Reformed KKK member comes out as trans & slams Ron DeSantis’s crusade against liberalism

R. Derek Black grew up learning to hate. Their father, Don Black, was a prominent Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, and as such, Black was a public figure in the white nationalist movement from the time they were a young child.

But their entire worldview transformed when they became a student at what was long considered one of the most liberal, crunchy, LGBTQ+-friendly schools: the New College of Florida.

Related:

Ron DeSantis’s Florida sues Biden admin for right to deny trans people gender-affirming care

The state is also currently suing for the right to discriminate against trans kids in schools.

In an excerpt from their new memoir, The Klansman’s Son, obtained by the Daily Mail, Black reportedly details their metamorphosis as they got to know the students whose identities they’d been told to detest their entire lives. They began attending Shabbat dinners at a friend’s dorm. They started even dated a Jewish woman before marrying another New College peer, Allison Gornik. They also began exploring their own gender identity.

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Black, now 35, officially denounced white nationalism in 2013 in a letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center, where they wrote that they’ve “grown past my bubble, talked to the people I affected, read more widely, and realized the necessary impact my actions had on people I never wanted to harm.”

In the memoir’s epilogue, Black comes out as trans and speaks out for today’s trans youth in Florida whose rights are being decimated by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration.

“I can’t imagine how horrible it would have been to grow up in the current political environment as a child who, until puberty, was quite happy about being often perceived as a girl, and who then hid that part of myself,” they say.

Black’s alma mater is also currently under attack by DeSantis, who is determined to transform the liberal mecca into a right-wing institution.

Last year, he appointed six new members to the New College’s board of trustees who were loyal to him and his ideology – including far-right and anti-LGBTQ+ activist Christopher Rufo – who then proceeded to remove the college’s president and appoint a DeSantis administration official in his place.

DeSantis planned to turn New College into the “Hillsdale of the South,” a reference to the private and infamously conservative Christian college in Michigan. Rufo said that the goal of what has been described as a “hostile takeover of a liberal college” was to “provide an alternative for conservative families in the state of Florida to say there is a public university that reflects your values.”

Students and faculty have since been fleeing the school in droves.

In a 2023 interview with Slate, Black said they didn’t understand why the administration would target such a small and, until now, relatively unknown institution that they did not find any more progressive than a standard liberal arts school.

“It is not a school that is about believing any one thing. It’s about legitimately figuring out what it is you believe and what your values are. And so I almost kind of wonder whether there’s some kind of misunderstanding about what kind of school this even is. The new administration came in and saw an opportunity and said, ‘Oh, that looks like a leftist place, let’s attack it,’ without really thinking about whether they were right to characterize it that way.”

“In the end, it is just an academic institution that is very good at teaching people critical thinking, and I certainly don’t want that to get lost by people who don’t quite understand what they’re coming into.”

They added that the curriculum is far from the “radical” left content DeSantis has made it out to be.

“They’re acting like the things being taught there are extremely political or ideologically driven. That’s not accurate. Like most universities, I’m sure most of the faculty are probably registered Democrats. But people don’t teach politics or ideology in their courses; they just teach free inquiry.”

Editor’s Note: This article originally misidentified Allison Gornik’s religion as Jewish. We regret the error.

Don't forget to share: