Trans people across the U.S. have been overwhelmed this year with wave after wave of petty, hateful conservative state legislation aimed at further marginalizing us from our everyday lives. In my own trans circles, we often talk about safe places we may be able to flee to in case things continue to go south for us. But one thing is clear: Going south to Florida is not an option.
There’s a reason that Florida is the epicenter of the anti-trans movement and why other states are emulating Florida’s approach to marginalizing trans people. And there’s a reason Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a presumptive 2024 presidential hopeful, is able to so effectively steer the state’s anti-trans agenda in ways that threaten the lives, health and safety of trans people like me.
The situation is dire, and trans people in Florida are desperate.
Where DeSantis’ approach has been unique among a growing list of anti-trans states is in his methodical stacking of the state’s health department board with political appointees who consistently oppose transgender rights. This can be traced back to 2022, when DeSantis started running for re-election, with the appointment of four conservatives in June 2022 to the state board of medicine. The practice has steadily continued, with DeSantis appointing two conservative pediatricians to the same board in December 2022, as he prepared for his much-discussed likely presidential run.
Importantly, at the center of Florida’s anti-trans movement isn’t the state’s Legislature, which has passed restrictions on trans athletes and has proposed one of the most draconian bans on gender-related care in the country, but its health department. The Florida Board of Medicine, now full of DeSantis appointees, has unilaterally imposed several policies, including banning youth gender-affirming care and proposing to ban insurance coverage for adult transition care through its executive council, which has repeatedly voted along party lines against…
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