The Florida Senate revived legislation that would restrict the use of preferred pronouns for public employees.
A committee on Tuesday took up a “don’t say gay or trans at work” bill that would require public employees to be identified in form as either male or female, and which would bar employers from directing workers to use pronouns besides he or she.
That action took place just a week after Equality Florida activists showed up en masse at the Florida Capitol and celebrated the seeming death of the legislation.
But the Florida Senate’s Government Oversight took up the measure again at the discretion of Florida state Sen. Randy Fine, an anti-LGBTQ Republican currently running for Congress.
The bill left many members of the public distraught at the potential opening of the workplace to discrimination.
“I don’t understand the purpose of this. This bill is hurting my family,” said Robert Lee, a Florida man who drove to Tallahassee to oppose the bill on behalf of his gender-nonconforming children. “It’s hurting my children, who are nonbinary. I really wish that we as a state could focus more on our insurance costs instead of just pointless little bills like this.”
Anti-LGBTQ organizations said the bill will prevent state employers from firing employees who are morally opposed to using “they/them” pronouns.
“This bill will protect the conscience rights of employees who work for the state or state of local governments by ending pronoun mandates,” said Joh Labriola, a lobbyist for the Christian Family Coalition. “It ends coercive pronoun mandates. It doesn’t take anyone’s rights away.”
But Florida state Sen. Kristen Arrington, a Democrat on the committee who voted against the bill, said that’s not true. She noted the bill as written would require every employee on government documents to now be identified as either male or female.
“The bill really does promote government employees and contractors to harass transgender individuals by allowing them to intentionally misgender them by using disrespectful pronouns and having no consequences,” Arrington said. “And this is a license to discriminate free from accountability. It seems that it’s attempt to create a hostile work environment for LGBTQ people, particularly transgender Floridians.”
Florida Sen. Stan McClain, the bill’s Republican sponsor, said the legislation simply aimed to protect the rights of employees to decline to use pronouns they disagree with.
“There’s just no we’re not going to allow state employees to be coerced by their employers or subcontractors going forward,” McClain said.
He said the bill uses the same language as other statutes passed in prior years, a seeming reference to Florida’s don’t say gay law, which prohibits teachers from using preferred pronouns in the classroom.
Utah became the first state to prohibit flying LGBTQ+ pride flags at schools and all government buildings after the Republican governor announced he was allowing a ban on unsanctioned flag displays to become law without his signature.
Gov. Spencer Cox, who made the announcement late Thursday night, said he continues to have serious concerns with the policy but chose not to reject it because his veto would likely be overridden by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Starting May 7, state or local government buildings will be fined $500 a day for flying any flag other than the United States flag, the Utah state flag, military flags or a short list of others approved by lawmakers. Political flags supporting a certain candidate or party, such as President Donald Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” flags, are not allowed.
The new law could stoke conflict between the state and its largest city. City buildings in liberal Salt Lake City typically honor Pride Month each June by displaying flags that celebrate its large LGBTQ+ population. Local leaders have illuminated the Salt Lake City and County Building in rainbow lights to protest the flag ban each night since the Legislature sent it to Cox’s desk.
Andrew Wittenberg, a spokesperson for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s office, said their attorneys are evaluating the law and the capital city does not yet have information on what it will do once the law takes effect.
The bill’s Republican sponsors, Rep. Trevor Lee and Sen. Dan McCay, said it’s meant to encourage “political neutrality” from teachers and other government employees. Opponents argued it aims to erase LGBTQ+ expression and take authority away from cities and towns that don’t align politically with the Republican Legislature.
In a letter to legislative leaders explaining his decision, Cox said he agreed with the “underlying intent” of the bill to make classrooms politically neutral but thought it went too far in regulating local governments. He also noted that by focusing narrowly on flags, the law does not prevent other political displays such as posters or lighting.
“To our LGBTQ community, I know that recent legislation has been difficult,” Cox said. “Politics can be a bit of a blood sport at times and I know we’ve had our disagreements. I want you to know that I love and appreciate you and I am grateful that you are part of our state. I know these words may ring hollow to many of you, but please know that I mean them sincerely.”
Cox’s decision came hours after the Sundance Film Festival announced it was leaving its home of four decades in Park City, Utah, for Boulder, Colorado. The flag bill created eleventh-hour tensions as some residents worried it would push the nation’s premier independent film festival out of state. Festival leaders said state politics ultimately did not influence their move from conservative Utah to liberal Colorado. They did, however, make “ethos and equity values” one of their criteria in a nationwide search for a new home and referred to Boulder in their announcement as a “welcoming environment.”
