         employment policy of this state relating to a person’s
    6         sex; providing applicability; prohibiting employees
    7         and contractors of certain employers from being
    8         required to use certain pronouns or requiring such
    9         employer to use a pronoun that does not correspond to
   10         the employee’s or contractor’s sex; prohibiting
   11         specified options relating to an applicant’s sex from
   12         being included on certain employment forms;
   13         prohibiting adverse personnel action on the basis of
   14         deeply held religious, moral, conscience-based, or
   15         biology-based beliefs; providing administrative and
   16         civil remedies; providing reasonable attorney fees and
   17         costs; authorizing the Department of Management
   18         Services to adopt rules; amending s. 760.10, F.S.;
   19         providing that it is an unlawful employment practice
   20         for the state or any county, municipality, special
   21         district, or other political subdivision to require
   22         certain training, instruction, or activity as a
   23         condition of employment; reenacting s. 760.11(1) and
   24         (15), F.S., relating to administrative and civil
   25         remedies, to incorporate the amendment made to s.
   26         760.10, F.S., in references thereto; providing an
   27         effective date.
   28          
   29  Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   30  
   31         Section 1. This act may be cited as the “Freedom of
   32  Conscience in the Workplace Act.”
   33         Section 2. Section 110.1051, Florida Statutes, is created
   34  to read:
   35         110.1051Personal pronouns.—
   36         (1)As used in this section, the term:
   37         (a)“Adverse personnel action” means the discharge,
   38  suspension, transfer, demotion, or lack of promotion of an
   39  employee or a contractor or the withholding of bonuses, the
   40  withholding of promotional opportunities, the reduction in
   41  salary or benefits, or any other adverse action taken against an
   42  employee or a contractor within the terms and conditions of
   43  employment by an employer.
   44         (b)“Contractor” means an individual, a partnership, a
   45  corporation, or a business entity that enters or attempts to
   46  enter into a contract for services with an employer.
   47         (c)“Employee” means an individual employed by, or
   48  attempting to be employed by, an employer.
   49         (d)“Employer” means the state or any county, municipality,
   50  or special district or any subdivision or agency thereof.
   51         (e)“Gender identity” means a fully internal and subjective
   52  sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex, and
   53  existing on an infinite continuum that does not provide a
   54  meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as
   55  a replacement for sex.
   56         (f)“Gender ideology” means the false belief that replaces
   57  the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of
   58  self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that
   59  males can identify as and become women and vice versa, and
   60  requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim
   61  as true. The term includes the idea that there is a vast
   62  spectrum of genders that are disconnected from a person’s sex.
   63  The term is internally inconsistent in that it diminishes sex as
   64  an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains
   65  that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed
   66  body.
   67         (g)“Sex” means the classification of a person as either
   68  female or male based on the organization of the body of such
   69  person for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the
   70  person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and
   71  internal and external genitalia present at birth.
   72         (2)It is the policy of this state that a person’s sex is
   73  an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to
   74  a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s
   75  sex. This section does not apply to individuals born with a
   76  genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sex
   77  development, including, but not limited to, 46,XX disorder of
   78  sex development; 46,XY disorder of sex development; sex
   79  chromosome disorder of sex development; XX or XY sex reversal;
   80  and ovotesticular disorder.
   81         (3)An employee or a contractor may not be required, as a
   82  condition of employment or to avoid adverse personnel action, to
   83  refer to another person using that person’s preferred pronouns
   84  if such pronouns do not correspond to that person’s sex.
   85         (4)An employee or a contractor may not require an employer
   86  to use his or her preferred pronouns if such preferred pronouns
   87  do not correspond to the employee’s or contractor’s sex.
   88         (5)A job application or other related employment form that
   89  requires an applicant to mark his or her sex may only inquire if
   90  the applicant is male or female and may not provide a nonbinary
   91  or other option.
   92         (6)(a)It is an unlawful employment practice for an
   93  employer to take adverse personnel action against an employee or
   94  a contractor because of the employee’s or contractor’s deeply
   95  held religious, moral, conscience-based, or biology-based
   96  beliefs, including a belief in traditional or Biblical views of
   97  sexuality and marriage, or the employee’s or contractor’s
   98  disagreement with gender ideology, whether those views are
   99  expressed by the employee or contractor at or away from the
  100  worksite.
  101         (b)An employee or a contractor aggrieved by a violation of
  102  this subsection may avail himself or herself of the
  103  administrative and civil remedies provided in s. 760.11. The
  104  court shall award reasonable attorney fees and costs to the
  105  prevailing party.
  106         (7)The Department of Management Services may adopt rules
  107  to administer this section.
  108         Section 3. Present subsections (10) and (11) of section
  109  760.10, Florida Statutes, are redesignated as subsections (11)
  110  and (12), respectively, and a new subsection (10) is added to
  111  that section, to read:
  112         760.10 Unlawful employment practices.—
  113         (10)It is an unlawful employment practice for the state or
  114  any county, municipality, special district, or other political
  115  subdivision to require, as a condition of employment, any
  116  training, instruction, or other activity on sexual orientation,
  117  gender identity, or gender expression.
  118         Section 4. For the purpose of incorporating the amendment
  119  made by this act to section 760.10, Florida Statutes, in
  120  references thereto, subsections (1) and (15) of section 760.11,
  121  Florida Statutes, are reenacted to read:
  122         760.11 Administrative and civil remedies; construction.—
  123         (1) Any person aggrieved by a violation of ss. 760.01
  124  760.10 may file a complaint with the commission within 365 days
  125  of the alleged violation, naming the employer, employment
  126  agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee,
  127  or, in the case of an alleged violation of s. 760.10(5), the
  128  person responsible for the violation and describing the
  129  violation. Any person aggrieved by a violation of s. 509.092 may
  130  file a complaint with the commission within 365 days of the
  131  alleged violation naming the person responsible for the
  132  violation and describing the violation. The commission, a
  133  commissioner, or the Attorney General may in like manner file
  134  such a complaint. On the same day the complaint is filed with
  135  the commission, the commission shall clearly stamp on the face
  136  of the complaint the date the complaint was filed with the
  137  commission. In lieu of filing the complaint with the commission,
  138  a complaint under this section may be filed with the federal
  139  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or with any unit of
  140  government of the state which is a fair-employment-practice
  141  agency under 29 C.F.R. ss. 1601.70-1601.80. If the date the
  142  complaint is filed is clearly stamped on the face of the
  143  complaint, that date is the date of filing. The date the
  144  complaint is filed with the commission for purposes of this
  145  section is the earliest date of filing with the Equal Employment
  146  Opportunity Commission, the fair-employment-practice agency, or
  147  the commission. The complaint shall contain a short and plain
  148  statement of the facts describing the violation and the relief
  149  sought. The commission may require additional information to be
  150  in the complaint. The commission, within 5 days of the complaint
  151  being filed, shall by registered mail send a copy of the
  152  complaint to the person who allegedly committed the violation.
  153  The person who allegedly committed the violation may file an
  154  answer to the complaint within 25 days of the date the complaint
  155  was filed with the commission. Any answer filed shall be mailed
  156  to the aggrieved person by the person filing the answer. Both
  157  the complaint and the answer shall be verified.
  158         (15) In any civil action or administrative proceeding
  159  brought pursuant to this section, a finding that a person
  160  employed by the state or any governmental entity or agency has
  161  violated s. 760.10 shall as a matter of law constitute just or
  162  substantial cause for such person’s discharge.
  163         Section 5. This act shall take effect July 1, 2025.