September 12, 2023 • 50 mins
Imagine the grit it takes to stand as the only out transgender person working at the Florida State Capitol. Our guest, Eleanor McDonald, has dared to challenge the status quo & fight for the rights of her community within the corridors of power. She has not only weathered the storm but also managed to thrive in the conservative landscape of Florida's political scene. In this episode, she opens up about the impact of politics on marginalized communities, the roles played by prominent figures like Governor DeSantis, and the challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eleanor McDonald.
She-her most recently served asLegislative Aid to Florida
State Representative Rita Harrisof Orlando and was the only out
transgender person working atthe Florida State Capitol.
She previously served asLegislative Aid to Florida State
Representative KristenErrington of Kissimmee, before
leaving to work for the FloridaDemocratic Party as a regional
(00:22):
organizing director during the2022 campaign.
She recently relocated to NewHampshire after anti-trans
legislation was enacted inFlorida.
Prior to leaving, she served asPresident of the Osceola LGBTQ
Plus Lighthouse Democrats, thecorresponding Secretary of the
Osceola County DemocraticExecutive Committee, secretary
(00:43):
of the Florida Democratic PartyDiversity and Inclusion
Committee, chairwoman of theDiversity and Inclusion
Committee of the Florida LGBTQPlus Democratic Caucus,
secretary of the Osceola CountyDemocratic Women's Club and a
board member of the Democrats ofSt Cloud and the Democrats of
Celebration.
In 2019, eleanor graduated fromthe National Democratic
(01:04):
Training Committee Staff Academyin the Digital Organizing Track
.
Before her career in politics,she previously worked in the
technology field for 20 yearsand was a small business owner.
Here's our conversation, helloEleanor.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Hey, thanks for having me.
I'm really excited to talk toyou to have your unique
(01:26):
perspective about a couple ofthings, being the only openly
out-transgender person in theFlorida legislature and getting
your opinion on all the thingsthat have been going on in
Florida and why you decided toleave.
But let's back up a little bitand let's start by telling us
what the work of a legislativeaide is.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Sure.
So we have 120 members of theFlorida House of Representatives
and each representative has onelegislative aide, which is an
aide that works with them inTallahassee at the Florida State
Capitol, and they have adistrict aide who stays back in
the district while legislativesessions going on.
Typically, what I would do ismake sure that the
(02:10):
representative had theinformation she needed about the
different committees that shewas a member of, making sure
that she had up-to-dateinformation about all of the
pieces of legislation that theywould be hearing.
We helped with constituentissues.
If we had constituents call inor come to visit, people who
wanted to make appointments withthe representative would do it
(02:30):
through me.
We maintained the districtcalendars.
Really, we wanted to make surethat the representatives that I
worked for were very muchwanting to be connected with the
community and theirconstituents.
They were very open aboutmeeting with different advocacy
groups.
When people take the time todrive to Tallahassee from all
parts of the state of Florida,it can be a six to eight hour
(02:53):
trip depending on how far southin Florida you are.
It's not exactly the center ofthe state and if people came up
and they wanted to givetestimony on a bill or they had
their own story that they neededto share.
Many of them were limited to 30seconds of testimony and
committee on a bill.
It's a long way to drive to notreally have your story told.
(03:15):
So we would meet with peoplewho came and didn't have a
chance to have their full storywritten into the record and then
we were able to then share that.
The representative also wewould make sure that her
speeches were all set andaccurate for when she was on the
floor and we kept track of howshe was voting on legislation
and making sure that she wastalking with community leaders
(03:35):
back in Orlando, and I was aliaison for that purpose.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And so most recently you worked for Rita Harris.
Does that representativeactually hire their own
legislative aides?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes.
So in 2020, I was first hiredby state representative Kristen
Errington, who represents OssilaCounty, mostly the city of
Kissimmee and that is just southof Orlando in Florida, and
representative Errington and Ihad worked together in local
democratic politics and she gaveme the opportunity to join her
(04:09):
as a legislative aide.
Representative Harris and I,likewise, had been working
together.
She represents South OrangeCounty.
She represents basically all ofthe tourist areas of Orlando
with the exception of DisneyWorld, so we're talking about
Universal, the convention center, seaworld and the world famous
Gatorland, and we've been closedfor a number of years.
(04:32):
And when she decided to run foroffice and then she won her
primary a year ago yesterday,which she was unopposed in the
general, so she was elected ayear ago yesterday and she asked
me if I would do that with herand I said yes.
I had left representativeErrington's office to work on
the 2022 gubernatorial andSenate campaigns for the Florida
Democratic Party.
(04:53):
I thought we needed to haveexperienced people working on
that campaign.
We were grossly underfunded forwhat we needed to do.
The outcome wasn't what we werehoping, but I do think it was
meaningful work to go door todoor and try and convince people
what was important aboutdemocratic politics and
unfortunately our top of theticket candidates didn't quite
get the message out thereeffectively.
(05:14):
But I think that we are seeingnow people realizing that when
you set out elections there aresevere consequences and I think
that moving forward, the FloridaDemocratic Party is in a better
position than they've been overthe last few cycles to make
some real progress.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So what inspired you, Eleanor, to do this work?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I would be lying if I said part of it wasn't
necessity.
There's not a lot of out transpeople that work in politics and
I really just wanted to be ableto help my community and not
just the trans community, theLGBTQIK plus community.
But where I was living, inOsceola County in Kissimmee,
there was a real need to try andhelp people.
(05:56):
We're talking about an area ofFlorida that is very much
working class.
Osceola County is 6% Hispanicmajority to County, which is
something that's fairly rare inFlorida and the United States,
and we had a huge number ofworkers that were tied to the
theme park industry.
Obviously, we have everyoneworking for Disney and the other
(06:19):
hospitality industries inFlorida, and during the 2020
campaign, when I was working forthe Biden campaign, we were one
of the highest unemployment inthe country because the theme
parks were shut down, peoplewere not traveling, we did not
have the diversity of an economyto support the people that were
(06:42):
looking for help and while thiswas going on, the state of
Florida had built a newunemployment system which failed
catastrophically.
We just didn't have the numberof people working on these
issues to try and get people thehelp that they needed to
survive during the pandemic.
Until everything reopened andwhile other areas of Florida may
(07:06):
have weathered the storm alittle bit better, it was very
difficult in my area and I justwanted to give back to my
community.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So you didn't have aspirations growing up or going
getting into politics oranything like that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I've always really been involved in politics, but I
never had aspirations ofrunning for a higher office.
Before I did this, I was in thetech field.
For about 20 years.
I owned my own small business.
There just came to be a pointwhere you have to realize that
(07:41):
you may not care about politics,but politics cares about you.
I saw the way things were goingin this country after Donald
Trump won the 2016 election andit gave me pause seeing what was
happening just to differentminority groups that were being
targeted and impacted by hispresidency, and I realized we
(08:03):
need to have more people outthere that are trying to change
hearts and minds.
And that was another reasonthat I switched from being in
tech for all those years andgiving up that experience and
that career track to work inpolitics, and I don't believe it
was the wrong decision.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So before, why did we're in tech?
No, you say you're alwaysinvolved in politics.
Were you doing a lot of work inthe community around LGBTQIA
plus community to help?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
There was some of that.
A lot of it was working withinthe Democratic Party structure.
When President Obama had hishistoric election in 2008,.
When he ran for reelection in2012, I think a lot of people
were just so swept up in themessage of hope that the
president was offering.
It was hard not to get caughtup and to do everything that you
(08:51):
could to try and change thehistory of this nation, to try
and change the course of howthings were going to go.
And before that I had lived inNew Hampshire and involved in
the 2004 New Hampshirepresidential primaries, which
were fairly heated during theGeorge W Bush administration.
And the one nice thing I'll sayabout New Hampshire in 2004 was
(09:12):
it was the only state thatvoted for George W Bush in 2000.
That flipped and that wouldhave been enough in 2000,.
But President Bush was able towin some states over John Kerry
that Al Gore had carried, so hewas reelected.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Oh, we know how the rest of that went.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So we mentioned some of the things about Trump, and
so, of course, we have to talkabout the Santas coming into
office in 2019.
Tell us about how theexperience was for you.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, it was really heartbreaking that Andrew Gillum
came so close to being electedgovernor of Florida and missed
by about 30,000 votes and at thesame time, we lost Senator
Nelson by about 11,000 votes.
It was a very tough electioncycle while the rest of the
country was having a blue wavein 2018.
Florida came just short and weknew that Ron DeSantis was an
(10:05):
ambitious politician.
He had approached Trump aboutgetting support for his
gubernatorial campaign overRepublican Adam Putnam, who
everyone expected was going tosucceed Rick Scott, and right
from the start, desantis startedthis takeover of the executive
branch that has a chillingeffect that we still see today,
(10:28):
refusing to let reporters intopress conferences in favor of
conservative bloggers and peoplewho are going to give him
favorable coverage.
I think one of the reasons thatthe governor has failed on the
national level is you can'treally keep the media out of
your events expecting positivecoverage and the way that he has
(10:49):
been governing it's dangerousbecause he looks to his base.
He's been trying to build hisresume for his presidential run.
