I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 33rd year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is scottiesplaytime@gmail.com
This is the history of black people in the US that DeathSantis and the republican racists like Marge Greene want desperately to bury and hide. They are making laws to prevent this honest teaching of history illegal while claiming it is just to make white kids feel bad of their white skin. We need to get serious before we lose our entire true history. The Daughters of the Confederacy in both the 1920s and the 1960s raced to slap up monuments to the South, to Dixie, claiming the confederate battle flag represented heritage and the civil war was about states rights. But what right did the Southern states demand, by their own writings it was the right to own black people as property like cattle to do with them as they wished including raping them or other mistreatments. Both times it was about reminding black people that they were less than whites and that whites owned them once and would always be above them. We really have to prevent the white supremist washing of the US history. The US can be the shining city on the hill but only if the people move forward socially instead of retreating into a fake mythical past. Hugs
She was one of Alabama’s last abortion doctors. Then they came for everything she had
Dr Leah Torres has endured the ire of the anti-abortion movement without backing down – but now she faces her most daunting challenge
So are the LGBTQ+ adults. DeathSantis and his maga sycophants have painted target signs on each of us and his violent gang thug enforcers along with the recharged up fundamentalist religious people who feel they have the right to oppress everyone into forcing them to live by the dictates of their religion are making the lives of queer people in Florida miserable. They keep pushing harder and harder to make their way the only way to live. What is acceptable to them is the only acceptable public expression. This is about not allowing any other social public expression than what their church allows them according to their outdated 1950s strict gender role model based on the idea that white Christian men are automatically in charge and women are subservient to them while minorities know their place and stay there. All according to the white males in charge who like it that way. And they use a set of mistranslated writings from 2,500 years ago to back up their demands. I want you to pay attention to what the student says is happening on high school campuses, where conserative right wing teachers / administrators design polices and punishments for queer kids while using those polices to protect themselves from repremand. The student says she has seen teachers mock and out gay kids to parents and laugh about it. Also kids who try to stand up for the queer kids have their own futures placed in jepardy as their transcripts get lost, documents they need lost, and even collage applications no longer approved, or loss recommendations made by the school if they don’t stop speaking out in support of queer kids. Think of that, the change from the days when kids were encouraged to be active in cuases, in socail movements. Hugs
Students who speak out for LGBTQ+ rights say they face retaliation from hostile school administrations determined to silence them.
By Jorge Martinez
Photo: Shutterstock
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Florida has become a closely-watched epicenter for anti-LGBTQ+ laws – and advocates say queer youth are feeling the impact.
With the passage of sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, such as the Don’t Say Gay law, gender-affirming care bans, and bathroom restrictions, Florida has become a battleground for queer rights. DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has continued to exacerbate the issue, leading to concerns among LGBTQ+ advocates that the state is becoming increasingly unwelcoming to queer youth.
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GOP wants to expand Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to target teens & transgender kids
The bill would ban LGBTQ+ education up to 8th grade, ban students from changing their pronouns, and that’s not all…
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“We’re terrified,” Christina Guiriba, a transgender youth advocate, told LGBTQ Nation. “As advocates for the community, we’re very torn. We want to continue this fight.”
Guiriba is the founder of Transcending Adolescence, a Jacksonville-based nonprofit aimed at empowering trans youth.
A trans woman and Florida native who has experienced bullying and physical violence during her childhood, she leads a summer camp called Resilience Retreat for around a dozen trans youth to build their courage and resilience. She wants every participant to leave camp having defined success on their own terms, whether that be finally finding a safe space for the first time or going through with top surgery.
“Seeing a staff full of gender-diverse people that are successful and still alive gave them hope,” she said. Through the power of the outdoors and physical recreation, she hopes to continue to be a voice for “those who are afraid.”
But Guiriba said that many advocates are afraid to continue their work as they find themselves the target of right-wing hate. Transcending Adolescence, in fact, was recently the victim of a doxing attack.
