‘This is the city of Stonewall’: NYC erects billboards in Florida opposing ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law

A series of New York City billboards across Florida takes aim at what opponents have called the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law while promoting the city as a welcome place for LGBT+ people.

“This is the city of Stonewall,” Mayor Eric Adams said from the steps of City Hall on 4 April, invoking the name of the city’s LGBT+ uprising in 1969.

“This is the city where we are proud to talk about how you can live in a comfortable setting and not be harassed, not be abused – not only as adults but also as young people,” he said.

The billboards will run for eight weeks in Ft Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach.

The billboards include messages like “Come to the city where you can say whatever you want” (surrounded by the word “gay”) and “People say a lot of ridiculous things in New York. ‘Don’t Say Gay’ isn’t one of them.”

“The political showmanship of attempting to demonise a particular group or community is unacceptable,” Mayor Adams said. “We are going to loudly show our support and say to those who live in Florida, we want you here in New York … It’s also standing up and aligning ourselves with the men and women of the LGBT+ community.”

“Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is the latest shameful, extremist culture war targeting the LGBTQ+ community,” Mayor Adams said in a statement. “Today, we say to the families living in fear of this state-sponsored discrimination that you will always have a home in New York City.”

New York City’s Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest community centre supporting LGBT+ youth experiencing homelessness, serves more than 2,000 people each year, with more than 40 per cent coming from the south, according to executive director Alex Roque.

Ad content was donated on behalf of WPP Companies, VMLY&R, BCW, H+K Strategies and GroupM, and Kinetic secured the ad space, according to City Hall.

“This is costing New York City taxpayers nothing,” Mayor Adams said. “It’s the right thing to do, because we’re New Yorkers.”

Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law prohibits classroom instruction “on 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.

Following passage of the Florida bill, similarly worded legislation was filed in state legislatures in Georgia and Louisiana, among dozens of bills targeting LGBT+ Americans in 2022, with most legislation aimed specifically at transgender youth.

A group of LGBT+ advocates, students, families and civil rights attorneys have filed a lawsuit against the law, alleging that the “effort to control young minds through state censorship – and to demean LGBTQ lives by denying their reality – is a grave abuse of power” that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as federal provisions against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity under Tile IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.