Category: Animals / Insects / Water Life / Plants / Nature

Idaho Bill Would Ban Drag Shows In All Public Venues – JMG

Idaho Bill Would Ban Drag Shows In All Public Venues

I don’t normally feel the need to add my thoughts to Joe.My.God posts, he does a great job and covers it all.   In this case I want to point out several things.   Reading each section, you see that the republicans / right wing is clearly equating drag, which is simply dressing up in a costume, with sex.   More important they are trying to equate it with active sex with kids.  Please tell me how reading to kids in a costume is sexual?   What if I dressed up as a Klingon and read to kids, would that be sexual?   Because what the right / republicans are trying to do is also equate drag with transexuals.   Yes they want you to think trans person when you read drag.  That is what they did with CRT, change what people think when they hear it.   What they want is when you find out there is a drag queen story hour you think trans women reading to kids, which again is not sexual or wrong but it is the rights way of making it seem dirty and sexual.  Think of it reading stories to kids in public with their parents and other adults present is being made to see like a sexual orgy by the right.   Why?   Because it is a political wedge issue and being used by the republicans to drive their base and the religious right to the poles.  It stirs up anti-trans hate, makes people angry at the LGBTQ+ because it creates an image in their minds that again kids are being sexual used.   It also validates the religious people who think that all the non-1950 traditions are sinful.  Again in a room in public with other adults present including the child’s parents / guardians is a sexual performance involving the kids. To these people simply the idea of a guy dressed in “woman’s” clothing is sexual and a sin that makes their god cry!  

Clothing has no damn gender people.  Men wore dresses for a long time, men in some cultures wear skirts, and in some native cultures people go nude, and who doesn’t like a damn toga party.   This is not about the clothing or the cloth.   It is about gender roles and privileges of each gender.   Men must have all the rights and be in charge while women must be submissive and give men their bodies and serve them.   Men rule and women obey.   That is what this is really about.   Think of it why is it always trans women that the right gets so upset about?  They never mention trans men.   Because in their minds any male that would give up their god given right to rule over and take what they want from the other gender is crazy and ill.  Plus by a man with all his rights becoming a woman with no rights screws up their idea of what the world must be.   Trans men don’t bother then because women don’t matter to them and they figure they will put them in their place soon enough.   

The second thing I want you to notice is that in order to vilify drag queens a “Christian” is repeatedly lying about seeing a drag performer showing their genitals.   That never happened.  The “Christian” altered the video they showed and reported to police to try to frame the drag performer.   The police said they viewed other footage and had the altered video checked.  The performer did not do what the “Christian” claimed.   However after being called out on it, the “Christian” still keeps making the claim everywhere anyone will listen to them.     They are going on right wing media claiming the performer did it even though it is proven wrong because the right knows their people won’t check the facts and most simply don’t care.   The right prefers their feelings to facts.  

This is about being moral police, let’s be honest.  This has nothing to do with kids.   This is entirely about the idea that some people hate the idea of men dressing like women.   Yet as I keep saying that has been something done throughout history especially from the start of the TV era to today where one of the most popular shows is RuPaul’s Drag Race, which I believe is in its fourteenth season.   So why is this so important now?  Religion, has anyone noticed a surge in the right trying to regain traditional gender roles while forcing more religion down everyone’s throat?  This is part of the Christian nationalist push.  This is what the right wants, to push their view of right and wrong based on the religious morality of 2,500 years ago that promoted slavery.   The right wing in the US is fast becoming the US Christian version of the Taliban.   Stop them now before they come for everything else that they object to in our society!   Hugs

The Idaho Capital Sun reports:

A bill that would ban drag performances in all public venues will be introduced in the first days of the next session of the Idaho Legislature in January, Idaho Family Policy Center President Blaine Conzatti told the Idaho Capital Sun.

Conzatti and other conservative activists around Idaho and across the country have protested against events in public spaces that feature drag queens, including drag queen story hour events at public libraries.

“No child should ever be exposed to sexual exhibitions like drag shows in public places,” he said. Conzatti also cites a drag performance in Coeur d’Alene in June as another example of public indecency, when a performer was accused of exposing himself during a Pride in the Park event.

The Coeur d’Alene Press reports:

A drag performer has sued a blogger who falsely accused him of indecent exposure and posted doctored footage of him online. Eric Posey, a Kootenai County resident whose stage name is Mona Liza Million, performed June 11 at the Pride in the Park celebration in Coeur d’Alene. The next day, blogger Summer Bushnell published an edited video of Posey’s performance on her Facebook page. Posey’s pelvic area is blurred out in the edited video, implying nudity.