As a result, the organization was forced to adopt stricter security measures such as planning escape routes and installing surveillance cameras and panic buttons. They even hired a private security officer, unable to turn to the Jacksonville police due to their transphobic reputation, such as using deadnames in official police investigations, among other reasons.
But Guiriba isn’t stopping. Her work is becoming increasingly relevant as new research shows how ongoing anti-LGBTQ+ attacks are starting to impact queer youth.
“The consequences are really more dire than even most people would imagine,” Caitlin Viccora, programs manager for healthy & supportive schools at Advocates for Youth, told LGBTQ Nation.
A recent CDC report on youth behavior over the past decade shows record-high levels of depression and suicide risk among teenagers in recent years. The CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey reveals that more than half of LGBTQ+ students have recently experienced declining mental health and more than one in five had a suicide attempt within the past year. Queer female adolescents fared worse compared to males.
In Florida especially, Viccora said the priority for advocates is to set the record straight and clear the air of false information. Parents have a right to know what’s really happening in their child’s classroom without having to rely on the right-wing’s “targeted disinformation campaigns,” Viccora said.
“It’s not just Republicans who are failing to protect LGBTQ+ students,” she added, “A lot of folks are staying silent.”
She urged community members to speak publicly at local school board meetings and fight proposed regulations that impact queer youth. Submitting public comments, organizing to call local officials such as superintendents, or just showing up to the polls to vote are effective ways to protect queer youth.
Queer youth are learning to “shut up and keep their head low”
“Ron DeSantis is a terrifying man,” Iris, a high school senior in Clay County, Florida, who requested to use a different name out of fear of retaliation, told LGBTQ Nation. “[DeSantis] claims to be a Christian but at the basis of Christianity is acceptance and love. Yet he chooses violence and overall bigotry.”
Iris does not identify as queer, but her queer friends would not speak with LGBTQ Nation, citing safety concerns even if they remained anonymous. Instead, they spoke through Iris.
In her previous attempts to speak out, Iris said her school officials claimed to “lose” her documents, opening the possibility of preventing her from graduating high school. She said speaking out would even “jeopardize my college [applications].”
Iris said Gov. DeSantis has created a “hostile environment” for Florida students that enables hatred and punishes those who try speaking out. She recounts an instance where a close male friend dressed as a PowerPuff Girl for Halloween and was viciously bullied during school hours. The bully received no penalty while Iris’ friend was reprimanded for several infractions, one of them being a dress code violation.
In a second instance, she reports that her school principal outed numerous queer kids to their parents. She said the principal was even spotted laughing and mocking the list of students she outed with one of those students’ parents.
This practice is becoming increasingly common across Florida schools, with school administrators developing formal policies to punish or out queer kids to their families.
“Teachers are able to say and do things without consequence,” said Iris, noting that these types of policies serve to primarily protect conservative and right-wing educators.
She added that queer kids are learning that they need to “shut up and keep their head low” in order to survive.
Both Guiriba and Viccora emphasize the importance of remaining positive, continuing their fight to ensure a brighter future for queer youth across the country.
“It’s important for queer people to know they’re not alone,” said Guiriba, also stressing that advocates take the appropriate time to rest. “It’s not easy to find strength.”
“Living as a queer person in America is really scary when you’re looking at headlines,” Viccora said, especially when queer Americans face discrimination and violence at every corner. Despite this, Viccora urges queer youth to remember the “beauty and resiliency” in the simple fact of our existence.
I really enjoy this author / sub stack writer. I leave in all her requests for support because she deserves it for her work and I am simply borrowing her voice to spread the information she writes about. If you want to know the true that the republican leglisatures are trying to hide to push their agenda on their states, read the article. Hugs
This is one of the most common arguments brought up in anti-trans hearings. The idea that 80% of trans people “will desist” is a complete lie that is easy to debunk.
Please support my independent reporting and activism on transgender legislation by subscribing. You help me keep this going and keep people informed.
