Some things I see cause such laughter and mirth I love to share it. I am amazed by this kitten. He has the true spirit of the cat. He is getting slammed over and over and he doesn’t give up. I am not even sure if the dog realized the kitten had his tail in a fight to the end. Great and grand post. Thanks. You find the grandest palate cleansers. Hugs
I have issues with Biden, but to give credit where credit is due, this is a classy thing to do. I respect this, he is a 79 year old man. But he knelt so the older ladies wouldn’t have to stand. Very decent thing to do. I seriously doubt TFG would have do this nor been able to do so. Hugs
This is another attempt to erase the LGBTQ+ from existing in public spaces, it is an attempt to remove protections and warnings to bullies that have protected the LGBTQ+ kids, and follow the further war to undo all the advances in equality and social acceptances that the LGBTQ+ have achieved over the last 50 years. For those I have argued with that claim the law doesn’t say don’t say gay and that all it is doing is protecting straight kids from being improperly groomed and indoctrinated in LGBTQ+ propaganda the left pushes. Sorry this is about harming and punishing the kids that are different and not straight. Why are they doing this for all grades when the law is written for K-3rd grade? Why is the districts doing this at all when there are those claiming that the law doesn’t require this? It is because it gives some bigoted right wing parent the right to sue is the district seems to be protect or advocating acceptance of LGBTQ+ kids. That hurts their god when gay kids are not bullied by their kids. This is getting serious dangerous again for kids that are different. Hugs
Duval County Public Schools removed a video teaching students how to support LGBTQ+ peers in response to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education Law. | Claire Heddles, Jacksonville Today
Duval County Public Schools has taken down a 12-minute anti-bullying video that taught middle and high school students how to support their gay and transgender peers, the latest in a string of vanishing LGBTQ resources in the district.
Besides the video, the district is planning to dramatically reduce a LGBTQ+ support guide, and the School Board will vote Monday on a policy that could require schools to notify parents if students want to use different names or pronouns in unofficial records, like ID cards and yearbooks.
The moves are largely in response to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law, which restricts how schools can teach about gender identification and sexual orientation. Supporters say the law give parents control of their children’s education, but critics have labeled it the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
A Duval Schools federal grant coordinator raised questions about removing the anti-bullying video, according to a Jacksonville Today review of internal district emails. “Here is what the students have access to for training,” the grant coordinator wrote to the district’s policy team on April 5, 2022. The email was marked “high importance.”
“I just wanted to make sure you both have a look before taking it down,” she wrote, attaching screenshots from the video detailing how to support LGBTQ+ peers, combat bullying in schools and respond when peers come out.
The video is now inaccessible and, in response to questions from Jacksonville Today, district spokesperson Tracy Pierce said, “The materials you referenced have been removed for legal review to ensure the content complies with recent state legislation.”
The video’s removal follows the district’s controversial takedown of a 37-page LGBTQ+ Support Guide last fall, and draft, consolidated support guidance that cuts out many of the explicit protections for transgender students. LGBTQ advocates say the disappearing resources send a dangerous message to a vulnerable student population.
“I do believe [the school system] is trying to create some kind of balance,” JASMYN CEO Cindy Watson tells Jacksonville Today. “But I don’t want to, in any way, suggest that removing all of this is the right thing because it creates a lot of uncertainty and a lack of safety for students right away.”
A training video by students, for students
The now-removed video, specifically created for students, was developed using funds from a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant. The district consulted with LGBTQ+ students in Duval Schools about how to best communicate the anti-bullying message with their peers, according to Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts science teacher, and campus Gay Straight Alliance faculty sponsor Scott Sowell.
He says he did not receive notification from the district about the plan to remove the video, even though some of his students helped to create it. It’s a training he’s used during monthly GSA meetings.
“The video was co-written by some students, and so it had very student-appropriate and student-specific language that was, you know, teenagers talking to other teenagers,” Sowell says. “It’s one critical resource that is now no longer available to teachers to help support students.”
Stills from the now-removed All In for Safe Schools student training video.
