Zooey Zephyr travels to Florida, roasts Ron DeSantis on his home turf
Trans legislator Zooey Zephyr lambasted Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ “hateful and discriminatory” attacks on LGBTQ+ people while visiting the Republican presidential hopeful’s home state.
In April, the Montana politician was censured and banned from the state House for the remainder of the 2023 legislative session after she spoke out against anti-trans legislation pushed by Republican lawmakers.
Zephyr eventually returned to the Montana House on 2 May and was welcomed in by her colleagues with hugs.
Even before the incident, Zephyr has passionately spoken out for trans rights and condemned the continued attacks on the LGBTQ+ community alongside her fiancée Erin Reed, an independent journalist and activist.
The couple recently took a trip to Florida to celebrate Pride Month and took the time to speak out against DeSantis’ attacks on the rights of trans and LGBTQ+ people in the state.
Zephyr told Newsweek that it felt “more important than ever” to show up on DeSantis’ home turf and show solidarity with the queer community under threat from the governor’s legislative attacks.
“It felt important to come to a place like Florida and show that we recognise that our fight, and that these discriminatory policies don’t end at state borders,” Zephyr said.
“I wanted to show that we were willing to come down here and plant the flag of queer joy and say, ‘We are not going back into the closet.’
“You can pass these laws, but you will not make us afraid.”
Zooey Zephyr added that politicians like DeSantis, who recently launched his run to be the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, will soon be relics of the past if they continue to push “hateful and discriminatory legislation”.
“If DeSantis and others like him continue to push this hateful and discriminatory legislation, they will find what everyone else like them has found throughout history,” the trans lawmaker said.
“They will wind up in footnotes of history because love wins in the end.”
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Reed described how the LGBTQ+ community in Florida has endured another year filled with “anti-queer legislation and anti-LGBTQ legislation”.
She said Republicans have targeted the community in “every way imaginable from bathrooms and schools, to our medication, our books, our history”.
“But we’re still here, and we celebrate that today,” Reed said.
Despite the horrifying anti-LGBTQ+ legislative attacks, the couple said there was a “joyous” atmosphere at the Pride event that they attended in West Palm Beach.
“In spite of all of the horror that this Florida legislature is trying to inflict on the community, the biggest storyline in LGBTQ history has always been that love and joy win,” Reed said.
Reed also posted beautiful pictures of the happy couple enjoying the beach in Florida, frolicking among the waves, on Twitter.
The journalist said the pair were there to speak about Pride in the “heart of the state where the worst laws have passed”.
“Yet here we are, happy, standing up for those affected,” Reed wrote. “Our joy is resistance.”