Miami School Board rejects LGBTQ+ History Month for third straight year

The Miami-Dade School Board voted 5-3 to reject a resolution recognizing October as LGBTQ History Month, once against refusing to recognize queer history in one of Florida’s largest concentrations of LGBTQ people and families.

The same School Board also rejected resolutions recognizing the month in 2022 and 2023.

But School Board Member Lucia Baez-Geller, an outspoken LGBTQ ally, introduced the resolution again this year, hoping for a different outcome. And she noted that since Florida in March reached a settlement making clear LGBTQ topics can be discussed in schools, effectively gutting the state’s controversial “don’t say gay” law, many of the objections raised by critics of her resolution in prior years became effectively null.

She also stressed the resolution would not require schools to teach any content, but would simply recognize the history.

"This item is solely a symbolic gesture to recognize LGBTQ History Month as we do so many endorsements throughout the year," Baez-Geller the NBC affiliate in Miami. "It does not pertain to curriculum."

Antonio Verdugo, executive director of the Christian Family Coalition, organized members to attend the meeting, resulting in hours of public comment calling any recognition of LGBTQ history “left-wing indoctrination,” according to the Miami Herald.

Marsha Hertig, one of the speakers, said LGBTQ History month is “not right in the sight of God,” according to the newspaper. “He made us male and female and told us to reproduce,” she said.

But LGBTQ youth activists also spoke up for the resolution. “There is more that unites us than divides us; we will not be persuaded by hate,” said Maxx Fenning, founder and executive director of PRISM.

Baez-Geller notably is running for a Miami-Dade congressional seat against incumbent Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Republican.