Bushnell claimed that Posey exposed himself to the crowd. She called for Posey’s arrest in her Facebook post, urging the public to contact police and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. The Coeur d’Alene City Prosecutor’s Office reviewed the edited video, as well as other unedited videos and photos. Prosecutors announced in July that the evidence shows Posey did not violate any state or local law.

Vice News reports:

Idaho GOP chair and state Rep. Dorothy Moon did not address questions about whether the state party supported the proposal, but she told VICE News in an email that the Idaho GOP is “opposed to the sexualization of children, including ‘family-friendly’ or ‘all-ages’ drag shows.”

The events she is referring to include drag queens reading children’s books to kids at public libraries; Conzatti’s comments, moreover, indicated the proposal would apply to drag shows in public spaces even for adults.

Idaho, like much of the country, has also seen an uptick of violence towards LGBTQ+ people in general. In June, Coeur d’Alene police arrested dozens of white supremacists who allegedly planned to disrupt the city’s Pride festival,.

The Idaho Family Policy Center, an affiliate of the hate group Focus On The Family, is also the main driver of an abortion ban in Idaho. Conzetti knows his claim about that drag performer is a lie, but happily parrots the lie to local media in the name of Jesus.

crewman • an hour ago

That has First Amendment Violation written all over it.

Paddycakes2001 crewman • an hour ago

As Sam Alito would tell you, the word “drag” does not appear in the 1st Amendment, therefore . . . .

Ščŏŧŧ Ċ – 🇺🇦 🕊 Paddycakes2001 • an hour ago

And men didn’t dress up in wigs and makeup in 1791, so…

Oh, wait.

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AyJayDee • an hour ago

I’d like to say this violates the First Amendment, and it does, but I don’t trust it in the hands of the courts today. This is clearly eliminationist and will lead to far more horrifying efforts to erase LGBT people from society.

Serene Pumpkin AyJayDee • an hour ago • edited

It’s clear that their end goal is our complete erasure, and it’ll all be for the sake of “religious freedom” and/or “protecting chillllldrennnnn.”

AyJayDee Serene Pumpkin • an hour ago

I’ve been saying for years that the only difference between these people and the Westboro Baptists is that Westboro at least has the balls to come out and say they want us dead. These people want the same, but they know they have to be diplomatic if they want to get on TV and have the public accept them as expressing just another point of view that one might happen to disagree with – as opposed to being the genocidal fascists they are.

When I was in college, I got funny looks for saying we should be more afraid of people like Tony Perkins than Fred Phelps. But I was right.

Friday Serene Pumpkin • an hour ago

Well, polls have shown that if these Christian bastards ever figured out how to identify LGBT people in the womb, they’d be all pro abortion in those instances.

Chucktech Friday • an hour ago

“But if they’re already gay in the womb then that must mean that God knows this and He is just making them that w…”

“Yew jus shut yer devil mouth yew devil person!!!”

Posthumously Friday • an hour ago

That’s exactly what my father told me! “Your mother and I are opposed to abortion. But had we known that you’d lead a gay lifestyle, we would have aborted you.”

Good ‘ol Mom and Dad.

GOP official wants to defund state libraries giving kids “non-age-appropriate materials”

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/gop-official-wants-defund-state-libraries-giving-kids-non-age-appropriate-materials/

What is wrong with these people that they want complete control over everyone’s lives?   They again want to force everyone to live by their church dictates on morality.  They are so desperate to return the country to the 1950s and make it Leave It To Beaver time again. What happened to parents’ rights to guide what their children read; do they only have rights when they do what moral police want?  Are we a police state like China where we can only read or watch what the government approves?   Notice the claim it is to protect the kids, save the children.  But it really one group of people imposing their repressive morality on everyone.   What do they think is inappropriate, any LGBTQ+ content or characters.   Anything not allowed in the 1950 polite society.    What is the prurient interest of any minor?  What he means is anything not church approved reading material about good little boys and girls who don’t have any interest in that dirty body / sex stuff or dating until they hit that magic age of 18.  He says he wants kids to stay kids a little longer, what the hell.   What he is saying is he hates that society has progressed and we understand that kids have feelings and desires that they need to know about to understand.   He doesn’t want LGBTQ+ kids knowing they are normal and the other kids around them knowing it is normal and okay.     He says he wants to give control back to local communities and parents, but he is dictating this action from the state down taking that very control from the parents / local communities.  As the library person said, who is going to decide and will it be per kids as all kids are different?     Hugs 

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft says libraries need to stop giving kids materials “that appeal to the prurient interest of any minor.”
 
By  
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft Photo: Joshua Hoover/US Dept of Education
 

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) – who is the state librarian – has proposed a rule that would require libraries to keep youth away from “non-age-appropriate materials” or else lose state funding.

