Learn more about the rules being promulgated by the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine to restrict access to treatment for gender dysphoria for minors in the state of Florida. Learn what you can do to get involved today!

Florida House Bill 1557, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and restricts such discussions for students through grade 12 based on undefined standards of appropriateness.

“Ignoring thousands of public comments and expert testimony, Florida’s AHCA has finalized a rule that will deny Medicaid coverage for all medically necessary gender-affirming care for both youth and adults. This discriminatory and medically unsound rule will take effect on August 21, 2022, putting transgender people in jeopardy of losing access to critical gender-affirming health care services.

“Southern Legal Counsel, Florida Health Justice Project, Lambda Legal, and National Health Law Program urge the Florida Board of Medicine to stop playing politics with people’s health care and not to adopt guidelines for a standard of care to treat gender dysphoria that are contrary to the evidence-based and overwhelming consensus that gender-affirming medical care for the treatment of gender dysphoria is safe, effective, and medically necessary.”

The lawsuit argues that the law, which bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and restricts such discussions for students through grade 12 based on undefined standards of appropriateness, effectively silences and erases LGBTQ+ students and families. The law demands that school districts implement its terms, and it empowers any parent to directly sue the school district if they are dissatisfied with its implementation of the law.

On June 17, 2022, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) issued a Notice of Proposed Rule for a new rule that would deny Medicaid coverage for all medically necessary gender-affirming care for both youth and adults. Southern Legal Counsel, Florida Health Justice Project, Lambda Legal, and National Health Law Program are engaging in and carefully monitoring the rule-making process, and you can read their statements and obtain more information at ProtectFLtranshealth.org.

Southern Legal Counsel and West Palm Beach pro bono attorney Sabarish P. Neelakanta of SPN Law today filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Lake Worth Beach for enforcing local ordinances that unlawfully prohibit public charitable solicitation, which is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Two weeks ago, we highlighted the fact that Governor DeSantis’s administration was intent on issuing a proposed new rule based on junk science and discredited so-called experts to justify denying Medicaid coverage for hormone therapy and other accepted medical interventions, as well as for gender-confirming surgery, for transgender Floridians. We expressed our concern that AHCA seemingly had predetermined the outcome, which today’s announcement makes all the clearer.”

A new website, FLDLcheck.com, enables Florida drivers whose licenses were improperly suspended to find out if their suspensions have been lifted through advocacy undertaken by Southern Legal Counsel and the ACLU of Florida. The site provides information to help people reinstate their permit to drive in cases where their licenses were unlawfully suspended for failure to pay court fees and fines related to local ordinance violations.

Southern Legal Counsel’s work on behalf of a transgender Marion County high school student paid off this spring when she was able to walk in her graduation ceremony after bullying and a lack of support from school staff pushed her out of school.

Removing barriers to transgender individuals’ ability to access the legal-name and gender-marker change processes has been a consistent mission of SLC’s Transgender Rights Initiative. We have ensured that Florida birth certificates can be amended without proof of sex reassignment surgery, and we also developed a first of its kind website, FloridaNameChange.org, to make the processes easier to navigate without an attorney. Recently, SLC worked with the Florida Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) to amend its policy for amending the gender marker on drivers licenses to make the process more accessible to the transgender community.

An important component of SLC’s Transgender Rights Initiative is building the capacity of others in Florida to represent, protect, affirm, and support transgender individuals statewide.

During Pride Month and on into July we are holding two trainings for which registration is now open.

Pride Month 2021: Best Practices for Representing LGBTQ+ Youth will be held June 29 through the Florida Legal Services Statewide Training Initiative and is sponsored by the Public Interest Law Section of The Florida Bar. Register here.

Free Statewide Transgender Legal Name and Gender Marker Change Clinic will be presented by SLC and Akerman on July 10th. Register here.

SLC filed a lawsuit in federal court in January of 2020 challenging the State of Florida’s exclusion of coverage for the gender-affirming medical needs of transgender state employees, citing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The case is now at the summary judgment stage and is under consideration by the honorable Judge Mark Eaton Walker in the Northern District of Florida. Motions for summary judgment and other pleadings are on SLC’s Promoting LGBTQ+ Equality page.

As part of a strategic, targeted attack on the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals in the United States, over 250 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country this year, making 2021 the worst year for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in recent history. The Florida Legislature was no exception.

As Florida students returned to in-person education following more than a year of school closures and distance learning, Southern Legal Counsel partnered with pro bono attorneys and other advocacy organizations to support students with disabilities who were impacted by COVID-19 school disruptions.

As the Trump Administration came to an end in January, so did efforts to roll back transgender protections under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Equal Access Rule.

Southern Legal Counsel was among the organizations that issued statements protesting a rule HUD first proposed in the spring of 2019 that appeared to weaken the Equal Access Rule and its enforcement mechanisms, which require equal access to housing and homeless services for transgender and gender-non-conforming (TGNC) individuals. At the time, sex-segregated shelters could not refuse to admit TGNC persons and were required to house them according to their gender identity.

In partnership with Equality Florida, the state’s largest statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, Southern Legal Counsel has engaged with all 67 Florida school districts to educate their leadership, personnel, students and parents on how to affirm, support, and protect LGBTQ students and their rights.

(October 15, 2020, Jacksonville, FL) – In a major First Amendment victory, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida has declared Florida Statutes 316.2045 and 337.406—which prohibit the solicitation of charitable contributions on Florida roadways except by charitable organizations or when a local government permit has been issued— unconstitutional.

Southern Legal Counsel (SLC) led a coalition of Florida-based organizations submitting a formal comment to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today on a proposed Equal Access rule change that seeks to rollback protections requiring that LGBTQ individuals have equal access to housing and homeless services.

Obtaining a legal name change is an essential and monumental step in many transgender individuals’ lives, and the process requires access to the courts. When pro se litigants in Miami-Dade County filed petitions for name change through Florida’s E-Filing portal, their petitions were wrongfully “abandoned” by the Clerk of Court, who refused to docket them. SLC and Legal Service of Greater Miami (LSGMI) intervened and fought to ensure that all pro se litigants would have access to the courts without facing unnecessary administrative obstacles.