National
Florida LGBT rights movement grows more visible
Local, state officials more receptive to advocates’ concerns
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Councilman Steve Kornell (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—St. Petersburg City Councilman Steve Kornell was at his first candidate debate in 2009 when a woman in the audience asked him to respond to a “rumor” that he was gay. There was an audible gasp in the room, but Kornell did not hesitate to acknowledge his sexual orientation.
Even his opponents applauded him.
“Even though I was completely out, thousands of people didn’t know me at all so they didn’t know that about me,” Kornell, whom voters elected to represent the city’s Pinellas Point neighborhood in 2009, told the Washington Blade during a Feb. 4 interview near his home. “Somebody could have used that as an attack, and my response to that was I’m going to put it right out there.”
Kornell is among the public faces of a statewide LGBT rights movement whose profile has grown significantly over the last 15 years.
Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, said she had difficulty putting together a statewide board of directors when the organization formed in 1997 because people were afraid they would lose their jobs if they were outed. Journalists who wanted to cover Equality Florida events had to stand in the back of the room. They could only film the backs of the heads of those who had given their permission to appear on camera.
“When people stepped forward to the microphone at a county commissioner or a city council meeting to talk about the need for basic discrimination protection, they were literally risking their job,” Smith said. “There are some parts of Florida where that remains true.”
Only a handful of cities and counties included gay-specific protections in their anti-discrimination and anti-bullying ordinances in 1997. That number has grown to dozens of municipalities throughout the state.
Then-Gov. Charlie Crist in 2010 announced Florida would no longer enforce a law that banned gays and lesbians from adopting children in response to a state appellate court that found the 1977 statute unconstitutional. He signed the state’s LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying law in 2008.
State Reps. Joe Saunders (D-Orlando) and Dave Richardson (D-Miami Beach) last year made history as the first openly gay candidates elected to the state legislature. The Florida Senate Committee on Children, Families and Elder Affairs on Feb. 19 will debate a bill sponsored by state Sen. Eleanor Sobel (D-Hollywood) that would create a statewide domestic partnership registry.
Saunders and state Sen. Joe Abruzzo (D-Wellington) on Feb. 7 filed the Florida Competitive Workforce Act that would add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to the state’s employment non-discrimination law. State Rep. Holly Raschein (R-Key West) is the proposal’s primary co-sponsor.
“Florida has changed dramatically over the last 15 years,” Smith said. “The change has accelerated in just the past three or four years.”
In spite of the aforementioned victories, the movement has suffered a series of stinging setbacks over the last decade.
Voters in 2008 approved a state constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
The Hillsborough County Commission on Jan. 24 voted 4-3 against a proposed countywide domestic partner registry — commissioners in neighboring Pinellas County that includes St. Petersburg nine days earlier approved an identical registry for unmarried same-sex and heterosexual couples. The Lake County School Board’s move to ban extra-curricular clubs in the district after a group of middle school students in Leesburg tried to form a GSA has sparked outrage among LGBT advocates and their supporters.
Smith noted the board’s announcement coincided with a near unanimous vote in the Tavares City Council on Feb. 6 that created Lake County’s first domestic partner registry.
“It’s not a direct line between here and there,” she said. “It’s a zigzag line and forward motion and push back, but the message we deliver is we’re going to keep coming because we’re fighting for our lives, for our families, for many of us for our children. We’re never going to give up.”
SAVE Dade Executive Director CJ Ortuno (Photo by KUTTNERpix.com; courtesy of CJ Ortuno.)
CJ Ortuño, executive director of SAVE (Safeguarding American Values for Everyone) Dade, brings this message to his advocacy.
The Miami Beach resident who is a straight man of Cuban descent told the Blade that a gay man named John introduced his parents. He and his partner lived downstairs, and gave them the dining room table from which Ortuño’s young daughter Amalia eats.
Ortuño said he decided to become involved with the movement during President Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008 — the same year Florida voters approved the constitutional same-sex marriage ban.
“It was me staring at my daughter and saying, ‘I don’t know who she’s going to love when she gets older, but I’ll definitely be damned if I don’t do something,” he said. “I want to change this world and leave it a little better than the way I found it.”
SAVE Dade, which was founded in 1993 in the wake of the Anita Bryant-led movement that successfully repealed Dade County’s gay-inclusive human rights ordinance, continues to work with local municipalities to offer domestic partner benefits to their LGBT employees.
The Coral Gables City Commission last October unanimously approved domestic partner benefits to LGBT employees — more than a year after lesbian police officer Rene Tastet filed a complaint with the city manager’s office after she did not receive bereavement leave to attend her partner’s father’s funeral in North Carolina. The organization is also lobbying the Miami-Dade County Commission to add gender identity and expression to the county’s human rights ordinance.