We all knew that he was lookingto run in 2024 based on the
actions, and he really wants tocapture that conservative, white
, mostly cisgender, heterosexual, certain type of Christian man
(11:15):
and that has been his tactic allalong, and part of that is
steering the executive branch,the legislative branch and the
judicial branch, which are allcontrolled by conservatives.
We have conservative majorityon the Florida Supreme Court.
We have conservativesupermajorities in both the
Florida House and SenateRedesigned the state agencies
(11:37):
with people who want to destroythem, that want to do a complete
overhaul.
They want to break governmentdown to.
Instead of being something thathelps and serves people, it's
going to only help people whoare donating to the governor's
personal campaigns.
We've seen a lot of that overthe past few years.
(11:58):
I think that we have a situationwith the Republicans in the
legislature that they forgetthat they were elected to serve
their constituents.
They were not elected to rubberstamp everything that Governor
DeSantis wants to do.
Unfortunately, over 100 of themhave endorsed the governor on
his presidential campaign in thehalls of power.
(12:20):
I started hearing last yearthat Republicans who had
supported Trump never reallyliked him.
They liked Governor DeSantisbetter.
It was this shift in therhetoric.
It was odd because folks thathave been loyalists to Trump
started changing the narrative.
(12:43):
I think a lot of that had to dowith if you were not seen as a
supporter of his, then you weregoing to have your projects
vetoed.
You'd have your bills vetoed.
People wouldn't work with youin the legislature.
It was just.
There's no profiles of couragein the Republican caucus in
Florida.
I will say that privately.
Some Republican members wouldcome up to me and apologize for
(13:04):
the things that were going on.
They would tell me not to takeit personally.
It had really nothing to dowith me.
My response was always the same, which is to know what the
trans people around here?
How am I not supposed to takethis personally?
Well, you're one of the goodones.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Oh God.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
We're all the craziness that's going on down
in Florida and you have beenthere and seen it first.
How is this affecting theLGBTQIA plus community there?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
It's been devastating on the LGBTQIA plus community.
I will say that I know about 20families that have already
packed up and left the statebecause of these laws we have.
Every single day it seemsthere's some new nightmare story
out of Florida that's targetingour community.
The latest today was the Boardof Education met and they were
(14:02):
discussing HB 1521, which wassigned into law, which bans
trans people from using thebathroom in public buildings,
that includes on publicuniversities and college
campuses.
Today they set rules ofstudents that are attending
those universities, thebathrooms that they can and
(14:24):
cannot use in their own dorms.
You can use a unisex bathroomor you have to use the bathroom
that conflicts with your genderidentity to be in compliance
with the law.
If you were to violate that andwere reported, it is a
misdemeanor that is punishableby up to a year in jail and
(14:46):
$1,000 fine.
If you are a state employee, ifyou were a teacher or professor
, if you were someone who worksat one of those universities or
colleges, you can be disciplinedfor using the wrong bathroom,
Maybe a warning, but they canalso fire you.
The second offense requires youto be fired.
This is going to have achilling effect.
(15:08):
This is the way it is throughall K-12 schools as well in
Florida, Ironically, they heldthis meeting today in the
Collier County Schools and theschool building which they held
the meeting had no unisexbathrooms.
They are really setting uppeople to have problems For
(15:28):
transgender men.
This is a huge issue becausetransgender men who have been on
a testosterone for a reallength of time are virtually
indistinguishable from cis men.
They're being told the law saysyou must use the ladies room.
That is going to cause far moreissues than I think the
Republicans realize.
(15:49):
I don't think that theyrecognize that trans men exist
for trans women like me.
As a state employee, when thislaw was being debated and
discussed it went through manychanges before it got to the end
, but I knew if it passed itwouldn't matter if I was using
the bathroom at the Capitol atall.
People just saying they saw meor they thought they saw me
(16:12):
would have been something thatwould have had me fired.
That would be in the best casescenario.
It's hard to not take thesethings personally when the
entire force of the governmentand the people that you're
working with is passing a lawlike this because I was the only
one there, the fact that theymade it so.
State employees wouldn't becharged with a crime if they use
(16:34):
the bathroom at their place ofwork, but they would be possibly
terminated.
It didn't make it better, itwas just a crumb they threw us.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You mentioned that they don't know.
Do you think it's that theydon't know or they don't care?
These people making these?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
laws.
I think that little of both.
I think that not knowing peopleoutside of their own circles is
very harmful.
In general, people who areelected officials should be
willing to go out and talk toall of the members of their
community and not just thepeople that agree with them.
We don't see that in Florida.
We see mostly the Republicansrefusing to debate their
(17:17):
opponents.
We see them refusing to show upto town halls.
Even the commissioner ofeducation, manny Diaz.
He was scheduled to be at aneducation town hall that was
being hosted by Senator ShevrinJones in South Florida to
discuss the curriculum,especially the changes they were
making to African-Americanhistory, where they were trying
to justify slavery by sayingthat there were benefits to some
(17:41):
people who had been enslaved.
I mean absolutely ridiculousnonsense.
The commissioner agreed toattend the meeting and then the
night before said he had to goto the opening of a school the
next night.
Instead, he refused to meetwith the group of constituents
that were made up of mostlyBlack families, because they
(18:03):
just do not want to have anyaccountability.
This is what we're seeing acrossthe state of Florida from
pretty much all of theRepublicans.
They do not want to have anyopinion that disagrees with
theirs being presented at all.
They will do anything to shutdown those conversations and
it's really led to this feelingof fear but also disillusion.
(18:27):
People are tired of it.
People are wary of theconsequences of going up against
the governor and his politicalmachine, because the
consequences have been fairlysignificant for those who go
against him.
We had a Republican statesenator, former GOP party chair,
joe Gruders.
He publicly endorsed DonaldTrump for president over around
(18:51):
DeSantis and his appropriationsprojects were all vetoed.
He is not above retributionagainst members of his own party
that go against him.
This is somebody who was fairlylockstep with his agenda, but
when he decided to not endorsethe governor for president,
there were consequences.
I think a lot of people inTallahassee who are supposed to
(19:13):
be up there serving the peopleare more concerned about losing
favor with the governor andfeasting his reprisals than they
are about doing the job theywere elected to do.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
So what was the straw that broke the camel's back?
What made you resign?
Not only resign, but also.
Was it one in the same, or adecision, maybe in conjunction,
or you just, or one came afterthe other.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I had been thinking about it for a little bit of
time and when I had worked forthe Florida Democratic Party in
2022, my main objective was toget a Democratic governor
elected to try and stop some ofthe pain that was being
inflicted on the people ofFlorida, and I kind of knew, if
he was able to be reelected andhe was able to claim a mandate,
(20:00):
that the attacks on the LGBTQcommunity and the black
community, on the people ingeneral, we're only going to
escalate.
Because he wanted to bepresident, he wanted to be the
person with the most talkingpoints on the block, and that's
really what we saw from him thispast session.
I decided that there was noopportunity for me to stay.
(20:23):
When I saw the bills that wereintroduced at the beginning of
session, I knew that it hadsealed my decision, and there
were a number of differentreasons.
I knew last year StateRepresentative Randy Fine, who
was appointed as the chairman ofthe Health and Human Services
Committee.
He announced his intention tointroduce legislation to ban
(20:46):
gender-affirming care for minorsin the state, but the way he
was talking about it made itsound like he was going to go
further than that.
We've seen a number of attacksfrom Representative Fine, who
represents Brevard County, overthe past year and a half that
have escalated and most recentlyhe helped convince the Brevard
(21:12):
County Commission to end allcultural grants that had
previously been approved becauseone of them, a small amount,
was being used to pay for SpaceCoast Pride and to support Space
Coast Pride.
So all cultural grants inBrevard County were ended
because he was upset at theLGBTQ plus community.
We also had an issue in LakeCounty.
(21:33):
The other day.
The city of Mount Dora, justwest of Orlando, had implemented
, through their county or citycommission, a safe space program
for LGBTQ people.
In local businesses Just thedowntown area of Mount Dora.
They wanted to put up stickersif you were supportive of the
LGBTQ plus community.
The three Republican Housemembers of the Lake County
(21:56):
delegation, along with SenatorBaxley, who has long been LGBTQ,
sent I almost describe it as aFacebook rant on government
letterhead and it was sayingthat they would do everything in
their power to shut down thisungodly initiative of providing
safe spaces for the LGBTQ pluscommunity and that they were on
(22:18):
the wrong side of history andthat it was an un-American
proposal demanding that thosecommissioners show up to the
delegation meeting to explaintheir actions.
This is the kind of hysteriawe're seeing in Florida.
It's not getting any better.
The first year I was alegislative aide during 2021
legislative session, there wasan anti-LGBT Q bill that was
(22:42):
brought up that bannedtransgender girls from sports.
That bill was rushed throughthe house and it died in the
Senate and the buildings wereclosed to the public because of
COVID.
(23:02):
But there were opportunitiesfor people to testify to the
Senate from the conventioncenter across the street,
remotely to committees, and theylimited the public to coming
into the house to testify onthat as well, to just a few
people socially distanced withmasks.
And on the second to last dayof session, they rushed that
(23:24):
back as an amendment on acharter school bill and rammed
it through because the governorwas convinced that it needed to
pass.
This is something that this wasthe first time I saw Republican
legislators saying okay, we'reokay to let this die.