The guidance in the video includes, “Be generally respectful of things you may not understand,” and, “‘That’s so gay’ is NOT OKAY.” According to the teacher script accompanying the video, obtained by Jacksonville Today, the training was part of a program for students to obtain an “All In for Safe Schools” badge, a marker that signals the person completed the Safe Schools training.
The All In program is still in place for Duval Schools employees, according to the district’s website. It’s not clear whether the school district will continue the program for students in the upcoming school year. At the time of publishing, the student badge request form was publicly accessible, but the accompanying training video was not.
According to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law, classroom instruction “on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3, or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
The removed video was designed for students in grades 6-12, not K-3 graders, according to the script accompanying the training materials. And state guidance issued last month says the provision of the law for older students “takes effect only after the Florida Department of Education develops rules or guidance on age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate instruction.” Those rules have not yet been released, according to state officials.
Sowell says it’s disappointing the district removed the video preemptively, without notification or detailed explanation.
“If the district or individuals in the legal team are being held to a specific law, or piece of legislation or mandate that they have to change and edit this, then hopefully, they’ll be as transparent and communicate those changes to everyone involved so things just don’t just disappear,” Sowell says.
Another LGBTQ+ resource removed
The training was not the only LGBTQ+ support resource to disappear last school year. Six months prior to the video’s removal, Superintendent Diana Greene directed her staff to remove a decade-old LGBTQ+ Support Guide from the district’s website, amid rising right-wing backlash against similar support guides across Florida following a lawsuit in Leon County.
In an October 22, 2021, email obtained by Jacksonville Today, Greene told School Board members the guide was never intended to be a public document.
“As the document was not created for external use, it has been removed. Additionally, since the support guide has not undergone a comprehensive review in several years, I have instructed staff to work with the Officer of General Counsel to conduct a comprehensive review of the guidance,” Greene wrote last fall.
Duval parent Josinda York
At least a dozen districts had similar support guides in place last year, but more than half of them have since removed them from their websites, according to an Equality Florida lawsuit. Duval Schools announced a plan last month to cut back most of the former support guide.
“Consolidating training and guidance documents for staff shouldn’t reflect on our commitment to supporting students,” Dr. Greene said in a recent press release. “The proof is in our actions, and we will continue to do all we can to help students thrive.”
But parents of trans students, like Duval mom Josinda York, fear fewer guidelines could hurt kids like hers. York’s son, now in middle school, told her he was a boy when he was 4. Josinda started transitioning him at school in the second grade.
“This would have been a direct issue for him had they not had everything in place already, because that gave the school all the tools they needed to help him with his transition,” York tells Jacksonville Today. “Specifically because the School Board had these guidelines, they had something to go by.”
York says the level of detail about trans students’ federal rights and frequently asked questions in the former support guide, stripped out in the consolidated draft guidance, were an important part of her family’s experience in Duval Schools.
Without the former support guide, York says, “I think the principal still would have supported us, but I don’t know if they would have had the education to properly support us.”
Hundreds of parents have shown up at recent Duval School Board meetings to comment on the support guide, some to push back against the proposed changes and others advocating for throwing out the support guide altogether. According to the district, the proposed changes were not required by Florida’s new laws, but were a choice by district staffers.
“We are taking these steps to streamline our training and internal communication with staff even though it is not required under the law,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email to Jacksonville Today.
Monday’s vote could bring more changes
In addition to the disappearing training materials, Duval School Board members are also set to vote on a policy change — drafted in response to Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law — requiring schools to send emails to parents if there’s a change in student services, which would include if students want to change their name or pronouns in unofficial school records, like ID cards and yearbooks, according to proposed district guidance. According to the draft policy, schools would send the email to parents, unless there’s a risk of “abuse, abandonment or neglect.”
The new policy would likely affect trans kids and their parents, like Dawn and David Clapp. The two were decked out in LGBTQ+ pride gear at the last School Board meeting, David in a pink and blue shirt that reads, “Trans rights are human rights” and Dawn with a “Love Wins” headband. They’re, by all accounts, affirming parents to their transgender daughter.
