Welcome to the June 2025 issue of FL Feminist. I am honored to have the privilege of serving as President of FL NOW. Thank you for your confidence in me and for your time to read this newsletter. I want to continue to encourage you to do more than you have in previous years. Change comes through incremental steps, and together we can bring about a more inclusive world.

I sit typing this on Memorial Day, and I remember those who have sacrificed to make our country independent and to keep it free from invading armies. I also think you will be reading this closer to Juneteenth, which reminds me of the many sacrifices made to build a more prosperous country. Today, we work and sacrifice to share that prosperity more equally. We, as an organization, do that at many levels as we reach out to enable more people to attend protests and write to elected officials. We allow more people to participate and have their voices heard as part of the governing body.

I want to say thank you to Debbie Deland for the tremendous leadership she has shown over the past 4 years. She is still on the board and may have an even bigger challenge as Vice President. I also want to thank the outgoing FL NOW board for the work they have done to build a vibrant organization despite strong headwinds from the current Florida administration. I look forward to working with Debbie Deland (FL NOW Vice President), Kim Elmore (FL NOW Secretary), Suzanne Southard (FL NOW Treasurer), Jessica Wilson (FL NOW Membership), Judi Marraccini (FL NOW Legislative), and Kaitlyn Kirk (FL NOW Communications).

While I have mentioned some of the celebrations for June, here are some others you may want to learn more about:

• Pride month

• Juneteenth

• World Refugee Day

• Helen Keller’s birthday

• Stonewall Uprising anniversary

There are numerous NO KINGS protests around the state scheduled for June 14th. I encourage you to find one to attend. If protests are challenging for you, consider reaching out directly to elected officials at the state and national levels to express your views.

Take care,

Julie Kent, Florida NOW President

President: Julie Kent

Vice President: Debbie Deland

Secretary: Kim Elmore

Treasurer: Suzanne Southard

Membership Director: Jessica Willson

Legislative Director: Judi Marraccini

Communications Director: Kaitlyn Kirk

People in ban states are still accessing abortion care.

June is National Indigenous History Month, a time to honor the resistance and knowledge of Indigenous peoples past and present.

It is a reminder that the land we live on was taken through genocide, forced removal, and broken treaties, and that colonization is ongoing. Indigenous communities across what is now called the United States and Canada continue to resist displacement, land theft, extractive industries, cultural erasure, and violence at the hands of the state.

We recognize that Indigenous knowledge, organizing, and traditions have long been central to movements for justice and liberation, from environmental defense and gender sovereignty to mutual aid and community care.

At Florida NOW, we commit to listening to and learning from Indigenous communities, especially here in the South, where histories of removal and resistance are often ignored. We affirm that bodily autonomy includes the right to land, culture, identity, and intergenerational survival.

There is no justice on stolen land without Indigenous leadership.

June 19th marks Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, to announce the end of slavery. But slavery was never truly abolished. It evolved into new systems: convict leasing, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, police violence, forced labor, and economic and medical exploitation.

Juneteenth is not just a historical milestone; it is a call to face the truth about this country and to act. Action is needed to dismantle the systems that continue to exploit and harm Black communities.

At Florida NOW, we honor the Black feminists, organizers, and everyday community members who have always led the way. And we affirm what they have always known: there is no gender justice without racial justice, and no liberation without Black liberation.

In June 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, one of the few places where queer and trans people could gather. The uprising that followed wasn’t the first act of queer/trans resistance, and it wasn’t the last. But it became a symbol, not of unity or safety, but of refusal. Refusal to stay quiet. Refusal to apologize. Refusal to disappear back into the closet.

Since then, people have celebrated Pride in many ways, from street protests and marches to dance parties and vigils. But more and more, Pride events are being bought out and controlled by funders, corporations, and institutions that do not share the values of Pride's radical roots and LGBTQIA2S+ liberation. Pride isn’t about being palatable. It’s about survival, community, and resisting state violence.

In Florida right now, Pride isn’t simple. Trans people are being criminalized. Queer books are being banned. Drag shows are being targeted. Kids are being pushed into silence. In a state where queer and trans people face daily political attacks, this kind of depoliticized Pride isn’t just hollow, it’s harmful.

That’s why activists are organizing to take it back. In St. Pete, queer and trans community members are pushing back against the corporate influence, exclusion, and erasure they see in official Pride events. They're demanding a return to Pride’s revolutionary roots.

Meet the Gay People Protesting St. Pete Pride

In 1970, a group of lesbians disrupted the Second Congress to Unite Women by walking into the event wearing shirts that read “Lavender Menace.” The phrase had been used by a National Organization for Women (NOW) leader to describe the supposed "threat" lesbian activists posed to the feminist movement. Rather than shrink from the insult, these organizers embraced it, demanding visibility, voice, and a feminism that didn’t throw lesbians under the bus for the sake of palatability.

Their action forced a long-overdue conversation about the erasure of lesbian concerns from mainstream feminist agendas. At the time, many feminist leaders, including those in NOW, feared that association with lesbians would delegitimize the movement. But queer women were already leading the work. They had been organizing shelters, fighting for abortion access, and pushing back on patriarchal violence within the home, the state, and the workplace.

This history isn’t just about the past. Today, lesbians, butch women, bisexuals, nonbinary people, and trans people still face many of the same gender presentation pressures: being told they’re “confused” and “too disruptive” to belong or to fight for. They’re socially and systemically punished for not fitting into narrow physical gender presentations, often targeted by both transmisogyny and homophobia. From bathroom bans to attacks on gender-affirming care to the silencing of queer sex ed, these assaults follow a long pattern of punishing gender nonconformity, and trying to erase anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into rigid, heterosexual, cisgender expectations.

NOW’s history includes both the harm and the healing. Some chapters turned their backs on queer women. Others became spaces where lesbian, bisexual, and transgender feminists built power together. Today, at Florida NOW, we believe in a feminism that refuses to compromise with heteropatriarchy, a feminism that remembers who was pushed out, and refuses to leave anyone behind.

Gender justice means all of us.

We remember the 49 people killed and 53 injured during the June 2016 mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, one of the deadliest attacks on LGBTQIA2S+ people in U.S. history. Pulse was more than a nightclub, it was a vital space where queer and trans Latinx, Black, and other marginalized community members found joy, refuge, and family.

This attack was driven by hate. It exposed the harsh, ongoing realities of anti-queer, anti-trans, and racist violence that our communities endure every day. We remember those lost and stand with all who continue to heal.

Register and Vote for New Leadership at the National NOW Conference on July 12, 2025

My name is Judi Marraccini and I am your National NOW Southern District Board Member.

Please register for the National NOW Conference at now.org.

By registering for the Conference, you are able to participate in the election for the next National NOW leaders. You are eligible to vote if you have been a member since April 12, 2025.

On July 12^th, there will be an online-only vote for the next National NOW President and Vice President.

There are two tickets running for these positions: Kat Duesterhaus / Triana Arnold-James and Kim Villanueva / Rose Brunache .

Please register and vote. Read about the candidates and determine the direction that National NOW will go. This is your opportunity to participate in the choosing of the next National NOW President and Vice President.

Thank you, Judi