These bans on trans care started as don’t discuss gender at schools except straight gender role models to protect the children. Then it moved to stopping kids from social transitioning to protect the children. That moved to we have to protect the children from medical transitioning, including the use of reversible non-harmful puberty blockers. That moved to preventing all trans people from transitioning, effectively removing them from society. And they no longer claim it is to protect the children. This was the goal from the start, ending trans people and reaffirming / enforcing 1950s stereotypical gender roles. Who do you think they will try to remove next? They went for drag queens / trans people as the most vulnerable targets. But these same republicans have already labeled the rest of the LGBTQ+ as dangers to children, especially the gays and their rainbow flag. They already got rid of the rainbow flag and any mention of being gay in schools, and removed all LGB media from school libraries. Not even stories about kids with two mommies or same sex penguins raising a chick together. How long until they try the Russian method of just outlawing any mention or action of being gay in public? In Texas they again killed a bill to remove the anti-same sex laws off the books even though the SCOTUS made such laws illegal. I feel like a Jew in Nazi Germany in the 1930s watching laws being made to outlaw me and people like me, telling everyone yet not seeing any real push back to the hate and bigotry. Hugs
Most media coverage on the impact of SB254 in Florida has focused on the youth care prohibition. In reality, it threatens 80% of all trans adult care by banning nurse practitioners from providing it.
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A new Florida law threatens to disrupt up to 80% of gender affirming care for transgender adults, yet this impact has been largely underreported. The legislation, SB254, has been passed and will go into effect when signed by Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. It has caught the eye of LGBTQ+ media primarily due to its impact on transgender youth as outlined in the bill’s provisions: it outright bans gender affirming care for this demographic, and may also introduce complexities in custody scenarios where parents disagree on affirmation.
While the majority of discourse around SB254 focuses on its repercussions for transgender youth, a provision that has received less attention within the bill is already spelling disaster for transgender adult care. The legislation bars all nurse practitioners from offering gender affirming care and imposes additional restrictions on informed consent care for transgender adults. Considering that nurse practitioners provide the majority of gender affirming care, this could drastically reduce the number of providers, lowering it to a level that is unsustainable for Florida’s transgender patient population.
In an exclusive conversation with Lana Dunn from SPEKTRUM Health, the clinic has indicated that it is getting a near constant influx of phone calls from patients whose appointments are being cancelled. Reasons for cancellation include that the care is too difficult to provide now given new liabilities introduced by this law and restrictions on perscribers. While SPEKTRUM is still providing care, Dunn indicates that they are in an uncomfortable limbo:
“We have thousands of patients at SPEKTRUM, all of whom are eagerly trying to get their appointments in before the law goes into effect and we simply have no way to keep up with the demand. Our team has been working feverishly throughout all of this to meet the demand,” Dunn says.
When asked about organizations that are ceasing care, she even indicated that once the law takes effect, SPEKTRUM may have to cease care: “Here at SPEKTRUM we are operating at the highest capacity possible until such a time as the law goes into effect at which point we will have no choice but to cease providing gender affirming care.”
The provisions causing trouble for organizations are seen here:
Section mandating care be provided by Physicians along with informed consent forms that may amount to medical disinformation.
Section giving the Board of Medicine authority to expand on informed consent requirements.
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These provisions taken together spell out requirements for providers of gender affirming care that will drastically lower its availability to transgender adults. SPEKTRUM has confirmed that at least 80% of all gender affirming care is provided by nurse practitioners in the state. This matches with data from my informed consent hormone therapy map – very few of the locations go to MDs/DOs. Planned Parenthood, which provides a huge amount of the care, primarily uses nurse practitioners to administer that care – all of my personal care has been handled by nurse practitioners, as seen from Planned Parenthood’s FAQ on gender affirming care:
Most gender-affirming hormone care is provided at PPSP by advanced practice providers (physician assistants, certified nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners) in our health centers or over telemedicine.
The alarming aspects of the new legislation are not limited to the provisions that prevent nurse practitioners from providing gender affirming care. The law also targets this care through various other channels. For example, one provision grants the board of medicine authority to adopt emergency rules for implementing the new law. The board has already demonstrated its willingness to overstep existing law by introducing rules – earlier this year, it imposed a ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth, despite lacking legislative instruction to do so. This ban is currently under judicial review.
In a similar vein, the attorney general of Missouri recently issued a series of burdensome guidelines that essentially obstruct gender affirming care for most transgender adults with a complex web of rules, making the care nearly impossible to legally provide. This decision, however, has recently been blocked in court for at least two months. The provision in Florida’s law, which grants rule-making authority to the board of medicine, could potentially be wielded in a similar manner to further restrict care.