Utah’s flag law goes further than one signed last week in Idaho that only applies to schools. But Idaho Republicans are also advancing a separate bill to ban government buildings from displaying certain flags.
Florida lawmakers have advanced a proposal to ban pride flags and others that represent political viewpoints in schools and public buildings after similar measures failed in the past two legislative sessions. Some federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, also have limited which flags can fly at their facilities.
Other flags permitted under the Utah law include Olympic and Paralympic flags, official college or university flags, tribal flags and historic versions of other approved flags that might be used for educational purposes.
Welcome to the latest edition of Heroes of the Resistance — GLAAD’s ongoing series highlighting positive changemakers for the LGBTQ community at a time of challenge and uncertainty.
In a significant recent victory, Senate Democrats came together unanimously to halt legislation at the federal level that would have banned federally-funded schools from allowing transgender girls to participate in sports, calling it a distraction intended to harm a small group of people. The bill, pushed forward by Republicans, had mirrored a dangerous executive order issued by President Trump that perpetuates myths and disinformation about transgender Americans. GLAAD’s fact sheet on transgender people in sports is here, outlining facts versus myths and the truth about commonly asked questions.
In Minnesota, lawmakers rejected a bill that also would have banned transgender girls from playing school sports. The defeat of the bill came as advocates spoke out about its discriminatory nature and slippery slope in harming not just transgender girls, but all girls who play sports. “This bill creates a path for intense scrutiny and harassment for the 200,000 Minnesota girls who currently play sports ages 5 to 18,” said Rep. Julie Greene, DFL-Edina, dispelling the misconception that banning transgender girls from sports would somehow make sports more safe for cisgender girls. “This bill puts all girls at risk,” she concludes. The Minnesota High School League has allowed transgender students to participate on teams for a decade without incident. Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison agrees with killing the bill and fighting any federal effort to interfere in Minnesota’s human rights law, which Ellison says supersedes any attempt by the federal government to roll back protections for trans students.
Rev. Terri Burnor protests at the Minnesota State Capitol / Ellen Schmidt, MPR News
In Montana, out transgender state representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell gave impassioned speeches on the House floor early this month in opposition to two extreme bills that would have removed transgender youth from their families and banned certain types of expression and participation at Pride marches and drag shows. “I am here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish,” said Representative Zephyr, in response to disrespectful comments by the bill’s sponsor about transgender people. “When I go to walk [my son] to school, that’s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family.”
An impressive 29 Republicans broke party ranks in order to support the defeat of the bills. Representative Sherry Essman, a Republican, rose to defend Rep. Zephyr and chastised the bill’s sponsor. ‘I’m speaking as a parent and a grandmother. And I’m very emotional because I know the representative in seat 20 is also a parent. No matter what you think of that, she is doing her best to raise a child. I did my best to raise my children as I saw fit, and I’m taking it for granted that my children are going to raise my grandchildren as they see fit,’ she said.
“Everybody in here talks about how important parental rights are. I want to tell you, in addition to parental rights, parental responsibility is also important. And if you can’t trust a decent parent to decide where and when their kids should see what, then we have a bigger problem. … “Trust the parents to do what’s right, and stop these crazy bills that are a waste of time. They’re a waste of energy,” said Essman.
These steps forward represent the power of conversations, organizing, and efforts to build understanding around transgender people and LGB people more broadly. These efforts have also led to victories against Trump’s executive orders that blatantly discriminate against LGBTQ people, immigrants, women, and people of color.
Rep. Zephyr and Rep. Howell / Brittany Peterson, AP
Since Trump took office, multiple federal judges of all political affiliations have blocked enforcement and/or struck down these orders on the merits. Four federal judges to date have blocked Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship in the country. Two federal courts have blocked his ban on lifesaving health care for transgender youth 19 years old and younger; and another judge has blocked the dangerous transfer of transgender women inmates to male prisons that would have aligned with Trump’s effort to erase transgender people from federal law. A preliminary injunction has been issued against Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders seeking to eliminate important progress for marginalized communities.
Most recently, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Trump’s executive order targeting transgender service members. In the opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes stated that “thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed—some risking their lives—to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them.” Judge Reyes held that banning transgender service members from the military violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because it is discrimination based on transgender status and sex; and because “it is soaked in animus.”Judge Reyes continued: “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”
In Massachusetts, the city of Worcester approved a measure declaring the second-largest city in Massachusetts a sanctuary city for the transgender community. The move came in response to Trump’s executive order attempting to administratively erase transgender people under federal law. “I don’t care what your beliefs are, but to take the word ‘transgender’ out of the vocabulary in the federal government is just plain wrong,” Mayor Joseph Petty said. This makes Worcester at least the third city in the U.S. to pass such a measure.