That was a normal process for alot of controversial bills
until the last few years, andthis one they just made sure
(23:45):
they got it done at the lastsecond with very little input
from the public, and that'salmost been their game plan
since we went from that to thedon't say gay bill, the quote
unquote parental bill of rightsin 2022.
We saw attacks on basicallyevery minority community,
whether it was the Stop Woke Act, which was limiting any kind of
(24:09):
discussion about black historythey claimed it was critical.
Race theories being taught inkindergarten mean absurd, you
know.
We saw this session, the ban ongender farming care.
We saw an expansion to thedon't say gay bill.
We saw just this huge increaseof overreach by the government
(24:31):
into the private lives ofcitizens that we hadn't really
seen before.
The Republicans, when I wasgrowing up, always had this
mantra of we need the governmentto be so small it can drown in
our bathtubs, and now they wantto check people's genitals on
the way to the bathroom.
It's just absurd.
I was very concerned that thegovernor would not stop, the
(24:56):
legislature would not stop,because they have no incentive
to.
They think this is great.
They think this is why theywere elected.
When you think that you'rewinning based on attacking
people who aren't like you, it'sa huge problem.
We've seen attacks on theJewish community, the Muslim
community, black community,hispanic community, the Asian
(25:18):
American Pacific Islandercommunity and the LGBTQ plus QIA
community.
We've seen the governor try torenegotiate deals with
indigenous peoples like theSeminole tribe, and deals that
they had previously made so thatthey can have more advantageous
terms.
These are attacks that arewidespread, wide reaching on all
different types of people, andI think that Floridians are so
(25:41):
focused on their day-to-daylives that they're not really
seeing this until it's too late.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Right.
So do you think that you know?
I know it's not about politics,but I just cannot help but ask
this question Do you know theDemocrats are the minority in
the state of Florida?
Do you think that there aremore that they can do to start
educating people about thesebills, to start getting more
support from the community atlarge?
Because, from what I'm seeing,the LGBTQIA plus community is
(26:11):
going to be drastically impactedin a negative way by these
bills and if we don't stop itsomehow, it's going to get worse
.
And I think the Democrats needto stand up and do something and
not just now understand theydon't have the majority, so they
don't have the votes.
However, what they need to dois to start bringing people in
(26:34):
numbers, get out in thecommunity that elected them and
start putting these informationout there before they become
laws, so we can try and findsome way to fight back, because
that's the only way we can do it.
Right now, we don't have thevotes in the House or the Senate
, but we do have the power toget out there in the community.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I agree with you 100% .
I will say that the formerFlorida Democratic Party chair,
mayne Diaz, resigned after thelast election and the Democrats
picked former Commissioner ofAgriculture Nikki Freed to be
the new chair, and she's beendoing a much better job
fundraising.
She's on a 67-county tour atthe moment.
(27:13):
I believe today she visitedthree counties, including
Pinellas County, which is thecity of St Petersburg, so the
Democrats are doing a better jobtrying to get their messaging
out.
I also think that one of themajor initiatives that's going
on is trying to get reproductiverights and access to
reproductive rights on theballot in 2024.
(27:36):
It's a huge initiative that'sbeing done statewide to gather
petitions.
They're almost there, by myunderstanding, of getting the
number of petitions they willneed to restore reproductive
rights in Florida back to whatthey were under row.
Florida has had this kind of acreep over the past few years of
(27:57):
making it more difficult toaccess abortion.
We saw in 2021, newrequirements that would, I think
it, put in a 24-hour waitingperiod and require pregnant
people to see two differentdoctors in order to access
abortion care.
Last year, florida passed a15-week abortion ban, which is
(28:18):
currently in effect, and thisyear we passed a six-week
abortion ban with a 15-weekexception for victims of rape or
incest, and that is notcurrently in effect.
The Florida Supreme Court isdue to make a decision on that
within the next two weeks on itsconstitutionality, and I do
expect it to go into effect.
(28:39):
We saw the Supreme Court ofSouth Carolina allow their
six-week abortion ban to go intoeffect today.
No women on that Supreme Court,by the way Not the case in
Florida, but all the justices onthe Florida Supreme Court were
appointed by Republicangovernors.
They are all conservatives.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Whoa, I want to go back to something.
I had a question and I forgotit, but in Florida are people
able to change their gendermarkers on their license?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So I did update my gender marker on my license.
I was not born in Florida, somy birth certificate came from a
different state that is muchmore liberal and I was able to
do that as well.
I went through the name changeprocess in Florida and once I
went through the name changeprocess and I followed the
requirements for getting mygender marker updated, which was
(29:30):
to get a letter from my doctorssaying that I had completed the
requirements for gendertransition as according to
Florida law.
I took my letter over to theSocial Security Office along
with my name change paperwork.
They updated my name.
They updated my gender marker.
48 hours later I was able to goto the Osceola County tax
(29:53):
collector and get my newdriver's license.
It was a long process.
It was not a cheap process.
I was privileged enough to havefolks who helped me with it and
I do think they are intendingto try and make the process more
difficult.
Moving forward, in the originalversion of HB1421, which was the
gender-affirming care ban forminors, they had a prohibition
(30:16):
on changing birth certificates.
That birth certificates saidyou were one sex assigned at
birth.
It would be impossible tochange unless they found out you
had some intersex conditions.
That were identified and thatwas the only exception.
They were stripped in the lastversion of the bill that passed.
(30:38):
The bill ping-ponged betweenthe House and the Senate and
gave us the bill that weultimately had.
But it is still possible toupdate your gender marker in
Florida for now.
But I wouldn't expect it to besomething that will last moving
forward and I'm not sure thatthe Republicans are necessarily
have that on their radar yet.
(30:58):
But if it was on their radarthey would try and tackle it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Yeah, because I'm just thinking about the restroom
legislature that they put intoplace and, regardless of whether
someone thinks you'retransgender or not, you don't
have to show your birthcertificate for employment, it's
just your license and yoursocial security card.
So if you've gone through thesteps, that then have them.
Yeah, how can they enforce?
(31:23):
They can't enforce you usingthe bathroom that, not only that
, you don't identify with, butthat's not even on your license,
regardless of what they suspect.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, this was something that was hotly debated
during session.
People asked how this would beenforced.
They were told it was virtuallyunenforceable and they passed
it anyway.
And the issue is for people whowork for the state on any level
, whether it's the municipal orthe town, city, county or the
state, having that be an exampleof why you can be terminated or
(31:59):
why you must be terminated isreally the bigger chilling
effect.
They don't want trans peopleworking in the government.
They don't want trans peopleworking in public life.
They want us back in the closet.
They want us to go back to thatatmosphere of fear that we had
in the 20th century, in theearly 2000s, in the beginning of
the 2010s.
The trans community has reallytried to take a lot of progress
(32:24):
over the decades, but it's justbeen in the last few years where
we really had a lot of successin changing hearts and minds,
and I think that a lot of whatwe're seeing is pushback to a
group of folks that werededicated to preventing gay
marriage from being the law ofthe land, and when they realized
they lost that fight, theyneeded a new target, and we were
(32:45):
the next available one, I think.
Unfortunately, most Americansdon't think they know a trans
person.
They probably do, but manypeople think they've never met
someone who's trans.
Coincidentally, they also thinka absurd percentage of the
population is trans, somethinglike 15% to 20%, which is I
(33:06):
don't know why they would thinkthat, having never met a trans
person, but it's that kind ofdissonance.
I would talk to people at theCapitol and they would say to me
I didn't think you were trans,and I would say why?
Well, you weren't like Iimagined.
And through a couple ofconversations I realized that
they thought that trans womenwere drag queens and I expected
(33:29):
me to be coming into work withreally bright makeup and little
wigs instead of the conservativedress that I wore.
That was expected at theFlorida State Capitol.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So I know you mentioned that you feel like a
lot of Floridians are reallyjust disconnected and dealing
with their everyday lives andwhat's going on in the political
arena, but I imagine that quitea few are hearing a lot of
rhetoric and they're uninformedand buying into things.
What are some of the biggestmisconceptions that you think
(34:02):
lead people to embrace some ofthe rhetoric?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I think that people live fairly sheltered lives,
even if they don't think they do, and when you're meeting
someone that's different, you'remeeting someone that doesn't
meet your expectations.
That maybe conflicts withsomething that you learned when
you were younger or just theimplicit biases that people have
.
A lot of people my age andolder grew up in a time where
(34:31):
anybody that was trans wasportrayed on TV very rarely, but
generally if they were trans,they were hiding something.
It was for nefarious purposesthat would be for dramatic
effect.
They were victims on crimeshows where they were punchlines
, and we see a lot of thatattitude persist and we still,
(34:57):
to this day, have very fewpeople who represent us in pop
culture.
For every Laverne Cox we have,cis people have a thousand
representatives and that makesit difficult for people to
relate to us.
It doesn't help in democraticpolitics that one of the most
(35:17):
well-known trans women in theworld is Caitlyn Jenner, who is
a huge Republican and ran forgovernor of California as a
Republican who is a devotedsupporter of Donald Trump.
It's difficult sometimes to getpeople to relate to you because
they've already made their mindup before they've ever met you
and while you can try and havethose conversations and change
(35:39):
minds and everything, and it's aslow process.
