Again Ethel is a woman I have been following since she was a teenager. She has gone through all the stages of transitioning, from doubt, trying to make it something else to finally admitting to herself and the world she is a woman and now living her life as one. The grand thing is she still fights so very hard for trans people despite the costs to her for taking on one of the growing popular atheist anti-trans people and others. She lost 2/3rd her income but never backed down, always telling the truth. She makes every video well researched and documents it, also she provides a transcript for those who would rather read than listen. I admit I admire her and her strength in her life struggles. But if you wish to learn more about those attacking trans stuff or the false idea that trans women are destroying female sports, I would watch her videos. Hugs
Jill Bearup’s Transphobia is Even Worse in 2025 (Just Stab Me Now)
Scottie's Playtime 
So fucking infuriating, insane, and sickening.
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Thank you Michael. It is important to hear from people how they feel about such open bigotry especially when it is made on misinformation and lies. I recently posted a video from The Majority Report that said a five year study found only 926 kids in transition treatment including social and medical transitioning. In fact most “gender” surgery was the breast reduction of cis boys who had the issue of developing breasts and the second was late teen girls getting breast increases in their breast size I suspect from what I heard as birthday presents.
The RNC spent millions of dollars attacking trans people as all evil and what was wrong with the country … to target less than 12 kids per state. Of course some states had none or one, while other more open accepting states will have had more of course. The idea that kids are coming out as trans because it is cool is the same reasoning that the Florida co-author of the “Don’t say gay” bill. He was a fundamentalist Christian who was horrified that gay kids coming out to their peers were accepted instead of being targeted with hate and abuse. That is the problem we progressive people wanting to move to a more enlightened age based on medical science and respect for people are facing, people who want to remain in their memories and ideas of the regressive past.
They have found power to enforce their desire to stop enlightenment and force a regression to the past. I am sure a well read author such as yourself can find and tell me of examples in the past when this has happened. I hope if you have such knowledge you will write on it as your voice carries far more weight than mine. History and the social systems of our ancestors is one of the gaps in my education I hate. But what I have read by experts is many cultures and societies throughout history welcomed the LGBTQ+ people. I believe even in the early church the bigotry was not what it is today. But we deal with the world we have and create the world we want to have. Hugs
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Sadly, we don’t journey far back into our nation’s history to find an example of them finding their power to stop enlightenment and force a regression to the past. Beyond the trans arena, the right wing has done the same with abortion choice. Along the way as they usurped women’s rights to address their own body’s needs, indeed, their life situations, the right wing has abrogated a number of women’s right and appear to be planning to gut them. They’re planning to do the same to environmental protections, workplace safety and protection, and child labor (see Project 2025 for details).
Meanwhile, they’ve been regressing the public education system. First, they rewrote textbooks in an attempt to change history and slant it toward conservatives. As Democrats and liberals fought that, they switched tactics. Soon they were teaching to the test, encouraging rote memorization over comprehension and critical thinking. Next, they pivoted to school vouchers and school choice. Look at what they’ve done with that in Florida, Arkansas, Ohio, Arizona, and Iowa as examples. In parallel to that, they’re fostering efforts to cut DEI out of corporations (see Meta as a recent example) and they’re banning books or getting books removed from shelves just be challenging them.
The right wing and GOP are fostering ignorance. Hate, fear, and stupidity thrive with ignorance, and makes the uneducated more gullible (because, hell, they don’t understand and don’t know how to think). Meanwhile, in the tragicomedy that is the right wing logic, people like MuskSwamy want more H1B visas to bring in more intelligent and educated people. Fucking sickening hypocrisy.
Finally, while doing all of this, the GOP has been gerrymandering districts for years to keep Republicans in office who would have otherwise been long gone by slanting the demographics. And now, with the stacked SCOTUS, we see them declaring Trump as above the law once he’s POTUS.
Bigotry is just another right-weapon to bludgeon the world back to the stone age. Hugs, M
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Hi Michael. Everything you wrote is true, and it is sickening along with disheartening. It makes me think that the regressive side is winning to drag the country into a hateful past that they imagine being the conservative golden days. They want “Leave it to Beaver” only with a more strict Christian church doctrine enforced.
How do we fight this, prevent it, pull even harder for rights and equality for all people? How do we return the education system to teaching how to think / reason and to see through indoctrination. How do we move towards the enlightenment most people want out of life? Hugs
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My wife read a novel recently called “City of Thieves”. A passage struck her that she shared with me. Some novel background is necessary. Although fiction, it was based on the writer’s grandparents experience fighting the Nazis in Russia in WWII, and eggs. The point of the passage she read to me is that the Russians refused to give up, fighting for their country and surivival, and not ‘half-fighting’.
It struck her that the Democrats and Liberals in the US have only been half-fighting. The GOP, on the other hand, were pursuing a take-no-prisoners, scorched-Earth war to win control of the US government, judicial system, education system, and culture. Then if the Dems are to claw it all back, the same full-throat war must be pursued. The Republicans won by pursuing a course laid out by ALEC, as funded and guided by the Koch brothers, to write local legislation. And we’ve seen it all expanded to include other areas. They stack local victories.
That is now what we must do. Educate and illuminate person by person at the local level. Stack victories. Build. Stay undetered. Keep the vision in sight and alive: freedom, democracy, and equality for all.
Hugs ‘n cheers, M
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