State Farm pauses plans to donate ‘LGBTQ+ books’ to Florida schools

According to a January email, insurance giant State Farm was seeking agents to assist with its new initiative to donate transgender books to Florida public schools earlier this year.

The insurance company issued an internal email on January 18 that was obtained by Consumers Research telling employees State Farm was recruiting employees who can assist in a new program in partnership with a nonprofit called GenderCool to place more educational “LGBTQ+ books” in Florida schools.

“State Farm is partnering with The GenderCool Project to help diversify classroom, community center and library bookshelves with a collection of books to help bring clarity and understanding to the national conversation about Being Transgender, Inclusive and Non-Binary,” reads the email to employees. “The project’s goal is to increase representation of LGBTQ+ books and support our communities in having challenging, important and empowering conversations with children Age 5+.”

The email continued, “This is a fantastic way to give back and an easy project that will help support the LGBTQ+ community and to make the world around us better.” 

Since the email came out, State Farm says it has paused its effort to distribute the books to schools amid the controversy over the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. A later statement issued by State Farm says the company no longer supports the effort to place the literature in classrooms and that “conversations about gender and identity should happen at home with parents.”

A conservative nonprofit that works to get LGBTQ+ education and other topics they deem inappropriate for children, Parents Defending Education, criticized State Farm for its grassroots efforts to place the books in schools. “As parents struggle to figure out where age-inappropriate materials come from, ‘the local insurance agent’ was probably not on anyone’s radar,” said PDE president Nicole Neily.