In protest of the Ron DeSantis administration’s recent restriction on Pride illumination for state bridges, Jacksonville locals began the month by lighting the city’s Main Street bridge with rainbows.
Florida advocates believe this year’s Pride celebrations will smack of resistance as momentum changes in their favor, even as Gov. DeSantis continues to restrict LGBTQ+ expression.
Bills related to the culture war were not as popular in the Florida Legislature as they had been in previous years.
Carlos Guillermo Smith, senior policy advisor at Equality Florida, tells Axios that of the 22 initiatives that had detrimental effects on gay and transgender Floridians, all but one failed. These victories, he says, were the result of “intense collective opposition.”
Judges have handed setbacks to the government’s assault on drag events, pronoun restrictions on teachers, and prohibitions on care that is gender affirming in recent months.
“Despite real attacks on our humanity, LGBTQ+ people and our allies chose to respond by showing up for each other and demanding a world that’s better,” Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf stated.
“Heading into this Pride month, I feel that same sense of defiance and resistance,” Wolf stated.
Using state agencies, the DeSantis administration has implemented new regulations. For example, transgender individuals are prohibited from updating their driver’s license to reflect their gender identification.
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According to a survey done last fall by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, eighty percent of transgender and nonbinary Floridians want to leave.
A number of transgender individuals and their families have already moved to states with greater acceptance.
In an attempt to do so, some have turned to crowdsourcing websites like GoFundMe.