Dawn and David Clapp, and their daughter, gathered with LGBTQ+ advocates before a June school board meeting.
Even with supportive parents, their daughter was first comfortable coming out to her friends and a teacher at her Duval charter school. She told her parents she was a girl later on when she felt ready.
“We were supportive of her,” Clapp says. “It was surprising, and it’s been a lot to deal and adjust with, but she’s become this amazing, blossoming human being because she’s felt safe at home and safe at school to be who she wants to be.”
Dawn and David are among a group of parents of transgender kids, and other LGBTQ+ advocates, who oppose sending an automatic email to parents that “outs” kids without their consent, instead of letting kids like the Clapp’s daughter change their name on class rosters, but tell their parents when they want to, as the policy currently permits.
“My children’s friends that don’t have as supportive parents, it scares me for them, that they would have that taken from them,” Dawn Clapp says.
District staffers say the new policy is necessary to comply with Florida’s new law.
It’s not only LGBT students — it is anyone who doesn’t follow the norm — whether sexual or any other difference which is normal between humans. Blacks, browns, Asians, Jews, Muslims, any of several other religious sects, diet habits, dress, you name it — it is an attack against humanity itself.
“It’s hard to even see the mission right now, much less put your faith in it,” one Biden bundler said regarding the difficulty of fundraising for the president these days.
Scott Bixby
White House Reporter
Angelo Merendino/Getty
The Biden administration’s halting response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, along with an inflammatory criticism by a senior White House official over the weekend, has angered some of the very people that President Joe Biden hopes will stir up voters ahead of the midterms—and even a few of the people who are supposed to support those efforts with their wallets.
“Furious,” texted one Biden bundler for whom abortion is a key issue, when asked about the mood of like-minded financial supporters of the president. “The statement was just so unnecessarily disrespectful of people who helped elect him, truly.”
“We are experts at at what we do and what it takes to get an abortion in this country,” said Morgan Hopkins, the interim executive director of campaigns and strategies at All* Above All, an abortion-rights group, who pointed out that it was activists who pushed Biden to reverse his opposition to the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding going to abortion services. “We have a political organization, we know the importance of voting, and people across this country know the importance of voting, and we need the boldest of action from the White House.”
“I will not take being called an activist as an insult,” Hopkins said. “Activism works.”
The statement in question—in which outgoing White House communications director and longtime Biden media guru Kate Bedingfield declared that the president’s “goal” was not to “satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party”—incensed abortion rights advocates when it was first published in TheWashington Post on Saturday.
“People around the country are rightfully terrified and seeking leadership that is bold and effective,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, which recently joined 18 other civil rights groups to demand a meeting with Biden to discuss concrete steps to protect abortion access. “Advocates around the country are pushing every leader to do more, and that must include the White House.”
But while Biden and his team have long since grown accustomed to public displays of frustration from activists on issues ranging from immigration to LGBTQ rights, some told The Daily Beast that this latest slight risks discouraging those groups from coordinating with the White House going forward—with the razor-thin Democratic majorities in Congress at stake.
Biden ‘to Nominate an Anti-Abortion Judge in Kentucky’
WHAT A DEAL
“We have never depended on Biden to get abortions—when he was vice president or now,” said Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of We Testify, an organization that represents those who have had abortions. “The question is whether he’s ready to plug into the organizing that’s happening with or without his administration.”
In the weeks after the initial leak of a draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that found ruled that the ability to end a pregnancy was a constitutional right, the Biden administration pledged to pursue a “whole-of-government” response to any potential threat to abortion access. But once the decision was finally released on June 24, that plan has primarily focused on encouraging Democrats to vote more abortion supporters into office in order to codify Roe into law.
“The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law,” Biden said hours after the Dobbs decision was released, noting that as president, he was powerless to do so himself. “Voters need to make their voices heard. This fall, we must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again.”
That is a tall order ahead of midterm elections in which the Democratic Party is on track to lose its majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate—and the kind of plan that requires working hand-in-hand with advocates and activists who have decades of experience mobilizing voters who support abortion access.
