Wrong

For the moment, the small city of Largo in Pinellas County is ground zero in the War on Intolerance thanks to five members of its City Commission and the soon-to-be-former City Manager Steven B. Stanton.

All over the U.S., news outlets lit up over the past week with accounts of how Stanton's 14-year career running this mostly middle-class city is ending because he wants to change his gender.

Steven is undergoing hormone therapy to become Susan. He had confided his plans to confidantes at City Hall and was working with the city's human resources department on a plan to reveal his situation and help employees deal with the inevitable questions and undeniable discomfort.

He came out earlier than he anticipated when Lorri Helfand of the St. Petersburg Times, which had been tipped about his plans, approached him about an interview. Stanton agreed to talk, and on the afternoon of Feb. 21, the day before the story was to appear in print, he stood in front of a phalanx of TV cameras and radio mics to explain how he had struggled with his gender identity his entire life.

Within six days, Stanton was transformed from a largely unknown municipal administrator to a champion for the transgendered on a national level.

And Largo went from being that city you drive through on the way from Clearwater to St. Pete Beach — the place that used to host the Renaissance Festival, where old duffers were famously busted decades ago for playing penny ante poker — to City of Shame.

The National Center for Transgender Equality said Stanton's treatment proves the need for laws to protect transsexuals and provides a great rallying example. The news was featured in many national blogs, including one at Mother Jones magazine. One blogger summed it up: "This Just Sucks."

So what do tolerant people do about it? Say that everyone and everything in Largo stinks? There are plenty of progressive folks in that city of 76,000, even if there aren't apparently enough to prevent the election of such Christian right-wing candidates as Mary Gray Black.

Urge progressives to move out of Largo? As much as such a move might jump-start a sluggish Tampa Bay housing market, c'mon, we're not being serious (although we do urge home sellers in Tampa Bay to offer discounts to disaffected Largo-ites — or Largans, whatever they are called).

Condemn the Largo Police Department? Its police chief was supportive of Stanton. But a few of its officers wrestled a human rights advocate to the ground and charged her with a felony during the four-hour hearing last week. Nadine Smith handed out a flyer that said "Don't Discriminate," and Largo fire officials had banned such free speech on the grounds that it was a fire hazard to have lots of paper around City Hall. And then she dared to ask a police officer who told her to stop, "Why?"

Do you protest against the five commissioners who voted him out? Surely not all of them are bigots cloaked in religion? A few cited concerns they had about Stanton not being able to lead the city in such a divisive situation. Stanton was a particularly powerful city manager, as such bureaucrats go, and his style of challenging convention did rub some of his politicians the wrong way.

But the fact remains, the five buckled under, and they bear part of the shame.

The five have a shot at redemption. The City Commission will have to take a second vote to terminate Stanton. (Termination in Largo is a three-step process, and technically, Stanton has only been put on paid leave and notified of his pending firing.) Just two votes switching could pull Largo out of the spotlight and strike a more reasoned tone in trying to deal with what is admittedly a major and unusual occurrence in city government.

If the five stay the course, they just add to Tampa Bay's reputation as the Intolerance Capital of America. As the national Human Rights Campaign website said last week, "Can we just cut off parts of western Florida and float them out into the Gulf???"

This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2007.