One of the most common myths heard in anti-trans hearings is that most trans kids will desist if they are allowed to go through puberty. Sometimes specific numbers are given, such as 80% of trans kids desist. This statistic has been cited as low as 60% and as high as 99% in various legislatures. In Montana, a representative used this statistic to justify passing a medical ban. The Heritage Foundation has also pushed this myth. Nearly every hearing on this topic includes this myth. The desistance myth is one of the most persistent falsehoods and has been used against the trans community for decades. It is misleading and inaccurate as it comes from outdated DSM-4 criteria and decades-old data. Newer studies show that 97.5% of transgender youth are persistent in their gender identities. Let’s examine how this falsehood originated, how it is misused, and what current research reveals about the rarity of desistence and detransition.
See an example of this claim being used on Fox News:
Conservative lawyer Harmeet Dhillon just said trans teens who transition "desist from transition at an 80-90% rate." This is false. pic.twitter.com/0jfiq0b7r9
The DSM-IV, released in 1994, spelled out how to diagnose mental health conditions including “Gender Identity Disorder” (no longer a disorder). In this manual, clinicians made their first attempt to diagnose transgender youth. These first diagnostic criteria were an admiral early attempt, but contained a fatal flaw in how transgender youth were diagnosed: the diagnosis bafflingly did not require a youth to identify as another gender. Instead, it focused on factors such as “preference for cross-sex games and activities” and “preference for friends of the other sex.”
Problems with this diagnostic criteria should be immediately recognizable today: a cisgender tomboy with absolutely no identification as a boy would be diagnosed with gender identity disorder under these definitions. A cisgender boy who likes to put on an Elsa costume and play with girls could be diagnosed with gender identity disorder under these definitions. They were woefully inadequate for judging if youth were transgender. They also came during a time when youth transition did not exist as a medical practice, and so there were no real clinical guidelines on their treatment – thus, little effort was made to change the criteria which were primarily used for discussion in therapist offices and not to support or deny medical transition care.
In 2013, the DSM-V was published and in it, many corrections were made on how gender dysphoric youth are diagnosed. The most important correction was the requirement that a transgender youth demonstrate an insistent, persistent, and consistent desire or identification as the gender that the patient believes they are. The individual factors were also changed and adjusted. These diagnostic criteria were much more stringent, and are the diagnostic criteria used today.
Please support my independent reporting and activism on transgender legislation by subscribing. You help me keep this going and keep people informed.
There is one problem though: until recently, all of the studies that came out used the old criteria. They included several people with no identification with another gender as meeting the criteria for “gender identity disorder,” which is itself no longer a disorder. These studies have a ton of other other problems as well, such as tiny sample sizes, very high dropout rates, old data from a time when youth transition was impossible, and even issues around conversion therapy practiced on trans patients. There are two pieces that are commonly cited. The first is numerous pieces of research by Ken Zucker, including a famous book published in 1995 that serves as the genesis of most “80% detransition” myths. The second is a series of studies from Thomas Steensma, usually centering around his 2011 or 2013 studies. Both of these studies contain the same core methodological flaw above, and both contain their own unique flaws that make them even more inaccurate.
Ken Zucker’s research on transgender youth was performed in 1995, a time when youth could not legally or medically transition. In fact, trans youth in that time likely all “desisted” for some time because of bullying, lack of access to care, and severe repression. I myself grew up as a transgender youth in that time period and I “desisted,” one of the many reasons I am writing this article.
Zucker is the genesis of the number that is most often cited, “80% desist from being trans.” Upon review of Ken Zucker’s research, half of Zucker’s patients did not even meet the definition of diagnostic criteria for transgender youth. His main research consisted of only 45 youth utilizing the old diagnostic criteria. A review of his clinic yielded much darker results, however: Zucker was engaging in conversion therapy practices that sought to push trans youth to identify as cisgender. His clinic was promptly shut down in 2015 as a result of a Canadian anti-conversion therapy law. Although Zucker denies the allegations that he engaged in conversion therapy, his practices and history paint a different picture. In the 1990s, he stated support for gay conversion therapy with the rationale, “a homosexual lifestyle in a basically unaccepting culture simply creates unnecessary social difficulties.”
