{"id":41322,"date":"2024-01-24T18:28:35","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T23:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=41322"},"modified":"2024-01-24T18:28:39","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T23:28:39","slug":"ron-desantis-returns-to-old-job-of-making-queer-floridians-lives-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/01\/24\/ron-desantis-returns-to-old-job-of-making-queer-floridians-lives-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron DeSantis Returns to Old Job of Making Queer Floridians\u2019 Lives Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After failing to convince the Republican Party that he should be the next President, Ron DeSantis is heading home to Florida, and queer Floridians are not welcoming him back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though DeSantis\u2019 presidential dreams are over (for now), he\u2019s barely a quarter of the way through his second term leading the U.S.\u2019 third-largest state, and his time in the office has been disastrous for his LGBTQ constituents. Now, Florida-based queer campaigners and families with trans children tell VICE News they fear DeSantis\u2019 next moves, warning that \u201clives are at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTraveling to Florida is dangerous\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis leaned heavily into \u201canti-wokeness,\u201d declaring Florida \u201cwhere woke goes to die.\u201d In practice, that meant cracking down on queer people, especially in schools, as well as on \u201ccritical race theory.\u201d He\u00a0went to war with the Disney Corporation\u00a0after it embraced queer employees and theme park visitors,\u00a0cut state funding for queer organizations,\u00a0and signed\u00a0a record number\u00a0of anti-LGBTQ laws, including making it a criminal offense for trans people to\u00a0use restrooms that match their gender identity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor signed legislation banning transgender women and girls from participating in school and college sports that match their gender identity, introduced criminal penalties for adults who assisted young people in accessing gender-affirming healthcare, and even blocked adult LGBTQ clinics from operating. That law alone was enough to make queer Floridians with the means to flee leave the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the governor\u2019s most notorious endorsement, the Parental Rights in Education Bill\u2014also known as the \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law, was introduced two years ago and has wreaked havoc in schools, especially for queer teachers and students. The law criminalizes the \u201cpromotion\u201d of queer lives in schools, such as school libraries stocking books encouraging LGBTQ acceptance. Last year, even after DeSantis faced international backlash \u2013 including a UN expert saying he was \u201cdeeply alarmed\u201d \u2013 the governor expanded the law to include older students too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this hostility which led one of the U.S.\u2019s leading LGBTQ organizations, the Human Rights Campaign, to declare Florida \u201cunsafe and unwelcoming\u201d for queer people last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want him back here\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mila is a 14-year-old trans girl who lives in a small town in Florida. She came out a few years ago and was accepted by her family, friends, and school staff, but now, she says her life has been \u201cturned upside down.\u201d Mila believes DeSantis is attempting to \u201cstop\u201d her and others from being trans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan he just go away now? We don\u2019t want him back here,\u201d she told VICE News this week, laughing before she got serious. \u201cHe\u2019s made my life so hard, and for what? I keep to myself. I\u2019ve done nothing to anybody. I\u2019m trying to be me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mila\u2019s mother, who requested anonymity as she\u2019s scared of a backlash for speaking out against DeSantis\u2014, said she respects democracy, but \u201cit\u2019s hard to see my baby attacked all the time.\u201d Mila\u2019s extended family voted for DeSantis when he ran for reelection in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow he\u2019s banned my daughter\u2019s school from using her chosen pronouns, she can\u2019t do sports, she can\u2019t get transitioning help. If I give Mila the puberty blockers she wants, I could be reported and she\u2019d be taken away from me. Ain\u2019t that crazy?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe amount of damage Ron DeSantis has done as governor, the number of people he’s hurt, the communities he\u2019s shredded, the queer lives he\u2019s upended, it\u2019s hard to put it into perspective,\u201d said Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf, who is a survivor of Florida\u2019s Pulse nightclub attack added: \u201cThe more America saw of Ron DeSantis, the more they were repulsed by him. That just goes to show that the vast majority of American people are good, kind people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis is 45 years old, which is young by national political standards, and there is every likelihood this wasn\u2019t his last run at the White House. Asked if he\u2019s worried about what could happen next, Wolf quickly replied \u201cof course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cIt\u2019s scary to think how cruel and vindictive DeSantis will be when he gets back to Florida, just to punish his constituents for his own political failings,\u201d Wolf said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After failing to convince the Republican Party that he should be the next President, Ron DeSantis is heading home to Florida, and queer Floridians are not welcoming him back.  Even… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[7371],"class_list":["post-41322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-ron-desantis-returns-to-old-job-of-making-queer-floridians-lives-hell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}