Project 2025 Is Already Here

If you want a glimpse into what Project 2025's education agenda might look like if implemented nationwide, look no further than Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has already been leading book-banning, inflaming culture wars over LGBTQ rights, and dismantling comprehensive sex education.

Recent reporting by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that Florida state officials are pressuring some districts to adopt an abstinence-only approach, stripping students of basic knowledge about contraception, anatomy, and human development. Students are being taught abstinence as the sole method of avoiding pregnancy and STDs, and terms like "abuse," "fluids," and "LGBTQ" are absent from classrooms. “Under recent changes to state law,” reports the Associated Press, “it’s now up to the Florida Department of Education to sign off on school districts’ curriculum on reproductive health and disease education if they use teaching materials other than the state’s designated textbook.”

This week, Mother Jones Creator Kat Abughazaleh analyzes one of these state-approved plans, "Real Essentials," which encourages "spiritual intimacy" and traditional marriage. The plan's author has a history of citing pro-abstinence education research from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025.

Florida's approach is a test for a much broader movement, Kat argues. Just pages into Project 2025, you'll find a promise to register "educators and public librarians" who purvey "pornography"—a term so vaguely defined as to potentially include any term currently being weaponized in the culture war—as registered “sex offenders.” Another section calls for provisions to prevent types of sex education that might “promote prostitution, or provide a funnel effect for abortion facilities and school field trips to clinics.”

For more details, watch Kat's full breakdown of Florida's new sex education laws.
#Project2025 #Florida #RonDesantis

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[roberte]

You can't say, "consent", in Florida schools?! Well, with Ron DeSantis as governor, I'm not surprised. _Disgusted, _ but not surprised.

[martelnelson]

Intentionally teaching stupidity should be against the law

[Teddy-ud]

Nothing more damning than “consent” and “fluids” being on the shit list…the first is just horrifying the second brings us back to those fuckers being weird

[lindamurray]

Thank you young lady for talking about this issue. I'm a 71-year-old and I always thought abstinence only is a joke. I grew up in the Pentecostal church and that's what they pushed and blamed the girls are women when they got pregnant. We need to go into the future. Good job.

[BingusHogglefart]

the word "consent" being banned is absolutely fucking disgusting

[__-vbht]

As a Christian, none of this makes sense to me. It's not even good teaching on relationships, I hate how so many Christians have got nothing to say outside of waiting with sex until marriage. Think about that, that advice inherently only works until a certain point in your relationship. Presumably, a couple would spend most of their time together afterwards? It's just abusing the state to force your values on other people. At the same time, scientific, universally applicable and useful knowledge is represed. And for what? It won't even work. Like mentioned in the video, rates of sexualised violence and teenage pregnancies are going to rise. And the harm that is done to our queer siblings by othering them and pretending they don't exist is incalcuable. It breaks my heart to see what kind of an incompassionate shithole your leaders are turning Florida into

[DarthVrandon]

I’m so surprised that the fascist governor has a fascist curriculum.

[THE-X-Force]

Blocking education that would help prevent unwanted pregnancies .. which would prevent abortions .. which you also want to block, resulting in more abortions. BRILLIANT PLAN GUYS!!

[HypatiaMuse]

It's crazy as a lifelong Floridan to think I got a more comprehensive sex ed course over 30 years ago in the 90s than students are getting today in the 21st century. Its sad what this state has become.

[GeteMachine]

Everything always ties back to the Heritage Foundation.

[jennameg]

Florida schools have been teaching messed up things for years. We complained to the school almost ten years ago about what our daughter was taught in sex ed… the highlight was the “chewing gum analogy” which is particularly disgusting and misogynistic (if you’re not familiar, they tell girls their “parts” are like gum, and no one wants it if others have chewed it. It might sound benign but you’re essentially telling those girls their worth is determined by their number of sexual partners) There was also a lot of attempted religious indoctrination by evangelicals of our kids which was infuriating. We used to say that the only grooming we saw in FL schools was evangelical Christians trying to groom our kids into their church. It was pretty bad before any organized effort like Project 2025 so I’d bet it’s exponentially worse.

[_JustAnotherGhost_]

Florida student here. Im lucky my school isn't crazy but i can still feel the effects around the state. This ISN'T okay. P2025 is in trial here. Me and a lot of my friends are lgbtq+ too, and so we live under even more fear than we should. Its hell here.

[patsummit]

If you live in Florida and have children, I suggest you move.

[Chels-fzuq]

I can’t believe they can’t talk about consent at all. They’re opening up so many people to being abused!

[kyaw]

I never liked DeSatan... He has always been a terrible person on so many levels...

[davidroberts]

The entire state of Florida is broken.

[sandeman]

I graduated class of 1999. We had an abstinence only assembly with a music group doing the presentation and handing out promise rings. By the next year, a good 15% of the girl in the highschool had been pregnant. The school quickly put in a comprehensive sex ed part in health class the next year and the pregnanies slowed down drastically.

[StopWhining]

Florida just keeps creating more reasons not to want to live there.

[greymatters]

Wow! Parents need to step in. There’s a whole lot of babies named “abstinence”.

[GeteMachine]

This seems like its beyond abstinence, where the word doesn't even exist to abstain from. Its just banning knowledge. But only as Florida gets more functionally authoritarian under DeSantis.