This is what these bills are designed to do, create fear and keep the gay and trans kids hidden, to stop any positive reinforcement of LGBTQ+ while allowing all the negatives and slurs full volume to attack them. This is designed to reenforce white cis heterosexuality only. Make being gay or trans so hated kids and teacher live in fear of the other kids who target them with the authority of maga parents and the school administration behind them. It is indoctrination of right wing hate. It worked in Russia and other countries it has been done like China or the Islamic countries. It is about erasing the LGBTQ+ from society and returning to a time when hate and hostility towards minorities was accepted as normal. How is combating racism and bigotry controversial or political unless one party has racism and bigotry as their identity? How can it be a bad thing in 2022 to be against racism? This is a serious regression in society, the right wants to unwind the entire civil rights movement. Ask yourself why? Who wins in that situation? Hugs
Anything deemed political, with LGBTQ subject matter in the bullseye, is being torn down, boxed up and otherwise removed from campuses.
Across Florida this new school year, rainbows, safe space stickers and books with LGBTQ themes and history are being replaced in classrooms out of fear.
The Parental Rights in Education Bill – called the Don’t Say Gay bill by its opponents – was signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March. It’s had a chilling effect on students, teachers and free speech across the state. Anything deemed political, with LGBTQ subject matter in the bullseye, is being torn down, boxed up and otherwise removed from campuses. Black Lives Matter posters are leaving along with rainbow flags.
In Sarasota, where high school senior Zander Moricz organized a headline-making student walkout in March, students and faculty report a grim environment imposed by school administrators enforcing the Don’t Say Gay law.
Gail Foreman, a longtime social studies teacher at Booker High School and a lesbian, says her principal didn’t wait for the law to take effect before conducting an inventory of inappropriate materials last March. “Anything that could even remotely be construed as gay-related came down,” Foreman told Buzzfeed News. “It wasn’t me putting this stuff up,” she said. “It was the kids. It was their classroom, too.”
Among the items removed were student-created posters reading “All Students Deserve Equal Education” and “All Minds Matter”; pride flags; a pride cape gifted by a student; safe space stickers from the Trevor Project; and a Mickey Mouse pen topped with a rainbow head. “Rainbows now symbolize politics,” Foreman said.
Senior Nora Mitchell, who founded Sarasota Students for Justice in 2020, says the Don’t Say Gay law has “allowed the Sarasota County School Board to create new policies that are, for lack of better words, extremely repressive within our school.” That school board now includes three new DeSantis-endorsed members, two of whom celebrated their victory in August with members of the neo-Nazi group, Proud Boys. One flashes a white power sign in a photo published by Vice News.
Mitchell, who came out to friends and teachers just before Don’t Say Gay was signed, says two banners she created were taken down and thrown away. One read, “Black Minds Matter,” and the other said, “We are all welcome here” and was decorated with rainbows. Officials “want school to feel unsafe,” says Mitchell, “and they want schools to be spaces where they can impress their own values of heterosexuality of whiteness. They want to reaffirm those values.”
Sarasota County Schools spokesperson Craig Maniglia denied the event Mitchell describes took place.
Mitchell and 2021 graduate Anthony Frisbee add that it’s not just school administrators tracking down violations. “Students have reported about teachers who are wearing anything rainbow-related,” says Mitchell. “It’s horrible.” In Frisbee’s view, “It’s like the Hitler Youth outing their parents.”
“You feel the sense of danger — like, school does not feel safe. It does not feel as vibrant as it was before,” Mitchell says. “Teachers can’t teach what they want, they can’t call students by their actual name, students are scared to be themselves at school. I mean, how can that possibly be conducive to learning or be a welcoming and fun place?”