In shutting down his clinic, a Canadian GIC review was conduced and a report was produced. From the report:
Parents state they were encouraged “not to give into” allowing their youth to wear clothes not of their assigned sex at birth.
Parents state they were told to avoid wrongly-gendered toys.
Parents state they were told to ensure their children would play with children of their assigned sex at birth.
Patients state they were asked intrusive questions about their sexual orientations as early as 9 years old.
Transgender youth were pathologized and correlational mental health issues were interpreted as causative.
Some patients reported pictures of them taken without their consent using cell-phones.
Parental lack of acceptance and desire for the child to identify as cisgender guided treatment.
Because of a tiny sample size, outdated data, the impossibility of youth transition, and Zucker’s clear ideological motivations, his 80% detransition rate clearly should be viewed as false and useless in current research on gender affirming care, especially considering modern data, criteria, and research exists.
Steensma’s 2011 and 2013 studies had similar issues in his research, which in some ways had even worse methodological flaws. Steensma used the old criteria, which is not the way that gender dysphoria is diagnosed today. Worse, the two studies classified every youth who did not return to the clinic as having “desisted” or “detransitioned” with no long term follow-up. Half of the participants in the studies did not return and all were classified as having “desisted.” The sample sizes were tiny at the getgo – only 53 people were in the first study and 127 in the second study. Given the fact that a large portion if not the majority of Steensma’s patients were classified under decades old criteria and assumed permanently detransitioned simply for refusing to follow up, these studies cannot be used to make any reasonable claim of desistance rates.
Furthermore, transgender youth could not meaningfully transition until recently. Medical care for trans youth was highly gatekept if not barred entirely. Transgender youth were rarely, if ever, afforded any form of treatment. Many such youth lost hope in ever being able to transition as puberty took its toll and they were forced to repress over bullying and a dangerous public environment.
Modern studies show a much higher persistence rate as well as important factors behind detransition. In 2015, a study was done on thousands of transgender people, including detransitioners. Only 8% of people reported ever detransitioning – ten times lower than the 80% often cited. Of these 2,000 detransitioners, the largest sample size of any study, 62% of them reported that they only detransitioned temporarily. Among the remaining detransitioners, the most common reason for detransitioning given was parental pressure and discrimination. Only 0.4% of people reported detransitioning because they were no longer trans.
Among trans youth, desistance and detransition rates are incredibly low. The most recent study in the prestigious journal Pediatrics, one of the only studies that use modern criteria, showed that 97.5% of trans youth continue to identify as trans on a 5 year follow-up. The sample size was also larger than all previous sample sizes of this population: 317 youth.
Anti-trans gender affirming care bans often start off with a list of “legislative findings” that seek to “state the science” around gender affirming care. In this list of findings, you might be surprised to see that the later studies are nowhere to be found, but the claims from the former studies pop up and are presented as factual when they are over a decade old, are dramatically outdated, and use standards that are not even in use anymore.
See Georgia’s “legislative findings” section of HB653, which would ban gender affirming care for trans youth
This statistic will continue to be misused to justify anti-trans bans all over the United States. Legislators will state that “80% of people detransition,” even when detransitioning is a statistical rarity. The same dozen detransitioners, like the “ex gays” of the 1990s, will be flown from state to state to justify bans, raising the question as to why they seem to only be able to find a small handful to testify. Meanwhile, actual trans kids who will grow up to still identify as trans, if they can make it to adulthood following these legislative onslaughts, are left to bear the damage of this misinformation.
Please support my independent reporting and activism on transgender legislation by subscribing. You help me keep this going and keep people informed.
This is a web site I really enjoy. Especially when I don’t feel well as it gives the facts and clear information in easy to digest segments. Randy introduced me to it years ago. Here is a sample of the author’s work. Hugs
Photo: Shutterstock
Scottie's Playtime 