Abortion-rights advocates say there’s no chance that they will walk away from the work they’ve done for decades because of one pissy statement. But the Biden administration’s “vote, vote vote” message, to them, feels like an abdication of authority—to say nothing of the White House’s rejection of proposals like expanding the Supreme Court, building abortion clinics on federal lands and declaring a national public-health emergency.
“We’ll continue doing what we’ve always done for the past decade: getting people to the abortions they need and organizing our communities,” said Sherman. “But the president cannot continue to say that he’s doing everything he can to support abortion when he had to be begged to say the word and is installing a lifetime of barriers in the judicial system.”
The feeling of disengagement from Biden, if not from the midterm elections entirely, has also percolated up to the donor space, according to three high-dollar bundlers from the 2020 presidential campaign. The White House’s cautious response to Dobbs, one of the bundlers said, won’t singlehandedly push donors to ditch Democrats—but combined with Biden’s poor polling and the gloomy outlook for his domestic agenda, is not exactly making the case for doubling down on investing in Biden’s political future.
“When you’re a fundraiser and you’re reaching out to your network on a candidate’s behalf, you need to believe in that candidate and his/her mission,” one bundler said. “It’s hard to even see the mission right now, much less put your faith in it.”
Negative feelings about the administration’s handling of any issue, another noted, makes fundraising more difficult—even if the president’s biggest bundlers are still stalwart supporters.
“Nobody who stayed Team Biden during Iowa-New Hampshire-Nevada is going to ditch him over this,” they said. “But the parvenus who came onboard once he got the nomination are fickle almost by definition.”
Across the board, bundlers and activists noted that with the Senate filibuster intact and the Supreme Court’s makeup set for years, the decks are largely stacked against major executive action. Biden has also issued executive orders directing his administration to help increase access to abortion medication, as well as promising to fight state laws that could criminalize crossing state lines to obtain an abortion.
“They have taken important steps,” Goss Graves said. “The executive order was important, the materials the agencies are releasing this week have provided critical clarity, but the work is not done.”
But that work will require working together, said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who said that her organization is “committed” to working with the Biden administration on abortion protections.
“We recognize that there are limits to what the Biden administration can do to remedy the chaos caused by this decision,” said McGill Johnson. “People expect actions from elected officials at all levels of government—including the president—that not only affirm, but protect their right to abortion and freedom to make decisions about their own bodies and futures.”
In the hyper-masculine right-wing internet community known as the “manosphere,” few figures loom larger than Jesse Lee Peterson. The Los Angeles-based pastor and online radio host has become a star in conservative media in part for his demands that men and women return to his unorthodox version of traditional gender norms.
Peterson has also emerged as one of the right’s most vocal anti-gay figures. He’s claimed that people who march in gay pride parades are the children of Satan, and that “radical homosexuals are evil.”
Now several of Peterson’s one-time friends allege that the pastor’s own personal life is rife with gay sexual relationships. Two of Peter’s former male associates came out in June with on-the-record interviews saying they engaged in sexual activities with him, while other men say he propositioned them.
As longtime JMG readers will recall, I’ve reported on Peterson’s often bizarre anti-gay statements dozens of times over the last decade.
He last appeared on JMG last August when he sponsored a second annual California “Straight Pride” event which ended in violence by the Proud Boys.
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Jesse Lee Peterson says depression is caused by sinning. Peterson says all Asians look alike to him. Peterson says “weak straight people” have allowed “radical homosexuals” to seize the terms husband and wife. Peterson says men should not marry “educated women” as women should be cooking and cleaning, not seeking degrees. Peterson calls for sending Andrew Yang back to China. Peterson says Brett Kavanaugh isn’t a real man because his kids are all girls and “real men make boys first.” Peterson says Roy Moore’s Senate loss proves that black Democrats don’t believe in God. Peterson says that women who accuse Trump of sexual assault are “literally Satan’s daughters.” Peterson declares discrimination by businesses to be a “good thing.” Peterson calls for boycotting the NFL over openly gay player Michael Sam.
More than 15,000 people have marched in Romania’s capital Bucharest for equal rights for gender and sexual minorities as the country’s lower chamber of the parliament is set to vote on a law later this year that bans discussion of homosexuality and gender identity in public spaces.
