If you were present at Tuesday’s public flogging of transgender Largo City Manager Steve Stanton, or if you saw it on Bay News 9, maybe the same question occurred to you: How did the City of Largo manage to elect two women as diametrically opposite from one another as Mayor Pat Gerard and Commissioner Mary Gray Black?
Gerard was a staunch supporter of Stanton before and after he told her about his transgender status; she and Stanton had planned to break the news more gradually, but a leak to the media tipped their hand. She was the voice of reason during the proceedings — exasperated, quietly outraged reason.
Black, on the other hand, is the gray-faced martinet who first called for Stanton’s head. At the meeting, speaking in a pinched bureaucratic drone, she continued to fuss over details in the resolution to terminate Stanton — insinuating that he had plotted to keep the changes from being made – even though by that point it was more than clear that she had gotten what she came for, the destruction of Stanton’s career.
I have to hope that more people in Largo and Pinellas, and in Florida as a whole, share Gerard’s tolerant perspective – the perspective that he is to be judged on his performance in the job, not by his gender. But I guess that begs another question: Has Largo let a mob of self-righteous bigots railroad their city government?
And one more: Isn't anyone in Largo ashamed of their police department's over-reaction in the case of Nadine Smith? The executive director of Equality Florida was arrested for handing out flyers at Tuesday's commission meeting. Four cops, a felony charge, more than $5,000 bail for handing out flyers? Looks like Largo is putting itself on the map not just for prejudice but for stamping out free speech. Thanks for shining a bright light on the worst of Pinellas, folks.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2007.