Los Angeles County bans official travel to Florida and Texas over anti-LGBT+ policies

Los Angeles County voted this week to ban all official travel to Florida and Texas in response to the anti-LGBT+ measures that were recently passed in the two states.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the measure on Tuesday to suspend all official travel to the two states, with the only exception being in an instance where not attending a trip would “seriously harm the county’s interests”, the Pasadena Star-News reported.

The two Republican governed states have recently passed highly publicised and divisive policies that target LGBT+ youth, with Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” measure garnering enough attention to force the CEO of Disney into the political crosshairs.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education Act” into law on 28 March, a piece of legislation that stipulates that teachers and educators in Florida are prohibited from discussing “sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade or “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” in other grades.

For Governor Greg Abbott’s part, the Republican issued an order on 22 February for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families with transgender children, with the specific direction given to investigate the use of medical treatments like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender confirmation surgery in minors.

Mr Abbott’s order, however, was recently blocked by a judge who issued a statewide injunction. It’s now awaiting appeal by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has previously said that so-called “‘sex-change’ procedures on children” would amount to “child abuse”.

Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis, the spearheaders of the Los Angeles County of the motion, wrote in defence of their county’s recently passed ban that Texas’s recently stalled order “flies in the face of all that we know about best practices when it comes to supporting children and young adults to discover who they are and feel secure in their sense of self”, the Pasadena Star-News reported.

“This order is discriminatory, harmful and just plain cruel.”

Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” policy, they contend, does not score much better in the two supervisors’ assessment, noting that the legislation gives a pass to “perpetuate a culture of bullying, secrecy, shame and fear”.

“Schools should be spaces that foster open discussion, critical thinking, meaningful engagement and the safe exploration of ideas,” they wrote. “The implementation of this bill would create an atmosphere that stifles such a culture and stifles learning itself.”

The county’s response to the two state’s new policies comes amid a year that’s witnessed more legislation targeting LGBT+ Americans getting introduced within just the first few months of 2022 than in any other year.

Just this week, Alabama’s state legislators gave final approval to a bill that could see doctors jailed for up to a decade for prescribing puberty blocks, hormone therapy or providing gender-affirming surgeries to transgender youth, who in the state is considered anyone younger than 19.