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

Vandals Smash Windows At Gainesville Pride Center -JMG

Vandals Smash Windows At Gainesville Pride Center

This is what happens when red state republican governors, right wing media hosts, and religious hate preachers make wild untrue accusations and targe the LGBTQ+.  They put targets on the LGBTQ+ people and their organizations.    While the police have not released the full context of the notes, one phone shows a note blaming the LBTQ+ for ” … holding get homosexual togethers for middle schoolers”.   You know where that rhetoric comes from.   It energizes the maga thug base to commit act of violence against those the republican governors like DeathSantis claim harm kids.   About that harming kids, DeathSantis used taxpayer funds of hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship Venezuelan legal asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard and one of those was a month old baby.    DeathSantis rants about saving kids by the don’t say gay bills and tough abortion bills, but he did not care he was sending a one month old baby all across the country with no warning to those where they landed and no way the mother could get help.   Lucky the community there rallied to do they could for the asylum seekers that were being used as pawns and it really pissed the right wing off that the left was not assholes like the right is.    Hugs

Gainesville’s ABC affiliate reports:

On Saturday morning, members of the Pride Community Center in Gainesville received a call from a real estate office in the same complex about their building being vandalized.

“She told me that she was just informed by somebody that came to her office that the pride center had been vandalized and that the windows were all smashed,” said board member Debbie Lewis. “The reason it’s being investigated as a hate crime is because of the notes that were left.”

Members didn’t want to share the messages due to the ongoing investigation and the community joined in helping board up the windows.

The Gainesville Sun reports:

The attack came just weeks before the highly anticipated return of the Gainesville Pride Festival on Oct. 22, which was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. Those who showed up at the center helped clean the mess left behind, sweeping up glass and rocks.

“Later I will be angry about this vicious hate crime but right now I’m incredibly sad for every vulnerable person in my community,” County Commission candidate Mary Alford said, adding that she faults some elected Republicans who have shared anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

JoeMyGod Mod  36 minutes ago

There’s a TikTok video of the damage that won’t embed here.

https://www.tiktok.com/@the…

 

tomcor • 28 minutes ago

For me, the hate that has been generated by the likes of DeSantis, Trump, Abbott, Youngkin, Green and their likes has turned into sadness for our country and her citizens. I cannot understand what is going on anymore and why citizens cannot have some peace and reprieve from Republicans.

DJ • 9 minutes ago

Kristallnacht 2.0 begins.

Friday’s_cat • 17 minutes ago

Kristallnacht, Florida Jesus approved.

heleninedinburgh Bilderbeck • 28 minutes ago

Beginning to understand how the Nazis did it now.
Just ordinary people, thinking it’s their civic duty to do what the government tells them, and if it aligns with their own prejudices even better.

pansarkraft heleninedinburgh • 21 minutes ago

And the press reinforces it

Yves R. Mektin • 39 minutes ago

Florida is really getting frightening.

My Lyft driver on Friday that took me home from the airport was brand new here in Palm Springs, just arrived from Fort Lauderdale 2 months ago, with the cutest little dog who slept in the front seat. I welcomed him to California and gave him a big tip.

TnCTampa Yves R. Mektin • 37 minutes ago

God I wish I could afford to get out. if i had the money I would be gone. The place is a human cess pool and getting worse by the minute. But alas Im poor, all my friends live here, have dogs and cats so its hard to leave right now.

JoeMyGodMod • 40 minutes ago

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JT • an hour ago

The work of homophobic Nazi monsters Drumpf and DeathSantis.

Fox News COMPLAINS About a Problem THEY CREATED!!

Evelyn Rios Stafford made trans history in Arkansas. She’s not finished yet.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/evelyn-rios-stafford-made-trans-history-arkansas-shes-not-finished-yet/

The Fayetteville Justice of the Peace fought an anti-trans bill and was the first transgender person ever to hold elected office in the state.
 
By  
Evelyn Rios Stafford made trans history in Arkansas. She’s not finished yet.
Photo: Robert Stafford
 

In just a few short years in politics, Evelyn Rios Stafford has managed to make an impression at the highest levels of government, and at the most local, too.

