(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Florida LGBTQ+ elected officials: The community is still reeling in a shaky political climate [1] ['Mitch Perry', 'More From Author', '- June'] Date: 2023-06-28 Supporters of LGBTQ+ rights in Florida hailed federal court rulings last week when two measures were struck down: One was prohibiting children from attending drag shows; the other was the state’s policy against Medicaid coverage for gender-transition care. But the community is still reeling from other measures pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature this spring. Those include creating a misdemeanor trespassing offense for someone to use certain bathrooms that don’t align with their sex at birth and prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity up to the 8th grade, rather than 3rd grade. “The feeling has been that a lot of this stuff is going to be declared unconstitutional,” says Patty Sheehan, an Orlando City Commissioner. “It is starting to happen, thank God. But that takes a judicial process, which takes time.” Sheehan is one of six elected officials in Florida from the LGBTQ+ community who spoke to the Florida Phoenix about their reactions to the legislation that came out of Tallahassee this year — dubbed a “slate of hate” by the civil rights organization Equality Florida. The reactions come at a time when Pride Month ends, on June 30, and some of the most upsetting measures will come to fruition on July 1 — all signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. There are 41 such officials in Florida listed as part of the 1,185 total number of out LGBTQ+ elected officials nationwide, according to “Out in America” a report issued earlier this month by the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. The Florida officials include mayors and other local officials as well as state lawmakers and judicial officials in courts. Other states include members of Congress, governors and other officials. The 41 officials in Florida are tied with New York, with the fifth most such officials around the nation, trailing only California, Illinois, Michigan and Massachusetts. (The Phoenix learned of at least two other LGBTQ+ officials from Florida not listed in the report.) The people in my community are incensed “I think what happened in Tallahassee this past session was a complete insult to anybody who believes in equal rights and fairness for individuals,” says Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis. “The people in my community are incensed over how anyone could denigrate and marginalize individuals to gain a cheap, political shot for personal reasons. And it’s not acceptable in Florida.” Tyler Payne is the 33-year-old Mayor of Treasure Island, a beach community in Pinellas County. He’s also a Christian conservative and a Republican and doesn’t understand what he calls the slew of “discriminatory laws” that the GOP passed this year. “One of the bedrocks of the Republican Party is supposed to be limited government” he says. “I think it seems to me that there’s an identity crisis a little bit in the Republican Party where they’re contradicting themselves with the bills that they’re passing, and I think it’s just because they’re uncomfortable as individuals when they’re dealing with people in the LGBTQ community. I think that’s unfortunately what it comes down to.” Payne also has an issue with the mantra of “parental rights” that has been utilized by advocates to drive some of this legislation. “When you talk about these drag shows and prohibiting children from attending those – if you ask me, I don’t have kids yet but I think that should be a parents right to bring a child to something if they deem that appropriate,” he says. “It’s putting this concept of restricting what is taught in the classroom and calling it ‘parental rights’ just seems like a misnomer to me because what about my future rights as a parent to choose what I want my kids to learn in school or what I want to expose my children to? Shouldn’t it be the right of a parent to educate their child how they want to?“ Miami-Dade County Democratic state Sen. Shevrin Jones recently appeared on MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow’s “Deja News” podcast, where the premise was that Florida’s first so-called “war on woke” actually took place in the 1950’s and early 60s when a panel of state lawmakers targeted civil rights leaders, academic leaders and LGBTQ+ Floridians. The panel was known as the Johns Committee, named after then-state Sen. Charley Johns. “In Florida’s history, the LGBTQ community was already under attack,” Jones told the Phoenix last week. “Not only under attack, but they also wanted to run them out of the state and now they’re doing it in a totally different way, their subtle way – they’re doing it all in the name of parental rights. They’re doing it all in the name of religious freedom when that’s not what they’re doing. What they’re doing is they’re hurting Floridians. And they continue to come up with talking points to make it seem as if they’re lessening the blow.” Jones says these culture war bills distract from the priorities facing all Floridians. “Who’s going to talk about the million people who have been dropped off the Medicaid rolls?” he asks. “Who’s going to talk about the property insurance problem that we’re still dealing with?” Pride festivals cancelled This past weekend in Florida, a crowd in downtown St. Petersburg participated in the St. Pete Pride Parade, considered one of the largest in the southeast U.S. But Pride festivals in other parts of the state, including in St. Cloud and Port St. Lucie were cancelled due to concerns about the new drag legislation. The show definitely went on earlier in the month in Wilton Manors, the Broward County community long described as one of the “best gay towns in America.” Wilton Manors City Commissioner Chris Caputo says that while his city’s Pride event took off without a hitch earlier this month, he heard from many of his constituents who were reluctant to attend. “They were afraid that with all the rhetoric that we’re hearing out in the news and in the media in general as a result of this, that they would be in danger by being there or that they could be arrested. Just by being there, and that’s really unfortunate,” he says. Caputo bemoans what he says is the lack of awareness from state lawmakers on what some of these new laws are doing to the perception of the state nationally. “We have a governor and Legislature that claims to be pro-business but they’re having this huge economic impact by having festivals like Pride festivals ultimately being cancelled, and furthermore, you look at the travel advisories that have had to be issued encouraging LGBT people to be careful coming to the state because of the policies, this is having a huge economic impact on our communities, and it’s unfortunate that they don’t seem to care about that,” he adds. Last month the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, joined several other civil rights groups in issuing a Florida travel advisory, warning that the new state laws and policies are “hostile” to the LGBTQ+ community, minorities and immigrants. But Fort Lauderdale Mayor Trantalis says that’s not the right message to combat the recently enacted legislation. “We are not telling people it’s an unsafe environment,” he says. “Florida is safe. It’s a place for everyone. It’s a welcoming community right here in Fort Lauderdale, especially. We embrace diversity. And if anything, we need more and more people who believe in equality to come to Florida and to increase our numbers and to vote those who promote bigotry and hatred to be voted out of office so anyone who sends a message that Florida is an unsafe place is unfortunately looking to capitalize in a way that hurts the community, and I think that they need to pull back on that message because it’s not reflective on how the community feels. “ Key West Mayor Teri Johnston says that the past two legislative sessions “have brought forth an unprecedented number of hateful, discriminatory bills targeted at the LGBTQ+ community. Legislation of this nature can only serve to tear our nation apart at a time where we desperately need to find common ground.” Johnston who preceded Tampa’s Jane Castor as the state’s first openly gay woman elected mayor of a major Florida city when she won her election in the fall of 2018, says the “most impactful tool to combat this vitriol is our vote.” “Understand the morals and values of those you are casting votes for,” she advises. “Attacks against the LGBTQ+ community are attacks against all. It’s a matter of timing.” Sheehan, a Democrat, was elected as Orlando’s first openly gay commissioner in 2000. Now serving her sixth term in office, she calls the 2023 legislative session “absolutely horrific.” But she adds that the LGBTQ+ community and local government officials need to be more strategic and smarter in dealing with the state legislation, including having the city design bathrooms on their own facilities to be “single-use all gender now.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/06/28/florida-lgbtq-elected-officials-the-community-is-still-reeling-in-a-shaky-political-climate/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/