An amendment to the Romanian Child Protection Law that was proposed by the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), an ethnic minority party that is part of the ruling coalition, was inspired by a similar law which was adopted by Hungary in 2021.
After being passed by the Senate in April and approved by the Romanian Human Rights Commission, the bill needs the backing of the lower chamber of parliament.
“The way it looks like at the moment, this bill is completely anti-democratic from many points of view, mainly because it hinders the freedom of expression and because it stands against all treaties, conventions, and international recommendations regarding LGBT rights,” said Ionela Baluta, who participated in Saturday’s Bucharest Pride to support the community and oppose the bill.
Baluta, a professor at the political sciences faculty of the University of Bucharest, with expertise in gender studies, political representation and gender equality policies, is concerned about the ambiguous formulation of the bill.
She thinks it could lead to consequences as far-reaching as gender studies being banned in universities and individuals being incriminated for posting information related to gender identity on their personal social media accounts.
The European Parliament’s LGBTI Intergroup expressed their concerns about the bill in a statement, urging members of the Romanian legislature to be “clear and resolute in striking it down”.
Deeming it as “another attempt to galvanise hatred in Romania”, Marc Angel, the group’s co-chair, added that “this bill has no human rights compliance and serves no societal purpose but to ostracise further those already discriminated against”.
A similar law, attempting to ban gender identity information in Romania’s schools and universities, was deemed unconstitutional by the Romanian Constitutional Court in 2020 after being passed by the Senate and the parliament’s lower chamber.
“Back then in 2020 when the law passed through the parliament, it felt like the world collapsed on me because I realised I couldn’t be myself any more,” said Gabriel Gherman, a 20-year-old transgender community activist and community facilitator with ACCEPT Romania – an NGO advocating for LGBTQ rights.
“I’m sure this time it would be the same if it would pass, but nobody with real political power asked us young transgender people in Romania how we feel about it,” Gherman said.
Although same-sex relationships have been decriminalised in Romania since 2001, Romania remains conservative towards the LGBTQ community, with same-sex couples still not being allowed to marry or enter into civil partnerships.
A banner in support of equal democratic rights was displayed during the Bucharest Pride march. ‘We continue to hope that this law will not be passed by the Romanian parliament … as this is a clearly unconstitutional initiative, which places us closer to Russia, in opposition with the European values that we adhered to by the will of the Romanian people, by being part of the EU and signing the human rights convention,’ said Teodora Ion-Rotaru Roseti from ACCEPT Romania. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
A banner with a hate message towards same-sex marriage was displayed during a counterprotest organised by Noua Dreapta, a far-right group. In 2018, conservative and religious organisations attempted to change the constitution through a referendum to prevent same-sex marriage from ever becoming legal. The referendum failed after voter turnout fell below the threshold of 30 percent needed to validate it. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
About 200 people displaying anti-LGBTQ rights banners and Christian Orthodox imagery participated in a counterprotest in response to the Pride march, on Saturday. The protest has been taking place on the same day as the Pride march since 2005. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
Young people participating in a ‘Pride in the Tram’ event wave at people waiting in a tram station. ‘We want to outline the fact that LGBT people exist in all walks of life and the tram takes message for equality rights through various neighbourhoods and reclaims public spaces and services for the community. It is also a message about the need for safety in public spaces for LGBT people,’ said Vlad Levente Viski from Mozaiq, an NGO advocating for LGBT rights. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
Two women hug each other during the Pride march. ‘Having a community feels for us like having another family, in the community we find our people, with whom we can be ourselves. When I had the opportunity to spend time in the community I felt great joy,’ said Gabriel Gherman, community facilitator from ACCEPT Romania. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
A Ukrainian dancer waves his national flag in a message against war during Bucharest Pride. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
People celebrated diversity marching, dancing and waving LGBTQ flags through the centre of Bucharest. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
A huge LGBTQ flag was carried by people participating in the Pride parade. [Alexandra Radu/Al Jazeera]
Scottie's Playtime 