https://www.them.us/story/dont-say-gay-florida-ron-desantis-one-year-later

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.

 

BY COLLEEN HAMILTON

March 27, 2023

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’ political appointees 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 passed the 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.” 

1 in 5 Trans Kids Lives in a State that Passed a Ban on Gender-Affirming Care

 

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.