The legislation also requires misinformation in informed consent forms that must be handed to and signed by every patient. Though the final version of the form is not available, earlier versions have statements erroneously claiming that the care does not conform to generally accepted medical practices. Over 29 major medical organizations maintain gender affirming care as the standard of care for trans people.
See the proposed form from 2022 when the issue was first discussed by the Florida Department of Health here, documented by Zinnia Jones:
Proposed informed consent form for trans adults from 2022.
It remains to be seen how medical organizations and transgender adults will react to the bill if it is signed into law. It is clear that at least some major medical organizations feel that the care is highly threatened, with many being forced to cease providing it. The impact of this legislation could rival and even surpass other states where restrictions are currently being fought over, such as in Missouri where several trans adults were pulled from care before the policy enacted there was blocked. When combined with a recent transgender bathroom ban, Florida is quickly emerging as the state most hostile to transgender people in the United States.
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Christian conspiracy theorist Sean Feucht freely admits “we want Christians to be writing the laws of the land”
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“We want Christians to be writing the laws of the land according to the Word of God,” writes Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht in a new piece for Charisma. Rather than disavow the label as something pejorative and unfair, he’s fully leaning into the notion that Christians like him should be in charge of government and creating rules that benefit only his tribe.
Sean Feucht, Christian Nationalist
To which I can only say… great. Thank you for admitting it. It’s always helpful when Christian Nationalists openly admit their desire to live in a theocracy.
It’s not Feucht’s first time doing this, either. He’s spent the past few months echoing this extreme rhetoric to the people showing up at his events, often alongside right-wing politicians and organizations.
The issue here isn’t that he’s a Christian who thinks society would be better off adopting Christian beliefs. That’s basically how all religions work. What’s troubling about his comments is that Feucht (which aptly rhymes with “exploit”) believes his specific brand of Christianity should become law and that everyone who disagrees isn’t just wrong, but an enemy of his fantasy world.
That’s not me saying it. I’m just paraphrasing what he’s already said:
Perspective changes when the political issues of the age are properly framed into a spiritual context. The transgender movement? Rebellion against, “male and female He created them.” Homosexuality? Rebellion against, “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
We have seen a clear unveiling of the secular progressive agenda over America: abortion on demand up until the moment of birth, the normalization of pedophilia and child sexualization and the castration of perfectly healthy children in the name of “gender-affirming care.” This the fruit of anti-Christian leaders employing and legislating dark agendas over our nation.
It is not controversial for us to boldly declare that we want Christians to be writing the laws of the land according to the Word of God.
What’s unsaid in his piece is who would suffer at the hands of this Christian ruling class.
There is no place for Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or atheists in his ideal world. They could exist, sure, but their religious needs would never be treated on the same level as a Christian’s wants.
There would be no room for progressive Christians, either. Feucht doesn’t see them as real Christians, anyway. People who are LGBTQ wouldn’t be tolerated. Preachers’ daughters in need of an abortion would be screwed. Those who went outside the boundaries he’s created in his mind would automatically be declared “groomers.”
In that sense, he’s repeating what conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenesaid last year: “We should be Christian nationalists.” She even sold shirts to that effect:
This isn’t a bad apple or two. This is a spoiled orchard.
And yet this may be even more frightening coming from the perpetually paranoid Feucht. By pretending to be persecuted, he convinced a bunch of followers to join him in COVID super-spreader concerts in the name of Christ during the height of the pandemic.
It’s bad enough that we have Republican politicians using Jesus as justification for thoughtless legislation. It’s appalling, though, to have powerful conservatives, amplified by propaganda outlets, claim that the problem with America is that we don’t have enough of those politicians.
But at least there’s a fair way to describe them: They are Christian Nationalists. They are theocrats who claim to be patriots while torching the Constitution. They are people who see what’s happening in Islamic nations and, rather than being horrified, get jealous. Their religious delusions should be countered and criticized by all decent people, and yet there are plenty of Christian pastors who refuse to say anything negative about people like Feucht from their pulpit. They are more than willing to let other Christians hijack their faith for political ends. If they’re too cowardly to say anything useful, it’s all the more reason for sensible Christians to ditch their churches entirely.
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Notice what the parents and teachers say. They claim the Christian majority if forcing a Christian view on their kids that they don’t agree with and is not needed, also that in order to promote their Christian conservative views the religious majority on the board is willing to destroy the school district. Hugs
Things have gotten so bad that even Republicans in the district are complaining:
“I think they look at us as this petri dish where they can really push all their agenda and theories,” said Joe Dohrn, a Woodland Park father who described himself as a staunch Republican and “very capitalistic.” “They clearly are willing to sacrifice the public school and to put students presently in the public school through years of disarray to drive home their ideological beliefs. It’s a travesty.”
