‘We say gay. We say trans.’ In Miami, county mayor celebrates raising of Pride flag

After watching a rainbow flag rise outside County Hall, Miami-Dade’s mayor noted this year’s event drew the largest crowd she’s seen for the annual Pride Month celebration of LGBTQ rights.

“I wonder why,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, said in a year that saw Florida’s GOP-controlled Legislature pass new laws targeting drag shows, restricting transgender people to using government-building bathrooms that match their birth gender, and regulate the ability of students and teachers to be called by their pronouns of choice. “I think people got the memo. We need to show up. We need to stand up.”

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Gov. Ron DeSantis wasn’t mentioned in the speech by Miami-Dade’s senior Democrat, but the theme drew a contrast between Tallahassee’s legislation on matters related to sexual orientation and the county’s approach, including a local law barring discrimination over gender identity.

“We say gay,” Levine Cava said. “We say trans.”

Elected in November 2020, Levine Cava held the first Pride flag event at the Stephen P. Clark Center in June 2021. The rainbow Pride flag flies under the Florida state flag for the month, with County Hall’s other flag pole displaying the U.S. flag and POW flag as usual.

Only elected Democrats spoke at the event in the Clark Center lobby, which features a display put on by the county’s LGBTQ Advisory Board featuring tales of discrimination and persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity in foreign countries.

“I want to start off by letting you all know that nobody is coming to save us,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from Miami Gardens who is also gay. “We stand in the face of discrimination and bigotry, and we’re going to fight it every step of the way.”