ABOVE: Michael Thomas Farmer speaks at the Equality Florida Greater Orlando Gala at the Orlando Museum of Art earlier this month. Photo by Meghan Sweeney
ORLANDO | Equality Florida is losing one of its star players. Statewide Deputy Development Director Michael Thomas Farmer announced via Facebook that he will be leaving the statewide equality organization on Nov. 30.
“When I started working at Equality Florida nearly 10 years ago, I never could have imagined where I, and we, would be today,” Farmer wrote. “It’s been the honor of my life to have been part of the leadership team at Equality Florida. Although at times the work was daunting, trying and challenging, the rewards of the work far outweighed any of the cons.”
Farmer joined Equality Florida in 2009 as the organization’s Safe Schools Policy and GSA Network Coordinator, training hundreds of students and teachers across the state on best practices for making schools safe for LGBTQ youth. That was a perfect role for Farmer since, at the age of 17, he and a group of friends started a GSA at the conservative Apopka High School.
Farmer is moving on to Compassion & Choices, a national organization that works to improve patient rights and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. Its primary function is advocating for and ensuring access to end-of-life options.
“I have been so fortunate,” Farmer wrote, “not only to have been born at the time in our history where so much of the foundational work in our movement had already been laid – and to think I may have played even some small part in carrying the torch to the next warrior, is humbling.”
