While thousands of Floridian residents suffered during Hurricane Ian, the state's Department of Education stealthily passed a new policy for K-3 teachers. Going forward, any educator of the age group who discusses gender or sexuality will be stripped of their teaching license.

The policy states that any educators who “intentionally provide classroom instruction” of LGBTQ+ identities to students ages K-3 will face immediate “revocation or suspension of the individual educator’s certificate, or the other penalties as provided by law.”

The rule was proposed in August as a way to enforce Florida's 2021 "Don't Say Gay" bill, which completely bans discussion of gender and sexuality in classrooms. Instead of publicly announcing the new policy, the rule was silently added to the Department of Education website at the same time Hurricane Ian caused hundreds of residents to be displaced or killed.

The "Don't Say Gay" bill limits discussion of gender and sexuality “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate." It has been criticized for its deliberately vague wording, and unclear definitions of what constitutes "intentional instruction."

While the new rule stripping licenses only applies to classrooms of grades K-3 thus far, executive director of GLSEN, Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, said in a statement that the policy “will harm LGBTQ+ students, who we know benefit by having supportive teachers and inclusive curriculum in the classroom.”

Cassandra Oetinger-Kenski, a third-grade teacher in Palm Beach County who is married to a woman, told The Washington Post that she is unsure how this rule will affect her livelihood, or how she is able to engage honestly with her students.

“If a child asks me about my husband and I say I don’t have a husband, I have a wife, am I then being stripped of my license?” she asked. “Also, in my class I have kids with two dads and two moms.”

Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill is just one of the state's many troubling anti-queer policies, as school districts have also recently asked student athletes to electronically report on their menstrual cycles. Many LGBTQ+ educators in the state have quit, with teachers across the country leaving the field due to fear of the ongoing culture war against school curriculum.

Oetinger-Kenski said that Florida's newest policy is rooted in dishonesty, as it "forces me to withhold information from my students, to lie."

She said: "Heterosexual people aren’t our entire population. That’s not the truth.”