While the Florida law was being challenged in court, it was reshaping the lives of queer and trans adults and kids alike in the state, in ways that can’t necessarily be recovered. More than half of 113 LGBTQ+ parents in Florida surveyed by the Williams Institute in 2022 had considered moving to another state because of the “Don’t Say Gay” law, as detailed in a report published in January 2023—16.5 percent had taken steps to leave Florida, and 21 percent said they were less out about their own identity.
Though DeSantis and his legislative allies ought to be chastened by this settlement, as well as the failure of other bills in the legislature, the fallout of these laws in Florida and elsewhere is dangerous and will last for years. School hate crimes have quadrupled in states that have recently passed anti-LGBTQ laws, as was uncovered in a new investigation this week by The Washington Post. “The number of anti-LGBTQ+ school hate crimes serious enough to be reported to local police more than doubled nationwide between 2015-2019 and 2021-2022,” reporters wrote. “The rise is steeper in the 28 states that have passed laws curbing the rights of transgender students at school and restricting how teachers can talk about issues of gender and sexuality.”
Then too, while the DeSantis agenda targeting queer and trans Floridians may be faltering and may be unpopular, he could not have gotten the agenda this far if it were his alone. There will be others waiting to take up the baton. Florida has shown how far some states will go to make life unlivable for queer and trans people, and it’s too soon to know whether this agenda is really crumbling. As LGBTQ+ Floridians and their allies celebrate a limited victory, a lot of uncomfortable questions remain—not just about how to fight off DeSantis and how to be resilient but how to prevent another DeSantis from ever getting this far.