…
“They’re trying to push a certain agenda down to these kids,” Amy Schommer, a mother in Woodland Park, said of the school board’s adoption of American Birthright. “I’m a conservative but I’m not against my kids learning something they disagree with. They’re trying to fix problems that don’t exist here.”
… Witt, as president of the school board in neighboring Jefferson County, supported a plan in 2014 to ensure the district’s curricula would promote patriotism and not encourage “social strife.” Witt said students who protested the board policies at the time were “pawns” of the teachers union. After he and two other conservative members of the board were recalled, Witt became executive director of an organization that oversees charter, online and other schools and helped launch Merit Academy.
Merit Academy was the charter school approved by the district.
Woodland Park School District is seeing an exodus of staffers after Christian Nationalists put their agenda over students’ needs
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In 2021, Christian Nationalist preacher Andrew Wommack told the members of his political group Truth & Liberty Coalition that, with all the conservatives in their part of Colorado, “we ought to take over Woodland Park.”
“We have enough people here in this school we could elect anybody we want,” he said. “We could take over this place.”
Wommack had moved to Woodland Park to launch Charis Bible College, and now he wanted his people to take over the local government. Or at least the local school board. It’s the kind of rhetoric that conservative Christians have been using for decades to urge their followers to run for local office as a way to influence policy. Wommack himself insisted last year that he got “78 or 80” of his preferred candidates elected in local races (out of an estimated 178 his ministry was backing).
Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. But in this particular case, they actually pulled it off.
Reporter Tyler Kingkade of NBC News just published a shocking article detailing what happened after those conservative Christians took over a local school board that, in theory, should have been far removed from culture war battles.
But when you put ideologues in positions of responsibility, you can’t expect them to do the right thing. That’s exactly how it’s played out.
Woodland Park School Board meeting (screenshot via YouTube)
For example, the local school board, now controlled by Christian Nationalists, adopted a conservative social studies curriculum called “American Birthright” that’s focused on American exceptionalism and whitewashes our nation’s ugly history. It says the federal government shouldn’t have any authority over public schools, that teachers should avoid teaching about current events and media literacy, and that telling kids to vote amounts to activism. (Notes Kingkade: “[American Birthright] includes Bill Clinton’s impeachment but not Donald Trump’s.”)
The program was already deemed unfit for students and rejected as extreme by the state’s school board. They said adopting this program would have “damaging and lasting effects on the civic knowledge of students and their capacity to engage in civic reasoning and deliberation.”
The new school board embraced it anyway.
School board president David Rusterholtz added Christian prayers to board meetings:
“This division is much more than political — this is a clash of worldviews,” Rusterholtz said at a board meeting in January. He concluded his remarks with a prayer for the district: “May the Lord bless us and keep us, may His face shine upon us and be gracious to us.”
Beyond that, according to Colorado Public Radio, he has also “used his official board email address to proselytize, inviting fellow board members to join his church and receive Jesus as their savior.”
Then they imposed a gag order and fired teachers who criticized the moves publicly.
Then the newly hired superintendent decided not to apply for grants worth up to $1.2 million that previously covered the salaries of 15 counselors and social workers because he wanted to focus on academics, not emotions… even though the latter has a direct impact on the former.
And now a large chunk of the staffers and administrators are leaving the district:
As the school year winds down, many of the Woodland Park School District’s employees are heading for the exit, despite recently receiving an 8% raise. At least four of the district’s top administrators have quit because of the board’s policy changes, according to interviews and emails obtained through records requests. Nearly 40% of the high school’s professional staff have said they will not return next school year, according to an administrator in the district.
It’s no wonder they want out. There’s no accountability anymore and the conservatives on the school board are more interested in enacting their personal agendas than doing what experts believe is best for students. When one board member resigned in the wake of the conservative victories, he could have been replaced by someone with a strong background in education and a track record of supporting students. Instead, his replacement was someone who had donated to the campaign of another right-wing board member.
When the superintendent resigned, he was replaced by Ken Witt.
Who is Ken Witt, you ask?
… Witt, as president of the school board in neighboring Jefferson County, supported a plan in 2014 to ensure the district’s curricula would promote patriotism and not encourage “social strife.”Witt said students who protested the board policies at the time were “pawns” of the teachers union. After he and two other conservative members of the board were recalled, Witt became executive director of an organization that oversees charter, online and other schools and helped launch Merit Academy.
