Gov. DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ+ crusade has left parents of queer and trans kids devastated. Many say they’re ready to move, yet many more say they’ll stay and fight back.
In early February, a massive carpool descended on Tallahassee, Florida’s capital. Dozens of middle and high schoolers had missed Geometry and English class for the occasion; parents had taken hard earned days off work to chaperone their children. However, this was no school sanctioned event. It was the final deliberation meeting of the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine, which would determine whether the state would move forward with a ban on gender-affirming care for trans and nonbinary youth.
Although the Boards had been discussing a potential ban for months, this was the first and only chance the public would have to voice their concerns about the rule. For the young people who had traveled to Tallahassee that day, the decision would have an immeasurable impact on their lives. School would have to wait.
For three hours in a poorly-lit auditorium in the state Department of Transportation office, trans and nonbinary young people described the feelings of liberation, wholeness, and freedom they had experienced after receiving the kinds of medically necessary, gender-affirming care that was now up for debate. They described missing months of school due to dysphoria, and the friendships and self-love that blossomed when they received treatment.
“Having my needs met in this way for the first time ever was the most beautiful experience I could have asked for,” said one teenager.
“Growing up in a religious and fairly conservative household, I didn’t have the opportunity to receive gender-affirming care until I was 18. Because of that, I attempted suicide three times,” said another. “Gender-affirming care saved my life.”
Behind those who testified, dozens of heads — young people, their parents, siblings, and teachers — nodded in recognition.
Despite their testimonies, and the decades-long support of such treatment by most every governing medical body, the Board voted to move forward with a ban on gender-affirming care for youth. Although they had previously claimed that the field needed more research before hormone replacement therapy and other treatments could be approved, the Board also paradoxically banned gender-affirming care for research purposes at public universities in Florida.
GIORGIO VIERA/Getty Images
Unlike other states that have banned gender-affirming care through their state houses, Florida’s ban went into effect exclusively through the state’s medical board, without the vote of any elected officials. This means advocates and organizers have not had a fair chance to lobby against it, and their only opportunity to appeal will be through a right-leaning Federal Court system. In fact, the Tampa Bay Times has reported that members of the Board of Medicine who were appointed by Gov. DeSantis have contributed over $80,000 to his campaigns and political action committee.
He “has figured out a way to subvert the democratic process, subvert the legislature, and utilize politically-appointed people who he can put into power at his will,” said Simone Chriss, Director of the Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel.
Policies created by these officials have included the Board of Medicine’s decision to move forward with a ban on gender-affirming care for youth; the Board of Education’s ruling to limit trans people’s access to bathrooms; and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s rule that gender-affirming care can no longer be reimbursed with Medicaid. In each of these instances, DeSantis’ politicalappointees have reshaped LGBTQ+ lives in the state.
If “the Board of Medicine can establish new standards of care for any condition regardless of the consensus of the scientific and medical community nationwide, that’s a really scary precedent to set,” said Chriss. “I hope that the rest of the country is watching and is alarmed.”
In the year since DeSantis passedthe Parental Rights in Education Act, or “Don’t Say Gay,” as it has become known, he has used the idea of “parental rights” to reshape Florida in his political image. Since at least the 1960s, conservative Christian activists have used parental rights as a call to arms to assert their beliefs in schools, which activists on the right believe have been eroded by a progressive embrace of LGBTQ+ children and classroom lessons about systemic racism.
The seeds of Don’t Say Gay were planted at the height of the pandemic, when conversations about mask mandates, vaccines, and in-person schooling quickly transformed into culture war talking points. Two days after “Don’t Say Gay,” DeSantis passed the “Stop WOKE Act,” which “prohibits instruction on race relations or diversity that imply a person’s status as either privileged or oppressed.” Over the past year, these bills have had what activists, LGBTQ+ children, and parents describe as a “chilling effect,” creating an atmosphere of self-censorship and fear.
CHANDAN KHANNA/Getty Images
“Everything is a target now,” said Todd Delmay, an LGBTQ+ parent who has a child in public school and recently ran for state senate. That’s not due to what legislators explicitly wrote into the bill, he said; rather, “it’s what they haven’t.”
Indeed, “Don’t Say Gay” is only six short paragraphs. However, those paragraphs were seemingly crafted to create an environment of paranoia and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, primarily through a clause that empowers parents to sue school districts over any material, at any age, that they deem “inappropriate.”
