We’re asking for your help to continue our newsroom’s important reporting. Support LGBTQ+ journalism by contributing today!. Republicans have controlled Florida’s state government for Nate Douglas’s entire life. The Democratic candidate for Florida House would like the state to shift a different direction, of course. But growing up Black and gay in Orlando, the now-23-year-old felt for most of his life that the state was more socially liberal than it may seem to outsiders.