Florida Senate - 2025                              CS for SB 440
       
       
        
       By the Committee on Governmental Oversight and Accountability;
       and Senator McClain
       
       
       
       
       585-02844-25                                           2025440c1
    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         authorizing the Department of Management Services to
   14         adopt rules; amending s. 760.10, F.S.; providing that
   15         it is an unlawful employment practice for the state or
   16         any county, municipality, special district, or other
   17         political subdivision to require certain training,
   18         instruction, or activity as a condition of employment;
   19         reenacting s. 760.11(1) and (15), F.S., relating to
   20         administrative and civil remedies, to incorporate the
   21         amendment made to s. 760.10, F.S., in references
   22         thereto; providing an effective date.
   23          
   24  Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   25  
   26         Section 1. This act may be cited as the “Freedom of
   27  Conscience in the Workplace Act.”
   28         Section 2. Section 110.1051, Florida Statutes, is created
   29  to read:
   30         110.1051Personal pronouns.—
   31         (1)As used in this section, the term:
   32         (a)“Adverse personnel action” means the discharge,
   33  suspension, transfer, demotion, or lack of promotion of an
   34  employee or a contractor or the withholding of bonuses, the
   35  withholding of promotional opportunities, the reduction in
   36  salary or benefits, or any other adverse action taken against an
   37  employee or a contractor within the terms and conditions of
   38  employment by an employer.
   39         (b)“Contractor” means an individual, a partnership, a
   40  corporation, or a business entity that enters or attempts to
   41  enter into a contract for services with an employer.
   42         (c)“Employee” means an individual employed by, or
   43  attempting to be employed by, an employer.
   44         (d)“Employer” means the state or any county, municipality,
   45  or special district or any subdivision or agency thereof.
   46         (e)“Gender identity” means a fully internal and subjective
   47  sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex, and
   48  existing on an infinite continuum that does not provide a
   49  meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as
   50  a replacement for sex.
   51         (f)“Gender ideology” means the false belief that replaces
   52  the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of
   53  self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that
   54  males can identify as and become women and vice versa, and
   55  requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim
   56  as true. The term includes the idea that there is a vast
   57  spectrum of genders that are disconnected from a person’s sex.
   58  The term is internally inconsistent in that it diminishes sex as
   59  an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains
   60  that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed
   61  body.
   62         (g)“Sex” means the classification of a person as either
   63  female or male based on the organization of the body of such
   64  person for a specific reproductive role, as indicated by the
   65  person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and
   66  internal and external genitalia present at birth.
   67         (2)It is the policy of this state that a person’s sex is
   68  an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to
   69  a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s
   70  sex. This section does not apply to individuals born with a
   71  genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sex
   72  development, including, but not limited to, 46,XX disorder of
   73  sex development; 46,XY disorder of sex development; sex
   74  chromosome disorder of sex development; XX or XY sex reversal;
   75  and ovotesticular disorder.
   76         (3)An employee or a contractor may not be required, as a
   77  condition of employment or to avoid adverse personnel action, to
   78  refer to another person using that person’s preferred pronouns
   79  if such pronouns do not correspond to that person’s sex.
   80         (4)An employee or a contractor may not require an employer
   81  to use his or her preferred pronouns if such preferred pronouns
   82  do not correspond to the employee’s or contractor’s sex.
   83         (5)A job application or other related employment form that
   84  requires an applicant to mark his or her sex may only inquire if
   85  the applicant is male or female and may not provide a nonbinary
   86  or other option.
   87         (6)The Department of Management Services may adopt rules
   88  to administer this section.
   89         Section 3. Present subsections (10) and (11) of section
   90  760.10, Florida Statutes, are redesignated as subsections (11)
   91  and (12), respectively, and a new subsection (10) is added to
   92  that section, to read:
   93         760.10 Unlawful employment practices.—
   94         (10)It is an unlawful employment practice for the state or
   95  any county, municipality, special district, or other political
   96  subdivision to require, as a condition of employment, any
   97  training, instruction, or other activity on gender identity or
   98  gender expression.
   99         Section 4. For the purpose of incorporating the amendment
  100  made by this act to section 760.10, Florida Statutes, in
  101  references thereto, subsections (1) and (15) of section 760.11,
  102  Florida Statutes, are reenacted to read:
  103         760.11 Administrative and civil remedies; construction.—
  104         (1) Any person aggrieved by a violation of ss. 760.01
  105  760.10 may file a complaint with the commission within 365 days
  106  of the alleged violation, naming the employer, employment
  107  agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee,
  108  or, in the case of an alleged violation of s. 760.10(5), the
  109  person responsible for the violation and describing the
  110  violation. Any person aggrieved by a violation of s. 509.092 may
  111  file a complaint with the commission within 365 days of the
  112  alleged violation naming the person responsible for the
  113  violation and describing the violation. The commission, a
  114  commissioner, or the Attorney General may in like manner file
  115  such a complaint. On the same day the complaint is filed with
  116  the commission, the commission shall clearly stamp on the face
  117  of the complaint the date the complaint was filed with the
  118  commission. In lieu of filing the complaint with the commission,
  119  a complaint under this section may be filed with the federal
  120  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or with any unit of
  121  government of the state which is a fair-employment-practice
  122  agency under 29 C.F.R. ss. 1601.70-1601.80. If the date the
  123  complaint is filed is clearly stamped on the face of the
  124  complaint, that date is the date of filing. The date the
  125  complaint is filed with the commission for purposes of this
  126  section is the earliest date of filing with the Equal Employment
  127  Opportunity Commission, the fair-employment-practice agency, or
  128  the commission. The complaint shall contain a short and plain
  129  statement of the facts describing the violation and the relief
  130  sought. The commission may require additional information to be
  131  in the complaint. The commission, within 5 days of the complaint
  132  being filed, shall by registered mail send a copy of the
  133  complaint to the person who allegedly committed the violation.
  134  The person who allegedly committed the violation may file an
  135  answer to the complaint within 25 days of the date the complaint
  136  was filed with the commission. Any answer filed shall be mailed
  137  to the aggrieved person by the person filing the answer. Both
  138  the complaint and the answer shall be verified.
  139         (15) In any civil action or administrative proceeding
  140  brought pursuant to this section, a finding that a person
  141  employed by the state or any governmental entity or agency has
  142  violated s. 760.10 shall as a matter of law constitute just or
  143  substantial cause for such person’s discharge.
  144         Section 5. This act shall take effect July 1, 2025.