Over the past year, parents say this has created an environment in which teachers are afraid to mention anything about gender or sexuality, even in casual conversations. “I served in the military, and they’ve essentially created a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell environment for kids,” said Michael Rothgeb, an LGBTQ+ parent in the state.
This has included several school districts, including Miami Dade, removing their Safe and Inclusive Schools Guide, which offered comprehensive guidance on supporting LGBTQ+ students; the removal of pride flags in classrooms across the state; and the banning of books with LGBTQ+ subject matter, including one about two real-life gay penguins.
“All of the things we were most afraid would happen if this bill [Don’t Say Gay] was signed absolutely have,” said Maxx Fenning, founder of Prism Florida, a youth-led nonprofit that provides free sexual health education.
For many parents, this environment has forced them to consider leaving the state. “It’s a conversation that we have every week in our support group,” said NiX, a Florida parent who runs a group for the families of trans and nonbinary children. According to a recent survey conducted by the Williams Institute at UCLA, more than half of 113 LGBTQ+ parents in Florida said they have considered moving because of Don’t Say Gay, and 20% had started taking the steps to do so.
Zeth Pugh is one of those parents. Last year, as it became clear that a ban on gender-affirming care would come into effect, Pugh realized she had to move in order to protect her 15-year-old son, who is trans. He had been hospitalized for suicidal ideation and depression, and was hoping to speak with a healthcare provider about his options for gender-affirming care. “We can’t even get that kind of consultation now. It’s devastating,” said Pugh, her voice filling up with tears. Although their house is almost packed and they have realtors in Florida and Oregon, where they hope to move, Pugh said that she has “a bag ready” to leave the state with her son at a moment’s notice.
Yet many parents are unable to uproot their lives due to economic or social factors. “There are constraints on people’s ability to [move], and it disproportionately impacts people who are low income,” said Dr. Abbie E. Goldberg, who conducted the UCLA survey. “The fact that they’re even having to look into options to change jobs or find a new home speaks to the fear right now,” she added.
Other LGBTQ+ parents say they see staying put as their responsibility. “When your freedoms are literally being taken away, you have to fight,” said Janelle Perez, who lives in Miami with her wife and two children. Her family fled to Florida from Cuba, and the efforts that they’ve made to build a life — a neighborhood full of siblings, devoted grandparents, supportive queer friends — are too immense to leave behind. “I’m not going to let these people push us out,” she said. “We want people to come here and organize and support us.”
This echoes a sentiment shared by many parents and youth organizers. They worry that if supportive adults leave the state, queer and trans children will be left to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile political environment.
LGBTQ rights supporters protest against Florida Governor Ron Desantis. GIORGIO VIERA/Getty Images
“We’re trying to combat this idea that Florida is a lost cause,” said Fenning. “It’s the third most populous state in the country. There are so many queer people here. We can’t afford to divest from the state in a way that would harm millions of people.”
Fenning notes that if supportive allies move, disparities in access to healthcare, affirming spaces in schools, and sex education will only widen. Indeed, several school districts have already removed LGBTQ+ sex education from their curricula due to outside pressure, including in Miami-Dade and Sarasota Counties. In Jacksonville, JASMYN recently lost a 20-year-contract to support in-school Gay Straight Alliances after right-wing activists screenshotted an image from their social media accounts of a card game about sex-ed, which they sent to the school district with the false claim that JASMYN was preying on children. JASMYN, which has provided essential medical care across Jacksonville for decades, insisted that the game is only played with consenting adults.
These incidents illustrate increasing tension in the state surrounding LGBTQ+ life. At all grade levels, the political atmosphere created by DeSantis has led to fears that things like HIV tests, mental health resources, and in-school Gay Straight Alliances violate “Don’t Say Gay,” despite widespread evidence that community acceptance lowers rates of suicide and depression. “The fact that these [parents] are being coached by conservative leaders to do things that will result in poorer health and even the death of their own children,” says NiX, “is one of the most evil things I can conceive of.”
And more than half live in states where legislators have filed bans.