The first transgender person to hold elected office in Arkansas, Rios Stafford serves as Justice of the Peace for her small district in Fayetteville. In her role, she’s officiated dozens of weddings for constituents. “That’s one of the highlights of this gig as Justice of the Peace. It always gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to do that for people,” she told LGBTQ Nation.

Now, Rios Stafford is running for reelection to the post without serious opposition, a vote of confidence even before the election that constituents view her time in office as effective.

Rios Stafford’s first political involvement was getting a local civil rights ordinance passed in the late 2010’s. In 2020, she ran for an open seat on the local Quorum Court, the equivalent of a board of supervisors, and won. She represents about 16,000 people in her district.

At 49, with a broad smile and the easy, thoughtful cadence of a Texas native, Rios Stafford says being trans wasn’t a focus of her first campaign. “You know, I made one post…about it on National Coming Out Day during the campaign. But that was about it.” It wasn’t until after she was elected that “some folks got wind of the fact that I was a first of something.”

But her victory would become pivotal in the fight over trans rights in the state.

In 2021, the Arkansas legislature passed HB1570, also known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation or SAFE Act. Like similar legislation introduced in other red states, the bill would ban all gender-affirming care for minors, prohibit insurance from covering gender transition procedures, and criminalize those assisting minors in the process.

The bill was awaiting Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s signature when Rios Stafford was enlisted by an Arkansas legislator to help halt the bill’s march into law. From the “phone call to me to meeting the governor was probably, I’d say 24 hours.”

While Rios Stafford was trans, she hadn’t transitioned as a youth. “I knew that I needed to also make space for folks who had this experience and were directly impacted, because their voices are really the ones that have been left out of this whole thing,” she said. Rios Stafford brought 18 year-old Willow Breshears, who began transitioning at 16 with her family’s active support, to the ornate conference room table for her meeting with the governor.

“This was probably the first time that he had ever had a sit down, face-to-face discussion with a trans person before, or in this case two trans people. And, you know, he was kind of starting at zero in terms of knowledge.” A 15-minute appointment turned into half an hour and then 45 minutes. “He was just wanting to know more, basically.”

“I was on pins and needles walking out of that room, like, you know, almost on the verge of having a panic attack. I was replaying all of my answers in my head, like, did I say the right thing, did I screw this up completely?”

Not only did Hutchinson veto the bill, he wrote a Washington Post op-ed explaining why and also went on Tucker Carlson’s show to defend his decision. No matter, the Arkansas legislature overrode his veto, though the law remains tied up in court challenges.

Still, Rios Stafford was satisfied to hear “echoes of some of the things we talked about” in Hutchinson’s defense of the veto.

“‘Traditionally, Republicans have held themselves up as champions of limited government,’” Rios Stafford told the governor. “‘In what way, shape or form is this limited government? Because this is big government. This is government getting in between the families and their doctors.’”

Evelyn Rios Stafford
Evelyn Rios Stafford © Dave Golden

Rios Stafford’s own gender awakening was pivotal to her work in her adopted home state. She majored in English at Rice University in Houston and was pursuing a career in journalism when she got a call from the ABC-TV affiliate in San Francisco asking her to come in for an interview. She got the job. She was young and bright and on the loose in Baghdad by the Bay.

“It was a great time to come there,” she recalled. “During the dot-com boom, the city was kind of going crazy, and it was a really fun time to be there in my 20s. And obviously San Francisco is a place where you can really explore your identity, as well.”

Born and raised in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, she grew up attending Catholic school, where she encountered the first signs of her conflicted gender identity.

“In Catholic school, I had a boyfriend when I was 15. A couple of our friends knew about it, but it definitely wasn’t something that we were out about. I knew that I wasn’t straight, exactly,” she remembers thinking, “but I didn’t really have the language or knowledge to have an understanding of exactly in what way.”

In college, she figured it out. It was “literally, when I was, like, doing research in the college library, that I came across the idea of transgender. And it was this lightbulb moment of like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s what’s been going on with me.’”