“I think we can do that this year like our neighbors to the north (Broward County) and south (Monroe County) of us,” Ortuño said.
SAVE Dade also works with Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and other members of South Florida’s congressional delegation on immigration reform — and especially the Uniting American Families Act that would allow gays and lesbians to sponsor their foreign-born partners for residency in the United States. The organization also advocates for the re-authorization of the Ryan White CARE Act.
“We do the same thing on a statewide level,” he said, noting Miami-Dade has the largest legislative delegation in Tallahassee. “We don’t drive state policy, but we often support or provide resources through our Dade delegation.”
Smith said Equality Florida, which has chapters throughout the state, looks to its local partners to cultivate relationships with lawmakers in Tallahassee.
“They have a constituency that they are accountable to,” she said. “We really look to our local partners to help us reach out and cultivate these relationships. We do so much local work that the partnerships are essential.”
Saunders told the Blade during a Feb. 1 interview in his Orlando office that some of his fellow lawmakers are “still trying to readjust and figure out how to deal with this new community that’s now represented” in light of his and Richardson’s election. Kornell said his presence on the St. Petersburg City Council has had what he described as a positive impact on LGBT-specific issues.
St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, whom Kornell said made some “less than pro-gay” statements when he was a city councilman, approved his proposal to extend domestic partner benefits to the city’s 1,800 non-unionized employees.
“The mayor went ahead and did it,” Kornell said. “That’s the kind of thing when we have gay people sitting at the table; those kinds of things start to shift. It’s hard to hate somebody when you get to know them.”
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Democracy Forward files FOIA lawsuit after HHS deadnames Rachel Levine
Trans former assistant health secretary’s name changed on official portrait
Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that works to advance democracy and social progress through litigation, policy and public education, and regulatory engagement, filed a lawsuit Friday in federal court seeking to compel the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to release information related to the alteration of former Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine’s official portrait caption.
The lawsuit comes in response to the slow pace of HHS’s handling of multiple Freedom of Information Act requests — requests that federal law requires agencies to respond to within 20 working days. While responses can take longer due to backlogs, high request volumes, or the need for extensive searches or consultations, Democracy Forward says HHS has failed to provide any substantive response.
Democracy Forward’s four unanswered FOIA requests, and the subsequent lawsuit against HHS, come days after someone in the Trump-Vance administration changed Levine’s official portrait in the Hubert H. Humphrey Building to display her deadname — the name she used before transitioning and has not used since 2011.
According to Democracy Forward, HHS “refused to release any records related to its morally wrong and offensive effort to alter former Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine’s official portrait caption.” Levine was the highest-ranking openly transgender government official in U.S. history and served as assistant secretary for health and as an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps from 2021 to 2025.
Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman spoke about the need to hold the Trump-Vance administration accountable for every official action, especially those that harm some of the most targeted Americans, including trans people.
“The question every American should be asking remains: what is the Trump-Vance administration hiding? For an administration that touts its anti-transgender animus and behavior so publicly, its stonewalling and silence when it comes to the people’s right to see public records about who was behind this decision is deafening,” Perryman said.
“The government’s obligation of transparency doesn’t disappear because the information sought relates to a trailblazing former federal official who is transgender. It’s not complicated — the public is entitled to know who is making decisions — especially decisions that seek to alter facts and reality, erase the identity of a person, and affect the nation’s commitment to civil rights and human dignity.”
“HHS’s refusal to respond to these lawful requests raises more serious concerns about transparency and accountability,” Perryman added. “The public has every right to demand answers — to know who is behind this hateful act — and we are going to court to get them.”
The lawsuit also raises questions about whether the alteration violated federal accuracy and privacy requirements governing Levine’s name, and whether the agency improperly classified the change as an “excepted activity” during a lapse in appropriations. By failing to make any determination or produce any records, Democracy Forward argues, HHS has violated its obligations under federal law.
The case, Democracy Forward Foundation v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The legal team includes Anisha Hindocha, Daniel McGrath, and Robin Thurston.
The Washington Blade reached out to HHS, but has not received any comment.
The lawsuit and four FOIA requests are below:
The White House
Empty seats, canceled shows plague Kennedy Center ahead of Trump renaming
It would take an act of Congress to officially rename the historic music venue, despite the Trump-appointed board’s decision.
The board of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the White House Press Office.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the decision in a post on X Thursday, thanking the president for his work on the cultural center “not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.”
Speaking to reporters later that day at the White House, Trump said he was “surprised” and “honored” by the board’s vote.
“This was brought up by one of the very distinguished board members, and they voted on it, and there’s a lot of board members, and they voted unanimously. So I was very honored,” he said.
Earlier this year, GOP Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho introduced an amendment that would have renamed the building after first lady Melania Trump, later saying she had not been aware of his efforts prior to the amendment’s public introduction.