In light of these never-ending fires, such as the ban on gender-affirming care, classroom censorship, and harassment, many parents and activists are bracing themselves for a drawn-out fight. And, as DeSantis is widely expected to announce a presidential campaign, people outside of Florida may soon find themselves faced with identical policies. “There is no ‘safe’ anymore,” says NiX. “Only safer.”
Simone Chriss, of Southern Legal Counsel, says that she has to constantly remind herself that her work isn’t just about winning legal cases; it’s the fight itself that matters. In her view, this is the far right’s greatest fear: “kids who are comfortable with who they are, who aren’t afraid, who aren’t hiding, and who are going to hold the people in charge accountable.”
bell hooks once wrote that children are the most vulnerable members of our society, as they have no explicit rights, including the right to vote out the politicians who harm them. “When we love children,” she writes, “we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights — that we respect and uphold their rights.” Back in that room in Tallahassee, without the protection of doctors trained to help them, trans and nonbinary children were practicing the ultimate form of self-love: advocating for themselves, by any means necessary.
The little black girl was 6 years old when she lived it. Yet now white parents say that their kids older than she was are too young to learn how bad people of color including children were treated by white people. This is our history, the history of our country. This is one reason we need to keep repeating that black lives matter. The white supremacists do not want evil of the mistreatment of back people known but I wonder why. Is it so they can blame black people for their less economic situation today? Is it so they can repeat the same racist attacks? The reason to teach this is to show what we must not let happen again. Also I notice the same people that screamed “fuck your feelings” when trump was president are now showing a lot of feelings. Hugs
Candace McDuffie
·2 min read
U.S. Deputy Marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, in this November 1960, file photo.
Even though the Disney film “Ruby Bridges” has been shown during Black History Month in Florida’s Pinellas County for years, it was recently pulled because a parent was worried that it would teach white children about the racism that Black children faced.
Emily Conklin, whose child attends North Shore Elementary parent, refused to let the student see “Ruby Bridges” when it was shown earlier this month. Conklin believed that the movie was inappropriate for second graders.
She made a formal complaint on March 6, stating that the use of racial epithets and images of white folks who harassed Ruby as she walked into a school will allow white children to see the racist history of segregation.
School officials for Pinellas decided to ban the movie at the St. Petersburg school until a review committee can evaluate it. This is ultimately a result of Florida parents having more say in deciding what children can see and read in schools.
In an open letter, Ric Davis—who is president of Concerned Organization for Quality Education for Black Students—wrote: “Many from historically marginalized communities are asking whether this so-called integrated education system in Pinellas County can even serve the diverse community fairly and equitably.”
He continued: “The (Pinellas) district’s leadership appears to fear the potential consequences of not acting in the way they have on these two decisions. This approach to challenging times in education in our state raises serious questions about Superintendent (Kevin) Hendrick’s leadership.”
The demographics of enrollment in Pinellas district schools is 51% white, 20% Hispanic, 19% Black and 4% Asian, according to state records. The rest of the students enrolled are of Native American or Pacific Islander descent or are categorized as belonging to two or more races.
Conklin was one of two parents who refused to let their children watch the movie after the elementary school sent out permission slips, which included a link to a trailer two weeks before the movie before was shown to classes.
The cancellation of all showings of the PG-rated 1998 film "Ruby Bridges" at North Shore Elementary—following a factually inaccurate complaint by a lone parent who had not watched the whole movie—violated @my_pcs policy, reports @JuddLegumhttps://t.co/Mcvbkpb2uQ#BlackHistory
Ruby Bridges needed guards to walk her through a violent mob when she was 6 just so she could go to school, but apparently second graders in Florida are too young to learn about it. https://t.co/9j5dPDJcF9
After a White parent complained that a film about Ruby Bridges might cause White students to hate Black students, officials of North Shore Elementary in St. Petersburg, Florida, has removed access to the film for all students.https://t.co/col0Rvi2s0
— The Black Wall Street Times (@TheBWSTimes) March 27, 2023
She made a formal complaint on March 6, stating that the use of racial epithets and images of white folks who harassed Ruby as she walked into a school will allow white children to see the racist history of segregation.
It’s Florida. The higher-ups (notice it wasn’t the teacher or the curriculum) are looking for excuses to cancel anything having to do with civil rights, and those parents gave them the excuse they needed.
So, how far does this go? Just sit around and let them white wash history? Are people going to get mad and put a stop to this? I really don’t know, it seems they are getting away with re-writing history to placate Conservatives.