In San Francisco, she embraced her new reality. “Gradually, I became more and more out,” Rios Stafford recalled. “It was not a surprise for some people. It was a surprise for others.” While she was “bracing for the worst,” she was “really pleasantly surprised and so grateful for having such a positive experience.”

Evelyn Rios Stafford on her wedding day
Evelyn Rios Stafford on her wedding day Provided

“Back then, this was sort of like, this was new territory,” she said. “I think I was the first employee at an ABC owned-and-operated station to transition on the job.” The following year, Rios Stafford picked up two Emmys for her producing. “I feel like it was all tied together.”

The total package arrived shortly after she transitioned, when Rios Stafford met her future husband, Bob Stafford, an artist and graphic designer, online. She was “smitten from the beginning.” The two shared mutual friends in the arts scene South of Market in San Francisco, and Southern roots, as well. Soon after, the couple moved east to Stafford’s hometown of Fayetteville. They were married in 2016.

According to Rios Stafford, performing weddings in her job as Justice of the Peace is optional. “Not all the JPs do it. I have a feeling that one or two of them might not be on there because if they were on the list, they might have to do a same-sex wedding, and it’s against their personal beliefs or something? But I was like, ‘Sign me up! I’ll do anybody.’”

 
 

Transphobic post lands school board candidate Ladyman in hot water

https://www.queerty.com/transphobic-post-lands-school-board-candidate-ladyman-hot-water-20220924

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In a test of the maturity of anyone who happens across this story, Rockman School Board candidate Craig Ladyman has been exposed for posting violently queerphobic and antisemitic imagery online.

Ladyman posted an image of four pride flags arranged to form a swastika pattern on Trump social media network Truth Social under the incredible username “@LadymanForLiberty”. The candidate writes, “Like my new Pride flag?” (very respectfully capitalizing the “P” in “Pride”, of course).

Appalled parents and voters sent the post along to Superintendent Steven Matthews, who says he shares in their outrage.

“It makes me feel angry,” he tells Fox WXMI. “Certainly, a symbol like that represents the and represents divisiveness. It’s a symbol that I don’t think represents who we are as a community, and anybody who would use it I don’t think represent who we are as a community.”

Related: This school district banned Pride flags, but the local Gay Mafia™ isn’t giving them up without a fight

In addition to the bastardization of the Pride flag, the invoking of nazi imagery is deeply unsettling to community members.

Rabbi David Krishef, a leader at the Ahavas Israel congregation in neighboring Grand Rapids, explains to WXMI the harm that sentiments like Ladyman’s pose.

“It cheapens the Holocaust, it cheapens the suffering,” he says. “It’s a misuse of the imagery, it’s a misuse of the language.

“No matter what’s going on in this country, whether you’re coming from the right wing being afraid of what the left wing are doing or vice versa, we are not rounding people up wholesale and consigning them to concentration camps and death camps. But that’s what the Nazi imagery evokes.”

Related: Wisconsin school board bans staff from listing their pronouns on emails

Not to psychoanalyze transphobes on main, but this candidate’s anti-trans rhetoric is particularly vehement and loud. His official school board candidacy poster reads, “Vote Craig Ladyman/Rockford School Board/He knows what a woman is!”

It’s giving “graphic design is my passion”:

His campaign website boasts, “I promise to fight for parental rights and children’s rights in school. I will never go along with unconstitutional mandates, medical tyranny, or the woke agenda.”

We’re not saying that this man was so horribly bullied for his name growing up that gender stricture became deeply embedded in his psyche and is now his only personality trait. Not out loud, at least.

Tucker Carlson put out a potential hit list of hospital directors

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/tucker-carlson-put-potential-hit-list-hospital-directors/

 

He showed viewers their photos and named each one as he blamed them of covering up crimes against children.
 
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Tucker Carlson put out a potential hit list of hospital directors
Tucker Carlson Photo: Screenshot
 

In a recent segment on his Fox News show, host Tucker Carlson shared the names and photos of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s board of directors while ranting against hospitals that provide gender-affirming care.

Gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other professional groups as necessary and frequently life-saving for transgender individuals. Yet Carlson falsely framed the issue as medical experimentation on children, accusing hospitals of profiting off “the mental anguish of children” in thrall to a supposed “fad.”