In a sign of proactive movement in Washington State, Governor Bob Ferguson announced a new policy to speed up the efficiency of document changes for transgender and nonbinary people, which previously could take up to ten months: “Very proud to announce the Department of Health will now process all requests to change gender designation on birth certificates within three business days.”
The Rev. Dr. Mark Suriano, pastor at the First Congregational Church UCC in Park Ridge, New Jersey, didn’t hesitate to speak out in support of the full breadth of his community in a letter to the Central Atlantic Conference United Church of Christ following inflammatory comments and threats to his congregation spurred by online harassment from the so-called Moms for LIberty – a designated hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and a long history of anti-LGBTQ extremism documented by GLAAD. In his letter, Rev. Suriano quoted the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Despite the hateful incident on his congregants, Rev. Suriano expressed hope and gratitude for his community coming together stronger than ever. “I remain emotional about this physical manifestation of the ‘inescapable network of mutuality’ and the ‘seamless garment of destiny’ of which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke. I also am overwhelmed by the beautiful truth that what affects one of us directly affects all of us indirectly,” he expressed.
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A member of the Austin Gay Men’s Chorus was shot and killed in a suspected road rage incident in Texas this month, and the family and police are seeking help.
Edward Espino, 47, was shot and killed early in the morning of March 16. Numerous calls to 911 reported that a Mitsubishi Mirage was stalled on Interstate Highway 35 in Austin just after 3:30 a.m. The incident was upgraded to a crash after the Mirage was subsequently hit by a Ford Bronco.
When first responders arrived at the scene, they discovered Espino trapped in his car and unresponsive.
“The Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services (ATCEMS) and the Austin Fire Department (AFD) extracted Mr. Espino from the vehicle and attempted first aid when they discovered a gunshot wound on his body,” the Austin Police Department said in a press release. “Mr. Espino was pronounced deceased at 4:14 a.m.”
Police interviewed witnesses and the driver of the Bronco, who stayed at the scene. The driver of the Bronco, who remained unnamed, fully cooperated with authorities and was not suspected of involvement in Espino’s death.
“The initial investigation showed that Mr. Espino was in his Mitsubishi Mirage and driving northbound on IH 35 where his vehicle came to a stop in the far left lane of N. IH 35 before being struck from behind by the Bronco,” APD continued in the press release. “The shooting suspects have not yet been identified.”
Police suspect Espino was killed in a road rage incident.
Espino, a member of the Austin Gay Men’s Chorus, was returning from a visit with relatives in Corpus Christi when the shooting occurred. He was remembered by friends and family as warm and outgoing.
“He brought immense joy and light to our chorus in the short time he was with us,” the Austin Gay Men’s Chorus wrote on a GoFundMe page raising funds to assist Espino’s family with the funeral costs. “Our hearts are with his family and all who knew him. He will always be remembered as a bright, shining presence among us. Rest in peace, Edward.”
“There’s nothing that could bring him back, and we know that. But in knowing who took him from us couldn’t mean everything,” said Jessica Munoz, Edward’s younger sister, told local CBS affiliate KEYE.
Police say they have no suspects in the case and are asking for the public’s help. Anyone who believes they might have witnessed the incident or could provide help identifying a suspect is encouraged to contact the APD at (512) 974-TIPS. Tips can be submitted anonymously through the Capital Area Crime Stoppers Program by visiting AustinCrimeStoppers.org or calling (512) 472-8477.
The GoFundMe page has currently raised more than $8,500 of a $10,000 goal. Donors can contribute to the fund here.
Ken Paxton has announced the end of a foster care rule intended to protect children who identify as LGBTQ. On Friday, Texas Attorney General Paxton’s office announced that his office had defeated a rule requiring agencies to ensure foster care families support their child’s identity.
“This is a tremendous victory for Texas families, parental rights, and the rule of law,” ” said Paxton. “The Biden Administration had no authority to force radical gender ideology onto vulnerable children and demand compliance from foster care providers under threat of lost funding.”
According to multiple studies, around 30% of youth in the foster care system identify as LGBTQ. Paxton’s win applies to all states, but it appears that LGBTQ-friendly states can still independently enforce such a policy, at least until the Trump administration comes after them.
