In March 2022, Republicans in the Florida Legislature – then with a 24-15 majority in the state Senate and a 78-40 majority in the state House – passed House Bill 1557, Parental Rights in Education. A staunch supporter, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law that month.
More widely known as “Don’t Say Gay or Trans,” the measure went into effect last July to limit the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools across the state. It’s faced multiple legal challenges in the time since, some ongoing, and drawn widespread condemnation from LGBTQ advocates worldwide.
Its impact on LGBTQ Floridians was also noted by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, the nation’s leading research center on LGBTQ issues. For nearly two decades, the organization has worked to ensure data and facts, not stereotypes, inform the laws, policies and judicial decisions impacting the entire community.
Researchers released their findings on the matter Jan. 24, revealing that more than half of the parents they surveyed had considered leaving Florida in response to the law. Nearly a quarter of them had already taken steps to do so, with one in four reporting they had experienced anti-LGBTQ harassment since it was passed.
“Don’t Say Gay or Trans” was just one of the laws the legislature passed in 2022 that impacted LGBTQ Floridians. The effects of others — like the state’s 15-week abortion ban and the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which seeks to regulate how schools and businesses address topics like race and gender — are still being explored while facing legal challenges of their own.
Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ-focused civil rights organization, summarized the 2022 legislative session as “grueling” after it came to a close.
“Florida’s 60-day legislative session has come to an end, with Republican lawmakers focused on red meat, culture war legislation to appease their far-right base,” the organization shared last March. “Instead of addressing the skyrocketing housing costs, access to affordable health care, stagnant wages, or the urgency of climate change, they divided Floridians like never before.
“From attacks on LGBTQ and immigrant children, to our freedom of speech and right to vote, we saw a legislative session that targeted our most vulnerable communities and most cherished values,” they concluded. “Governor Ron DeSantis used this legislative session — and consequently Floridian’s lives — as a springboard for his national political ambitions.”
DeSantis has long been rumored to seek the presidency in 2024. The organization and others had hoped the 2022 midterm election would offer a reprieve from his agenda in November, but Republicans gained a veto-proof supermajority in both state legislative chambers instead. Florida’s “Red Wave” stood in stark contrast to most of the country, which saw Democrats expand their legislative pull nationwide.
This year, the Florida Legislature will enter its regular 2023 session — scheduled to begin March 7 and end May 5 — with a majority of 28-12 in the Senate and 85-35 majority in the House. Republicans also cemented their decades-long control of Florida with the re-election of DeSantis. The governor won a second term with nearly 60% of the vote.
“Florida didn’t realize the pro-equality wins that swept much of the country,” Equality Florida Public Policy Director Jon Harris Maurer reflects. “We made important advances in key school districts, but we also lost some true champions, in part because of the difficulties of a redistricting process dominated by anti-LGBTQ interests.”
The Florida Legislature is tasked with redrawing the districts voters use to elect state representatives, state senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives after each Census. That process began after 2020’s with the Republican-controlled legislature in Jan. 2022.
According to the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica, which investigates abuses of power, the body redrew congressional maps that left the “GOP with only a modest electoral advantage.” The outlet reported that “DeSantis threw out the legislature’s work and redrew Florida’s congressional districts, making them far more favorable to Republicans.”
The governor has publicly denied partisan politics impacted the redistricting process, though the matter has been challenged in court. Even with all that in mind, however, Maurer says “we must remind ourselves that historically our biggest breakthroughs have always come on the other side of our biggest challenges.”
LGBTQ advocates say those challenges are happening now. Among other things, they point toward the DeSantis administration’s ongoing attacks on drag entertainment, transgender health care and college education.
This year alone, the DeSantis administration has moved to revoke the liquor license of a venue which hosted “A Drag Queen Christmas,” surveyed state colleges about students seeking gender dysphoria treatments and rejected a proposed African American studies course for, among other reasons, including “Black Queer Studies.”
Each instance pre-dated the state legislature’s special session Feb. 3, when lawmakers convened to address Florida’s takeover of Walt Disney World’s self-governing district in Orange County. DeSantis signed legislation last year to dissolve the company’s 55-year-old government for its public opposition to “Don’t Say Gay or Trans.”
Rep. Fentrice Driskell, an LGBTQ ally who represents Tampa and serves as the Democratic Minority Leader in the state House, says it’s time for Floridians to be concerned.
“These are scary times, with dangerous rhetoric being used by those who want to divide us,” she explains. “The LGBTQ+ community and their allies fought for years to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect and right now there’s a push to take away those hard-won rights.
“Whether the governor is attacking AP African American history, access to reproductive health care or the LGBTQ+ community, we must learn to approach these challenges as a true coalition, because to attack one of us is to attack all of us,” Driskell continues. “And we will be stronger together in pushing back against hurtful, hateful policies and in building a Florida that is inclusive of all.”
State Rep. Anna Eskamani agrees. The Orlando-based advocate proudly calls herself an LGBTQ accomplice and says Democrats are “preparing for battle.”
“Right now, Governor DeSantis is attacking every marginalized group there is,” she says. “He’s trying to cancel drag shows while attacking our LGBTQ+ youth and banning gender affirming care. He wants to ban abortion, and pass permitless carry, making it easier to carry a firearm without any license.
“He’s going after academic freedom and privatizing our public schools while banning books,” Eskamani continues. “There are so many communities and issues to champion, and we’re doing what we can to hold the line and fight back.”
The Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus sees that. The organization represents the interests of LGBTQ Floridians to the Florida Democratic Party, with chapters across 25 counties including Citrus, Hillsborough, Orange, Polk, Pinellas and Sarasota.
