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This year, too many legislatures and governors have given into fear and lies about transgender people. It sucks that we have to keep having this fight. But we can create a world that celebrates every young person for who they are.

At the beginning of Pride month this year, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a bill that excludes transgender girls from school sports. It was just one of the too many bills targeting transgender people signed into law this year.

While it is decades since I have lived in Florida, seeing the governor signing an anti-transgender law in the name of school children brought me right back to a painful moment in my own youth.

Tenía 12 años, estaba a punto de cumplir 13 y vivía en Miami Beach, Florida, en 1977, cuando Anita Bryant, la “reina del jugo de naranja”, encabezó la Campaña Salvar a Nuestros Niños. Esa campaña estaba diseñada para derrocar uno de los primeras ordenanzas sobre derechos de los homosexuales, in Miami-Dade County, and it succeeded.

I remember crying the day I heard about the vote. It was overwhelming to learn that my neighbors voted for repeal by a 2:1 margin.

After the defeat of the Miami-Dade County ordinance, Save Our Children turned its efforts elsewhere and, within a year, overturned similar laws in St. Paul, Minnesota; Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon. But the LGBTQ community in Florida and across the country organizado y luchado   – and allies began to join us.

Save Our Children’s efforts were stopped in November 1978 when California voters rejected Proposition 6, or the Iniciativa Briggs, a proposed state law in California that would have banned openly gay teachers in public schools.

That history is the foundation of my professional life and the formative experience that would shape my connection to advocacy.

I recall sitting in typing class and hearing my teacher repeat what Bryant was saying about the danger of gay teachers in public schools. Only she used a much more offensive term – a six-letter F word – for gay men.

I remember that moment vividly to this day more than 40 years later. I knew, of course, she was speaking out against gay teachers. But more personally, I felt the clear and stinging message that my life, my trans, gender non-conforming, queer, soon-to-be lesbian self was also not, in her view, worthy of the dignity, humanity, and respect afforded to other students at Nautilus Junior High. And that hurt.

If I could speak to my 12-year-old self now, though, I would tell that young person: there will be remarkable changes ahead. And you will be a part of them.

Como Director del Proyecto de Derechos Transgénero de GLAD, I have seen tremendous progress over the more than 20 years I have been doing this work.

But while we have made such positive advances, we are in this moment experiencing backlash, the likes of which make the Save Our Children campaign look almost moderate.

During this legislative session, we saw over 200 bills introduced in legislatures across the country. These bills seek to exclude transgender students from school programs, deny youth medical care for their most basic needs, and target transgender people for exclusion and demeaning treatment in places of public accommodation.

Transgender people and our families have had to endure hours of legislative discussion and testimony putting up for debate our most basic protections under civil rights laws. And newspapers have been filled with editorials calling into question who we are and how we should live.

Alongside Florida, the states of Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota, and Tennessee also enacted some of the most reactionary laws ever passed this legislative session. Many of these laws directly target transgender young people, and all of them impact trans youth as well as adults.

The Tennessee legislature was arguably the most aggressive in its attacks. Governor Lee signed five bills targeting transgender and LGB people, including a bill excluding transgender girls from school sports, one taking aim at healthcare for trans youth, a bill restricting transgender students’ access to school restrooms, and one prohibiting LGBTQ topics in school.

A final new Tennessee law – the first of its kind in the country – requires businesses in the state to post a demeaning and fear-mongering warning notice on their premises if they allow transgender individuals access equally to other patrons. The Tennessee legislature and governor have basically rolled out a giant “Not Welcome” sign to transgender people in the state.

But GLAD is fighting back. Partnering with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, attorney Abby Rubenfeld, and the law firm of Sherrard, Roe, Voigt, and Harbison, GLAD impugna la ley de letreros en un tribunal federal on behalf of Curb Records and the Mike Curb Foundation – Nashville-based companies speaking out because demeaning and excluding transgender people is counter to their values and also bad for business.

In an interesting twist of fate, our client in the case, Mike bordillo, estaba en primera línea en California desafiando la Iniciativa Briggs cuando yo era un joven adolescente, tambaleándose por el impacto de la campaña Save Our Children en Florida. Mike, su familia y su empresa se han dedicado a la plena inclusión e igualdad de las personas LGBTQ durante décadas y es muy importante contar con voces aliadas como la suya en esta lucha.

“Nuestra fundación se ha dedicado a la inclusión y la no discriminación, incluso de las personas LGBT, desde el primer día. Es difícil creer que nuestra comunidad LGBT en Tennessee esté siendo atacada con tanta legislación dañina, gran parte de la cual fue firmada por el Gobernador Lee, en un momento en que nuestro país necesita unirse más que nunca”. – Mike Curb, demandante en Acera contra Lee.

Presentar esta demanda en Tennessee me da fuerza y esperanza. Cuando tenía 12 años, poco podía hacer para luchar contra los esfuerzos de derogación de la ordenanza sobre derechos de los homosexuales de Miami-Dade. Pero hice lo que pude. Y a pesar de lo difícil que fue, también hubo experiencias que me dieron esperanza y vislumbres del futuro mejor que me esperaba.

One day, I went to a sign-making event at a restaurant located in a vibrant gay district called Cocoanut Grove. To set the scene just a bit, Cocoanut Grove had one of the first outdoor exercise courses popularized in the 70s, and it lay along a course that ran along the Miami Bay. I can now look back and think how powerfully affirming it was for me as a young, queer person just beginning to understand who I was, to see strong butch lesbians (I am sure there were femme ones, too, but my eyes queued on the butch ones) and athletic, handsome gay men of many shapes, colors, and sizes sitting kissing on park benches or holding hands while rollerblading through the park.

That was the backdrop through which I walked that day from our car to the Coco Plum. In my hands was a bright orange poster board and an array of pink and black markers. My plan was to write a big sign that said – A Day without Human Rights is a Day without Sunshine – the slogan the movement had crafted as a play on Anita Bryant’s famoso lema del jugo de naranja, to call out the hypocrisy of Bryant and her team.

As I sat down at a table toward the rear of the restaurant, I saw someone I recognized. Seated at another table working on another sign was my science teacher, Mr. Wilson (not his real name). There were lots of rumors about Mr. Wilson being gay, but to me, they were just that – rumors. That day Mr. Wilson walked over to my table and said,

“Sé que los niños hablan. Y quiero que sepas que es verdad que soy gay. Estoy orgulloso de ello y dispuesto a arriesgarlo todo para hacer que el mundo sea más seguro para docentes como yo. Pero más que eso, quiero que el mundo sea un lugar más seguro para que los jóvenes salgan del armario y no sólo sean aceptados sino celebrados por quienes son. Sé que ese día llegará. Y llegaremos todos juntos. Es una mierda que tengamos que tener esta pelea. Pero no conozco otra manera de conseguirlo que a través de él”.

I can’t tell you how much it meant to hear his message that day. One thing we can all do in this moment is to be that person for the young queer and trans people in our lives – or even for the queer and trans kids halfway around the country who desperately need to hear an affirming message from us right now.

The queer community in Miami-Dade County lost the fight in 1977. But the struggle formed a local movement that connected eventually to a state and then a national one.

Having one teacher reach out to me and seeing so many adults standing up to bigotry and prejudice inspired and transformed my life and future.

This year too many legislatures and governors have given into fear and lies about transgender people. It sucks that we must keep having this fight. But like Mr. Wilson, I still believe we can create a world that celebrates every young person for who they are. And that’s worth fighting for.