Resistance Report Week 1: What can you do to get involved?

There are 43 days left of Florida’s 60-day Legislative Session — and DeSantis’ legislative allies are fast-tracking his Slate of Hate agenda. Some of these bad bills are already making their way to the Senate and House floors for full votes by the chambers

Things are moving fast and furious in the Capitol, but we’re committed to fighting back every step of the way. Our session-long resistance campaign, Pride at the Capitol, continued this week with dozens of volunteer activists joining us to speak out against 9 different bills across 8 different committee hearings!

But we’re not done yet! We’re mobilizing weekly, in-person and virtually, to fight back against DeSantis’ fascist agenda. Will you join us? 

Bear with us. A LOT happened in Tallahassee this week, and we want to make sure you’re informed and know the best ways to get involved. Here are our legislative updates from week 3 of session:

The Criminalizing Gender Affirming Care Bill (SB 254)

• What you need to know: This bill threatens doctors with jail time for providing essential medical care to transgender children as well as makes access more difficult for transgender adults. It weaponizes the state’s custody courts against an affirming parent, effectively permitting kidnapping by an unsupportive parent seeking to take away parental rights.In a hearing on the bill Thursday morning, Senator Shevrin Jones introduced an amendment to allow prescribed medical care to prevent suicide. More specifically, this humane and narrowly-tailored amendment would have allowed the minimum amount of healthcare to prevent self-harm including suicide when the parents consent and two doctors have diagnosed severe gender dysphoria and recommend the care in writing. The amendment FAILED on a party-line vote, with every Republican in the room voting AGAINST protecting transgender children from suicide. To learn more about the full hearing, read our live-tweet coverage.

  Ultimately, the bill advanced through its FINAL COMMITTEE STOP. It now heads to the Senate Floor for a full vote as early as next week.

• How you can get involved: We must mobilize quickly and aggressively against this legislation before it’s scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor. Tell members of the Florida Senate to OPPOSE SB 254. 

The Trans Ban Bill (HB 1421)

• • What you need to know: This bill threatens doctors with jail time for providing essential medical care to transgender children as well as makes access more difficult for transgender adults. It weaponizes the state’s custody courts against an affirming parent, effectively permitting kidnapping by an unsupportive parent seeking to take away parental rights.

• • What’s changed? The bill’s sponsor Rep. Randy Fine successfully added a strike-all amendment so that courts may change custody agreements to favor custody for a non-affirming parent to the detriment of an affirming parent’s custody who wants to get their child access to care out of state. *The amendment also includes a government-imposed forced detransition by the end of this year for minors currently receiving healthcare and bans the use of telehealth for gender-affirming care for adults by requiring in-person presence. It would also ban transgender adults from continuing to receive care from highly trained nurses, limiting their care to certain licensed doctors.

• • All together, this bill is a sweeping assault on the lives and medical freedoms of transgender Floridians. Free states don’t interfere with adults’ medical and legal decisions or with medical decisions that should be between parents, their children and their doctors. Despite much testimony in opposition to the bill, it advanced by a vote of 12-5 through the House Healthcare Regulation Committee on Wednesday. To learn more about the hearing, read our live-tweet coverage.