Crowder loves to dress in drag and seems to have severe daddy issues. But here in this clip he keeps trying to push that the purpose of drag shows and puberty blockers is to pull kids away from their parents, indoctrinating them against parents rights somehow. But as Sam points out, who is taking the kids to these shows, it is the parents. Who takes the kids to the doctor, pays the doctor, agrees to the treatment of puberty blockers, it is the parents. This is not about stopping parents’ rights, unless you count the right of right wing parents to dictate to other people what the other parents’ kids can do. It is about the right of one religious or hyper conservative group of parents demanding the right to remove the right other parents to raise their children in accepting and tolerant ways. It is about the right wing demanding to indoctrinate kids into hating those not cis gender and straight. Hugs
Steven Crowder discusses the fact that this week is Trans Awareness Week, and expresses concern that the trans community is hoping to indoctrinate young children via drag shows. Crowder speculates that in about 5 years there could be a world where parents’ children will be taken from them by authorities if they don’t allow their children to go to drag shows.
ProPublica has obtained audio of a call between Tennessee State Legislators and Anti-Choice lobbyists, Will Brewer, the legal counsel for the organization Tennessee Right To Life, who urged Tennessee State legislators to “play offense” and refuse to accept any exemptions in their legislation.
Ben Shapiro discusses the Senate moving to introduce a bill to Federally codify Same Sex Marriage during the lame duck Congressional session. Shapiro says that this bill is pointless because of the precedent set by Obergefell v. Hodges at the Supreme Court, and that any Republican Senator who supports this legislation “…should not be in the Republican party.”
Right after I shared one of the things Randy sent me, I got a frantic call from a friend in the park. He needed help sending pictures to FEMA from the computer. This is the only complaint I have with FEMA over the response to Ian, everything is over the computer and we live in an area of a lot of older people and people not computer savvy. So I have let it be know I will help those having issues I will help. I invited them over and took care of the issue. But then we visited for a while. The point is that there are a lot of people who cannot do all the things they need to take care of online. I understand their frustration because I cannot do business over the phone. I can hardly book appointments and other simple things. I am just getting to the point at 59 years old I can talk to friends on the phone. I have explained the reason before. When I was a kid the phone was off limits to me. While the hell spawn could have phones in their rooms and would race to answer the wall phone, I was forbidden to touch it. One time when it rang, I simply lifted the receiver and handed it to someone else, I got reminded physically and verbally that I did not touch the phone. Painfully reminded, the bruises stayed with me for a while to remind me, I did not touch the home phones. Anyway enjoy the posts. Hugs
Another US election, another "Land doesn't vote, people do" style map showing the election results. pic.twitter.com/XmMTSUKJof
Barack Obama Shows What Fox News Destroyed In American Politics
The conservative network started the trend and it’s been turbocharged by social media, the former president told “The Daily Show” host Trevo
HUFFPOST
Barack Obama reflected Thursday on what he could do when running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in the early 2000s that he most likely couldn’t do now — because of Fox News and social media.
In an interview with “The Daily Show,” the former president recalled campaigning in rural, mainly conservative areas and still connecting with voters on a personal level, even though they were skeptical of his progressive ideas.
“There wasn’t the filter that has been created by Fox News or the media infrastructure, the right-wing conspiracy theory folks, and so they came at me with an open mind,” he told host Trevor Noah.
“I could listen to them and they could listen to me and at the end of the day, they might say, ‘Well he’s a little liberal for our taste, but we have something in common,’ ― like the love they have for their children,” Obama continued. “There was some sense of connection.”
“I think the filter now has become so thick,” he said. “It started with Fox News and some of the other traditional media, and now with social media that’s gotten turbocharged. If you go into those same communities now, they have so many preconceptions about what somebody like me believes, cares about, etc., that it’s very hard to penetrate.”
FOX killed our familial and neighborly dialog because conservatives do not want to defend their ‘values’.
Jesse Benton was pardoned by Russian asset Donald J Trump.
Russian spies look after each other.
Rand Paul works for Putin. His voting record is always pro-Russia. He hand-delivered a letter to Putin. No surprise his family has been groomed, as well, to serve our enemies in Russia.