There are some people that arejust dug in.
I saw a poll today about themost important issues to Iowa
Republicans in this upcomingcaucus and I think it was
something like 66% said thatthey were looking for someone
who was going to target wokeideals and I see 1% that said
(36:03):
that they wanted to ban transminors from having access to
gender reform and care.
These are issues that are beingentirely astroturfed and run
from right wing media.
No one was focused on theseissues a few years ago and it
wasn't because they weren'thappening and it wasn't because
people didn't know about it.
It was because people didn'tcare.
(36:24):
It was because people were morelikely just to leave others
alone when they've, for whateverreason, decided that they can
get away with calling an entiregroup of people pedophiles or
child groomers because theydisagree with the choices that
we make about our lives and ourbodies.
(36:47):
And the thing I think peopledon't understand is being trans
is not a choice.
It's hard to convince people ofthat.
For whatever reason, they don'twant to take us at our word,
because if it's not a choice,that means they have some things
that they've done in theirlives against trans people that
were kind of horrible and peopledon't want to face up to that.
(37:09):
So they just kind of doubledown.
It's easier for them to believein their own worldview that
they're right and it makes ithard to have a dialogue when
people don't think that you'reworth having any kind of rights.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Exactly so don't be honest about the transgender
community that leads to thesethings.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I think people just don't understand that we're just
trying to live our lives thesame as anybody else.
We all have dreams andaspirations and some of us have
families and some of us havejust the ideas of wanting to
have the same experiences aseveryone else and over the past
few years, become more difficultto be trans, especially in a
(37:55):
state like Florida where youhave the power of the government
and the media pushing againstyour very existence.
I think I'm one of the mostboring people.
I live such an uninterestinglife in many regards and to see
the vitriol and the hate and themisunderstanding and the claims
(38:18):
of why I must be trans they'retaking it from their own point
of view of well, the only reasonI would act like a woman is
this, or the only reason I wouldact like a man is this and they
come up with nefarious andhorrible reasons in their own
minds For me.
I'm just living my life.
I've been living my life veryhappily since I came out and I
(38:42):
spent far too long in the closetbecause of societal
expectations and familialexpectations, and I just wish
that people would try and seethings from our point of view,
which is we're American citizensjust like the rest of you.
We want to have access to ourmedical care that's not hindered
by all the different hurdlesthat you've put in front of us.
(39:03):
The gender-affirming care banthat they passed not only
targeted trans youth, but had ahuge impact on trans adults in
Florida.
Something like 80 to 90% ofgender-affirming care in this
country is provided by nursepractitioners, and the bill that
they passed prevents transadults from seeing nurse
practitioners cannot givegender-affirming care in the
(39:24):
state of Florida.
You must see a medical doctoror a doctor of osteopathy.
That makes it much harder togain access to care.
With the medical conscienceso-called bill that they passed,
your doctor or the hospitalthey work for, the medical group
they work for or your insurancecompany can all be able to deny
(39:47):
you care based on the groundsof moral, ethical or religious
beliefs.
Oh my, it's just.
Oh, we don't want to pay foryour treatment.
We're not going to pay for it.
And the state of Florida neverpaid my health insurance costs
for gender-affirming care.
I had the state healthemployment system state plan for
three years and they never paidfor anything.
(40:09):
And these procedures I meanjust even a blood test could run
me $875.
That's something they wantedevery three months.
These are the things where Iwas able to connect with LGBTQIA
clinics in Florida to getbetter rates and that's how I
survived.
But when you're making $35,000a year on a government salary,
(40:32):
paying for your health insuranceand then having it not cover
anything is really difficult.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And I will add too about misconceptions.
I think people think thattransgender people are trying to
turn all kids trans.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
No, we do not want to turn your kids trans.
We just want your trans kids tolive.
That's basically it.
I wish I had access togender-affirming care when I was
younger.
Would have made my life so mucheasier.
The other thing I think cispeople don't understand is the
number of years of our livesthat we have to give up in order
(41:08):
to placate them If they thinkthat we aren't jumping through
enough hoops, if we haven'tslowed down enough, if we
haven't considered X, y or Z,that we shouldn't be allowed to
transition, and that includesinto adulthood.
But these are years of ourlives we're not getting back.
Most trans adults now did notget to live the childhoods they
(41:31):
wanted to live because that caredidn't exist in the 2000s or
the 90s or the 80s or before.
I think that because of thesemisconceptions, which are
intentional, I think it's done alot of harm to a generation of
trans people coming up behind uswhere it's going to be much
harder for them to exist, inthese southern states and these
midwestern states and just theseconservative states that are
(41:54):
passing these bans.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Yeah, but it's really sad that In 2023, not only are
policies rolling back to protectminorities, people who need
those policies the most butrights have been taken away and
for people to be thinking thattransgender rights, what rights?
(42:21):
You know?
Why do they need rights?
So why are transgender rightsimportant?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
So I think in any kind of talking about rights or
the law, we need to look at thehistory of the United States in
general and remember that forpeople who are privileged and in
power, people who are white andmostly cisgender, heterosexual
Christian men, the law exists toserve them and not bind them.
(42:51):
And for the rest of us, the lawexists to bind us and not serve
us.
If you look at the RepublicanParty today and the outrage they
have at Donald Trump beingindicted and facing actions for
the crimes that he has allegedlycommitted, there is a different
type of justice in this countrywhen you are a wealthy white
(43:14):
man versus the rest of us.
And I will say this legislativesession in Florida, they really
used the law to bind us.
They really used it.
But we're seeing it on thenational level as well.
We're seeing it with the end ofaffirmative action by the
Supreme Court, but they didn'ttouch legacy admissions.
(43:34):
We see it in what Ron DeSantisdid to the state's attorney in
Osceola and Orange counties inFlorida, manique Borrell, where
she was removed from office, andit was not because of anything
she had or hadn't done.
It was because she was asuccessful black woman who was
(43:55):
doing a great job in loweringcrime rates in Orlando and they
want to own the law and orderlane.
I mean just an endless list ofexamples where if they're coming
for one of us, they're comingfor all of us.
We see it with reproductiverights and abortion.
We see it with the teaching ofhistory in our schools and on
(44:19):
every single level we're seeingthe system being used to
continue to prop up the oldguard and it seems like they're
in their last gasps, but theyuse the system.
They know how to use theirpower to keep generating
positive results for them.
The Republican Party hasn't wonthe popular vote of a
(44:40):
presidential election.
Going back to what is it?
1988?
The George W Bush second term,I do believe he won the popular
vote, but his first term he lostthe popular vote to Al Gore.
We had Hillary Clinton win thepopular vote in 2016.
The majority of the Americanpeople do not want these
conservative Republican policies, but they keep getting in by
(45:04):
using the old systems, like theElectoral College, which were
designed to give more power tothe conservative Southern states
, and we're still feeling theeffects of that today.
So when I say wire trans rights, it's important, it's because
everyone's civil rights areimportant and none of us are
free until all of us are free.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
It has been great talking to you and you've
provided us with a lot of goodinformation.
Any last words you want to putout there?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Sure, I appreciate the time to speak with you today
.
I think it was a reallyproductive conversation.
And to your listeners, I wantto say to anybody who's LGBTQIA
plus, who is looking to continuetheir advocacy and their
activism to try and branch outinto the political world we need
people to run for office, weneed people who are looking to
(45:56):
serve their communities inmultiple ways.
We need people who are outthere just to spread the message
, to talk to their friends andtheir neighbors about why this
is so important.
You know we're in this cyclenow where every election seems
to be the most importantelection ever, but it really
does feel like we're on theprecipice right now of losing
(46:16):
our democracy in any chance thatwe have for sustaining our
rights.
If the Republicans manage to getback into the White House and
nominate more conservativeSupreme Court justices, it's
going to shape this country forthe next 50 to 100 years and
it's not going to be in ourfavor.
We're going to see rollback ofmarriage equality.
(46:39):
We're going to see a rollbackof LGBTQ rights.
We're going to see much furtherexpansion of bans on gender
affirming care that are going totarget adults.
We look at court decisions thathave come out in the past two
weeks in the I think it was inthe 11th Circuit the other day
they're citing the Dobbsdecision multiple times and
saying that you do not have aright, or is there a historical
(47:02):
legacy of providing genderaffirming care in this country
and therefore it's notconstitutionally protected?
And if they were successful ingetting rid of trans people,
they're not going to stop.
They're coming after all of usand we all need to be standing
together, unified.
We're all we have.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yes, definitely Very powerful last word.
And listen to this.
You hear it.
We got to get out there.
We got to let our voices beheard.
We got to vote.
We got to stand by candidates.
That's going to protect ourrights.
And if you have the passion torun for office, get out there.
(47:40):
Put yourself out there.
You may not win the first time,but you know what you have you
gain the voice out there in thecommunity to make a difference.
So, listeners, there you haveit Eleanor Madonna.
She's a transgender woman witha trible laser and agent for
change who has worked tostrengthen the voice of the
LGBTQIA plus community inFlorida on a legislative level.
(48:04):
She is out there, she's stillworking.
She just want to make sure thatthe community comes together
and do what's right.
And you hear what she saidthey're coming for the
transgender community.