Carlson directed his outrage primarily at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Earlier this week, anti-LGBTQ commentator Matt Walsh targeted VUMC in a Twitter thread falsely claiming that the staff at the medical center’s Transgender Health Clinic “castrate, sterilize, and mutilate minors as well as adults, while apparently taking steps to hide this activity from the public view.” VUMC has since shut down the website for its Transgender Health Clinic and released a statement defending the work they do for trans patients and accusing Walsh of misrepresenting the facts.

On his show, Carlson took things a step further, showing the names and photos of VUMC’s board of directors onscreen while reading their names one-by-one, urging them to “do something to stop these crimes.”

The stunt has led social media users to wonder whether Calson’s rant could lead to violence against the hospital’s staff.

“Within the past few hours after Matt Walsh’s attack on Vanderbilt and Tucker Carlson’s coverage, users of 4chan and the Donald are calling for the outright murder of doctors. This is exactly what they want,” tweeted Harvard Law Cyberlaw clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo.

Carlson went on to accuse Boston Children’s Hospital, which was forced to evacuate earlier this month due to a bomb threat following an online misinformation campaign about its Gender Multispecialty Service program, of “playing the victim.”

Earlier this month, Media Matters reported that Carlson had responded to the threats and harassment targeting BCH and other children’s hospitals by amplifying anti-trans misinformation. This week, in another anti-LGBTQ segment falsely accusing teachers and doctors of “sexualizing children,” Carlson went so far as to suggest that “neighborhood dads” should “mete out instant justice to anyone who even thought about sexualizing their kids.”

“No matter what the law says, your duty, your moral duty, is to defend your children,” he said. “This is an attack on your children and you should fight back.”

 

PA Republicans Rally For Extreme “Don’t Say Gay” Bill – JMG

PA Republicans Rally For Extreme “Don’t Say Gay” Bill

This country is not a theocracy yet!  Why are these religious bigots crafting legislation to instill their religious beliefs into secular laws?   I am tired of these people insisting I live according to the limits of the people who lived 2,500 years ago.   Societies grow, they change, they improve, and the way we treat people shows that growth, unless you live by the regressive rules of a religion.   Hugs

Penn Live reports:

Pennsylvania GOP state lawmakers are pushing a bill to limit school instruction that is more expansive than the Florida legislation that has been described by its opponents as the “don’t say gay” law. During a rally at the Capitol, Republican lawmakers and supporters framed the legislation, House Bill 2813, as a way to guarantee parental oversight and control over the availability of school materials that they portrayed as increasingly obscene.

“It is patterned after the Florida bill, but mine goes further,” said Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, R-Clinton/Centre, the bill’s prime sponsor. “It really needs to be protected up through 12th grade, we need to go all the way,” she told reporters. The GOP gubernatorial candidate, Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Adams/Franklin, appeared briefly at the event to voice full-throated support for such measures.

Read the full article.

Borowicz last appeared on JMG in March 2020 when she introduced a resolution calling for prayer because the COVID pandemic was God’s punishment for sin. Her first appearance here came in March 2019 when she held widely-criticized floor prayer for conversions to Christianity moments before the swearing-in of a Muslim rep.

crewman Ann Kah • 7 minutes ago

The absence of talking about LGBTx people communicates a lot — it says we’re “controversial”, tainted in some way, not to be discussed in general public… it teaches shame. Which is 100% everything the Christian agenda wants to teach about us.

ChrisInKansas • 34 minutes ago

How soon before we go back to 1976 and they try to ban gay teachers?

Elagabalus ChrisInKansas • 25 minutes ago

It’s funny you should mention 1976. I remember that year vividly. I was a junior in high school who had just come out to myself (albeit to no one else) and I can remember reading an article that year in Newsweek magazine about the happy homosexuals who were making a community for themselves in San Francisco. Back then, it seemed like the world was young and new and that all things were possible. Little did I know the fierce backlash that would result from those happy homosexuals who were just trying to live their lives with happiness and some degree of integrity. But I would soon find out. Anita Bryant appeared with her crusade the very next year and it wasn’t long afterwards that Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed appeared on the scene to turn the clock backwards.