Naming your kid after soulless Russian Ayn Rand was no mistake for Ron Paul.
In this clip Sam and Emma watch a clip of Joe Rogan and Matt Walsh as Walsh makes up things against trans people and Rogan uses the same terms and tactics used against gay people in the last century. It is very informative how Sam details what is being hinted at vs what is reality. Again remember that Matt Walsh is a theocrat. Well worth a watch. Hugs
I have Skype, and I like Skype. My Skype name is Scottiestoybox. If you send me a friend request please let me know who you are if possible, and that you are a Scotties Playtime view as I get a lot of fake sex scam bots. I just delete them. But during the week my wonderful brother Randy sends me stuff I have missed during the week. I love posting them here. If you are on Skype and want to send me something let me know. Randy sent me this and it is so grand. Ian McKellen is a legend and so impressive, and the letter he reads is so spot on. I wish the haters, the bigots, could understand this. Sad that the republicans powered by the right is trying to return the country to the open bigotry of the 1970s. Thank you, my brother Randy, for sending me another uplifting and wonderful video. Hugs
Make no mistake, even the sweater wearing quiet side of the republican party elected office holders are racist bigots. They want a return to a time of white male superiority where even the thought of equality for minors was not considered or worried about. Hugs
Glenn Youngkin promised to ban “critical race theory” from schools. His new plan has left his educational appointees confused.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) won his 2020 election by promising to ban anti-racist curriculum from schools. So he had his secretary of education consult conservative think tanks when rewriting the state’s history and social studies curriculum.
But now progressive racial groups have protested notable exclusions — like the deletion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, former President Barack Obama, and Juneteenth. Youngkin’s handpicked board of education has also been so confused by the proposed changes that they’ve asked for an extra month to review them.
Youngkin’s superintendent of public instruction, Jillian Balow, pushed the board to rewrite the new educational standards. The new document was “written over the course of about a month, replacing a prior version that took about 18 months to produce,” Axios reported.
To prepare the document, Balow consulted the Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank that praised Youngkin’s executive order banning so-called critical race theory (CRT) from public schools. The institute also supports charter schools, or so-called “school choice,” a push to weaken public education in favor of for-profit private schools which can sometimes exclude any students or topics they dislike.
Youngkin’s Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera submitted a rewrite of the curriculum. The plan deleted references to Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, mentioned white President Ronald Reagan five times but Black President Barack Obama only once, and referred to Indigenous people as “America’s first immigrants.” Black, Asian, Sikh, and Native American parents reportedly criticized the changes for excluding their histories.
Balow, however, swears the new curriculum won’t axe Black people from history.
“We don’t want to conflate concepts like African American History and CRT,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “Those are different conversations entirely. We have not had discussions about watering down or eliminating any of the African American history.”
To keep critics at bay, the education department submitted a new curriculum draft to the nine-member education board on Thursday, apologizing for the “unintentional errors” in the first draft. The board considered the new draft in an eight-hour meeting, but afterward, “board members mostly sounded confused,” Axios wrote, which was notable considering that Youngkin appointed five of its new members.
The board asked Balow to create a new draft that incorporates public comments while explaining what has changed and why. The board will consider those changes in about a month.
The possible changes are worrying considering that Virginia is just one of several states that have promised to ban CRT and to oppose LGBTQ inclusion in schools.
During Youngkin’s campaign, the Loudoun County, Virginia school district had tumultuous board meetings filled with anti-LGBTQ protesters who falsely claimed that the district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies led to sexual assaults that occurred before the policies were even enacted.