The plan would require libraries to create a policy to determine criteria for what is and is not appropriate for different ages and says that “no funds received shall be used to purchase or acquire materials in any form that appeal to the prurient interest of any minor.”

It also allows individual parents to essentially curate what their child can access, stating that libraries would need to adopt a “policy allowing any minor’s parent or guardian to determine what materials and access will be available to a minor.”

It adds that no library employee can knowingly provide a minor with material that their parent or guardian has not approved.

“When state dollars are involved, we want to bring back local control and parental involvement in determining what children are exposed to,” Ashcroft, who is the son of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, said in a statement. “Foremost, we want to protect our children.”

“Supporting the efforts of libraries across our state has been a priority of mine since day one – we have been able to provide millions of dollars to libraries through grants and other funding. Yes, we want to make sure libraries have the resources and materials they need for their constituents, but we also want our children to be ‘children’ a little longer than a pervasive culture many often dictate.”

Ashcroft’s proposal comes as conservatives across the country fight to ban books deemed “inappropriate” and “pornographic,” descriptions they often give to books containing LGBTQ characters and themes.

In Missouri, the city of St. Louis has already seen 114 book bans take place in schools just this fall, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The bans are the result of a new state law – which the Missouri Library Association strongly condemned – that bans “explicit sexual material,” which it defines as visual images or descriptions of genitalia or sex acts (though there are exceptions for art and science).

Regina Greer Cooper, the executive director of Missouri’s Springfield-Greene County Library, told NPR that Ashcroft’s proposal doesn’t seem necessary considering the policies the library already has in place.

“Several of the things that are in there, our library district is already doing this. We already have policies — we have a collections materials policy. We have librarians who are well trained — we buy things that are age appropriate and designated for certain ages. We place them in the library in the appropriate place for those age groups.”

She added that they also already have a method in place for parents to challenge the appropriateness of a book.

And the proposal is worrisome, she says.

“What worries me is who is going to decide, you know, which materials are in the age-appropriate areas, and are they going to have a different opinion than our trained librarians, and who is the authority with this rule, and what will happen, and how will it be implemented. Will somebody be checking on something?”

Ashcroft’s proposed rule will enter the Missouri Register on November 15th and will then undergo a 30-day comment period.

Florida approves new anti-LGBTQ rules that could cause teachers to lose their licenses

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/florida-approves-new-anti-lgbtq-rules-cause-teachers-lose-licenses/

There has never been a recorded verified case of a trans person attacking or harming anyone in a bathroom or locker room.    But there are many cases of trans people being attacked and harmed trying to simply use a bathroom.   Even cis women have been assaulted by vigilantes when trying to use the bathroom because they did not look female enough for the self-appointed bathroom police.    This is not about protecting kids from sexualization, knowing that gay / trans people / same sex couples exist is not sexualizing kids any more than letting them know that straight people / straight couples exist does.    Talking about the issues of gay / trans kids really means the right wing haters don’t want anti-bullying promoted and talked about.   That is what that means, a teacher cannot stand up for a bullied kid by talking of acceptance and tolerance without breaking that law.  The entire law is meant to revert the country to a more restrictive time when the LGBTQ+ were not seen in society, were villains and bad people, a time when equality for the LGBTQ+ was not an issue so the hateful bigots could attack / harass the minorities as much as they wanted.   Tell me how kids knowing teacher A is in a same sex marriage is dangerous or sexualizing kids any more than the kids knowing teacher B is in an opposite marriage.   It doesn’t, but to some people one of those is a horrible sin and shouldn’t be allowed, forcing their incorrect regressive views on everyone.   If Tommy dates girl A it is fine and not sexualizing kids, but if Tommy dates boy B it is a crime for it to be known or talked about in school because of protecting the kids?   From what?  Understand what this law is about.   It is about doing what was done in Russia, driving the LGBTQ+ out of society and destroying any acceptance / tolerance that have been earned and gained.    It is about making the LGBTQ+ illegal and removing all our rights.   They want us gone.   Starting with the kids makes it seem sort of reasonable, but in truth it is the younger generation that was driving the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ because they were friends with known LGBTQ+ people.   Stop that acceptance by making the LGBTQ+ stay hidden and we go back to when no one knew that their friends, doctors, a lot of other people in their lives were members of the LGBTQ+ community.   Hugs

In a state that already has a Don’t Say Gay law, the rules just got even tougher.
 
By  
schools, transgender, tennessee,
Photo: Shutterstock
 

The Florida Board of Education has approved new rules that will make life harder for LGBTQ people and allies.

One of the rules requires schools to post on their websites and notify parents by mail if they allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.

In a statement, Equality Florida’s Senior Political Director Joe Saunders called this policy an “attempt to bully and intimidate school districts that are providing these accommodations.”