So this is a time for all themembers of the LGBTQIA plus
community to stick together andfight together.
(48:25):
Stand together, because thechain is as strong as the
weakest link.
We cannot let them break thischain.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Thank you, eleanor, so much for being on.
Thank you very much for havingme.
Eleanor McDonald.
She-her most recently served asLegislative Aid to Florida
State Representative Rita Harrisof Orlando and was the only out
transgender person working atthe Florida State Capitol.
She previously served asLegislative Aid to Florida State
Representative KristenErrington of Kissimmee, before
leaving to work for the FloridaDemocratic Party as a regional
(00:22):
organizing director during the2022 campaign.
She recently relocated to NewHampshire after anti-trans
legislation was enacted inFlorida.
Prior to leaving, she served asPresident of the Osceola LGBTQ
Plus Lighthouse Democrats, thecorresponding Secretary of the
Osceola County DemocraticExecutive Committee, secretary
(00:43):
of the Florida Democratic PartyDiversity and Inclusion
Committee, chairwoman of theDiversity and Inclusion
Committee of the Florida LGBTQPlus Democratic Caucus,
secretary of the Osceola CountyDemocratic Women's Club and a
board member of the Democrats ofSt Cloud and the Democrats of
Celebration.
In 2019, eleanor graduated fromthe National Democratic
(01:04):
Training Committee Staff Academyin the Digital Organizing Track
.
Before her career in politics,she previously worked in the
technology field for 20 yearsand was a small business owner.
Here's our conversation, helloEleanor.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Hey, thanks for having me.
I'm really excited to talk toyou to have your unique
(01:26):
perspective about a couple ofthings, being the only openly
out-transgender person in theFlorida legislature and getting
your opinion on all the thingsthat have been going on in
Florida and why you decided toleave.
But let's back up a little bitand let's start by telling us
what the work of a legislativeaide is.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Sure.
So we have 120 members of theFlorida House of Representatives
and each representative has onelegislative aide, which is an
aide that works with them inTallahassee at the Florida State
Capitol, and they have adistrict aide who stays back in
the district while legislativesessions going on.
Typically, what I would do ismake sure that the
(02:10):
representative had theinformation she needed about the
different committees that shewas a member of, making sure
that she had up-to-dateinformation about all of the
pieces of legislation that theywould be hearing.
We helped with constituentissues.
If we had constituents call inor come to visit, people who
wanted to make appointments withthe representative would do it
(02:30):
through me.
We maintained the districtcalendars.
Really, we wanted to make surethat the representatives that I
worked for were very muchwanting to be connected with the
community and theirconstituents.
They were very open aboutmeeting with different advocacy
groups.
When people take the time todrive to Tallahassee from all
parts of the state of Florida,it can be a six to eight hour
(02:53):
trip depending on how far southin Florida you are.
It's not exactly the center ofthe state and if people came up
and they wanted to givetestimony on a bill or they had
their own story that they neededto share.
Many of them were limited to 30seconds of testimony and
committee on a bill.
It's a long way to drive to notreally have your story told.
(03:15):
So we would meet with peoplewho came and didn't have a
chance to have their full storywritten into the record and then
we were able to then share that.
The representative also wewould make sure that her
speeches were all set andaccurate for when she was on the
floor and we kept track of howshe was voting on legislation
and making sure that she wastalking with community leaders
(03:35):
back in Orlando, and I was aliaison for that purpose.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And so most recently you worked for Rita Harris.
Does that representativeactually hire their own
legislative aides?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes.
So in 2020, I was first hiredby state representative Kristen
Errington, who represents OssilaCounty, mostly the city of
Kissimmee and that is just southof Orlando in Florida, and
representative Errington and Ihad worked together in local
democratic politics and she gaveme the opportunity to join her
(04:09):
as a legislative aide.
Representative Harris and I,likewise, had been working
together.
She represents South OrangeCounty.
She represents basically all ofthe tourist areas of Orlando
with the exception of DisneyWorld, so we're talking about
Universal, the convention center, seaworld and the world famous
Gatorland, and we've been closedfor a number of years.
(04:32):
And when she decided to run foroffice and then she won her
primary a year ago yesterday,which she was unopposed in the
general, so she was elected ayear ago yesterday and she asked
me if I would do that with herand I said yes.
I had left representativeErrington's office to work on
the 2022 gubernatorial andSenate campaigns for the Florida
Democratic Party.
(04:53):
I thought we needed to haveexperienced people working on
that campaign.
We were grossly underfunded forwhat we needed to do.
The outcome wasn't what we werehoping, but I do think it was
meaningful work to go door todoor and try and convince people
what was important aboutdemocratic politics and
unfortunately our top of theticket candidates didn't quite
get the message out thereeffectively.
(05:14):
But I think that we are seeingnow people realizing that when
you set out elections there aresevere consequences and I think
that moving forward, the FloridaDemocratic Party is in a better
position than they've been overthe last few cycles to make
some real progress.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So what inspired you, Eleanor, to do this work?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I would be lying if I said part of it wasn't
necessity.
There's not a lot of out transpeople that work in politics and
I really just wanted to be ableto help my community and not
just the trans community, theLGBTQIK plus community.
But where I was living, inOsceola County in Kissimmee,
there was a real need to try andhelp people.
(05:56):
We're talking about an area ofFlorida that is very much
working class.
Osceola County is 6% Hispanicmajority to County, which is
something that's fairly rare inFlorida and the United States,
and we had a huge number ofworkers that were tied to the
theme park industry.
Obviously, we have everyoneworking for Disney and the other
(06:19):
hospitality industries inFlorida, and during the 2020
campaign, when I was working forthe Biden campaign, we were one
of the highest unemployment inthe country because the theme
parks were shut down, peoplewere not traveling, we did not
have the diversity of an economyto support the people that were
(06:42):
looking for help and while thiswas going on, the state of
Florida had built a newunemployment system which failed
catastrophically.
We just didn't have the numberof people working on these
issues to try and get people thehelp that they needed to
survive during the pandemic.
Until everything reopened andwhile other areas of Florida may
(07:06):
have weathered the storm alittle bit better, it was very
difficult in my area and I justwanted to give back to my
community.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So you didn't have aspirations growing up or going
getting into politics oranything like that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I've always really been involved in politics, but I
never had aspirations ofrunning for a higher office.
Before I did this, I was in thetech field.
For about 20 years.
I owned my own small business.
There just came to be a pointwhere you have to realize that
(07:41):
you may not care about politics,but politics cares about you.
I saw the way things were goingin this country after Donald
Trump won the 2016 election andit gave me pause seeing what was
happening just to differentminority groups that were being
targeted and impacted by hispresidency, and I realized we
(08:03):
need to have more people outthere that are trying to change
hearts and minds.
And that was another reasonthat I switched from being in
tech for all those years andgiving up that experience and
that career track to work inpolitics, and I don't believe it
was the wrong decision.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So before, why did we're in tech?
No, you say you're alwaysinvolved in politics.
Were you doing a lot of work inthe community around LGBTQIA
plus community to help?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
There was some of that.
A lot of it was working withinthe Democratic Party structure.
When President Obama had hishistoric election in 2008,.
When he ran for reelection in2012, I think a lot of people
were just so swept up in themessage of hope that the
president was offering.
It was hard not to get caughtup and to do everything that you
(08:51):
could to try and change thehistory of this nation, to try
and change the course of howthings were going to go.
And before that I had lived inNew Hampshire and involved in
the 2004 New Hampshirepresidential primaries, which
were fairly heated during theGeorge W Bush administration.
And the one nice thing I'll sayabout New Hampshire in 2004 was
(09:12):
it was the only state thatvoted for George W Bush in 2000.
That flipped and that wouldhave been enough in 2000,.
But President Bush was able towin some states over John Kerry
that Al Gore had carried, so hewas reelected.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Oh, we know how the rest of that went.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So we mentioned some of the things about Trump, and
so, of course, we have to talkabout the Santas coming into
office in 2019.
Tell us about how theexperience was for you.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, it was really heartbreaking that Andrew Gillum
came so close to being electedgovernor of Florida and missed
by about 30,000 votes and at thesame time, we lost Senator
Nelson by about 11,000 votes.
It was a very tough electioncycle while the rest of the
country was having a blue wavein 2018.
Florida came just short and weknew that Ron DeSantis was an
(10:05):
ambitious politician.
He had approached Trump aboutgetting support for his
gubernatorial campaign overRepublican Adam Putnam, who
everyone expected was going tosucceed Rick Scott, and right
from the start, desantis startedthis takeover of the executive
branch that has a chillingeffect that we still see today,
(10:28):
refusing to let reporters intopress conferences in favor of
conservative bloggers and peoplewho are going to give him
favorable coverage.
I think one of the reasons thatthe governor has failed on the
national level is you can'treally keep the media out of
your events expecting positivecoverage and the way that he has
(10:49):
been governing it's dangerousbecause he looks to his base.
He's been trying to build hisresume for his presidential run.
We all knew that he was lookingto run in 2024 based on the
actions, and he really wants tocapture that conservative, white
, mostly cisgender, heterosexual, certain type of Christian man
(11:15):
and that has been his tactic allalong, and part of that is
steering the executive branch,the legislative branch and the
judicial branch, which are allcontrolled by conservatives.
