Since Florida’s House committee passed the Parental Rights in Education bill – known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill – in January, a national spotlight has turned on the state as it proposes banning school instruction on LGBTQ+ people and issues. President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten condemned the bill as hateful and dangerous; actress Kerry Washington said she was “horrified by what’s happening;” and activists say the law would effectively “erase young LGBTQ students across Florida.” Yet Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill is one part of a nationwide trend. There are 15 similar bills moving through state legislatures that restrict how textbooks and curriculums teach LGBTQ+ topics, who can be hired and what teachers are allowed to say around gender identity and sexual orientation. A House bill in Tennessee would ban textbook and instructional materials that “promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) lifestyles” in K-12 schools. Another, in Kansas, seeks to amend the state’s obscenity law to make using classroom materials depicting “homosexuality” a Class B misdemeanor. Legislators in Indiana are working to bar educators from discussing in any context “sexual orientation,” “transgenderism” or “gender identity” without permission from parents. Bills like these are “anti-people,” Barbara Simon, head of news and campaigns for the LGBTQ+ media advocacy group GLAAD, told Changing America. “They divide schools and businesses when those should be safe spaces to learn and earn a living.” Florida’s House committee passed Thursday an updated version of its Parental Rights in Education bill, HB 1557, to specifically prohibit “classroom instruction” on sexual orientation or gender identity for kindergarten and third grade classes, as well as in older grades if it’s deemed inappropriate for students. Parents could also sue schools if they believe the school violated these laws, under the House and accompanying Senate bill. While Florida is currently a poster state for anti-LGBTQ+ curriculum laws, others are proposing and moving faster on farther-reaching bills. Oklahoma legislators have put five measures before its Congress that regulate how schools from K-12 to higher education teach LGBTQ+ issues. Two bills, SB 1142 and SB 1654, would prohibit librarians and teachers from distributing materials on or outright discussing “any form of non-procreative sex,” gender identity, and “lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender issues.”