This is being allowed in the land of the free and where the laws apply to everyone! Yes the maga thugs who are the enforcement arm of the republicans preach about freedom but what they mean is freedom for them to oppress anyone who doesn’t do as the right dictates. This is a deliberate scare tactic telling other businesses that if you dare support something the right doesn’t like we will destroy your business and keep you from being able to make a living. Is this the USA we want to live in. When they get their way with the drag queens and drive the trans people from society who will they target next. Those gays who think they have a legal right to exist and marry, beat the shit out of everyone of them who dares to show themselves in public. Who next, any non-Christian? The Jewish people are already under attack by these same thugs who publicly support Nazism while working as the Hitler brownshirts for the republican party. There is a reason why these Nazi gang thugs support DeathSantis and other white supremacist republicans. Hugs
The attacks were relentless, and customers just stopped coming.
A bakery will permanently close its doors after experiencing months of vicious harassment for hosting a drag show.
Uprising bakery & café is located in a Chicago suburb called Lake in the Hills and owned by Corinna Sac, who opened the bakery in 2021 as an inclusive space for all. A press release announcing the closing details Sac’s desire for the bakery to be a space where LGBTQ+ couples could come for wedding cakes.
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“Her dream of an inclusive bakery has since become a nightmare no businessperson could have anticipated,” the release states.
“Closing our doors is the direct result of the horrific attacks, endless harassment, and unrelenting negative misinformation about our establishment in the last eight months,” Sac, who is bisexual, said in a statement. “From an award-winning bakery that donates to local organizations and supports diversity and inclusion, we have been rebranded by misinformation as ‘gay only’ and ‘pedophiles.’”
She added that the relentless protestors have caused local customers to be afraid to visit the bakery out of fear of harassment.
The press release describes the event in question as a “family friendly show featuring drag performers” that was hosted by the café in 2022 and required registration and a ticket.
“The event drew outrage from many resulting in a targeted attack of vandalism at the property the night before. The doors and windows were destroyed, the glass was shattered, and messages of hate were painted on the building.”
Sac said the man who did this, Joseph Collins, was a member of the white nationalist hate group Proud Boys and was charged with a hate crime.
After more attacks took place, the Village of Lake in the Hills then told Sac she could no longer hold events in the space due to zoning, even though she’d already been hosting events there for a year with no issues.
“A campaign was initiated to discredit, damage and defame Ms Sac, her staff, her food, and her patrons,” the press release went on. “Protestors spent more than 120 consecutive days on the property, creating disturbances, inciting violence, photographing license plates of patrons, and harassing them on social media and online.
Because patrons have been too intimated to visit the bakery, Sac’s sales have plummeted and thus, she cannot afford to stay open. She said she’d need $30,000 to keep her doors open.
Sac is currently working to raise money for employees so she can give them some financial padding. There are also events and fundraisers scheduled throughout the rest of the month to try to save the bakery. If they do not succeed, it will close on March 31st.
“Everything I have is in this business,” Sac said. “Our home, our cars, retirement, savings. We put everything we had on the line and personally secured this location, our equipment, and our dreams.”
No matter what happens, Sac vowed never to stop fighting for justice. She recently testified at the state legislature about her experiences.
“If we have to go out, we will go out with a BANG,” she declared in the release, “and make it long-lasting and positive. I will do everything I can to make sure what happened to my American Dream doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Fueled by anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation on social media, over the past year, drag queen story hours and other family friendly LGBTQ+ events featuring drag performers have become a target for far-right groups like the Proud Boys as well Republican politicians. Earlier this month, Tennessee became the first state to pass a law intended to ban drag performances in public spaces. Similar legislation has been introduced in state houses across the country.
The enforcement arm of the republican party shows how rabid the right wing has become. They are there to “protect the children” by screaming white supremacy slogans and saluting Hitler to those same children. The thugs are scaring they claim are harmed by people dressing up peacefully reading to the kids instead of the angry shouts about how they will harm these people and displays of violence and firearms. How much does it harm a child to be part of a situation where they and their parents are harassed while walking to an event by people screaming horrible abuse at those same parents?