“The Board of Education’s facilities separation rule does not and cannot prevent transgender students from accessing facilities aligned with their gender identity — we know Federal law and the constitution protect these rights,” Saunders said.

“Florida school districts have been following federal law for more than a decade, establishing policies we know will continue to work long after this politically-motivated proposed rule…[Gov.] Ron DeSantis’ war on transgender Floridians must end. All students deserve access to school facilities that are inclusive and safe.”

In the wake of the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that outlawed anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, President Joe Biden signed two executive orders that said federal agencies should “fully implement” the decision by applying the reasoning that anti-LGBTQ discrimination inherently involves sex discrimination. His order included the Department of Education, meaning it has become a violation of federal law for schools to discriminate against trans students.

But the new policy from the Board doesn’t direct schools not to follow the law. It just makes them have to jump through more hoops to do so and also potentially puts them in the crossfire of angry parents who won’t support inclusive policies.

The second new rule instituted by the Board of Education is in relation to the state’s Don’t Say Gay Law, which prevents teachers from mentioning LGBTQ people in elementary schools.

The rule takes the law a step further by directly punishing teachers who violate it. It says any K-3 teacher who is found to have taught their students about LGBTQ issues can have their licenses suspended or revoked.

According to Equality Florida, the rule contradicts a recent ruling on the Don’t Say Gay law that found violations are the responsibility of the school district and not individual teachers.

“The Board of Education’s move to target individual teachers’ jobs and licenses is another cruel attack from an administration that has spent months punching down at Florida’s LGBTQ youth and families,” Saunders said. “Qualified, effective teachers are fleeing the profession in Florida thanks to the constant politicization of their roles and discrediting of their characters by the DeSantis Administration.”

“Rather than help to clarify the Don’t Say LGBTQ laws scope, the Board of Education has taken this bigoted law to yet another extreme, threatening teachers if they dare to acknowledge LGBTQ families in the classroom. This escalation in deference to the far right agenda of the governor makes our schools less inclusive – and less safe.”

The chairman of the State Board of Education, Tom Grady, defended the rule, stating, “It’s parental notification. It’s not mandating what a particular bathroom looks like or doesn’t look like or who can use it. It’s about parental notification.”

 
 

An overwhelming majority of trans youth continue gender-affirming care as adults

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/overwhelming-majority-trans-youth-continue-gender-affirming-care-adults/

Another unfounded right wing hater talking point bites the dust, shown to be wrong by studying the facts.   But despite being informed of this and the prior studies that showed they were wrong the anti-trans people will keep repeating the misinformation to mislead people and create mistrust of affirmative trans gender care.    Hugs 

A new study disproves Republicans’ favorite justification for their anti-trans agenda: that kids who are provided with gender-affirming care will regret it.
 
By  
arkansas-transgender-youth-healthcare-ban
Photo: Shutterstock
 

An overwhelming majority of trans people who began gender-affirming medical treatments as teenagers continue those treatments as young adults, a new study out of the Netherlands has found.

A common Republican justification for their anti-trans agenda is that kids who are provided with gender-affirming care will regret it as adults, but the study – conducted by Amsterdam UMC hospital’s gender identity clinic – found that a whopping 98% of the 720 patients observed continued their treatments.

The authors wrote that to their knowledge, the study was the first of its kind to examine a large group of trans people to find out whether the majority continue with gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy after starting their treatment with puberty blockers.

The study looked at 220 people who were assigned male at birth and 500 who were assigned female at birth. All were between the ages of 14 and 17 when their gender-affirming treatment began. During their follow-up appointments, they were all between the ages of 17 and 25.

“The key message is that the majority of people, who went through a thorough diagnostic evaluation prior to starting treatment, continued gender-affirming hormones at follow-up,” Dr. Marianne van der Loos, one of the authors of the study, told The Daily Beast. “This is reassuring regarding the recent increased public concern about regret of transition.”

Dr. Jack Turban, who researches the mental health of trans youth at the University of Southern California San Francisco, added that the study’s results are congruent with other research that has found gender-affirming treatments for youth – like puberty blockers – to be beneficial.

Turban also emphasized – as did those who conducted the Netherlands study – that anyone who undergoes gender-affirming treatments must first undergo comprehensive assessments before beginning. Doing so often lowers the likelihood that patients who do begin treatments ever regret it.

“I hope that studies such as these, and other past studies that had similar findings, will make their way to policymakers’ desks so we can have evidence-based public policy that promotes the health and wellbeing of young people.”

“I worry that the recent political misinformation about trans youth, their medical care, and the reality of their lives, is creating psychological harm to these young people. I suspect the mental health impacts of these media and political environments will be studied by psychiatric epidemiologists in future years, and I worry what the results will show in terms of the negative impact these conversations have had on public mental health.”