Rhonda Sand Ṭïts • 30 minutes ago

“Borowicz’s bill also contains requirements for parents to be notified about health services provided through schools,”
So if a school nurse found too many bruises on the kid, the school would have to give the abusive parents a heads-up? Yikes!

🔄arithrianos🔄 Rhonda Sand Ṭïts • 25 minutes ago

Yep, to these hateful higots children have no rights, they are just pieces of property so when property gets damaged the slave owner should be notified

clay MamaKath • 21 minutes ago • edited

Her district is smack-dab in the middle of the state, but avoiding Penn State University and its bedroom communities. She’s a stay at home mom and appears to believe that’s the only acceptable role for women– probably hates women who work for wages (including single parents . . . especially single parents).

Elagabalus • 30 minutes ago

These people think that if their children never hear the word “gay” they won’t be gay. In the words of the old commercial:

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clay Ecce Homo • 18 minutes ago

Her (home schooled?) kids are more likely to have their “gay” education limited to insults.

Ann Kah Ecce Homo • 34 minutes ago

In school? They’re supposed to get their sex education the traditional way, from the older kids out behind the bike shed.

Gustav2 • 37 minutes ago • edited

from the article:

Although the plain text of the Pennsylvania bill would include a ban on any instruction regarding sexual identity – even heterosexuality – the rhetoric around such laws has clearly targeted LGBTQ people, Pick said.

There should be lawsuits if any heterosexuality is mentioned in any way. Any relationships mentioned illustrating heterosexual relationships like James Madison and Dolly Madison.

Gustav2 another_steve • 34 minutes ago • edited

Only when they say the schools are “grooming” you kids to be gay or trans.

They really want erasure of anything LGBT. Right now there is a big uproar in Sarasota FL because a teacher had to revise her teaching material so it didn’t mention Sally Ride was a lesbian or had a long term partner.

A conversation* with Governor DeSantis on his trafficking-immigrants-to-Martha’s Vineyard strategy

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-governor-desantis#details

Nan sent this to me and it is a grand breakdown of how DeathSantis not only broke the law but was trying to use human suffering as a political hate tool.   This is a clear case of racism and bigotry.  Thank you, Nan, for the link.   Hugs

I’m against trafficking of migrants.

But luring unsuspecting people onto planes with lies about jobs, housing, and education awaiting them, and then depositing them onto an island off the coast of Massachusetts that’s totally unprepared to receive them, is a form of human trafficking.

 

The people you’re talking about aren’t American citizens. They have no rights.

Even if they’re not Americans, U.S. law prohibits kidnapping people and moving them across state lines.

I didn’t kidnap them. They’re here illegally!

You don’t know that. Under our laws, these people are entitled to a hearing on whether they’re here legally — just like all the Cuban asylum seekers who for years have arrived in South Florida fleeing communism.

What I’m doing is appropriate and legal! I’m paying for part of it with funds from last year’s American Rescue Plan.

That money was for the COVID-19 health crisis. It isn’t a slush fund for whatever political stunt you dream up.

I’m also using every penny of the $12 million Florida budgeted to relocate migrants. I have a responsibility to the people of Florida to send migrants out of the state!

If you’re responsible for Floridians, why are you picking up people in Texas and transporting them to Massachusetts?

Many of the people who cross the southern border into Texas end up in Florida.

But the law gives federal officials the responsibility for handling immigration, not you.

You don’t know the Constitution. Article 10 gives powers not delegated to the federal government to the States.

No Governor, you don’t know the Constitution. Article 1 gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states. Neither you nor the state of Florida has the authority to off-load people you don’t want onto other states.

I’m not the only governor doing this!

I know. On Thursday Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent two surprise buses of migrants to Washington, D.C., where they were dropped off near the residence of Vice President Harris carrying all they have in clear plastic trash bags.

And we red-state governors are going to do a lot more!

So Republican governors can’t be bothered with pesky things like laws or the Constitution?

The U.S. immigration and asylum systems are totally broken!

