Category: Animals / Insects / Water Life / Plants / Nature
MAGA Republicans’ Trafficking Stunt BACKFIRES when Residents Welcome Migrants with Open Arms
Texas Paul SLAMS Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott for HUMAN TRAFFICKING migrants
Fascist Proud Boys intimidated school board meeting over a 4-inch rainbow Pride flag
Brownshirt gang of thugs’ enforcement arm of the republican party. Enforcing their will on people by threats and intimidation with the goal of having only their views in society. They are pushing a religious theocracy. They are the vice patrol that will enforce modesty requirements on women. They will be the US Christian Taliban! They are going after the LGBTQ+ now, but next they will go after black, Jewish people, Muslims, and anyone not a Christian straight cis male. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockA member of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys showed up on Monday to a Missouri school board meeting after local conservatives complained about a seventh-grade teacher who hung a small four-by-four-inch Pride flag in her classroom.
Complaints about the flag began after Daniel Ousley, the conservative alderman of Camdenton County, made a Facebook post alleging that an unnamed teacher hung the rainbow and transgender Pride flags in her classrooms.
“As citizens and tax payers of this fine county, we all need to ask ourselves why it’s not ok to fly a Christian flag at our public schools yet these flags are flowing,” Ousley wrote in a now-deleted September 7 post published in a Facebook group entitled Citizens for a Better Camden County.
Ousley also claimed that a teacher had “books with mature content” in their classroom that the teacher hadn’t read in full. It’s unclear if the teacher he referred to exists and, if so, whether they were the same teacher as the one who flew the rainbow flag.
“Stop indoctrinating and grooming our kids!” Ousley’s post concluded.
Some commenters in the same Facebook group also accused educators of “grooming” children, essentially accusing LGBTQ-allies of trying to sexually abuse kids. Others in the same group said that the flag could help make scared, ashamed, and lonely LGBTQ kids feel accepted in their own school.
In a follow-up post published in the same Facebook group, Ousley said that the local school district should ban Pride flags from all classrooms, The Daily Dot reported.
On September 9, the president and superintendent of Camdenton R-III School District both signed a letter that said that district officials had “recently been made aware of certain items being displayed on campus that may contradict Board Policy.”
“For the time being, the items in question have been voluntarily removed from the learning environment until the Camdenton Board of Education can further review,” the letter said.
The district’s board of education met on Monday night to discuss the issue.
Twitter user Laura Burkhardt noted that at least one Proud Boy showed up to the meeting “with the intent to intimidate a teacher over a small pride flag in her classroom.”
“What could this educator possibly have done to deserve so much hate, harassment, and intimidation?” Burkhardt asked in a follow-up tweet. “They had the audacity to have a 4 inch pride flag in their classroom in hopes of letting ALL students know that this classroom is a safe classroom. Oh the horror.”
Another Facebook user name Pat Nicklaus shared an old image that seemed to show Ousley posing next to at least three other Proud Boys and people holding flags touting their support for now-former President Donald Trump.
The Proud Boys have repeatedly harassed and attacked family queer events over the past year. In June, New Zealand declared the Proud Boys a terrorist organization. Its members have ties to anti-government militias, white supremacists, and insurrectionists who tried to overturn the 2020 U.S. election.
Anti-trans troll Matt Walsh says Black mermaids aren’t “scientific” in on-air meltdown
I guess it is not a stretch for a bigot to be a racist also. Hugs
Matt Walsh Photo: ScreenshotDaily Wire host and columnist Matt Walsh has upped his profile as a notorious anti-LGBTQ troll in recent months, targeting transgender people with his film What Is a Woman? Now, he’s diving into the racist backlash against Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.
And his argument against casting a Black actor in the film’s lead role is truly wild: he claims that it’s “scientific” for mermaids to be white.
On a recent episode of The Matt Walsh Show, the far-right commentator argued that it is unscientific for Halle Bailey to play beloved mermaid Ariel.
“Also, by the way, with The Little Mermaid, can we also just mention that, from a scientific perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have someone with darker skin who lives deep in the ocean,” Walsh actually said on his show.
“I mean, if anything, not only should the Little Mermaid be pale, she should, actually, be translucent. If you look at deep sea creatures, they’re, like, translucent. They have no, kind of, pigmentation whatsoever. And they’re just, like, these horrifying — they look like skeletons floating around in the ocean. That’s what the Little Mermaid should look like. She should be totally pale and skeletal where you can see her skull through her face. And that would actually be a version of The Little Mermaid that I would watch.”
Setting aside how truly absurd it is to argue for a scientifically accurate depiction of a mythological half-fish person, several Twitter users have noted various deep-sea fish and aquatic mammals that have dark skin.
https://twitter.com/hannahposts/status/1570157313234993153?s=20&t=3lQDd5I72o2QagR07RFcPg
Predictably, in a subsequent tweet, Walsh attempted to cloak his racism in the guise of satire, claiming to have been misunderstood.
“I said Ariel should be played by someone with translucent skin like a real deep sea fish and thousands of Leftists took me seriously and are calling me racist because of it,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “I’m actually being accused of harboring racial favoritism for translucent people. I love it. This is great.”
Walsh’s laughable take is just the latest in the racist online commentary around Bailey being cast as the character. The backlash has led many families to post heartwarming videos of Black children seeing Bailey in the role for the first time to counter the vile racism with unbridled Black joy.
Conservatives freak out over Zoom workshop on gender-affirming haircuts for teens
Haircuts. This hater is accusing a hospital system of being groomers of sexual abuse of children for helping kids with hair styling tips. This shows it is not about the kids, it is not about saving kids from abuse, it is about forcing kids to fit into a traditional stereotype gender role established by religion. Somehow this is fits with her accusation that children in the US are getting sexual reassignment surgery, which is not true at all. Hugs
Photo: ShutterstockAnti-LGBTQ activist Chaya Raichik – who goes by “LibsofTikTok” on social media – is upset that transgender kids are getting access to haircuts.