This has nothing to do with the children. Nothing. It is about controlling the public and what is visible in society. It is about threatening the public so much that these no one will attend these events, no venue will put on the attractions. It is about making everyone in the country / state / area do as this small violent minority demand people do, act as these thugs demand you act, control what can be seen / heard in public. Most of these people are regressive Christian nationalists who demand you follow their moral ideas based on something from 2,500 years ago with the current upgrade to 1855. They want the right to force you to act in accordance with their loose collection of fundamentalist church doctrines. It is not about the children as these enforcers bosses cut child food assistance, cut school lunch programs, slash the age at which little girls can be married off to fully grown adults, refuse to curb guns used in schools shootings, and so much more, but instead they are banning learning because education increases the chance a child moves beyond the fundamentalist conspiracy ideology and move into the modern reality that these people are fighting against. Hugs
Multiple white supremacist groups, including armed protesters, clashed with LGBTQ+ allies.
In a scene that is becoming all too common around the U.S., white supremacist and far-right anti-LGBTQ+ protesters descended on an Ohio park where a drag queen story hour event was taking place over the weekend, clashing with supporters and descending into chaos and violence.
According to documentarian Ford Fischer, who attended the event and posted video online, extremist groups including Proud Boys, Patriot Front, III Percenters, White Lives Matter of Ohio, and Neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe joined local conservatives to protest a family-friendly “Rock-n-Roll Humanist Drag Queen Story Hour” at Wadsworth Memorial Park in Wadsworth, Ohio on Saturday. The groups clashed with supporters of the event, including Parasol Patrol, a Colorado-based group that uses rainbow umbrellas to shield children from anti-LGBTQ+ protesters at similar events.
Protesters shouted neo-Nazi slogans as well as racial and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs. One man with a megaphone led the crowd in a call-and-response chant of “Sieg heil,” and another waved a flag bearing a swastika. At least one man, later identified as Blood Tribe founder Chris Pohlhaus, was armed.
According to the Akron Beacon Journal, protesters followed parents and children who attended into and out of the event. Police said that the crowd included at least 200 people, with protesters outnumbering supporters and many vehicles bearing out-of-state license plates.
A Black journalist with the Beacon Journal left the scene after being targeted with racist slurs.
Kristopher Anderson, a local Republican who helped organize about 90 people to protest the event, claimed that the white supremacist and white nationalist groups were not affiliated with his group’s protest. Anderson said his group was there to protest the supposed “grooming” of children and called the racist messaging a “distraction.” Another protester said he was shocked by what the white supremacist groups were saying.
According to local newspaper The Gazette, Christian conservative protesters chanted “18-plus gets rid of us.” Some claimed they were not anti-LGBTQ+ but merely wanted to ban children from drag events.
At one point, a protester with Anderson’s group pulled what appeared to be a gun and pointed it at counter-protesters. The same man was later arrested for hitting a counter-protester with a flagpole, and police later confirmed that the object was not a firearm, but a device designed to deploy pepper spray.
A counter-protester was also arrested and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
While no one was injured, paramedics treated one person for a seizure and another for a twisted knee.
Organizers of the “Rock-n-Roll Humanist Drag Queen Story Hour” obtained a permit from the city to host the event in the park earlier this month. But the event was controversial. A private venue previously declined to host it, and Wadsworth City Council President Bob Thurber promised to ask the city council to “consider legislation that would ban adult-oriented performances held on city property with minors in attendance.” Tennessee recently became the first state in the nation to pass similar legislation.
Despite the chaos surrounding the picnic shelter where the event took place on Saturday, the “Rock-n-Roll Humanist Drag Queen Story Hour” proceeded as planned. According to The Gazette, drag performer River Rose read to about 15 children and later sang and danced. Aaron Reed, a Wadsworth resident who promoted the event, said that the attire and music were appropriate for children.
I know this has been all over but since I made it I figured I should post it here (non link edition) No such thing as White Pride pic.twitter.com/6wtSdeJ0Mk
On the surface tort reform in FL sounds great, but it is taking away your ability to recieve proper medical care! (And may lead to similar changes nation wide) pic.twitter.com/YeSfGqJVjC
Randy sent me this. I love the message although I doubt that some people can ever change. But the hate that Arnold is talking about includes that hate against race, gays, trans, and how you treat all of those different than you. It is an amazing video. Thank you Randy.
Comments are off as they will be on all future posts for awhile. Scottie
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