Despite the board’s vote (made up of Trump-appointed loyalists), the original laws guiding the creation of the Kennedy Center during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations explicitly prohibit renaming the building. Any change to its name would require an act of Congress.
Trump has exerted increasing control over the center in recent months. In February, he abruptly fired members of the Kennedy Center’s board and installed himself as chair, writing in a Truth Social post at the time, “At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN.”
In that post, Trump specifically cited his disapproval of the center’s decision to host drag shows.
He later secured more than $250 million from the Republican-controlled Congress for renovations to the building.
Since Trump’s takeover, sales of subscription packages are said to have declined, and several touring productions — including “Hamilton” — have canceled planned runs at the venue. Rows of empty seats have also been visible in the Concert Hall during performances by the National Symphony Orchestra.
“The Kennedy Center Board has no authority to actually rename the Kennedy Center in the absence of legislative action,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.
For decades, the Kennedy Center has hosted performances by LGBTQ artists and companies, including openly queer musicians, choreographers, and playwrights whose work helped push LGBTQ stories into the cultural mainstream. Those artists include the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, Harvey Fierstein, and Tennessee Williams.
In more recent years, the center has increasingly served as a space for LGBTQ visibility and acceptance, particularly through Pride-adjacent programming and partnerships.
That legacy was on display at this year’s opening production of Les Misérables, when four drag performers — Tara Hoot, Vagenesis, Mari Con Carne, and King Ricky Rosé — attended in representation of Qommittee, a volunteer network uniting drag artists to support and defend one another amid growing conservative attacks.
“We walked in together so we would have an opportunity to get a response,” said Tara Hoot, who has performed at the Kennedy Center in full drag before. “It was all applause, cheers, and whistles, and remarkably it was half empty. I think that was season ticket holders kind of making their message in a different way.”
The creation of the Kennedy Center is outlined in U.S. Code, which formally designates the institution as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
As a result, it appears unlikely that Congress will come together to pass legislation allowing the historic venue to be renamed.
The White House
HHS to restrict gender-affirming care for minors
Directive stems from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it will pursue regulatory changes that would make gender-affirming healthcare for transgender children more difficult, if not impossible, to access.
The shift in federal healthcare policy stems directly from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which formally establishes U.S. opposition to gender-affirming care and pledges to end federal funding for such treatments.
The executive order outlines a broader effort to align HHS with the Trump–Vance administration’s policy goals and executive actions. Those actions include defunding medical institutions that provide gender-affirming care to minors by restricting federal research and education grants, withdrawing the 2022 HHS guidance supporting gender-affirming care, requiring TRICARE and federal employee health plans to exclude coverage for gender-affirming treatments for minors, and directing the Justice Department to prioritize investigations and enforcement related to such care.
HHS has claimed that gender-affirming care can “expose them [children] to irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other irreversible physiological effects.” The nation’s health organization published a report in November, saying that evidence on pediatric gender-affirming care is “very uncertain.”
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now in the process of proposing new rules that would bar hospitals from performing what the administration describes as sex-rejecting procedures on children under age 18 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs. Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate in Medicare and Medicaid. HHS said that “this action is designed to ensure that the U.S. government will not be in business with organizations that intentionally or unintentionally inflict permanent harm on children.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released a statement alongside the announcement.
“Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Kennedy said. “This administration will protect America’s most vulnerable. Our children deserve better — and we are delivering on that promise.”
Those claims stand in direct opposition to the positions of most major medical and healthcare organizations.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization, has repeatedly opposed measures that restrict access to trans healthcare.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a statement on the AMA’s website reads. “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population.”
Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, warned the proposed changes would cause significant harm.
“Parents of transgender children want what all parents want: to see their kids thrive and get the medical care they need. But this administration is putting the government between patients and their doctors. Parents witness every day how their children benefit from this care — care backed by decades of research and endorsed by major medical associations across the country. These proposed rules are not based on medical science. They are based on politics. And if allowed to take effect will serve only to drive up medical costs, harm vulnerable children, and deny families the care their doctors say they need. These rules elevate politics over children — and that is profoundly unAmerican.”
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson echoed Levi’s sentiments.
“The Trump administration is relentless in denying health care to this country, and especially the transgender community. Families deserve the freedom to go to the doctor and get the care that they need and to have agency over the health and wellbeing of their children,” Robinson said. “But these proposed actions would put Donald Trump and RFK Jr. in those doctor’s offices, ripping health care decisions from the hands of families and putting it in the grips of the anti-LGBTQ+ fringe. Make no mistake: these rules aim to completely cut off medically necessary care from children no matter where in this country they live. It’s the Trump administration dictating who gets their prescription filled and who has their next appointment canceled altogether.
The announcement comes just days after U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) advanced legislation in Congress that would make it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to a child.
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