LGBTQ+ people are leaving Florida. They blame the Legislature.

[Eugene]

Source: Tampa Bay Times

LGBTQ+ people are leaving Florida. They blame the Legislature.

Hannah Critchfield, Tampa Bay Times
Mon, April 24, 2023 at 7:00 AM EDT

June can’t come soon enough for Nikkie Jackson.

Rainbow windsocks no longer wave from her apartment balcony. She removed them in March, along with the magnet on her car that read, “I’m so gay I s—t rainbows.”

When her lease is up this summer, Jackson will return to Illinois after two years in the Sunshine State.

“I spent 30 years in the closet, and I won’t be going back now,” Jackson, a lesbian in Jacksonville, said through tears. “But I’m scared — if they’re targeting trans people now, they’ll eventually come for the rest of us.”

In the wake of a wave of Florida legislation taking aim at LGBTQ+ issues, some people are abandoning life here.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/lgbtq-people-leaving-florida-blame-110000533.html

[TwilightZone]

1. I'm sure that's what DeSantis was hoping for.

I can't blame them for leaving -- it's a decidedly hostile environment and only getting worse.

I don't know what the answer is. GOTV, of course, and try to influence the future. It's an uphill battle.

[ShazzieB]

2. Not at all surprising.

I'd be a lot more surprised if LGBTQ folks did NOT leave Florida in droves. Why would they not, if they're in a position to do so?

I really feel sad for those who can't leave and will left to face who knows what horrors in the grotesque intellectual and cultural wasteland DeSatan is doing his best to turn the state into. But I can't fault anyone who can get out of there for doing so.