We have conservative majorityon the Florida Supreme Court.
We have conservativesupermajorities in both the
Florida House and SenateRedesigned the state agencies
(11:37):
with people who want to destroythem, that want to do a complete
overhaul.
They want to break governmentdown to.
Instead of being something thathelps and serves people, it's
going to only help people whoare donating to the governor's
personal campaigns.
We've seen a lot of that overthe past few years.
(11:58):
I think that we have a situationwith the Republicans in the
legislature that they forgetthat they were elected to serve
their constituents.
They were not elected to rubberstamp everything that Governor
DeSantis wants to do.
Unfortunately, over 100 of themhave endorsed the governor on
his presidential campaign in thehalls of power.
(12:20):
I started hearing last yearthat Republicans who had
supported Trump never reallyliked him.
They liked Governor DeSantisbetter.
It was this shift in therhetoric.
It was odd because folks thathave been loyalists to Trump
started changing the narrative.
(12:43):
I think a lot of that had to dowith if you were not seen as a
supporter of his, then you weregoing to have your projects
vetoed.
You'd have your bills vetoed.
People wouldn't work with youin the legislature.
It was just.
There's no profiles of couragein the Republican caucus in
Florida.
I will say that privately.
Some Republican members wouldcome up to me and apologize for
(13:04):
the things that were going on.
They would tell me not to takeit personally.
It had really nothing to dowith me.
My response was always the same, which is to know what the
trans people around here?
How am I not supposed to takethis personally?
Well, you're one of the goodones.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Oh God.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
We're all the craziness that's going on down
in Florida and you have beenthere and seen it first.
How is this affecting theLGBTQIA plus community there?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
It's been devastating on the LGBTQIA plus community.
I will say that I know about 20families that have already
packed up and left the statebecause of these laws we have.
Every single day it seemsthere's some new nightmare story
out of Florida that's targetingour community.
The latest today was the Boardof Education met and they were
(14:02):
discussing HB 1521, which wassigned into law, which bans
trans people from using thebathroom in public buildings,
that includes on publicuniversities and college
campuses.
Today they set rules ofstudents that are attending
those universities, thebathrooms that they can and
(14:24):
cannot use in their own dorms.
You can use a unisex bathroomor you have to use the bathroom
that conflicts with your genderidentity to be in compliance
with the law.
If you were to violate that andwere reported, it is a
misdemeanor that is punishableby up to a year in jail and
(14:46):
$1,000 fine.
If you are a state employee, ifyou were a teacher or professor
, if you were someone who worksat one of those universities or
colleges, you can be disciplinedfor using the wrong bathroom,
Maybe a warning, but they canalso fire you.
The second offense requires youto be fired.
This is going to have achilling effect.
(15:08):
This is the way it is throughall K-12 schools as well in
Florida, Ironically, they heldthis meeting today in the
Collier County Schools and theschool building which they held
the meeting had no unisexbathrooms.
They are really setting uppeople to have problems For
(15:28):
transgender men.
This is a huge issue becausetransgender men who have been on
a testosterone for a reallength of time are virtually
indistinguishable from cis men.
They're being told the law saysyou must use the ladies room.
That is going to cause far moreissues than I think the
Republicans realize.
(15:49):
I don't think that theyrecognize that trans men exist
for trans women like me.
As a state employee, when thislaw was being debated and
discussed it went through manychanges before it got to the end
, but I knew if it passed itwouldn't matter if I was using
the bathroom at the Capitol atall.
People just saying they saw meor they thought they saw me
(16:12):
would have been something thatwould have had me fired.
That would be in the best casescenario.
It's hard to not take thesethings personally when the
entire force of the governmentand the people that you're
working with is passing a lawlike this because I was the only
one there, the fact that theymade it so.
State employees wouldn't becharged with a crime if they use
(16:34):
the bathroom at their place ofwork, but they would be possibly
terminated.
It didn't make it better, itwas just a crumb they threw us.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You mentioned that they don't know.
Do you think it's that theydon't know or they don't care?
These people making these?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
laws.
I think that little of both.
I think that not knowing peopleoutside of their own circles is
very harmful.
In general, people who areelected officials should be
willing to go out and talk toall of the members of their
community and not just thepeople that agree with them.
We don't see that in Florida.
We see mostly the Republicansrefusing to debate their
(17:17):
opponents.
We see them refusing to show upto town halls.
Even the commissioner ofeducation, manny Diaz.
He was scheduled to be at aneducation town hall that was
being hosted by Senator ShevrinJones in South Florida to
discuss the curriculum,especially the changes they were
making to African-Americanhistory, where they were trying
to justify slavery by sayingthat there were benefits to some
(17:41):
people who had been enslaved.
I mean absolutely ridiculousnonsense.
The commissioner agreed toattend the meeting and then the
night before said he had to goto the opening of a school the
next night.
Instead, he refused to meetwith the group of constituents
that were made up of mostlyBlack families, because they
(18:03):
just do not want to have anyaccountability.
This is what we're seeing acrossthe state of Florida from
pretty much all of theRepublicans.
They do not want to have anyopinion that disagrees with
theirs being presented at all.
They will do anything to shutdown those conversations and
it's really led to this feelingof fear but also disillusion.
(18:27):
People are tired of it.
People are wary of theconsequences of going up against
the governor and his politicalmachine, because the
consequences have been fairlysignificant for those who go
against him.
We had a Republican statesenator, former GOP party chair,
joe Gruders.
He publicly endorsed DonaldTrump for president over around
(18:51):
DeSantis and his appropriationsprojects were all vetoed.
He is not above retributionagainst members of his own party
that go against him.
This is somebody who was fairlylockstep with his agenda, but
when he decided to not endorsethe governor for president,
there were consequences.
I think a lot of people inTallahassee who are supposed to
(19:13):
be up there serving the peopleare more concerned about losing
favor with the governor andfeasting his reprisals than they
are about doing the job theywere elected to do.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
So what was the straw that broke the camel's back?
What made you resign?
Not only resign, but also.
Was it one in the same, or adecision, maybe in conjunction,
or you just, or one came afterthe other.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I had been thinking about it for a little bit of
time and when I had worked forthe Florida Democratic Party in
2022, my main objective was toget a Democratic governor
elected to try and stop some ofthe pain that was being
inflicted on the people ofFlorida, and I kind of knew, if
he was able to be reelected andhe was able to claim a mandate,
(20:00):
that the attacks on the LGBTQcommunity and the black
community, on the people ingeneral, we're only going to
escalate.
Because he wanted to bepresident, he wanted to be the
person with the most talkingpoints on the block, and that's
really what we saw from him thispast session.
I decided that there was noopportunity for me to stay.
(20:23):
When I saw the bills that wereintroduced at the beginning of
session, I knew that it hadsealed my decision, and there
were a number of differentreasons.
I knew last year StateRepresentative Randy Fine, who
was appointed as the chairman ofthe Health and Human Services
Committee.
He announced his intention tointroduce legislation to ban
(20:46):
gender-affirming care for minorsin the state, but the way he
was talking about it made itsound like he was going to go
further than that.
We've seen a number of attacksfrom Representative Fine, who
represents Brevard County, overthe past year and a half that
have escalated and most recentlyhe helped convince the Brevard
(21:12):
County Commission to end allcultural grants that had
previously been approved becauseone of them, a small amount,
was being used to pay for SpaceCoast Pride and to support Space
Coast Pride.
So all cultural grants inBrevard County were ended
because he was upset at theLGBTQ plus community.
We also had an issue in LakeCounty.
(21:33):
The other day.
The city of Mount Dora, justwest of Orlando, had implemented
, through their county or citycommission, a safe space program
for LGBTQ people.
In local businesses Just thedowntown area of Mount Dora.
They wanted to put up stickersif you were supportive of the
LGBTQ plus community.
The three Republican Housemembers of the Lake County
(21:56):
delegation, along with SenatorBaxley, who has long been LGBTQ,
sent I almost describe it as aFacebook rant on government
letterhead and it was sayingthat they would do everything in
their power to shut down thisungodly initiative of providing
safe spaces for the LGBTQ pluscommunity and that they were on
(22:18):
the wrong side of history andthat it was an un-American
proposal demanding that thosecommissioners show up to the
delegation meeting to explaintheir actions.
This is the kind of hysteriawe're seeing in Florida.
It's not getting any better.
The first year I was alegislative aide during 2021
legislative session, there wasan anti-LGBT Q bill that was
(22:42):
brought up that bannedtransgender girls from sports.
That bill was rushed throughthe house and it died in the
Senate and the buildings wereclosed to the public because of
COVID.
(23:02):
But there were opportunitiesfor people to testify to the
Senate from the conventioncenter across the street,
remotely to committees, and theylimited the public to coming
into the house to testify onthat as well, to just a few
people socially distanced withmasks.
And on the second to last dayof session, they rushed that
(23:24):
back as an amendment on acharter school bill and rammed
it through because the governorwas convinced that it needed to
pass.
This is something that this wasthe first time I saw Republican
legislators saying okay, we'reokay to let this die.
That was a normal process for alot of controversial bills
until the last few years, andthis one they just made sure
(23:45):
they got it done at the lastsecond with very little input
from the public, and that'salmost been their game plan
since we went from that to thedon't say gay bill, the quote
unquote parental bill of rightsin 2022.