Merit Academy was the charter school approved by the district.
His appointment was actually more egregious than that because the board members essentially chose him in secret. Their only interview of Witt happened behind closed doors even though state law requires all district-related discussions between three or more board members to be public.
Kingkade managed to obtain surveillance footage of their meeting. The full conversation (which is inaudible) lasts for about 8 minutes. Witt was hired two days later.
The district staffer who urged the board to release that footage months ago was fired. That person’s boss quit as a form of protest.
Things have gotten so bad that even Republicans in the district are complaining:
“I think they look at us as this petri dish where they can really push all their agenda and theories,” said Joe Dohrn, a Woodland Park father who described himself as a staunch Republican and “very capitalistic.” “They clearly are willing to sacrifice the public school and to put students presently in the public school through years of disarray to drive home their ideological beliefs. It’s a travesty.”
…
“They’re trying to push a certain agenda down to these kids,” Amy Schommer, a mother in Woodland Park, said of the school board’s adoption of American Birthright. “I’m a conservative but I’m not against my kids learning something they disagree with. They’re trying to fix problems that don’t exist here.”
But none of this will make a difference unless enough of these people vote for board members who care more about students than conservative propaganda. The next elections are in November and three of the board’s five seats will be up for grabs, allowing a non-crazy majority to help undo some of this damage.
The question is whether enough people in the community will care enough to vote in that election. School board races have notoriously low turnouts, but if right-wing Christians aiming to destroy the public schools doesn’t inspire enough people to get off their asses to vote for better candidates, nothing will.
This is incredible reporting from Kingkade and a devastating look at what happens when right-wing rhetoric becomes reality. The people who have a vendetta against public schools should never be placed in charge of them.
“They’re not interested in improving the school district,” said one teacher who is leaving. “They’re interested in killing it.”
When people don’t pay attention to local elections, however, that becomes very possible—especially when conservative pastors rally their congregations into thinking these elections are existential crises.
The end result is that the best teachers and administrators may leave the district while the worsening schools lower property values and drive away the sorts of people who might consider moving there.
Everyone loses when Christian extremists hell-bent on turning public schools into extensions of their churches get this kind of power.
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A clear easy to understand explanation of the difference between sex and gender, and how transitioning makes the body intersex. Which doesn’t determine gender. Also I like how he gives the medical information about how all fetus templates have the ability to be both sexes or somewhere between, and he asks how a trans woman and a cis woman who can not produce children are both still women. Hugs
It has progressed to crazy town the rights’ obsession with gender stereotypes. Don’t they get that kids don’t care about what people in the 1950s were forced to endure in gender roles? Kids like bright colors and manufactures like to use the same patterns for each gender as it saves them money. These people have to get over the idea that somehow putting a 2 year old in a pink onesie is going to make them gay or trans. This is taking the culture gender war to extremes and a really weird place. Hugs
This post is for those who claim the US doesn’t need immigrants, documented and undocumented. The US has a worker shortage, especially in the hardest to do jobs. The US has a need for younger people to support the aging population. Immigrants want to fill these needs, they are coming here to work and raise families. Yet because they have darker skin tones, the right fights hard to prevent them coming into the country. Hugs
— The Infamous El Guapo (@InfamusElGuapo) May 9, 2023
Construction and farm work are coming to a complete halt in Florida. When tomatoes, strawberries, and oranges rot unpicked all the while construction stagnates, big business will try to force the legislature to backtrack. This exact thing happened to Alabama in 2011. https://t.co/ZC09gltPUq
If you ever wondered what you'd be doing in nazi Germany, it's what you're doing right now. Making it a crime to transport, house, or harbor immigrants is no different than what the Nazis did to those who sheltered the Jews. It's criminalizing people. https://t.co/rTCqIDNC1qpic.twitter.com/J5ABRLfywB
Negative impact on Florida has begun from the recently passed DeSantis’ anti-immigrant bill. Immigrant labor is leaving as construction work sites grapple with new restrictions. All to demonize people who simply want to work and be left alone while providing for their families. pic.twitter.com/JQfqPxKbsC
They tried this in Alabama 14 years ago. Construction and farming came to a screeching halt. There was no one to build houses and what was a 6 month to 8 month build went to 12 to 14 months.
And then GA did this after AL and it had the same outcome. Agro and construction stopped. GA lost 300 million that one year and lost a decent percentage of their migrant workers for years after.
So where, oh where, are all the Reuplicans that were claiming illegal immigrants were taking their jobs away from them? Surely there must’ve been a LOT of white Republicans looking for field and construction work, right?
Scottie's Playtime 