It seems a constant battle to weed out misinformation and misdirection from the public information sphere. The very people who wrote the study say this article and its authors got it wrong. So why did the authors of the article not simply ask the authors of the studies? Because they wanted to push a narrative it seems. They did get a few things correct and this article I am posting mentions that, but it does seem the authors of the NY Times piece had a bias they wanted to push instead of the truth. So the anti-trans heroes on the right leaped on this NY Times article to push the misinformation with glee. One of the main points that show the NY Times pushing lies their article claims that puberty blockers cause osteoporosis (thin bones) in teens that use them. This is false, and the study they were quoting from said the observed change in bone density of teens on puberty blockers was zero! The NY Times authors flat out lied, and the right wing rabid anti-trans ran with it know few people would check it. Hugs
The NY Times’ analysis of this data is so misleading that some advocates question the motives behind the piece: “This is not investigative journalism.”
While public sentiment toward transgender people in the U.S. continues to warm, anti-transgender campaigners are exploiting the public’s uncertainty about trans youth to promote Florida-style bans on gender-affirming care.
And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Boston Children’s Hospital has been on the receiving end of at least three bomb threats this year due to misinformation about health care for transgender youth being provided there.
The piece hinges on what the authors describe as “emerging evidence of potential harm” related to the use of puberty-suppressing medications for transgender youth. But transgender health experts say that the data referenced in the Times‘ reporting comes to a different conclusion. The Times’ analysis of this data is so misleading that some advocates are questioning the motives behind the piece.
I talked with three experts – a trans advocate and educator, a psychology researcher, and a gender-affirming healthcare provider – to better understand what the Times got wrong and why it matters. Their criticisms touched on a range of issues including the data, the sources, and the framing of the issues. Many of these concerns are echoed by transgender people and care providers across the country.
“Basically, any way you slice it, this is not investigative journalism,” said Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore,
Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore, a psychology researcher familiar with the studies on gender-affirming care, criticized The Times’ interpretation of the data about puberty blockers. Dr. Quinnehtukqut McLamore
who has a Ph.D. in Psychology and conducts research at the University of Missouri at Columbia. “This is storytelling and editorializing from science they – at best – don’t understand because they don’t apply a logical lens to it.”
Critics of the Times piece said the reporters did get a few things right: More research on transgender health topics is needed. The reticence of drug companies to conduct research with transgender people creates barriers for FDA approval. Bone scans are beneficial for youth before and during treatment with puberty blockers.
And the most concerning is the fear that research findings could be exploited in the current political climate.
The Times article is itself a clear example of this exploitation in action and is arguably more dangerous than the transparently transphobic content published by opponents of trans rights. By echoing their claims in an ostensibly objective news outlet with a large, mainstream audience, the authors lend legitimacy to hateful extremists.
Many of the false claims promoted by those who believe gender-affirming care is tantamount to child abuse are presented to readers as if they’re objective fact. While this would be dangerous enough in an opinion piece, the Times framed this reporting as a well-vetted public service piece:
As growing numbers of adolescents who identify as transgender are prescribed drugs to block puberty, the treatment is becoming a source of confusion and controversy.
We spent months scouring the scientific evidence, interviewing doctors around the world and speaking to patients and families.
Here’s a closer look at what we found.
The celebratory response from far-right pundits is revealing. The Daily Wire‘s Matt Walsh, whose film What is a Woman? manipulates the documentary format in an attempt to legitimize harmful transphobic myths, took credit for “[forcing] the NYT to admit that puberty blockers are dangerous.”
We forced the NYT to admit that puberty blockers are dangerous. They're a decade late and deserve no credit or applause. But it's still great news because it shows that our movement is winning. We're dragging left wing institutions into the light, kicking and screaming.
Jenn Burleton, director of the TransActive Gender Project at Lewis and Clark’s College of Education and Counseling, has watched media narratives about transgender people evolve over 35 years of advocacy work. She’s seen the damage anti-transgender rhetoric can do. As part of the college’s first-of-its-kind certificate program in Gender Diversity in Children and Youth, Burleton lectures on the origins and impacts of anti-transgender bias.
Jenn Burleton, program director for the TransActive Gender Project, was interviewed for The New York Times piece but said the reporter’s coverage missed the mark.