We saw attacks on basicallyevery minority community,
whether it was the Stop Woke Act, which was limiting any kind of
(24:09):
discussion about black historythey claimed it was critical.
Race theories being taught inkindergarten mean absurd, you
know.
We saw this session, the ban ongender farming care.
We saw an expansion to thedon't say gay bill.
We saw just this huge increaseof overreach by the government
(24:31):
into the private lives ofcitizens that we hadn't really
seen before.
The Republicans, when I wasgrowing up, always had this
mantra of we need the governmentto be so small it can drown in
our bathtubs, and now they wantto check people's genitals on
the way to the bathroom.
It's just absurd.
I was very concerned that thegovernor would not stop, the
(24:56):
legislature would not stop,because they have no incentive
to.
They think this is great.
They think this is why theywere elected.
When you think that you'rewinning based on attacking
people who aren't like you, it'sa huge problem.
We've seen attacks on theJewish community, the Muslim
community, black community,hispanic community, the Asian
(25:18):
American Pacific Islandercommunity and the LGBTQ plus QIA
community.
We've seen the governor try torenegotiate deals with
indigenous peoples like theSeminole tribe, and deals that
they had previously made so thatthey can have more advantageous
terms.
These are attacks that arewidespread, wide reaching on all
different types of people, andI think that Floridians are so
(25:41):
focused on their day-to-daylives that they're not really
seeing this until it's too late.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Right.
So do you think that you know?
I know it's not about politics,but I just cannot help but ask
this question Do you know theDemocrats are the minority in
the state of Florida?
Do you think that there aremore that they can do to start
educating people about thesebills, to start getting more
support from the community atlarge?
Because, from what I'm seeing,the LGBTQIA plus community is
(26:11):
going to be drastically impactedin a negative way by these
bills and if we don't stop itsomehow, it's going to get worse
.
And I think the Democrats needto stand up and do something and
not just now understand theydon't have the majority, so they
don't have the votes.
However, what they need to dois to start bringing people in
(26:34):
numbers, get out in thecommunity that elected them and
start putting these informationout there before they become
laws, so we can try and findsome way to fight back, because
that's the only way we can do it.
Right now, we don't have thevotes in the House or the Senate
, but we do have the power toget out there in the community.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I agree with you 100% .
I will say that the formerFlorida Democratic Party chair,
mayne Diaz, resigned after thelast election and the Democrats
picked former Commissioner ofAgriculture Nikki Freed to be
the new chair, and she's beendoing a much better job
fundraising.
She's on a 67-county tour atthe moment.
(27:13):
I believe today she visitedthree counties, including
Pinellas County, which is thecity of St Petersburg, so the
Democrats are doing a better jobtrying to get their messaging
out.
I also think that one of themajor initiatives that's going
on is trying to get reproductiverights and access to
reproductive rights on theballot in 2024.
(27:36):
It's a huge initiative that'sbeing done statewide to gather
petitions.
They're almost there, by myunderstanding, of getting the
number of petitions they willneed to restore reproductive
rights in Florida back to whatthey were under row.
Florida has had this kind of acreep over the past few years of
(27:57):
making it more difficult toaccess abortion.
We saw in 2021, newrequirements that would, I think
it, put in a 24-hour waitingperiod and require pregnant
people to see two differentdoctors in order to access
abortion care.
Last year, florida passed a15-week abortion ban, which is
(28:18):
currently in effect, and thisyear we passed a six-week
abortion ban with a 15-weekexception for victims of rape or
incest, and that is notcurrently in effect.
The Florida Supreme Court isdue to make a decision on that
within the next two weeks on itsconstitutionality, and I do
expect it to go into effect.
(28:39):
We saw the Supreme Court ofSouth Carolina allow their
six-week abortion ban to go intoeffect today.
No women on that Supreme Court,by the way Not the case in
Florida, but all the justices onthe Florida Supreme Court were
appointed by Republicangovernors.
They are all conservatives.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Whoa, I want to go back to something.
I had a question and I forgotit, but in Florida are people
able to change their gendermarkers on their license?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So I did update my gender marker on my license.
I was not born in Florida, somy birth certificate came from a
different state that is muchmore liberal and I was able to
do that as well.
I went through the name changeprocess in Florida and once I
went through the name changeprocess and I followed the
requirements for getting mygender marker updated, which was
(29:30):
to get a letter from my doctorssaying that I had completed the
requirements for gendertransition as according to
Florida law.
I took my letter over to theSocial Security Office along
with my name change paperwork.
They updated my name.
They updated my gender marker.
48 hours later I was able to goto the Osceola County tax
(29:53):
collector and get my newdriver's license.
It was a long process.
It was not a cheap process.
I was privileged enough to havefolks who helped me with it and
I do think they are intendingto try and make the process more
difficult.
Moving forward, in the originalversion of HB1421, which was the
gender-affirming care ban forminors, they had a prohibition
(30:16):
on changing birth certificates.
That birth certificates saidyou were one sex assigned at
birth.
It would be impossible tochange unless they found out you
had some intersex conditions.
That were identified and thatwas the only exception.
They were stripped in the lastversion of the bill that passed.
(30:38):
The bill ping-ponged betweenthe House and the Senate and
gave us the bill that weultimately had.
But it is still possible toupdate your gender marker in
Florida for now.
But I wouldn't expect it to besomething that will last moving
forward and I'm not sure thatthe Republicans are necessarily
have that on their radar yet.
(30:58):
But if it was on their radarthey would try and tackle it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Yeah, because I'm just thinking about the restroom
legislature that they put intoplace and, regardless of whether
someone thinks you'retransgender or not, you don't
have to show your birthcertificate for employment, it's
just your license and yoursocial security card.
So if you've gone through thesteps, that then have them.
Yeah, how can they enforce?
(31:23):
They can't enforce you usingthe bathroom that, not only that
, you don't identify with, butthat's not even on your license,
regardless of what they suspect.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, this was something that was hotly debated
during session.
People asked how this would beenforced.
They were told it was virtuallyunenforceable and they passed
it anyway.
And the issue is for people whowork for the state on any level
, whether it's the municipal orthe town, city, county or the
state, having that be an exampleof why you can be terminated or
(31:59):
why you must be terminated isreally the bigger chilling
effect.
They don't want trans peopleworking in the government.
They don't want trans peopleworking in public life.
They want us back in the closet.
They want us to go back to thatatmosphere of fear that we had
in the 20th century, in theearly 2000s, in the beginning of
the 2010s.
The trans community has reallytried to take a lot of progress
(32:24):
over the decades, but it's justbeen in the last few years where
we really had a lot of successin changing hearts and minds,
and I think that a lot of whatwe're seeing is pushback to a
group of folks that werededicated to preventing gay
marriage from being the law ofthe land, and when they realized
they lost that fight, theyneeded a new target, and we were
(32:45):
the next available one, I think.
Unfortunately, most Americansdon't think they know a trans
person.
They probably do, but manypeople think they've never met
someone who's trans.
Coincidentally, they also thinka absurd percentage of the
population is trans, somethinglike 15% to 20%, which is I
(33:06):
don't know why they would thinkthat, having never met a trans
person, but it's that kind ofdissonance.
I would talk to people at theCapitol and they would say to me
I didn't think you were trans,and I would say why?
Well, you weren't like Iimagined.
And through a couple ofconversations I realized that
they thought that trans womenwere drag queens and I expected
(33:29):
me to be coming into work withreally bright makeup and little
wigs instead of the conservativedress that I wore.
That was expected at theFlorida State Capitol.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So I know you mentioned that you feel like a
lot of Floridians are reallyjust disconnected and dealing
with their everyday lives andwhat's going on in the political
arena, but I imagine that quitea few are hearing a lot of
rhetoric and they're uninformedand buying into things.
What are some of the biggestmisconceptions that you think
(34:02):
lead people to embrace some ofthe rhetoric?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I think that people live fairly sheltered lives,
even if they don't think they do, and when you're meeting
someone that's different, you'remeeting someone that doesn't
meet your expectations.
That maybe conflicts withsomething that you learned when
you were younger or just theimplicit biases that people have
.
A lot of people my age andolder grew up in a time where
(34:31):
anybody that was trans wasportrayed on TV very rarely, but
generally if they were trans,they were hiding something.
It was for nefarious purposesthat would be for dramatic
effect.
They were victims on crimeshows where they were punchlines
, and we see a lot of thatattitude persist and we still,
(34:57):
to this day, have very fewpeople who represent us in pop
culture.
For every Laverne Cox we have,cis people have a thousand
representatives and that makesit difficult for people to
relate to us.
It doesn't help in democraticpolitics that one of the most
(35:17):
well-known trans women in theworld is Caitlyn Jenner, who is
a huge Republican and ran forgovernor of California as a
Republican who is a devotedsupporter of Donald Trump.
It's difficult sometimes to getpeople to relate to you because
they've already made their mindup before they've ever met you
and while you can try and havethose conversations and change
(35:39):
minds and everything, and it's aslow process.
There are some people that arejust dug in.
I saw a poll today about themost important issues to Iowa
Republicans in this upcomingcaucus and I think it was
something like 66% said thatthey were looking for someone
who was going to target wokeideals and I see 1% that said
(36:03):
that they wanted to ban transminors from having access to
gender reform and care.
