Ron DeSantis' Anti-LGBTQ+ Push Didn't Work Nationally. But It's Working Too Well In Florida.

Source: HuffPost

Ron DeSantis’ Anti-LGBTQ+ Push Didn’t Work Nationally. But It’s Working Too Well In Florida.

The last year of DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ+ agenda has offered a window into what the future might look like for queer and trans residents of the state.

By Lil Kalish
Jan 25, 2024, 05:37 PM EST
|Updated 8 hours ago

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination earlier this week. It was the end of his less-than-year-long presidential bid, in which he has repeatedly attacked the LGBTQ+ community in the hopes of scoring political points with Republicans.

When she saw the news that DeSantis was out of the race, Floridian Simone Chriss said she felt a brief moment of relief.

“Thank God he’s not going to be at the helm of our country,” she recalled thinking.

But Chriss, a civil rights lawyer at Southern Legal Counsel in Gainesville, is also worried about the governor turning his undivided attention back home. “The other side of me was like, ‘He’s not distracted now and campaigning and traveling and focused on the presidency. He’s going to have all of his volatility and hostility and whatever motivates him just to laser focus back on Florida.’”

The last year of campaigning has offered a window into what the future might look like for queer and trans Americans, as a record-breaking number of bills to restrict their access to public spaces and services have been filed in Florida and in statehouses across the country.

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Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-desantis-anti-lgbtq-agenda-failed-nationally_n_65b2b2bde4b04d89951053cd