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(NEW YORK) — When Florida parent Rose Taylor discovered that her son’s new teacher would not use his preferred pronouns, it shattered Taylor’s perception of safety in her local North Florida school.

Taylor, who asked to be named using a pseudonym for privacy reasons, says her son declared that he was a boy at the age of 4, and his teachers and fellow students welcomed his name and pronoun changes.

The next year, however, his new teacher wouldn’t call him by the proper pronouns. Taylor’s son told his mother that the teacher could call him a girl, “but no one else could.”

The comment sounded off alarm bells for Taylor: “Adults don’t get special rules for you, especially that go against your personal rules.”

She continued, “This is going to open him up to bullying. This is going to teach him that rules don’t apply to certain adults in authority, which could open him up to any sort of sexual assault, grooming or anything like that.”

Joining a group like Equality Florida’s Parenting with Pride has helped parents like Taylor face such obstacles amid the backdrop of rising anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric.

According to the ACLU, Florida had 14 bills introduced this year that would impact the LGBTQ community — including restrictions on changes to ID cards, the required use of preferred names or pronouns, and more.

In recent years, education has been the target of this kind of legislation, with the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law and the Stop “WOKE” Act restricting what material and content schools can share about gender and sexual orientation.

Supporters say these laws allow parents to decide what their children learn or discuss about certain topics, and should be discussed at home instead of at school. A spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis argued in a post on X that “there is no reason for instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to be part of K-12 public education. Full stop.”

Many of these bills failed or died in the legislature. One of those bills was from State Sen. Bran Martin, who proposed legislation that would have banned Pride flags from flying at government buildings or public schools and colleges. In an interview with ABC News, Martin called sexual orientation and gender “adult issues” and argued that these laws are intended to “protect children.”

“No one’s attacking kids for their sexual orientation or their gender identity,” Martin said. 

Instead, he noted that some constituents and legislators do not believe young kids should be having conversations related to gender or sexual orientation in the classroom.

“There’s so many, so many good books that kids can learn to deal with self-esteem and how to deal with their friends and how to be successful, or how to deal with unique experiences in their life,” Martin said. “We don’t have to have our shelves full of kids’ books dealing with sexual identity when there’s so much other information to learn that can be taught.”

Florida parent Jennifer Solomon told ABC News her youngest son didn’t know anything about politics or the different gender identities when he began showing signs that his gender expression might not align with what is typical for boys his age — such as wanting to wear dresses.

She created local LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG Miami when she discovered there were few local resources for parents with children like her son, and she needed guidance and support.

“I realized that I had a story to tell, that I had this incredible child that I was given to raise, and he changes hearts and minds everywhere he goes,” she said.

She thought middle school might be a “nightmare” for her child due to her fears about bullying and his safety — “I was wrong,” she said.

“He is student council president. He is on the cheerleading team. He just made the competitive dance team,” Solomon said. “He has shown me and shown others that you can live as who you are, and others will accept you if we get the politicians and the lawmakers to kind of move out of the way and let our kids just be who they are. “

Now, as the Parents and Families Support Manager for Equality Florida, Solomon hopes Parenting for Pride can help parents address efforts to restrict representation in classroom content or restrict how students can express themselves in schools.

Parenting for Pride — which just held its first summit with more than 200 participants — offers workshops, panels and trainings on online safety, health and wellness, Title IX, and more.

Hillsboro County parent Ellen Lyons attended the summit on behalf of her school’s Parent-Teacher Association to learn how to better make all families feel “welcome and included.”

“Students generally have been concerned about the impact of legislation on the books that they can read, on the way they can address one another, of the way that teachers can address them,” said Lyons. “And so one of the things that PTA wants to do is have all of the knowledge about what the current state of affairs is, so that we can give people accurate information and help people advocate for their students.”

Parenting with Pride has created a network of more than 2,000 families — an effort local activists are encouraging amid the growing anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

“We are parents, and we are demanding our parental rights, because it’s not just parental rights for some, but parental rights for all,” said Solomon. “Enough attacking my child. I’m willing now to be in a space of advocacy that I never thought I would be in.”

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(DALLAS) — Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger became eligible for parole over the weekend, five years after being convicted of murder in the fatal 2018 shooting of Botham Jean. Jean’s family is calling for the parole board to reject early release for Guyger and to ensure that she serves her full 10-year sentence.

“We have to deal with that sentence for the rest of our lives. So for the person responsible for taking Botham away from us just unjustly and senselessly, the logical thing to do is to have her serve her full sentence,” Allisa Charles-Findley, Jean’s sister, told ABC News in an interview on Monday. “And 10 years, to me, it’s a light sentence for murder.”

Guyger fatally shot 26-year-old Jean on Sept. 6, 2018 while he was eating ice-cream in his Dallas, Texas, home after mistakenly entering his apartment believing it was her own. She was convicted of murder on Oct. 1, 2019, after a jury unanimously rejected Guyger’s self-defense claims in the fatal shooting.

Charles-Findley and her family, including her mother and brother Brandt, who publicly forgave Guyger in an extraordinary moment during her sentencing hearing in 2019, all want to see Guyger serve her full sentence and are planning to share their thoughts in interviews with the parole board next week, she told ABC News.