Republicans in the Legislature filed more than 80 bills that would affect LGBTQ Texans, including many focused on public schools that would impact students, teachers and staff. Republican lawmakers filed a range of bills to ban teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity, limit the ability of teachers and students to discuss sex and gender outside the classroom, outlaw support for gender transitions and protect employees who refer to transgender students by their biological sex.
“Sexual orientation and gender identity policies, they’re not about allowing people to learn and live as they choose,” said Jonathan Covey, policy director of Texas Values. “They’re used in a coercive way to force those people who don’t agree with them to go along with a radical ideology, and schools are actually a major front in this campaign.” One bill proposes a ban on human sexuality instruction from pre-K through eighth grade. Others would ban such instruction from pre-K through 12th grade.
Read the full article. The piece goes on to quote a survey showing that 40% of Texas LGBTQ youth have considered suicide in the last year. Texas Republicans surely consider that a good thing. Photo: Rep. Steve Toth, author of several bills cited in the article.
LGBTQ+ people are more likely to have student loans and experience economic insecurity, poverty, and disabilities, and Donald Trump‘s federal student loan restrictions are expected to disproportionately impact them.
More than one-third (35 percent) of LGBTQ+ adults ages 18 to 40 — an estimated 2.9 million — held more than $93.2 billion in federal student loans at the beginning of the Biden Administration, according to a new report from theWilliams Institute and the Point Foundation, including over half (51 percent) of transgender adults, 36 percent of cisgender LBQ women, and 28 percent of cisgender GBQ men.
Through loan forgiveness, new repayment plans, the expansion of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), and relief for students with disabilities, the Biden administration approved over $183 billion in student debt relief for more than five million borrowers. Assuming that LGBTQ+ adults received the benefits equally, an estimated 11.6 percent of queer adults with student loans — about 336,000 — benefited from Biden’s programs.
“Student loans have been an important bridge out of poverty and towards independence for many people,” Jorge Valenica, Executive Director and CEO of the Point Foundation, said in a statement. “LGBTQ+ individuals have been less likely to rely on family support for meeting the costs of higher education, making federal student loans all the more critical.”
Now, the Trump Administration is pushing for changes that would disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ borrowers. This includes ending income-driven repayment plans, as outlined in Project 2025, and replacing them with one that “takes less account of borrowers’ finances and imposes no cap on interest,” the report states.
Trump has also signed an executive order ending the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, and is expected to sign one attempting to completely shut down the Department of Education, though he can’t legally do so.
“The proposed restrictions on student loans will particularly affect the nearly one-quarter of LGBTQ adults employed in the public or nonprofit sectors, which qualify for the Public Student Loan Forgiveness program,” said lead author Brad Sears, Distinguished Senior Scholar of Law and Policy at the Williams Institute. “A recent executive order could potentially disqualify anyone working for an organization involved in gender-affirming care, or possibly those serving transgender individuals more broadly, from the PSLF program.”
West Ada School District has recently come under fire after a KTVB story highlighted Lewis and Clark Middle School teacher Sarah Inama, who was asked to remove signs and posters promoting inclusivity from her classroom. The signs share the message that all students are welcome and feature hands of different skin colors and a series of words highlighted in a rainbow of colors, including “welcome,” “important,” “valued” and “equal.”
West Ada cited a district policy that “ensures that classrooms remain neutral” as justification for asking Inama to remove the signs, the district said. After discussing her posters, Inama removed them from the walls of her classroom but later hung them back up. After they were rehung, the school’s principal along with the district’s chief academic officer met with Inama to discuss their concerns about the posters and how they violate district policy.
A local screen printing shop has been working tirelessly for over a week to meet the demand for T-shirts bearing a message of inclusion that has brought international attention to Idaho. Brigade Screen Printing in Boise has received thousands of orders after sixth-grade teacher Sarah Inama refused to take down a sign in her classroom reading “Everyone Is Welcome Here” when asked to do so by the West Ada School District.
“We’re busy on a normal basis,” said shop owner Shawn Wright about the sheer number of orders. “But we’re never this busy. This is a whole another level.” Wright shared the Inama’s story with his staff, many of whom are parents with children in the West Ada School District. “Within five minutes, I had a bunch of moms in tears going, ‘Whatever we gotta do,’” Wright said. The small shop has significantly extended its usual 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule.
Yeshiva University in New York has agreed to recognize an LGBTQ student club after years of legal disputes that at one point reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The university said Thursday in a statement that it reached an agreement with the students to end the litigation and will officially recognize the club, which will be called Hareni and “will operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis.”