The data from the Netherlands study also did not examine whether the two percent of patients who stopped treatments did so because of regret. According to the authors, it could be that they stopped due to anything from the financial burdens of treatment to being satisfied with the state of their transition.

Mar-A-Lago Docs Included Intel On Iran And China – JMG

Mar-A-Lago Docs Included Intel On Iran And China

I tried to get to the Washington Post article but they wanted a subscription.    We have far too many things we need to pay for and I couldn’t in anyway find a way to pay for this.   Here is the Joe My God post on it.   Hugs

OT (my blog I can do this) Ron got a few minutes to talk to Odies’s vet.   He went to talk to them on the way to do the grocery shopping and talked to a desk person and they took the information as the doctor was in a something.   Totally understandable they were without power for the same time we were, so appointments were backed up and everything else.   The vet called Ron back and explained that the disability could be explained by Odie’s diabetes.    Because it started before the evacuation, diminished and got better on our trip, and got horribly worse when we got back in the home and started feeding him all the food he wanted.  She said that his diabetes could be causing that.   So we bought new insulin since his is very sensitive to temperature.   Ron got home with the new insulin for him and the instructions and immediately assigned me the job.   I gave a little push back as Ron really has much more medical training than I do, and he gave shots at work.   His answer was “He loves you; he trusts you, he always acts like I am hurting him and with you he just lays there accepting it, so I don’t want to do it”.    I said OK but if I am not available you will need to do it.   As a patient that gets very painful injections into my spine and rock-hard muscles, I understand how much it matters if you trust the person doing it.   OK back to the regularly scheduled channel.   Hugs

IMG_0450

 Now to the post!

The Washington Post reports:

Some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China, according to people familiar with the matter. If shared with others, the people said, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world.

At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, they said.

Unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks, experts say. People aiding U.S. intelligence efforts could be endangered, and collection methods could be compromised.

Read the full article.

 

Trans icons Juno Dawson and Hannah Graf rally against ‘dangerous’ anti-trans public figures

Trans icons Juno Dawson and Hannah Graf rally against ‘dangerous’ anti-trans public figures

One thing people need to understand is I am pro-science, pro-professional training, pro-advances in society.   I support things that make life better for people that are data / science driven.   I like facts and data.   I do not like and actively argue against lies, misinformation, and bigoty / hate.   On trans issues the science is in and clearly proven.   Yes some details around the edges may need to be worked on for society which gives the anti-trans haters the room to attack, but the medical science has proven that the issue of gender of a person is not connected to biological sex determination at birth.   Sex is not limited to a binary of if it dangles it is male and if not it is female.   Both biological sex and gender are a spectrum regardless of how loud the deniers who want to go back to easier simpler times will scream.  Those are accepted medical facts.   Just like decades of climate change denial was false and lost time in fixing a the issue, so is denying the gender / trans issue.   At one time being gay was thought a mental illness, but the medical community researched it and realized it was a normal inborn condition.  Society adjusted even though some people still fight against our acceptance to this day.   The same will be with trans gender people.   But now the right / hating bigots have learned how to use social media and right wing media to mass spread misinformation and scary stuff to the public.   That is where we are and what I fight.   It is like the Covid deniers / vaccine hate myths /  Qanon believers / and bigfoot believers they all don’t accept reality and medical science.   Instead they believe lies, myths, misinformation and will fight to the death in their belief.    They are wrong!  One fact no anti-trans person can argue against is that the major medical organizations support affirmative trans gender care and treatment as best practices and there is decades of use of puberty blockers that show they are safe and reversable.   These are facts.   The haters scream that puberty blockers are unsafe and cause all the evils in life, but the truth is they have been used in some forms since the 1970s and fully accepted by the medical establishment in 1993.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved puberty blockers in 1993.   Nearly 30 years ago and that is after the studies were conducted.    

I will have a civil discussion with anyone on the subject of trans gender issues.  I will not tolerate slurs or repeated misrepresentations, myths, and lies.   Once a subject / issue has been addressed it is not to be repeatedly brought up days later.   It has been addressed and done.  I won’t allow disinformation and will call out fringe unscientific claims of studies or unfounded fake medical claims.  I am about truth and science, the real verifiable data with peer reviewed studies, which so far have all confirmed that gender and biological sex is a spectrum, and that trans gender best practice treatment is the affirmative transition treatment given today.   Hugs  

Juno Dawson, Joanne Harris and Hannah Graf MBE

Juno Dawson, Joanne Harris and Hannah Graf MBE at the PinkNews Awards 2022. (PinkNews Awards 2022)

Trans icons Hannah Graf MBE and Juno Dawson have slammed well-known public figures and for stoking “uninformed and divisive” views against the trans community. 