“Brandt’s forgiveness of Amber Guyger does not mean that she does not get to be punished for her crime,” Charles-Findley said. “Forgiveness doesn’t supersede punishment, so whether he forgave her or not, that has no bearing on her serving her full sentence for committing that crime.”

The date for Guyger’s parole hearing hasn’t been set, and her attorney didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Death of an innocent man: Timeline of wrong-apartment murder trial of Amber Guyger

Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Oct. 2, 2019 and became eligible for parole on Sunday — the day that would have been Jean’s 33rd birthday.

With Guyger ‘s parole eligibility, Charles-Findley said that her brother’s birthday this year was a “very difficult day” for the family as they honored his memory.

“Botham was a praise leader at church, so every single song just reminded me of him. I could hear him singing it,” she said. “So yesterday was hard. We spent it together at church. But after that, I just needed time alone and, like the past six years, I’ve spent Botham’s birthday just crying in bed.”

Guyger, who was fired from her job as a Dallas police officer in the wake of the shooting, was initially facing a maximum sentence of up to 99 years in prison in this case.

Her sentence initially disappointed Jean’s family, with some of them breaking down in tears and shaking their heads after it was announced.

“Ten years was a bitter pill to swallow, but eventually I accepted it,” Charles-Findley told ABC News. “So now, five years later, to have to deal with her being eligible for early release … it feels like just going through this whole trial all over again, because every single minute I have this pit in my stomach just wondering if she will be let go early, and how, how am I now supposed to accept it?”

Amber Guyger convicted of murder in wrong-apartment killing of innocent man

While delivering her victim impact statement ahead of Guyger’s October 2019 sentencing hearing, Jean’s mother, Allison Jean, said she has struggled to work or sleep and her family’s lives had not been the same since her middle child was killed.

“I have to keep the family together because everybody’s in pain,” she said.

Meanwhile, Guyger’s mother, Karen Guyger, said that her daughter hasn’t been the same since the shooting and she “wanted to take [Jean’s] place. She’d always tell me she wished she could have taken his place. She feels very bad about it.”

Jean’s then-18-year-old brother took the witness stand and spoke to Guyger.

“I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you,” Brandt Jean said.

Brandt Jean, who opened up about why he chose to forgive his brother’s killer in an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America” on Oct. 4, 2019, then asked the judge if he could give Guyger a hug — a request that the judge granted.

“This is what you have to do to set yourself free,” Brandt Jean told “GMA.” “I didn’t really plan on living the rest of my life hating this woman.”

Extraordinary act of mercy: Brother of Botham Jean hugs and forgives Amber Guyger after 10-year sentence imposed

Charles-Findley said that while her brother forgave Guyger because it was “necessary for him to be relieved of the burden,” she is “not there yet.”

“I haven’t started to process forgiving Amber Guyger. I know for me, my reasoning is, I don’t believe her story. I don’t believe she has been honest with the events that took place that night,” she said.

Charles-Findley has petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice to look into this case as she seeks “full accountability,” she noted.

“As his big sister, I will not stop until I just try my hardest to get full accountability for him because he deserves it. He did nothing wrong. Eating ice cream in your apartment, watching football is not a crime, no matter the color of your skin,” she said.The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

After her conviction, Guyger’s attorney filed multiple appeals, but they were rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeals — Texas’s highest court — in 2022, according to ABC Dallas affiliate WFAA.

Unless she is released on parole, court records indicated that Guyger has a projected release date of Sept. 29, 2029.

ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.

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(AUSTIN, Texas) — A 28-year-old Texas woman died in 2021 after her abortion care was delayed for over 40 hours as she was having a miscarriage, according to a new story from ProPublica.

Josseli Barnica was told that it would be a “crime” to intervene in her miscarriage because the fetus still had cardiac activity, despite her 17-week pregnancy already resulting in a miscarriage that was “in progress,” according to medical records obtained by ProPublica.

The medical team told Barnica that she had to wait until there was no heartbeat due to Texas’ new abortion ban, Barnica’s husband told ProPublica.

Despite Texas enacting several abortion bans after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it was the first state to restrict the procedure by enacting a law that permitted citizens to sue physicians who provide abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy — before most women know they are pregnant — for $10,000.

Anyone who “aided and abetted” an abortion, by actions such as driving a woman to obtain abortion care, could also be sued.

Forty hours after Barnica had arrived at a Texas hospital, physicians could not detect fetal cardiac activity and she was given medication to speed up her labor, according to the report. She was discharged about eight hours later, according to ProPublica.

She continued bleeding but when she called the hospital she was told that was expected, the story said. When the bleeding grew heavier two days later, she rushed back to the hospital, according to ProPublica.

Three days after she passed the pregnancy, Barnica died of an infection, according to ProPublica.

More than a dozen medical experts who reviewed the medical records told ProPublica that her death was preventable.

“These experts said that there was a good chance she might have survived if she’d been treated earlier,” Kavitha Surana, the reporter who wrote the story for ProPublica, told ABC News Live. “No one can say for sure where the sepsis developed. But 40 hours with your cervix wide open in a hospital, that is not the standard of care to require someone to take that risk.”

After Roe was overturned, a stricter ban went into effect, penalizing doctors found guilty of providing abortions with up to 99 years in prison and fines up to $100,000.

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