She was one of the experts interviewed for the Times article. But Burleton told LGBTQ Nation she was disappointed that the reporter declined to include any discussion of the forces behind the current campaign against gender-affirming care.
“I primarily discussed the immense amount of disinformation being spread about trans-affirming healthcare, specifically as it impacts adolescents and teens,” Burleton recalled. “[Megan Twohey] seemed very interested in looking into that, and I believed the story was going to have content that exposed the false claims being made in white nationalist media and in some state legislatures.”
Instead of delving into the well-documented rise in trans antagonism promoted by far-right religious and political groups, the brief mention of Burleton portrays her as a pushy activist, prodding healthcare providers and advocating for “early and easy access” to puberty-suppressing medication.
Dr. AJ Ecker, a nonbinary trans doctor, provides gender-affirming care at Connecticut’s Anchor Health.
Dr. AJ Eckert, who directs the gender-affirming care program for Anchor Health in Connecticut and teaches at Quinnipiac University’s school of medicine, described the report as “another hit piece against trans people.” He also expressed frustration about the timing of the story, which was published on the first day of Transgender Awareness Week.
“I don’t understand how a journalist in good faith can publish something like this,” Eckert told LGBTQ Nation. “Trans youth are a vulnerable target and this is just so extremely sh**ty.”
Far from clarifying confusion about the safety and efficacy of “puberty blockers” in easing gender dysphoria, the reporting fuels an increasingly vitriolic debate over the existential rights of transgender people. The most vocal opponents of prescribing medications like Lupron to temporarily suspend exogenous puberty – or puberty a person would go through absent puberty blockers – are not calling for a more cautious approach. Rather, they advocate for the eradication of transgender identities altogether.
As trans Harvard Law instructor Alejandra Caraballo pointed out on Twitter, “The anti-trans side doesn’t want research, they want us eliminated.”
The NYT claims to want more science and studies but then contributes to the same climate that chills more research and studies. Florida banned research as part of it's gender affirming care ban. The anti-trans side doesn't want research, they want us eliminated.
But no amount of research will make a difference if media outlets like the Times are unable or unwilling to accurately translate its findings and their significance.
“The entire article is based on the premise that puberty blockers are horrible for bone health,” Dr. Eckert explained. Through cherry-picked anecdotes and quotes, the story paints a picture of children being pushed into taking a dangerous and untested drug that might give them osteoporosis and which locks them into a medical transition process.
The Times describes one teen’s experiences:
During treatment, the teen’s bone density plummeted — as much as 15 percent in some bones — from average levels to the range of osteoporosis, a condition of weakened bones more common in older adults.
The anecdote elicits an emotional response, but there is no data to support the claim that puberty blockers are giving teenagers osteoporosis. Unfortunately, the average reader won’t dig into the cited research studies to fact-check these claims – they will simply trust that the Times’ interpretation of that data is accurate and presented without bias.
What Does the Data Say?
“Simply put, there’s no evidence in their review that puberty blockers lower adolescents’ bone mineral density at all. And here’s how I know this: [the studies] say so,” Dr. McLamore explained.
They explained that the difference in bone density between trans youth on blockers and their cisgender peers is attributable to the difference in exposure to sex hormones. Also, trans youth are more likely to have lower bone density before starting puberty blockers, due to a dysphoria-related lack of exercise and nutritional deficiencies.
“Puberty causes an increase in bone density. Blocking puberty will then halt this increase; therefore, bone density will decrease in these trans youth compared to cis youth, an expected result,” Dr. Eckert explained. “Trans youth treated with puberty blockers in early puberty have changes in bone health comparable to those of cis youth of their experienced gender.”
Also unfounded is the claim that gender-affirming care reinforces trans identity, as if healthcare providers are encouraging a bad habit by indulging a patient’s desire for medically-appropriate care.