The pair spoke at the PinkNews Awards 2022, supported by joint headline sponsors Lloyds Banking Group and United Airlines, where they presented the Ally of the Year award to Chocolat author Joanne Harris.

In her speech Graf, a former officer of the British Army, detailed how “vital allies are” and shared how she had felt “isolation and fear” while growing up.

 

“On a positive note younger trans people, particularly today, we have more role models, more support networks, more understanding of who they are than ever before.

“That support is from parents, friends, organisations like Mermaids, they now have somewhere to turn to and feel that little bit less alone.”

Juno Dawson, Joanne Harris and Hannah Graf.
Juno Dawson, Joanne Harris and Hannah Graf. (PinkNews Awards 2022)

But despite the increased support available, Graf highlighted that “trans young folk remain under attack”. 

“They are bullied at school by their peers, sometimes even their teachers,” she said. 

She added that trans children’s families are often attacked for supporting them and the media “continues to debate their very existence”.

“This becomes truly dangerous when it then gets involved with public figures with huge social media followings, most of whom have never talked to a trans child or their terrified parents.”

She said these figures spout “uninformed and divisive” views, and added: “The mainstream media would have us believe these are innocent concerns vocalised for the good of society, but freedom of speech should not be freedom from consequence. 

“For example, the sustained and utterly inexplicable Twitter campaign from a certain author – she who who must not be named – against trans youth charity Mermaids of which I’m a proud patron.”

Graf said the impact of the author’s Twitter campaign has been “truly devastating” and led to the abuse of the charity’s volunteers.

 

She recalled terrible names the team have been called and said “multiple death threats have been made specially at individuals”, with people’s and addresses and phone numbers also being shared online. 

“This is to a charity that has been largely run by mothers, fathers, volunteers, all of who are now afraid for their own safety and the safety of their children.

“I’m sorry, but If your words incite these behaviors then you are accountable,” Graf added.

Hannah Graf MBE (l) and Juno Dawson
Hannah Graf MBE (l) and Juno Dawson at the PinkNews Awards 2022. (PinkNews Awards 2022)

Bestselling author Dawson noted the mainstream media “like to create a myth that there is some great ideological divide between cisgender women and trans women”. 

She explained that the first people she came out to were all cisgender women and highlighted how if they speak up for their trans brothers and sisters they are “shut down and locked out”.

The duo then presented the Ally of the Year award which went to Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, who said it was “so wonderful” to finally have a “supportive, wonderful, fabulous community that I understand and that understands me”.

Joanne Harris
PinkNews’ Ally of the Year Joanne Harris. (PinNews Awards 2022)

She said she didn’t feel she deserved the award as she “only tweeted” and said a few things, so she dedicated the award to her trans son, who came out in June. 

Harris was subjected to vicious online abuse this year due to her support for trans people, with one academic claiming people with trans children should be forced to “declare” their family relationships.

“I’m still coming to terms with what that means, but I’m so impressed by this young generation of people who are so incredibly articulate about their gender, their sexuality and their mental health.

“These magical children who don’t need a special hat to tell them who they are, but who have actually worked it out for themselves.”

‘I was a target’

In an interview at the PinkNews Awards 2022, Harris said she started talking about trans issues five years ago but didn’t realise there would be so much “push back”

When her son came out as trans Harris realised “not only was he a target, but so was I”.

“So I thought, damn it, I’m just going to come out and say things as they are. I think it’s important that people understand that this ridiculous media-driven culture war narrative, where the trans people are the enemy, is just so dangerous and so divisive and it absolutely needs to be combatted.”

Harris added there are so many powerful and influential people sharing the anti-trans narrative that it is time “that somebody else stood up and spoke the truth”.

A shocking 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ students feel unsafe in school, report reveals

Overwhelming majority of LGBTQ+ students feel unsafe in school, report finds

No child or staff of a school should feel unsafe or be without food, comfort, or needed medical care.   It is hard enough to learn and some kids have a lot of issue that make it harder for them.   Anything that can make it easier for them to process the information learning to thing / reason is something we as adults / a society need to do.  Teachers need to feel safe.   Teaching is a skill, not everyone can do it or do it well.  I use to teach people unfamiliar with operating windows some basics and how to set some settings.   I got good at doing this even over the phone.  But it takes being able to see in your mind what should be and also what the other person is seeing and talking in a way that limits confusion.   I have had great teachers in my life that I still remember what they taught and how they kept me interested and I have had teachers I couldn’t learn from and sleepwalked through the classes.   Teachers need to focus on their students and the lessons.   The idea that teacher have an easy job and don’t work much is so wrong an entire post could be made to debunk it.  Teachers shouldn’t be providing the needs students have for supplies, yet a lot do now.   When I was a kid our communities were proud to show how well the local schools were funded and had everything they needed.   That is not happening today.   Public schools have been starved for so long they are nearly skeletons of their former selves.   Education is the way we improve life and progress for all.    Our youth / children are the future of our country and they will one day be the leaders of the country, if our 80 and 90 year old will ever step aside.   If we don’t want to backslide into a less educated / less progressive time we need to fund public education and treat the idea of schools with the seriousness / importance it needs / should have.  These don’t say gay and the removal of supportive acceptance posters / clubs   Hugs

