Equality Florida launches ‘Parenting With Pride,’ demands activism for LGBTQ youth

ORLANDO, Fla. (FLV) – The organization Equality Florida launched its new program called “Parenting With Pride,” which advocates for the parents of LGBTQ youth to stand up against “right-wing extremism” from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Moms for Liberty and other conservative groups.

The organization hosted a press conference Tuesday in Orlando with community activists to launch the effort.

The activists spoke on what they believed was the importance of combatting the “whitewashing” of history and the removal of books such as Gender Queer from public school libraries.

Jen Cousins, the co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read project, spoke about how the state’s education system has been under “heavy attack” by the “extreme right” for multiple years now.

“As we watch anti-government groups like Moms for Liberty rise to prominence with seemingly endless funds and direct lines to our state’s far right legislators, their influence has caused Florida to pass some truly heinous laws,” she said.

“The so called ‘freest state in America’ started banning books about queer families, including the much-loved board book about penguins called And Tango Makes Three,” Cousins explained.

She proceeded to talk about HB 1069 in reference to how the bill says teachers and staff are no longer required to recognize student pronouns, and “that you may not teach that there are more than two genders.”

Equality Florida’s press secretary, Brandon Wolf, said that parents of LGBT children must stand up and voice their concerns by planning to have a “conversation with your kid’s principal” or showing up to school board meetings to say “enough is enough.”

“No more attacks,” he said. “No more using our classrooms as political battlefields. No more using our kids as pawns.”

Heather Wilkie, the founder of an LGBTQ youth advocacy group called the Zebra Coalition, spoke about how trans and non-binary students and teachers are “under attack.”

“My son deserves to be able to share his family life with his peers, and his teachers should be able to support him without fear of losing their jobs,” Wilkie said.

“Each of us here today have the power of our stories and our voices, and our parental rights matter too,” she said.

Cassandra Brown, the executive director of All About the Ballots, claimed that conservatives have made an effort to ban civil rights books such as Dear Martin and Mondays Not Coming.

Brown said that the books that are being removed consist of stories that tell experiences of “racist, homophobic, violent and even sometimes deadly encounters.”

“Our children deserve to know the truth, no matter how embarrassing or painful,” she said.

“They deserve to see themselves successful, healed and thriving through the lives of their idols and ancestors, found in books.”

Former Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, expressed his support on social media for the new effort by Equality Florida to “ensure every student is protected and every family is respected.”

“Equality Florida’s ‘Parenting with Pride’ has just been launched to fight back against right-wing extremism in Florida’s public school system,” he wrote.

The activists also spoke out against Florida’s new African American history standards, a topic of recent debate between DeSantis and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Dr. William Allen and Dr. Frances Presley Rice, the creators of the new state standards, responded in July to accusations that Florida’s history curriculum teaches that slavery was supposedly “beneficial” to Black people.

“The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted,” the creators said. “This is factual and well documented.”

The creators said it was “disappointing” that people were criticizing their work “without context.”