By: Salvador Montalvo, Chef

One of my greatest passions in life is the culinary arts. I’m a chef with more than a decade of experience and the thing I enjoy the most about cooking is the possibility to mix flavors, styles and cultures. With food, the diversity of flavors enriches our palates. Just like in our community, and in our labor force, diversity offers us great strength and benefits.

For this reason, I have always made an effort in my professional life about creating an inclusive environment for all employees, including those that identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).

Aside from having many friends and family members who are part of the LGBT community, I’ve also had the pleasure of working with many people from the community. In Puerto Rico, 30% of my employees identify as LGBT, and in the four years that I have been supervising them I’ve never had a bad experience. It’s actually been the opposite; they are the most dedicated people to their work, responsible and highly talented.

It’s a shame that in many parts of Florida, a person can be fired just because they are gay. I think that’s wrong, because we are all humans and we should have the same opportunities to grow and better ourselves.

And I don’t think that not treating people fairly is solely an injustice, but it’s also a bad for business. When a person feels that they should hide who they truly are just to keep from being fired, it means not bringing their whole, authentic self to the workplace. This builds negativity that could affect the work environment, and stretched across all workplaces, would also have a huge effect on the local and state economy as well. On top of that, starting a business in a place that doesn’t value all of the labor force equally makes it extremely difficult for employers to find qualified employees.

For these reasons, I’ve always wanted to offer an equal space for all talented people. Right now I’m starting a new project as head chef at La Pata Negra, a Spanish tapas restaurant that will open next month in St. Petersburg, and with this new project I hope to not only offer exciting flavors and fine dining, but also a tolerant and respectful place.
Florida is a state that has transformed a lot due to its diversity and the culinary world is an example of that. And while Hillsborough County recently added protections for LGBT people, in Florida, as with many other states, there are no statewide protections for LGBT people against being fired.

I hope that the sweet taste of equality and respect comes soon to all the corners of our state.

Salvador Montalvo is Puerto Rican, he attended the School of Culinary Arts in Manhattan, New York and is the owner of Puerto Rican food truck, La Guagüita, which has been featured on the Cooking Channel and the Food Network. Soon he will be working as the head chef at La Patanegra restaurant located at 200 Central Ave St. Petersburg, FL, which will open its doors next month. This post originally appeared on the Dignidad y Trabajo Campaign website. 

The Florida Legislature completed its first week of the 2015 session on Friday, and we are sorry to report that among its first activities, it advanced a bill that would discriminate against transgender individuals in public accommodations like bathrooms, locker rooms and other places where there is an expectation of privacy.

Reacting to the historic passage of a transgender-inclusive amendment to the  important human rights ordinance in Miami-Dade county, and targeted at reversing others across the state, HB 583 makes it a crime to use a bathroom that does not coordinate with the sex on one’s birth certificate or drivers’ license.  Both the bathroom user and the company that provides the public restroom can even by sued by members of the public. The bill cleared its first committee on the second day of the legislative session.

The sponsor claims this bill is necessary to make sure that men don’t rape and assault women and girls in public restrooms yet can’t provide an example where a transgender-inclusive HRO ever protected such behavior. To be clear, assault, rape, stalking and similar crimes are already illegal under Florida law, even when they happen in bathrooms, and the bill would force business owners to play “gender police,” having to investigate the gender of anyone using their facilities.

As public testimony made clear, the bill is really about preying on ugly myths and fear about transgender people and keeping trans women out of women’s bathrooms.   Our government should not be institutionalizing discrimination, and instead work to pass protections our LGBT community which is already subject to violence, harassment and discrimination. We will continue to fight this bill as it advances throughout the legislative process.

Week two is just starting and so are the attacks on women’s reproductive health.  On Thursday morning, the House Health Quality Committee will vote on a 24-hour mandatory delay on abortions. The bill would require a woman to make two trips to a clinic even when that would impose an undue burden on her due to time, cost, child care or employment responsibilities and more.

There is one bit of good news, though.  On Tuesday morning the Senate Criminal Justice Committee will hear a bill to require a unanimous jury recommendation before imposing the death penalty. Florida is the last state in the entire country to allow a person to be sentenced to death on a simple majority vote and now is the time to make procedural changes to ensure the death penalty is rare, reserved for the worst of the worst, and only imposed when a jury is unanimous in its decision.

We also this afternoon heard news that the sponsor of a bill involving body cameras for Florida police officers has agreed to withdraw the bill and revisit the privacy and accountability language after ACLU supporters and a coalition of civil rights groups raised their concerns.

2015 is shaping up to be a big year for civil rights and liberties in Florida. Check back here to hear more about juvenile justice, privacy and other issues that should be scheduled for hearing soon.