Looking back on 2022, LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus President Stephen Gaskill says the organization’s takeaways are easily assessed.
“The lack of leadership from the [Florida Democratic Party] really fueled a downward spiral in the turnout of the election, because there was no money to focus on registrations or to do the grassroots work that really turns people out,” he explains. “If people are excited about that, even if they’re not excited about the candidates, they’ll still turn out. We just didn’t have that at all last year.”
Gaskill believes there’s a reckoning in the party, a response to significant losses in the midterm. FDP will elect new leadership this month following the January resignation of Manny Diaz, its former chair.
“We have to decide where we go and how we remain relevant,” Gaskill explains. “We know that the DeSantis message last year only played in Florida. We were the only state that took a step to the right; every other state took a step to the left. I think that’s a problem for DeSantis moving forward with his presidential campaign, but it says a lot about the work we need to do in Florida.”
The caucus will hold its 2023 Winter Conference in Orlando with that in mind Feb. 24-26. Themed “Rise Up,” sessions and speakers “will point the way for our party and our community and outline the challenges facing us in the upcoming legislative session.”
“We’re about as low as we can go right now as a party here in Florida,” Gaskill says. “So we’re going to look at how we Rise Up and help rebuild our messaging.”
Each candidate for FDP chair, one of whom will be elected that weekend, will address their plans for the party. Sessions will focus on hate crimes, education, transgender rights and other subjects, including a detailed look at the 2023 legislative session.
Gaskill says it’s bluntly called “How Much Worse Can It Get?”
“The hard reality is that it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he explains. “The Republicans can completely disregard the Democrats in the chamber — and they will, but this allows us to take a harder line our messaging and with our tactics.
“I think that we need to see more direct action in organizing, in demonstrating and speaking out and I’m hopeful that will play a part in that along with our along with other organizations,” Gaskill continues. “Because when the issues are laid out for Floridians, they really are with us.”
Equality Florida’s Maurer concurs. “When people get the full picture of what’s going on, they see the political theater in Tallahassee for what it is and they won’t stand for it,” he explains. “The international outcry over the ‘Don’t Say LGBTQ’ bill and the thousands of students walking out around the state in protest proved that.
“Governor DeSantis has shown a willingness to wield age-old, anti-LGBTQ tropes, torment marginalized communities and bend the power of state government to fuel his political ambitions,” he continues. “The 2022 legislative session was reduced to little more than one long DeSantis campaign rally by the governor and his allies.”
Ahead of the regular 2023 session, Equality Florida is monitoring what the organization calls the governor’s “anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and censorship agenda.”
“He continues to stake his 2024 presidential hopes on the backs of the most at-risk Floridians, like transgender youth and Medicaid recipients,” Maurer explains. “The fights to keep books in the classroom and to keep healthcare accessible will continue, and we’ll be there every step of the way.”
Driskell promises Florida House Democrats will do the same, and they already have. She and fellow Tampa Bay lawmaker Rep. Michele Rayner — the first Black, openly LGBTQ woman ever elected to the Florida Legislature — spoke out at the Florida Capitol Jan. 25 during a “Stop the Black Attack” rally.
The gathering was a response to Florida’s rejection of the African American History course and more. The community-centered organization Equal Ground, which exists to empower and engage the electorate, said the leaders came together to demand DeSantis “stop attacks on Black Floridians, transgender youth, abortion care, education, learning, immigrants and voting rights.”
“It seems like every year there’s a new enemy for Ronald DeSantis,” Rayner shared in Tallahassee. “Black folks, LGBTQ folks, people who are pregnant, universities … actions have shown time and time again that he targets our most vulnerable.
“Republicans will tell you they love kids, and their fight for freedom is for our children,” she continued. “But if they care about our kids, why are we almost dead last in the nation for quality education? … You cannot say you are here to serve all the children of Florida, especially our children, but only when it serves your political ambitions.”
“In the Florida House Democratic Caucus, we hit the ground running,” Driskell says. “Our caucus is full of amazing and dynamic voices that reflect this diverse state, and we are building something special. Heading into regular session, we are prepared to be the loyal opposition and to fight for every Floridians’ freedom to be healthy, prosperous and safe.
“That means fighting against the governor’s culture wars and for kitchen table economic issues that matter most to Floridians,” she stresses. “This includes lower health care costs, housing affordability and lower property insurance rates.”
Eskamani adds that “Floridians don’t clearly understand what is at risk as many folks just did not vote. We need to work 24/7 to build efficacy within our communities and support everyday people in understanding that the personal is political.”
LGBTQ advocates and organizations acknowledge that the forthcoming session will have wins and losses, but above all they’re calling on LGBTQ and ally Floridians to stay involved.
“Your state government is just that: yours, and it impacts your day-to-day life constantly,” Driskell urges. “Stay engaged, active and vocal.
“Honestly, there will be many culture wars this session, and the impact will be bad,” she notes. “Elections have consequences and right now, the Democrats are a small minority in Florida’s state government. You must work year-round to make sure your voice is heard and that your seat at the table isn’t taken away.”
“Staying engaged is critically important at this pivotal moment,” Maurer also notes. “The first brick wasn’t thrown at Stonewall because people thought that LGBTQ equality would be achieved that day, that month or that year. We’re in for a long fight for our humanity.
“We have succeeded in even more hostile climates,” he concludes, “and we’re better resourced and have more allies now than ever before. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, but a Florida where every student is protected and every family is respected will always be worth fighting for.”
Governor DeSantis’ office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Learn more about Equality Florida’s fight for LGBTQ Floridians before, during and after the 2023 legislative session at EQFL.org and about the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus and its upcoming conference at LGBTQDems.org.