More than 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ students reported feeling unsafe at school last year

More than 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ students reported feeling unsafe at school last year (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

More than 80 per cent of LGBTQ+ students across the United States reported feeling unsafe at school in the last year, a new survey has found.

An annual report from the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), found that 81.8 per cent of LGBTQ+ students surveyed felt unsafe at school because of “at least one of their actual or perceived personal characteristics”, with nearly a fifth of these students (16.2 per cent) reporting that these feelings led them to change schools.

The study, published on Tuesday (18 October), also found 32 per cent of LGBTQ+ students across the US had missed at least one full day of school over concerns for their safety.

 

Disturbingly, LGBTQ+ students reported experiencing increased high levels of verbal and physical harassment from their peers in the past year, with more than 75 per cent reporting in-person verbal harassment at school due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and a horrific 12 per cent saying they were physically assaulted in the last year.

GLSEN said the findings indicate “specific school-based supports” including “an LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum and supportive student clubs” are sorely needed in the country.

The organization’s chief of staff Aaron Ridings said findings come at a time when students have reported “a decline in school resources” to tackle LGBTQ+ discrimination, as well as “the COVID-19 pandemic [creating] a period of mass disruption and trauma”.

The research comes as students across the US face waves of discrimination in the form of homophobic and transphobic laws from the government. Alabama has banned gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth and several states have banned trans students from playing sports at school.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also pushed through the much-criticised Don’t Say Gay bill in March, restricting schools from discussing LGBTQ+ issues in classrooms.

Some Republican politicians now want to roll that bill out across all of the US.

Teachers in Florida have spoken out about the damaging implications of the bill, with educators fearing “legal action” if they defy the bill to teach children about LGBTQ+ families.

Cory Bernaert, a Florida elementary school teacher, told PinkNews at the time of the bill’s passing that it was hurtful both “personally and professionally”.

“I do feel that teachers are going to be mindful because it is now law, and the last thing that an educator wants to worry about is any sort of legal action taken against them,” he said.

“The fear is there… I don’t blame them. It feels as if we have been bullied.”

Ensure ‘safe and affirming schools’

GLSEN wrote that despite this, an LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum, supportive educators, and LGBTQ+ clubs is a way forward to ensure queer youth feel safe in a school environment. 

“Instituting these measures can move us toward a future in which all students have the opportunity to learn and succeed in school, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression,” GLSEN wrote.

“Especially given the decline in LGBTQ+ supports in schools that we found in this year’s report, it is imperative that all who are committed to ensuring safe and affirming schools for all students intensify their efforts in policy, advocacy, and classroom practices.”

Ted Cruz shared name of trans preschool teacher on Twitter to his 5.3 million followers

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/ted-cruz-shared-name-trans-preschool-teacher-twitter-5-3-million-followers/

Cruz knows what the maga base will do next.  They will hound this teacher and this school with threats and intimidation until the teacher so afraid for their life they leave voluntarily forever hounded by right wing thugs, or the school in fear has to fire the teacher.   LGBTQ+ are being made into villains, sexual predators and made social pariahs by the right including elected officials with the job of protecting all people in the US.  Plus what Cruz is mocking is the tolerance, acceptance, and positive way the pregnant teacher is framed by the school.   Which is a good thing.   The society is changing and should be more accepting of diversity and differences.  Medically trans people exist, they are here, they have lives they should live freely and openly, they are not evil or sinful.   If you at home want to teach your kids that trans people are sinful or evil fine, but the schools must & should teach non-discrimination against people that are not committing any crime and have legal rights regardless if you think they are evil or sinful.   The religious trans haters have a right to their opinion, but not to take actions against people simply because they don’t like them.   Hugs

The Republican senator has been roundly criticized for potentially exposing a private citizen to anti-LGBTQ harassment and violence.
 
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Ted Cruz's daughter disagrees with his politics
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz Photo: Shutterstock
 

Texas Sen.Ted Cruz (R) is one of several right-wing figures who invaded the privacy of a pregnant preschool teacher by exposing his name on social media.