“The club will be run like other clubs on campus, all in the spirit of a collaborative and mutually supportive campus culture,” the university said.
The club was formerly known as the YU Pride Alliance and was long the subject of litigation over whether the university had to recognize it. The school contended that such recognition would violate its religious beliefs.
In 2022 the dispute wound up in the Supreme Court, which cleared the way for the club to be recognized while also telling Yeshiva it should return to state court to seek quick review and temporary relief.
In its own statement Thursday, the club confirmed the agreement and said it will enjoy the same privileges as other student organizations on campus. It plans to host charitable events, movie nights, panel discussions and career networking events and will publicly use “LGBTQ+” on flyers and advertisements.
“This agreement affirms that LGBTQ+ students at Yeshiva University are valued members of the community,” said Schneur Friedman, a president of the group.
“This victory is not just for our club — it’s for every student who deserves a safe space to be themselves,” said Hayley Goldberg, another Hareni president.
“I’m excited to move forward, build community, and continue advocating for a school where everyone belongs,” Goldberg said.
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Texas A&M University System from enforcing a ban on drag performances on its campuses.
The Texas A&M Board of Regents passed a resolution last month that prohibited drag shows in campus venues, arguing at the time, according to court documents, that drag shows could violate President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting federal funds from being used to promote “gender ideology.”
As a result of the resolution, Texas A&M’s flagship campus in College Station canceled “Draggieland,” an annual drag performance scheduled for Thursday in a campus theater. The Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council, an LGBTQ student group that has sponsored the event for the past five years, sued, arguing that the ban on drag performances violates the First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas said the students’ claim is likely to succeed and issued a temporary injunction that will allow the performance to go on as scheduled while litigation continues.
“By permitting Draggieland to be held on campus, in the theatre used for a wide variety of events and performances, for those who want to attend and have bought tickets to do so, the Board does not imply that it endorses Draggieland’s message,” Rosenthal wrote in her opinion. “Instead, the Board is complying with the constitutional obligation to allow different messages and viewpoints, including those viewed as offensive to some, to be expressed at a university that is committed to critical thought about a wide range of conflicting and divergent viewpoints and ideologies.”
The Queer Empowerment Council said in a statement that it is “overjoyed” with the decision.
“This is another display of the resilience of queer joy, as that is an unstoppable force despite those that wish to see it destroyed,” the group said. “While this fight isn’t over, we are going to appreciate the joy we get to bring by putting on the best show that we can do.”
A spokesperson for the Texas A&M University System said the school has received the judge’s opinion and is reviewing its options and potential next steps.
The decision is yet another blow against policies that seek to restrict drag performances. In 2023, a federal judge struck down a Texas law that LGBTQ advocates feared would ban drag shows, and judges also blocked a similar law in Montana that targeted drag shows and events where drag performers read books to children. However, in Tennessee, a federal appeals court last year allowed a law restricting drag to stand, reversing a lower court ruling.
Texas A&M’s Board of Regents, in addition to arguing that allowing drag performances on campus could violate Trump’s order regarding “gender ideology,” also said such performances violate the university’s mission to respect others. Drag, the board said, involves men dressing in women’s clothing, wearing exaggerated makeup and prosthetics and performing in a way that “demeans women.”
The performances could “contribute to a hostile environment for women contrary to System anti-discrimination policy and Title IX,” the university said, citing a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs, according to court documents.
Rosenthal, however, said that the board didn’t show any evidence that “Draggieland” has contributed to an increase in the harassment of female students over the last five years the Queer Empowerment Council has held the performance and that the record didn’t show that any female students had complained.
In addition, Rosenthal said the board couldn’t show evidence that Trump’s executive order regarding “gender ideology” applies to drag shows “or that the Draggieland message denies the existence of the male and female sexes.”
“The QEC’s complaint makes clear that by donning clothing and makeup traditionally associated with the opposite sex, Draggieland performers intend to convey a message of LGBTQ+ support by engaging in a protected art form,” Rosenthal wrote. “The performers are just that: performers. They are acting. The performance is theater. It is not about individuals seeking to change their biological sex or claim a different biological sex. It is about actors who perform dressed differently than their biological sex. Again, the Board’s argument conflates the existence of two sexes with different ways to express sexuality and sexual themes.”
Rosenthal added, “To ban the performance from taking place on campus because it offends some members of the campus community is precisely what the First Amendment prohibits.”
