NAPLES, Fla. — From books to bathrooms, laws and rules being passed by Florida legislators and members of the State Board of Education are tightening restrictions on the LGBT community. Despite efforts, members of the LGBT community in Florida find themselves losing debates, losing ground, and, more noticeably, losing their tempers.
Proposed rules included expanding restrictions on the use of restrooms that do not correspond with a person’s biological sex to include colleges and private schools. Disciplinary actions for educators who violate an established law regarding sexual misconduct were also sharpened.
During the course of the meeting, opponents of the new measures became progressively agitated. Verbal attacks against Board members and supporters of the proposals became increasingly more personal.
At one point, the level of civility had sunk so low that SBE Chair Ben Gibson advised the opponents that the Board was “trying to be very respectful and civil” to them and asked that they “maintain respect and civility as well.”
Books
At the Aug. 23 meeting, a new rule was adopted to establish the position of a “magistrate,” who will weigh complaints filed by parents who challenge the procedure through which a book was approved.
Rain Johnson, a 10th-grade student at a private school in Lakeland, held up a copy of “Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen,” informing the Board she was “trans” and “gay” before she “read a book.” She then angrily suggested that trying to “bypass a system already in place to ban books” was “simply stupid and very confusing.”
The new magistrate would not “bypass” but rather ensure that the “system already in place” was upheld.
Kaity Danehy-Samitz defined the measure that allows some parents “the right to fight against something they don’t believe in” as “fascism with extra steps.”
Bathrooms
The measure that inspired the most heated objections was the proposal to expand restrictions on the use of restrooms to biological sex from just K-12 schools to include colleges and private schools.Rain Johnson asked why the Board was “obsessed about kids’ genitals.”
“Why do we need to think of children’s genitals?” she screamed. “Please!”
Ms. Danehy-Samitz accused Board members of “voting in alignment” with supporters of the measure, whom she labeled as an “extremist hate group.”
“We’re not going to keep taking it,” she warned, pausing, looking to her friends before laughing.
“I really, really look forward to getting to know every single one of you,” she told the Board. “Have a good day. Jesus is disappointed.”
Lola Smith, a Collier County student identifying as non-binary, argued that “students are not being harmed or harassed” by transgender or non-binary students in school bathrooms.
The argument was echoed by others.
India Miller, a transgender individual, said transgender people have been using restrooms that don’t align with their biological sex “for decades,” insisting there have been “no issues.”
Sarah Parker said the risks posed by transgender individuals in restrooms were a “non-issue.”
Those claims are wrong.
LGBT Laws
At the behest of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, state legislators have already passed a plethora of laws restricting LGBT ideology.
Nationally, a September 2022 New York Times and Siena Poll showed that 70 percent opposed lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity being taught to elementary school children.
On May 17, Mr. DeSantis signed four transgender-related bills into law.
These measures come on top of efforts to ban books in Florida’s schools that are considered inappropriate for children.
Among the five least friendly states, Arkansas ranked first with a score of 32, followed by South Carolina (32.5), Louisiana (33.5), Tennessee (34.4) and South Dakota (34.97).
By the Numbers
At a May 17 press conference, Equity Florida Senior Political Director Joe Saunders said, “DeSantis has just signed into law the largest slate of anti-LGBTQ bills in one legislative session in the state’s history. This is an all-out attack on freedom.”However, polling shows that most Americans support such measures.
A Washington Post/KFF survey published May 5 showed that the majority of Americans support anti-trans policies, including 68 percent who oppose providing puberty-blocking medication to kids aged 10-14 and 58 percent who oppose the same for kids between 15-17.
Nearly 60 percent said gender is determined by your birth sex, and the vast majority believe trans-women should not be allowed to compete against biological females in youth sports (62 percent), high school (66 percent), college (65 percent), and professional sports (65 percent).
While 64 percent believe teaching students in grades 9-12 about “trans identity” is appropriate, the majority believe it is inappropriate to teach the subject to children in kindergarten-third grade (77 percent), grades 4-5 (70 percent), and grades 6-8 (62 percent).
An Aug. 29 survey conducted by researchers at Arizona State University, Stanford University in California, and the University of Houston, Texas confirmed that society is unwilling to provide more rights to transgender people, including the ability to “choose for themselves which bathroom to use.”
In Arizona, 54 percent opposed allowing transgender people to choose which bathroom they would use. Only 25 percent expressed support. In California, a considerably more trans-tolerant state, 45 percent were opposed, while 35 percent expressed support. In Texans, 61 percent expressed opposition, while only 25 percent expressed support.
A national survey by the Public Religion Research Institute in September 2021 found that 47 percent of Americans support bills restricting transgender individuals from using bathrooms and changing areas in schools and public spaces.
A November 2022 Rasmussen survey showed that 60 percent of American adults believe “Drag Queen Story Hour” is inappropriate for children.
While a March 2023 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed that 58 percent of Americans opposed laws restricting drag shows, the subject of allowing children to attend was not mentioned.
A Gallup poll conducted between May 1-24 showed that 69 percent of those surveyed believe transgender athletes should now be allowed to compete against members of the opposite sex, and 55 percent said “changing one’s gender” is “morally wrong.”
‘Creating a Narrative’
In an interview with The Epoch Times after the meeting, Florida DOE Commissioner Manny Diaz addressed the decline in decorum.“I think what you see is individuals or groups that come in with a set agenda, and a lot of times they aren’t reading the actual items, whether it be for the school board or state board,” Mr. Diaz said. “They come in with the idea of creating a narrative, which devolves the conversation into something that’s not even being discussed in the meeting and not even what the item’s about. I think that obviously hurts the communication.”
He also noted how the concerns about what an item “actually is” are being mixed in by parents and other community members who are supportive of the proposed restrictions.
“Those are important conversations to be had, but unfortunately, some of this has been politicized to try to create a narrative” around an item “that just causes that breakdown.”
According to Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former state representative for Miami, current candidate for a seat in the state senate, and Central Florida outreach coordinator for Equality Florida, it was the Board that came to the meeting “with their minds made up already and could not be persuaded to change their proposed rules.”
“This is a rubber stamp Board of Ron DeSantis’s choosing, and they are operating exactly the way he wants them to, which is implementing his extreme agenda, taking no prisoners and not listening to the concerns of the public,” Mr. Guillermo Smith told The Epoch Times.
Asked about the lack of decorum by the younger opponents, he suggested that the “bureaucrats and political appointees” of Mr. DeSantis are “taking actions that quite literally disrespect the very existence of entire communities.”
“What they expect in return is respect from young people who have had their dignity taken by a legislature that has stopped at nothing to take their rights and freedoms and their existence from them,” he said.
Asked about the “no issues” argument despite numerous incidents of violence perpetrated by transgender individuals in restrooms, Mr. Guillermo Smit admitted that he didn’t know the details of those cases. However, he suggested that “a person’s transgender identity has nothing to do with how or why or when they were driven to perpetrate those crimes.”
“The truth is,” he said. “ Is that 99 percent of incidents that happen in restrooms are incidents that are perpetrated by straight, cis-gender individuals.”
While Mr. Diaz conceded that Mr. Guillermo Smith was professional, constructive, and respectful while voicing his objections, he offered advice to the young disrupters.
“Any time you go over the top and get unruly, uncivil, or even rude, you hurt whatever position you’re trying to present,” he advised. “It should be about the issues. It shouldn’t be personal. If you’re passionate about an issue, make sure you’re on the issue and not talking about something else, and present it in a manner that is clear of your position. Don’t turn it into a personal issue or just a blanket narrative.”