Earlier this week, Cruz quote-tweeted a tweet from conservative activist Phil Kerpen that included screenshots of an email from a Washington, D.C., preschool outlining how parents should discuss a trans teacher’s pregnancy with students. Kerpen, who has over 100,000 followers on the platform, included screenshots that mentioned both the name of the school and the teacher.

The email reportedly framed the teacher’s pregnancy in positive terms and advised parents of “kids who may have associations with pregnancy and a certain gender, (‘only girls/moms can have babies’)” to echo the teacher’s own language around his pregnancy: “‘some boys have bodies that can have babies, and I have the kind of body that can have a baby, isn’t that cool?!’” The school also reportedly offered other resources to help facilitate discussions of transgender people, gender identity, and pregnancy with preschool-age children.

Cruz retweeted Kerpen’s post exposing the teacher’s name to his 5.3 million followers with the caption “Not satire.”

 

Kerpen’s tweet has been deleted, but right-wing media outlets like the Washington Examiner, the Citizen Free Press, and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s The National Desk seized on the story, further exposing the teacher’s name.

Cruz’s tweet, which does not include the name of the teacher or the school, remains up. The senator has been roundly criticized for exposing a private citizen to potential anti-LGBTQ harassment and violence.

 

https://twitter.com/mamrycalamity/status/1582464089829539840?s=20&t=bxwF0WnLgF1TDQNg1P-q4A

 

MAGA Chud Arrested For Indecent Act Near A Preschool

Republican candidate Randy Gene Kaufman has been arrested for publically masturbating in his truck next to a preschool in Arizona. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET.

http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live

Read more HERE: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/m…

“Randy Gene Kaufman, a Trump-loving Republican candidate for the Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board, was arrested for public sexual indecency after he was caught allegedly watching porn and masturbating in his car near a preschool on Oct. 4.

According to an affidavit, a Maricopa County police officer noticed a Ford F-150 parked across three spaces with a shade screen across the front windshield. The officer wrote that he approached the car and “immediately became alarmed as I saw [Kaufman] had his pants down mid-thigh and was exposed showing his fully erect nude penis,” Kaufman was reportedly so engrossed in his activities that he did not notice the officer at his passenger side door until he moved around the car to the drivers side window.

The officer wrote that the car was parked “with a full view of the Wirtzels Preschool and Child Care Center,” about 190 feet away, and that he saw “several preschool age children having outdoor activities in the playground,” as well as vehicles passing within 10 feet of the car.

Kaufman was asked to step out of the vehicle and was questioned by the officer. Kaufman claimed he had been in the area buying rebar and that he didn’t normally do this. “I’m just really stressed out. I have a lot of things going on,” he told the officer, admitting to having been watching intteracial porn in his car. When questioned as to if he knew he was so close to a preschool he responded, “I didn’t notice it until you came up and I got out of my truck.”

“I really fucked up; this is bad. You have no idea, Kauffman told the officer, “I’m running for the Governing Board for the colleges. I didn’t even know this was one of your sites but now I see the signs all over in the parking lot.””

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Most Republicans want students to learn about everything except for LGBTQ people

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/republicans-want-students-learn-everything-except-lgbtq-people/

Republicans support teaching kids about sexuality, as long as it’s heterosexuality.
 
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An empty classroom
Photo: Shutterstock
 

Most Americans support teaching about controversial topics in school, except when those controversial topics deal with LGBTQ people.

According to a new study from the University of Southern California (USC), majorities of both Republicans and Democrats supported teaching about numerous controversial topics in high school, including racial inequality, immigrant rights, environmental issues, and even about pro- and anti-choice positions.

Only four topics USC asked about got less than majority support from Republicans: gay rights, sexual orientation, gender identity, and trans rights. Between 30% and 40% of Republicans supported high school students learning about those topics in school, compared to between 84% and 86% of Democrats.

And the issue isn’t human sexuality in general. Over 90% of Republicans and Democrats supported teaching sex education in schools.

The graph showing Democaatic and Republican support for teaching various topics

The findings come after conservatives have been working to pass “Don’t Say Gay” laws in several states. Florida passed one such law, which bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in young grades and restricts such discussions in higher grade levels.

Supporters of the bill have said that any discussion about sexuality around children is a form of “grooming” or child sex abuse, and they have often stressed that their views on the matter aren’t discriminatory. But those statements contradict the survey’s findings that Republicans are generally fine with schools teaching kids about human sexuality, as long as that sexuality is heterosexuality.

The Brookings Institution, which worked on the study, noted that a majority of Americans support teaching about all of the 24 topics they asked about.

The study was part of the Understanding America Study and involved a representative sample of 3751 adults surveyed between August 15 and September 12.