These are issues that are beingentirely astroturfed and run
from right wing media.
No one was focused on theseissues a few years ago and it
wasn't because they weren'thappening and it wasn't because
people didn't know about it.
It was because people didn'tcare.
(36:24):
It was because people were morelikely just to leave others
alone when they've, for whateverreason, decided that they can
get away with calling an entiregroup of people pedophiles or
child groomers because theydisagree with the choices that
we make about our lives and ourbodies.
(36:47):
And the thing I think peopledon't understand is being trans
is not a choice.
It's hard to convince people ofthat.
For whatever reason, they don'twant to take us at our word,
because if it's not a choice,that means they have some things
that they've done in theirlives against trans people that
were kind of horrible and peopledon't want to face up to that.
(37:09):
So they just kind of doubledown.
It's easier for them to believein their own worldview that
they're right and it makes ithard to have a dialogue when
people don't think that you'reworth having any kind of rights.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Exactly so don't be honest about the transgender
community that leads to thesethings.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I think people just don't understand that we're just
trying to live our lives thesame as anybody else.
We all have dreams andaspirations and some of us have
families and some of us havejust the ideas of wanting to
have the same experiences aseveryone else and over the past
few years, become more difficultto be trans, especially in a
(37:55):
state like Florida where youhave the power of the government
and the media pushing againstyour very existence.
I think I'm one of the mostboring people.
I live such an uninterestinglife in many regards and to see
the vitriol and the hate and themisunderstanding and the claims
(38:18):
of why I must be trans they'retaking it from their own point
of view of well, the only reasonI would act like a woman is
this, or the only reason I wouldact like a man is this and they
come up with nefarious andhorrible reasons in their own
minds For me.
I'm just living my life.
I've been living my life veryhappily since I came out and I
(38:42):
spent far too long in the closetbecause of societal
expectations and familialexpectations, and I just wish
that people would try and seethings from our point of view,
which is we're American citizensjust like the rest of you.
We want to have access to ourmedical care that's not hindered
by all the different hurdlesthat you've put in front of us.
(39:03):
The gender-affirming care banthat they passed not only
targeted trans youth, but had ahuge impact on trans adults in
Florida.
Something like 80 to 90% ofgender-affirming care in this
country is provided by nursepractitioners, and the bill that
they passed prevents transadults from seeing nurse
practitioners cannot givegender-affirming care in the
(39:24):
state of Florida.
You must see a medical doctoror a doctor of osteopathy.
That makes it much harder togain access to care.
With the medical conscienceso-called bill that they passed,
your doctor or the hospitalthey work for, the medical group
they work for or your insurancecompany can all be able to deny
(39:47):
you care based on the groundsof moral, ethical or religious
beliefs.
Oh my, it's just.
Oh, we don't want to pay foryour treatment.
We're not going to pay for it.
And the state of Florida neverpaid my health insurance costs
for gender-affirming care.
I had the state healthemployment system state plan for
three years and they never paidfor anything.
(40:09):
And these procedures I meanjust even a blood test could run
me $875.
That's something they wantedevery three months.
These are the things where Iwas able to connect with LGBTQIA
clinics in Florida to getbetter rates and that's how I
survived.
But when you're making $35,000a year on a government salary,
(40:32):
paying for your health insuranceand then having it not cover
anything is really difficult.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And I will add too about misconceptions.
I think people think thattransgender people are trying to
turn all kids trans.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
No, we do not want to turn your kids trans.
We just want your trans kids tolive.
That's basically it.
I wish I had access togender-affirming care when I was
younger.
Would have made my life so mucheasier.
The other thing I think cispeople don't understand is the
number of years of our livesthat we have to give up in order
(41:08):
to placate them If they thinkthat we aren't jumping through
enough hoops, if we haven'tslowed down enough, if we
haven't considered X, y or Z,that we shouldn't be allowed to
transition, and that includesinto adulthood.
But these are years of ourlives we're not getting back.
Most trans adults now did notget to live the childhoods they
(41:31):
wanted to live because that caredidn't exist in the 2000s or
the 90s or the 80s or before.
I think that because of thesemisconceptions, which are
intentional, I think it's done alot of harm to a generation of
trans people coming up behind uswhere it's going to be much
harder for them to exist, inthese southern states and these
midwestern states and just theseconservative states that are
(41:54):
passing these bans.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
Yeah, but it's really sad that In 2023, not only are
policies rolling back to protectminorities, people who need
those policies the most butrights have been taken away and
for people to be thinking thattransgender rights, what rights?
(42:21):
You know?
Why do they need rights?
So why are transgender rightsimportant?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
So I think in any kind of talking about rights or
the law, we need to look at thehistory of the United States in
general and remember that forpeople who are privileged and in
power, people who are white andmostly cisgender, heterosexual
Christian men, the law exists toserve them and not bind them.
(42:51):
And for the rest of us, the lawexists to bind us and not serve
us.
If you look at the RepublicanParty today and the outrage they
have at Donald Trump beingindicted and facing actions for
the crimes that he has allegedlycommitted, there is a different
type of justice in this countrywhen you are a wealthy white
(43:14):
man versus the rest of us.
And I will say this legislativesession in Florida, they really
used the law to bind us.
They really used it.
But we're seeing it on thenational level as well.
We're seeing it with the end ofaffirmative action by the
Supreme Court, but they didn'ttouch legacy admissions.
(43:34):
We see it in what Ron DeSantisdid to the state's attorney in
Osceola and Orange counties inFlorida, manique Borrell, where
she was removed from office, andit was not because of anything
she had or hadn't done.
It was because she was asuccessful black woman who was
(43:55):
doing a great job in loweringcrime rates in Orlando and they
want to own the law and orderlane.
I mean just an endless list ofexamples where if they're coming
for one of us, they're comingfor all of us.
We see it with reproductiverights and abortion.
We see it with the teaching ofhistory in our schools and on
(44:19):
every single level we're seeingthe system being used to
continue to prop up the oldguard and it seems like they're
in their last gasps, but theyuse the system.
They know how to use theirpower to keep generating
positive results for them.
The Republican Party hasn't wonthe popular vote of a
(44:40):
presidential election.
Going back to what is it?
1988?
The George W Bush second term,I do believe he won the popular
vote, but his first term he lostthe popular vote to Al Gore.
We had Hillary Clinton win thepopular vote in 2016.
The majority of the Americanpeople do not want these
conservative Republican policies, but they keep getting in by
(45:04):
using the old systems, like theElectoral College, which were
designed to give more power tothe conservative Southern states
, and we're still feeling theeffects of that today.
So when I say wire trans rights, it's important, it's because
everyone's civil rights areimportant and none of us are
free until all of us are free.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
It has been great talking to you and you've
provided us with a lot of goodinformation.
Any last words you want to putout there?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Sure, I appreciate the time to speak with you today
.
I think it was a reallyproductive conversation.
And to your listeners, I wantto say to anybody who's LGBTQIA
plus, who is looking to continuetheir advocacy and their
activism to try and branch outinto the political world we need
people to run for office, weneed people who are looking to
(45:56):
serve their communities inmultiple ways.
We need people who are outthere just to spread the message
, to talk to their friends andtheir neighbors about why this
is so important.
You know we're in this cyclenow where every election seems
to be the most importantelection ever, but it really
does feel like we're on theprecipice right now of losing
(46:16):
our democracy in any chance thatwe have for sustaining our
rights.
If the Republicans manage to getback into the White House and
nominate more conservativeSupreme Court justices, it's
going to shape this country forthe next 50 to 100 years and
it's not going to be in ourfavor.
We're going to see rollback ofmarriage equality.
(46:39):
We're going to see a rollbackof LGBTQ rights.
We're going to see much furtherexpansion of bans on gender
affirming care that are going totarget adults.
We look at court decisions thathave come out in the past two
weeks in the I think it was inthe 11th Circuit the other day
they're citing the Dobbsdecision multiple times and
saying that you do not have aright, or is there a historical
(47:02):
legacy of providing genderaffirming care in this country
and therefore it's notconstitutionally protected?
And if they were successful ingetting rid of trans people,
they're not going to stop.
They're coming after all of usand we all need to be standing
together, unified.
We're all we have.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yes, definitely Very powerful last word.
And listen to this.
You hear it.
We got to get out there.
We got to let our voices beheard.
We got to vote.
We got to stand by candidates.
That's going to protect ourrights.
And if you have the passion torun for office, get out there.
(47:40):
Put yourself out there.
You may not win the first time,but you know what you have you
gain the voice out there in thecommunity to make a difference.
So, listeners, there you haveit Eleanor Madonna.
She's a transgender woman witha trible laser and agent for
change who has worked tostrengthen the voice of the
LGBTQIA plus community inFlorida on a legislative level.
(48:04):
She is out there, she's stillworking.
She just want to make sure thatthe community comes together
and do what's right.
And you hear what she saidthey're coming for the
transgender community.
So this is a time for all themembers of the LGBTQIA plus
community to stick together andfight together.
(48:25):
Stand together, because thechain is as strong as the
weakest link.
We cannot let them break thischain.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Thank you, eleanor, so much for being on.
Thank you very much for havingme.
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