Ron DeSantis faces one setback after another in battle against LGBTQ rights

Multiple federal court decisions have frozen key portions of Ron DeSantis’ campaign against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in recent weeks, complicating the Florida governor’s efforts to present himself as a conservative champion with a track record of winning cultural battles over LGBTQ causes.

In the last week alone, the DeSantis administration faced setbacks in three legal battles over LGBTQ rights. Judges rejected state efforts to block transgender adults’ access to gender-affirming care under Medicaid, bar transgender children from accessing puberty blockers, and ban minors from certain types of live entertainment at restaurants — legislation widely interpreted as a proposal to target drag shows.

DeSantis’ agenda has hit other roadblocks, with judges blocking portions of his plans to control teaching and training on gender identity in schools and workplaces. The governor also faces ongoing litigation over his efforts to ban transgender athletes from competing on sports teams of their declared gender and to restrict access to school books, including those with LGBTQ themes.

His pressure on private industry has faced challenges, as well, with Disney — one of the state’s largest employers — suing the governor claiming he overstepped his power in taking punitive action against the company over its opposition to policies the company viewed as hostile to the LGBTQ community. DeSantis is pushing for the federal trial to start after the 2024 presidential election. In the meantime, Disney will host a major LGBTQ conference in Florida this September that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“We’re seeing a momentum shift that is heavily supported by these court wins,” said Jon Harris Maurer, public policy director at Equality Florida. “The courts and the public are recognizing that Governor DeSantis isn’t putting forward good policy. He’s playing politics, and leaving taxpayers to foot the legal bills for it.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis did not respond to a request for comment.

DeSantis’ setbacks have been delivered by lower courts, giving the governor an opportunity to reclaim victory at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where a conservative majority rules. On Thursday, for example, the DeSantis administration appealed the federal ruling blocking the new state law that aims to prohibit children from attending drag shows.

Throughout his time in office, lower court rulings that were not in his favor rarely spelled the end of the governor’s legal fights. DeSantis, a lawyer himself, has advocated for the selection of conservative judges who are “willing to reverse bad precedent,” and his campaign has recently dismissed his setbacks in court as “the tactics of activists who seek to impose their will on people by judicial fiat.”

Last year, the 11th circuit’s Republican-appointed judges upheld that a Florida public school could bar a transgender student identifying as male from using the men’s bathroom. But the conservative judges also said that states must demonstrate a clear government interest when passing laws targeting trans people, providing advocates for LGBTQ rights with a strong legal argument in future cases on the topic that reach the court.

The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to weigh in substantively on transgender rights. But in April, the highest court allowed a transgender girl in West Virginia to continue to play on a girl’s sports team, denying the state’s attempt to ban her.

DeSantis’ view

In emails and text messages to supporters in recent days, DeSantis has placed his campaign against LGBTQ Americans at the center of his 2024 presidential bid, claiming he already succeeded in rolling back gay and transgender rights in his home state.“In Florida, we got it done and beat the woke agenda,” he said in a recent email. “It’s time we do it for all of America.”

“Across the country, the Left has taken advantage of a weak executive and lit the fire of cultural Marxism. The fire has smoldered in our schools; it has smoldered in corporate boardrooms; it has smoldered in the halls of government,” he said. “Why do Joe Biden and the Left think it’s common sense to salute the Pride Flag?”

In a recent Fox News interview, DeSantis said he would continue the fight at the federal level by asking Congress to eliminate several federal agencies, including the Department of Education – or else use those agencies to fight against “wokism” in American life. (For 50 years, the Department of Education has prohibited any school that receives federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex.)

“We reversed [state] policies trying to inject the curriculum in our schools,” he said in the interview, pivoting to what he would do as president. “That will all be gone.”

The governor has had some unequivocal political victories, implementing and expanding a law known to its critics as “Don’t Say Gay” that restricts the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms. A UCLA study recently showed the law has had a chilling effect on LGBTQ school employees and students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

Another bill that is set to go into effect on July 1 will limit school employees’ ability to refer to students or staff members with pronouns that differ from those assigned to them at birth — even in cases when a parent consents to it. That same bill will require every public school to have a policy that says it is “false” to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to their assigned sex, which under the law would be defined as an “immutable, or unchanging, biological trait.”

Regardless of its setbacks in the courts, the DeSantis administration has been effective at stifling the LGBTQ community across the state. Several communities have canceled Pride events this month out of fear that the governor had fostered an “unsafe” environment. High school events featuring discussions with drag queens have been shut down. And across the state, conservative groups have been successful at restricting access to LGBTQ content in school libraries, including a children’s book based on a true story about a penguin family with two fathers.

But recent court decisions show the challenges DeSantis will face in taking his campaign nationwide. While other Republican-controlled states have followed Florida in passing laws against drag shows and gender-affirming care, they have also followed Florida in legal defeats, with Arkansas, Utah and Indiana also facing setbacks in the courts in recent weeks over similar state legislation.

“I’ll start off by saying, I told you so,” said Shevrin Jones, the first openly gay person elected to the Florida Senate, representing the 35th District. “At every step during the process of this legislation, I made it clear that what we’re doing is unconstitutional — interfering with the rights of individuals, with the rights of parents and what they want to do with their children.”

“This puts DeSantis’ hate and bigotry on full display,” Jones said. “I’d suggest the governor read the room and the amount of losses he’s experiencing right now.”

DeSantis continues to lean into his fight against “wokeness” and “gender ideology” as he attempts to court conservative voters, including members of politically influential groups, such as Moms for Liberty, a Florida group that has hundreds of chapters across the country.

Moms for Liberty has been at the forefront of battles that have drawn pushback from the LGBTQ community, including restricting access to books in school libraries and efforts to limit how school employees support transgender children who want to socially transition.

DeSantis, former President Donald Trump and other 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls are expected to attend the group’s “Joyful Warrior” annual conference this weekend.

Last summer, DeSantis was a keynote speaker at the group’s summit, where hundreds of members commiserated over concerns that students were being exposed to lessons of race and gender identity they found to be inappropriate.

It was there that the group’s leaders presented DeSantis with a “Liberty Sword,” which they said was modeled after the type given to gladiators — an idea DeSantis has very much embraced as he vows to continue fighting the culture wars if elected president.