Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) didn’t directly reference LGBTQ or Hispanic people in an annual order issued Thursday to honor the victims of the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, a substantial omission that echoes recent actions by President Trump’s administration against diversity and inclusion.
DeSantis, who has led the state since 2019 and sought the 2024 Republican nomination for president, has mentioned the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities — the groups most devastated by the attack that killed 49 and injured dozens more — in near identical orders issued during each of his last five years in office.
In those statements, DeSantis called the massacre “a horrific act of terrorism against the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities.” Thursday’s order says the attack was “a horrific act of terrorism” without mentioning any specific groups.
In 2019, his first year as governor, DeSantis was forced to issue an amended proclamation after an initial statement that also omitted references to LGBTQ people attracted widespread backlash. He said at the time that he was “not involved” in drafting the first proclamation and requested his office issue a new one once he became aware of the exclusion.
“Sometimes these things happen, and you’ve got to correct them,” DeSantis said during a 2019 news conference on an unrelated matter.
Multiple spokespersons for the governor did not return a request for comment on this year’s omission or say whether the office would issue a new statement.
Florida has recognized “Pulse Remembrance Day” each year on June 12, the date on which the 2016 attack occurred, since its creation in 2018 by former Gov. Rick Scott (R).
Now a U.S. senator, Scott said in his original proclamation that the state “continues to mourn the tragic loss of life and recognize the lasting impact it has on our state and communities, including Florida’s LGBTQ community.”
In a statement on Thursday, Scott called the shooting, one of the deadliest in U.S. history, “an act of terror targeting Orlando’s LGBTQ and Hispanic communities.”
A statement from Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Florida’s former attorney general who DeSantis appointed to replace Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Senate in January, makes no mention of LGBTQ or Latino people.
DeSantis’s decision to delete references to the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities from his annual order mirrors Trump administration efforts targeting diversity and inclusion and LGBTQ rights.
References to diverse historical figures, including Jackie Robinson, were removed from government websites in an initial purge related to Trump’s executive orders against DEI and “gender ideology.” Last week, Military.com reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to rename an oil tanker named for the assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk.
The Navy is also considering renaming other ships named after prominent civil rights leaders, including Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall and Lucy Stone, according to a CBS News report.
DeSantis has also campaigned against diversity efforts, frequently saying that DEI, which stands for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” actually means “discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination.” Laws signed during his tenure, including one forbidding classroom instruction on sexuality and gender, have been criticized for targeting the LGBTQ community.
“Governor DeSantis’s erasure of the LGBTQ+ and Latino communities today may say a lot about what kind of person he is, but it doesn’t change the fact that those were the communities most directly impacted at Pulse,” said Brandon Wolf, a Pulse survivor who serves as spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization. “His erasure doesn’t change the fact that families have empty seats at dinner tables, friends have missing faces at birthday parties, and our communities still bear the scars.”
“Today, rather than letting the governor’s petty political cowardice write our story, I hope people choose to remember those stolen and impacted, reflect on the costs of violent hate, and recommit to honoring those we loved and lost with action,” Wolf, who lost two friends, Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero, in the shooting at Pulse, said in a text message.
Florida state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat and the first openly gay Latino person elected to the Legislature in 2016, called DeSantis’s omission “a petty slight.”
“The Governor’s on again, off again acknowledgment of those impacted by the Pulse shooting shows he cares more about scoring political points in the moment rather than showing authentic solidarity with his own constituents,” Smith said in an emailed statement, speaking on behalf of the LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida, for whom he is a senior adviser.
“Either way it would be a mistake to focus on the Governor’s bigotry and exclusion. That’s already well-known,” Smith added. “Today is about remembering the 49 taken by gun violence, as well as remembering the strength and courage of those who survived and the families impacted. They will not be erased.”