Mayor Ward’s Proclamation supporting LGBTQ+ Youth pledges that the City will support policies that violate Florida law

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – GLSEN, formerly the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, listed Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward in a July 10 press release as a mayor who has issued a Proclamation supporting the organization’s Rise Up for LGBTQ+ Youth campaign. The campaign “calls on every adult and ally in a position of authority who supports equal educational opportunity and believes that school must be free from transphobia, homophobia, racism, and all forms of bigotry and discrimination to rise up and say so.”

Other Florida mayors in the press release are from Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami Beach, Tallahassee, Wilton Manors, and Hallandale.

Ward’s Proclamation, shown below, was taken from GLSEN’s site and is dated April 21, 2023, although the Proclamation has not been voted on by the Gainesville City Commission and has not been presented publicly. The Mayor has the power to issue Proclamations, but the topics are generally non-controversial; the Proclamations at the City Commission’s July 20 meeting were for Disability Awareness Month and Parks, Recreation, and Culture Month. Proclamations are not always presented immediately after signing: for example, the Disability Awareness Month Proclamation was signed on June 9.

The long list of “WHEREAS” statements includes assertions that “K-12 schools must be safe learning environments that include and affirm LGBTQI+ youth, especially those who are transgender, non-binary, intersex, black, indigenous, people of color, people with disabilities, and from all communities that experience marginalization” [emphasis added] and “positive school transformation must recognize that safety is too low a bar and that all communities deserve to be acknowledged and affirmed in our schools,” and the Proclamation commits the City of Gainesville to “support the goals and ideals of the Rise Up Campaign in demanding the best possible future for all youth including those who identify as LGBTQI+” and “encourage each state, territory, and locality to support the Rise Up Campaign and adopt laws and policies that prohibit bias-based victimization, exclusion, and erasure in the City of Gainesville and invite all our neighbors to join me in this call to action to demand equal opportunities, basic civil rights protection, and freedom from erasure for all students.”

City Commission has passed a different resolution supporting “gender-affirming care”

The City Commission planned a non-binding resolution supporting “gender-affirming care” for the April 6 City Commission meeting, but it was later pulled from the agenda. 

A non-binding resolution “supporting gender affirming care” was approved unanimously on June 15 with Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker absent. The resolution has some similarities with the Proclamation, but the list of WHEREAS statements is more focused on access to “gender-affirming” medical treatments, while the Proclamation is more focused on bullying and school issues. Although the resolution includes WHEREAS statements about “gender-affirming” treatments for youth, the second-to-last WHEREAS says, “the City of Gainesville takes the position that the state has no right to control the medical needs of consenting adults and their medical providers” [emphasis added], and the resolution itself says, “the City of Gainesville strongly objects to these efforts by the Governor and Florida Board of Medicine as a direct attack on the LGBTQ+ community of Gainesville and the state of Florida.” Unlike the Proclamation, the resolution does not pledge the City to take any actions or support any specific policies.

In contrast, the pledge in the Proclamation states that the City will support the “goals and ideals of the Rise Up Campaign” and “encourage each… locality to… adopt laws and policies that prohibit bias-based victimization, exclusion, and erasure.” The local education policies recommended by GLSEN include policies that are illegal in Florida, including “Staff or educators shall not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity to others, including parents or guardians and other staff, unless the student has authorized such disclosure, the information is contained in school records requested by a parent or guardian, or there is another compelling need. This disclosure must be discussed with the student, prior to any action.” HB 1557, passed in 2022, requires school districts to adopt procedures for notifying parents if there is a change in services from the school regarding a child’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.

Thus, the Proclamation makes a pledge that the City will encourage the school board to adopt policies that violate Florida law. 

No response from Mayor

Alachua Chronicle sent an email to Mayor Harvey Ward on Friday evening, asking him for the status of the Proclamation, which has not been presented at a City Commission meeting that we have been able to find. We asked him for comments about the use of a Proclamation to commit the City to support goals and ideals that, in some cases, violate Florida law, and we stated that Proclamations in the past have generally been non-controversial and asked Mayor Ward whether this indicates a new direction for City of Gainesville Proclamations. We gave him a deadline of 5 p.m. today, and he has not responded to our request.