“According to the gender-critical crowd, affirming a youth’s gender identity, whether socially and/or medically with blockers, causes a youth to double down on that identity. It’s an oft-cited argument to dissuade parents and school environments from affirming youths’ true identities,” Eckert explained. “There is precisely zero evidence that blockers ‘lock in’ a trans identity. Yes, many trans youth start gender-affirming hormones. Trans adolescents know who they are. Those youth who started on blockers and moved on to gender-affirming hormones do so because they are trans.”
To force youth to delay transition in the hopes that puberty will reaffirm their sex assigned at birth is cruel and potentially deadly. Heightened gender dysphoria is associated with an increased risk of suicidality.
“Puberty does not ‘help clarify gender,’” Eckert said. “For many of us, puberty can be highly traumatic and irreversible; waiting to see if gender dysphoria resolves is not a neutral response.”
On the contrary, puberty blockers can prevent the need for future surgeries by preventing the development of noncongruent sex characteristics like breasts or facial hair.
What’s the Harm?
As many transgender folks have observed, the study authors and named sources include a cast of familiar antagonists. And while the Times mentions in passing that some of these sources have testified in favor of state-level bans on gender-affirming care, their names are not cited in connection with the article’s dubious claims, leaving readers to take them at face value.
Of the 50-plus sources the authors say they interviewed, only about a dozen are named in the article. According to the Times, this is because several sources requested to not be named and more than a dozen declined the interview. Instead, they are cited under the syntactical cover of “some experts,” significant enough to matter but not specific enough to be held accountable.
Why do these concerns matter? Because they have a real-world impact. A well-functioning press has the power to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But a reckless reporter’s pen can be just as harmful as a drunk surgeon’s scalpel.
The article repeatedly and uncritically leans into the talking points of anti-transgender extremists, parroting their narratives without examining their sources. As a result, advocates of gender-affirming care are finding themselves in a never-ending game of Whack-a-Myth.
“I’m tired of repeatedly refuting the same points,” Eckert said, noting that they have been so busy responding to the false claims that they have gotten little sleep since Monday. “But I have to keep doing it until mainstream media starts platforming trans voices alongside these biased and transphobic editorials.”
Though public trust in media is on the decline, the Times has managed to maintain a reputation as a trustworthy news source, particularly among the sort of well-educated, left-leaning readers who are most likely to support transgender rights.
The credibility of this story is also bolstered by its byline. Lead author Megan Twohey is best known for helping break the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault story. A film about her journalistic accomplishments, She Said, hits theaters this week. Co-author Christina Jewett is an award-winning journalist who focuses on issues including drug safety. Readers can’t be blamed for seeing them as trustworthy.
“The harm done by this article is not that it reveals disagreement about treatment methodologies among a relatively small group of providers and researchers. Disagreement and unbiased, ethical discussion about healthcare is imperative to delivering improved healthcare,” TransActive’s Burleton explained. “The harm done by this article is that it implies that trans-affirming providers and advocates oppose asking questions that will improve trans-affirming healthcare. The article ignores the [denial] that anti-trans zealots – including some care providers/’experts’ – have about the very existence or authenticity of gender expansive identity.”
Whether the author’s missteps are due to malice or ignorance is up for debate. But it is worth noting that neither of the reporters has much experience covering transgender issues. That much is clear from the language they use to describe the experience of being transgender. The authors conflate gender dysphoria and trans identity with “the discomfort of puberty” and cite an interest in wearing dresses as evidence that a child must not have a masculine gender identity. At one point, they go so far as to describe supporters of gender-affirming care as “enthusiasts.”
The Times owes transgender people an apology – and some serious soul-searching – after platforming anti-trans extremism under the guise of investigative journalism. While Monday’s front-page story purports to be a thorough analysis of the scientific research, it traffics in a dangerous misrepresentation of the data. It’s not the first problematic piece from the Times, but it is the most high profile. And while other media outlets are guilty of similar missteps, reporters like Twohey and Jewett (and their editors) should be capable of better. And if they aren’t, perhaps the Times should consider assigning these stories to transgender journalists.
Photo: Shutterstock
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