Then why don’t you support fixing them instead of using immigrants as political fodder? Ask Republicans in Congress to stop blocking federal legislation creating paths to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants and to expedite asylum seekers and other legal immigrants.

You don’t understand politics. You have to play hardball.

You don’t understand morality or decency. You’re treating immigrants as if they’re political pawns rather than people. They’re no less people than was your maternal great-great-grandfather Salvatore Storti, who immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1904, or your great-great-grandmother Luigia Colucci, who joined Salvatore in the United States in 1917.

Keep them out of this.

And you’re treating the citizens of blue states as political hostages rather than fellow Americans. But they are no less American than the millions of retirees from blue states who have migrated to Florida, and their children and grandchildren who still live in blue states. We’re all in this together.

No we’re not.

And you’re acting as if governing is a child’s game rather than a pursuit of the common good. But it’s not a game. Our common good has depended on the sacrifices of generations of American service men and women, first responders, teachers, social workers, and public leaders who dedicated their lives to this nation.

I don’t have to listen to your speeches.

Look, I get it: Coping with immigration is difficult. It requires hard thought and hard work.

You betcha.

But you’re giving it neither.

Interview over!

I’m told you have presidential ambitions, Governor. If so, you might start acting like a statesman rather than doing stunts that make you a cynical clown.

Amazing teacher goes viral for passionate speech calling out policy to out transgender students

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/amazing-teacher-goes-viral-passionate-speech-calling-policy-transgender-students/

 

“Our students must be able to choose the time and the manner in which they share their transness and with whom. It is not our place to force them to do so.”
 
By  
Dawn Riggs, Ohio Board of Education Speech
Dawn Riggs, Ohio Board of Education Speech Photo: Screenshot
 

A teacher is making waves on Twitter for her impassioned speech before the Ohio State Board of Education in support of trans students.

Dawn Riggs, a teacher of 33 years, was testifying against a resolution that would require Ohio schools to out trans and nonbinary students to their parents, allow teachers the right to refuse to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and require students to participate on sports teams based on their sex assigned at birth, effectively excluding trans girls from school sports.

The “Resolution to Support Parents, Schools, and Districts in Rejecting Harmful, Coercive, and Burdensome Gender Identity Policies” was introduced by Board member Brendan Shea as a reaction to new federal Title IX rules that expand protections for LGBTQ students. 

Riggs spoke before the board about the difference it makes to support trans students.

“I have many trans and nonbinary students in my classes. My experience with transgender individuals spans my entire career. I am still in touch with some of those folks. Every single former student has told me how much knowing they had a safe space to be their authentic selves has meant to them”

Riggs said students have opened up to her about their trauma and suicidal thoughts, and their “wish to disappear.”

“The fact that they could walk into my classroom, be called the name they chose, and be called by the pronouns that reflect their lived experience made a difference. Even if no other adult in their life affirmed their identity, they knew they would be safe for at least a little while each day.”

She added, “It is no burden to use a name that we are asked to use. It is no burden to use the pronouns that are shared with us. If your friend William asked you to call him Billy, you don’t blink an eye.”

She also lambasted the board for considering allowing schools to out students to their parents.

“Our students must be able to choose the time and the manner in which they share their transness and with whom. It is not our place to force them to do so. I urge you to oppose this hateful and misguided rhetoric.”

On Twitter, people praised Riggs for her words and actions.

“She saved lives, 100% certain.” one user wrote.

“If more people had her attitude and kindness there would be a lot more happier trans and non binary people in the world,” said another.

Three members of the Board of Education also released an official statement against Shea’s resolution, writing that they “are embarrassed that our time as a board will be spent discussing an issue that so egregiously works to bully children and threaten adults.”

“Shea not only presented a resolution full of factual errors and based in religious pedagogy,” the statement continued, “but he also submitted a resolution that works to detract our body from the work many of us were elected to do.”

Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
 

Republicans attack Kansas Gov Laura Kelly for supporting trans people. She responded in 8 words

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/09/republicans-attack-kansas-gov-laura-kelly-supporting-trans-people-responded-8-words/

I have covered the swimmer ground before.   In the past anti-trans people have tried to claim that men who cannot win in men’s sports against men then claim to be women so they can compete in an easier contest against women while biologically still men.   That is not just not happening.    Male swimmers are competing in a men’s contest on Monday and then on Wednesday decide to swim in a female contest.   What is happening is trans women living as the gender they identify as wanting to participate in a sport they enjoy.   To participate in the sport a trans woman must meet the medical qualification of what is considered the normal hormone ranges for females.   Often there is at least one or two years of transitioning before joining a women’s team, during which time the benefits of male puberty are diminished / dissipated / removed.    Also it is important to note that trans women do not win all the events and take all the awards.   You know what determines the winners of these sports events?  Those who have natural talent and practice the sport more, longer, harder, and make the effort to be the best at their sport.  

But the sports thing is really a misdirection.    It really is not what these bills are for.   Remember the governor who vetoed on of these bills because there was only one trans child in their schools and that child was not interested in sports?   The republican legislature overrode the veto because it is entirely an issue to rile up the base and get the rabid right wing to vote.   It is not about kids, health, or education but it is entirely about getting the religious people and the rabid right who cannot accept the changes in society to be upset enough to vote republican.   That is entirely want this is about.    Are you uncomfortable that your traditions are not universal now, that other ideas are present?  Return to the past where it was all good and you were comfortable because you understood it all, vote republican.   This is what it really is what these anti-trans / don’t say gay laws are about.    Hugs

She doesn’t have time for the BS.
 
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Topeka, Kansas - January 14, 2019: Democrat Governor Laura Kelly delivers her inaugural speech is front of the steps of the Kansas State Capitol building

Topeka, Kansas – January 14, 2019: Democrat Governor Laura Kelly delivers her inaugural speech is front of the steps of the Kansas State Capitol building Photo: Shutterstock
 

The Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) is saying Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) is lying about her record on transgender rights as she faces attack ads from the conservative organization over her two vetoes of transgender sports bans.

In 2021 and this past April, Kelly vetoed bills that would have banned transgender girls from participating in school sports as their gender. The bills did not similarly restrict transgender boys.

“We all want a fair and safe space for our kids to play and compete,” she said when she vetoed this year’s bill. “However, this bill didn’t come from the experts at our schools, our athletes, or the Kansas State High School Activities Association. It came from politicians trying to score political points.”

RGA has been running ads attacking Kelly for those vetoes. One of those ads featured cisgender swimmer Riley Gaines who said, “I was forced to share a locker room with a biological man. It was uncomfortable and it was wrong.”

“This has to stop,” she concluded. “If Laura Kelly can’t protect women, she shouldn’t be governor.”

In one of her ads, Kelly responded to the claims succinctly.

“You may have seen my opponent’s attacks,” she said in the ad. “So let me just say it: of course men should not play girls’ sports. OK, we all agree there.”

The rest of the ad calls out her opponent, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R), for his support of cutting school funding.

Her statement is true: these laws are not about stopping boys or men from playing girls’ or women’s sports, they’re about banning a subset of girls and women – those who are transgender – from participating in school sports. Like most mainstream Democrats, Kelly is in favor of transgender people getting access to full educations – sports education included – but isn’t in favor of removing gender distinctions in schools.

But Republicans are now accusing her of lying, mainly because they refuse to acknowledge transgender people for who they are.

“Laura Kelly is looking Kansans in the eye and flat out lying about her record of failing to protect girls and women from having to compete against biological men in athletics,” said a spokesperson for RGA Kansas in a press release issued today.

The press release didn’t defend Schmidt when it came to his record on cutting funding for schools.

 

Menstruation Stigma

Times change.   Medical understandings lead to social and cultural changes.   This is one of them.   In some parts of the world women are still required to leave the home and stay in an outbuilding or even just outside.  I remember about a year ago a woman died because her period happened during a hurricane and she was forced to go outside and stay there during the storm.  It was in a country that had religious laws instead of science as their fundamental rule making requirements.   But she was a woman so only her family that loved her really cared about it.    Are we ready for the US Christian Taliban take over now?   Hugs