Equality Florida Institute

Education:safe & healthy schools:our impact in 2023 was defined by three main efforts: strategizing with school districts, supporting parent advocacy, and engaging community members in school board meetings. We worked with school districts to find ways to reduce the negative effects of anti-lgbtq laws and to show support to their faculty, staff, students, and families. (continued on schedule o)our efforts included: collaborating with 14 superintendents; collaborating with 46 school board members across 20 school districts; creating an lgbtq support guide for 10 school districts to restore protections removed by the state; training almost 1,500 principals, mental health professionals, teachers, and other school-based staff reaching around 38,000 individuals statewide; helping to select pro-lgbtq superintendents in 4 school districts; ensuring that lgbtq+ history month was recognized in 5 school districts- we recognized the need to build a broader movement to make a bigger impact in our state. As a result, Equality Florida developed, funded, and launched our parenting with pride program in just five months. Parenting with pride was built on three core pillars- care, advocacy, and resistance. By ensuring parents know how to care for their lgbtq child and can speak confidently to the rights their children have, we created a pipeline of empowered parents who are ready to join the resistance and push back at the local and state levels.- the fall into action campaign launched in september and served as the main opportunity to engage with parents and families who were ready to push back against the harmful laws and rules being passed in Florida. The efforts, that took place over the course of only three months, ensured these wins could come to fruition and included: recruited 1,800 parents to show up to 233 school board meetings in 44 Florida counties; mobilized parents through 53 county-specific eblasts and 7 statewide eblasts; hosted 8 trainings to ensure parents were confident and prepared to give powerful testimony; had an Equality Florida staff presence at 43 school board meetings; and sent thousands of texts, calls, or email reminders to ensure a robust turnout.transgender inclusion:- transaction focused on building relationships with trans leaders in the state and uplifting the work of trans-led organizations and initiatives in the state. Transaction has been able to link dozens of individuals having trouble with their birth certificates to legal partners.- conducted, facilitated &/or participated in various town hall and educational events with expert panelists discussing various topics. - transaction Florida worked closely with the public policy team to mobilize parents of trans and nonbinary youth and activists to board of medicine/board of osteopathic medicine and medicaid/ahca meetings. Hiv modernization:- facilitated conversations between people affected by hiv/aids and allies and their elected officials and agency leaders to discuss policy priorities for people living with hiv/aids.- Equality Florida has systematically incorporated hiv modernization education and advocacy into our work with elected officials. Our team reaches out to virtually every prospective state lawmaker house, senate, and cabinet to provide an initial briefing on the need to modernize hiv laws, specifically by placing it as an issue at the core of our efforts to educate new lawmakers.- we partnered with aids healthcare foundation (ahf) to bring 60 advocates primarily plwh and their allies and service providers to the capitol. It was the first time many individuals participated in the legislative process, and a number were impressed by how accessible lawmakers were inside the capitol.

Mobilization:local level:- participated in 28 pride events from pensacola to key west, gathering 10,923 petitions, and recruiting 2,128 new volunteers.- recruited over 1,800 volunteers across 44 counties to attend 233 school board meetings to speak out for the rights of Florida's lgbtq students. (continued on schedule o)state level: - prevented extensive book bans, advocated for lgbtq proclamations and guide returns, and countered excessive caution in complying with anti-lgbtq laws.- attended board of medicine and board of osteopathy meetings throughout the year to advocate for access to gender-affirming care. Despite some final adoption barriers, our advocates successfully mitigated harm. Our consistent presence at board of education meetings, with over 100 attendees at each session impacting lgbtq+ students and families, played a crucial role.

Outreach:equality means business/open doors - we are working with the movement advancement project (map), home to the "open to all" campaign, to deepen our collaboration with them and with yelp, a company that publishes a searchable database of local businesses along with crowd-sourced reviews. They have added an lgbtq-friendly search function, and we will be working with map to make Florida a test market for national/state collaboration.

Advocacy:local level:- collaborated with coalition partners and communities to advocate for the appointment of four lgbtq-supportive superintendents in major districts.- despite challenges from the state board of education, we persuaded multiple school boards to introduce lgbtq guides in 10 counties.- fought against a conservative board, gaining national attention for resisting a ban on over 300 books with the support of dedicated individualsstate level:- partnered with student and progressive organizations to address diversity, equity, and inclusion program removals on university campuses during the board of governors meeting for the first time this year.