In Ron DeSantis’ Florida, 13-Year-Olds With Pride Flags Are the Enemy.

This is just the beginning.

Lauren Elizabeth
3 min readJul 5, 2022
Photo by Sophie Emeny on Unsplash

In Florida, a 13-year-old girl was on the street with a group of protestors, a pride flag, and a megaphone.

Evidently, she had been yelling “my body, my choice”.

Her mother was yelling “Lily you’re okay, bug I’ve got you! Mom’s right here”, telling her not to resist as she filmed her thirteen year old daughter being led away by two police officers on either side of her, one carrying the pride flag he’d taken from her.

Well here we are in the United States of America, where a 13-year-old with a pride flag protesting for her right to have control of her own body is arrested in order to be silenced.

I watched the video a number of times. I watched this girl, following the reassurance of her mother, hold her head high as she was marched to the nearby police car and put in the back. As I watched I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that this is absolutely going to continue happening. I thought about how she was arrested for using a megaphone without a permit, and the fact that no right winger would face consequences for the same supposed offense.

This is the beginning.

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Lauren Elizabeth

Lauren is a writer & leftist with analysis on topics related to politics & policy. She can be reached at LaurenMartinchek@gmail.com or Twitter @xlauren_mx