On her Substack that she has been promoting since her social media accounts started getting suspended, Raichik shared an invitation to a gender-affirming workshop being run by Kaiser that says several times that it’s for “kids and their parents or guardians.”
“Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest health care organizations, is promoting gender-affirming programming to minor patients without the knowledge or consent of parents, a mother told Libs of TikTok in an exclusive interview,” Raichik wrote, describing the workshop as a “series of courses on social gender transitions.”
While Raichik has been spreading the false notion for the past couple months that children’s hospitals are performing gender-affirming surgery on trans minors – even though gender-affirming surgery isn’t performed on minors – the Kaiser workshops are mostly focused on mental health topics, like self-expression, dealing with fear, and validating emotions.
The few that deal with transitioning don’t mention surgery at all; one is about vocal exploration, another about clothing, and one is about “gender congruent hair styling.”
Raichik said that she was forwarded the message by a mother who isn’t supportive of her child’s identity and who “feels like her child is ‘becoming a guinea pig’ at the hands of medical organizations” because of the possibility of Zoom workshops about haircuts.
In the comments on Raichik’s Substack, people referred to Kaiser as “groomers,” a term used to describe child sex abusers and that Raichik popularized using to refer to any discussion of LGBTQ people in the presence of teens and children.
“Libs of TikTok’s Substack is now going after the Kaiser hospital system for such unspeakable acts as… holding a workshop on haircuts,” wrote Media Matters LGBTQ Program Director Ari Drennen on Twitter. “This panic is about punishing ALL gender nonconformity, period.”
Harvard Law School instructor Alejandra Caraballo said that it was a “straight up lie” that Kaiser was going behind the backs of parents since the workshops include parents.
Last month Raichik made headlines when she falsely claimed online that a 16-year-old transgender boy would be able to get a hysterectomy at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Her story was picked up by other conservative media even though the hospital said that they wouldn’t perform such surgery and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) only recommends gender affirming surgery for people who are of the age of consent and after a 12-month period where they live as their real gender.
While her accusations were incorrect, the hospital received bomb and death threats from her followers.
Earlier in August, Raichik reposted about 13 tweets and a right-wing “expose” claiming that the Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts was conducting gender-affirming surgery on children as young as two or three years old.
The fact-checking site PolitiFact later debunked the claims, but physicians at the hospitals received so many death threats, harassing calls, and emails that the hospital had to hire extra security and give doctors new guidance on responding to threats.
The hospital’s website says that surgery recipients must be at least 18 years old and have a “persistent, well-documented gender dysphoria.”
When she’s not claiming that children’s hospitals are performing gender-affirming surgery on transgender toddlers, Raichik mostly shares videos of LGBTQ teachers and makes negative comments about them, even if it’s not clear that the teachers are doing anything wrong. In the responses, her followers call the teachers “groomers” and claim that they’re harming children with their LGBTQ identities.
Alum calls out “dystopian” proposed rule to notify parents if their kids check out library books
How far is the right wing going to take trying to wipe the LGBTQ+ kids from existence? How are to hurt kids are they willing to go? How much will society let them push intolerance and stomp out curiosity and learning new / different things? These right wing red states are desperate to institute a
Zach Coltrain Photo: Campaign websiteZach Coltrain spent a lot of time at the Virginia Beach school board before he graduated high school in 2020, accepting awards and recognition for his academic and extra-curricular achievements. Now, “as a gay student and alumni of the Virginia Beach City Public Schools system,” Coltrain was “sickened” at the prospect of his former school district adopting a “worst-case” parental rights resolution.
He stood up and spoke out.
“This resolution does nothing to better education standards for students, it creates logistical nightmare-level obstacles, and it risks the safety of some of VBCPS’ most vulnerable students. I strongly urge you all to vote down this mess.”
The resolution authored by board member Laura Hughes mandated the school district “shall develop a system where parents receive an email when their students check out a book from the library,” and provided “all schools require a signature before any book is distributed in class,” giving parents the option to veto required class reading they find objectionable.
Coltrain broke it down point by point.
First, he took issue with the resolution’s assertion in the preamble, “Whereas the single most important indicator of student success is parental involvement.”
“Passing legislation that cements the importance and priority of parental involvement disregards any and all students whose parents can’t make that commitment to education,” said Coltrain. “Singling out students whose parents can’t prioritize their children’s education standards at all times is a sad but true result of some of the economic disparity issues within our community.”
Second, Coltrain took aim at the parental signature requirement for books distributed in class.
“Looking at how many issues arise from permissions slips for field trips, federal cards, beginning of the year paperwork stacks, and all else, teachers do not need the extra work, students don’t need the extra responsibility, and parents certainly do not need to be the reason a student loses educational value from their teacher and classroom because a piece of paper gets stuck in a student’s backpack. This is not practical.”
Last, Coltrain went after, “Point 3, oh boy. ‘Virginia Beach City Public Schools shall develop a system where parents receive an email when their students check out a book from the library.’ Without rehashing the fact that no one needs or wants this,” Coltrain said, he wanted to “highlight the absolute necessity of protecting students wanting to learn about personal, academic or any other topic of importance. Students who read a book about being queer or wanting to ski makes no difference.”
“I came out at the age of 12, because my school made me feel comfortable enough to discover and display that about myself,” Coltrain said. But plenty of people “don’t, and won’t have that luxury. Forcing students into that situation can compromise quality of life dramatically. This resolution creates that scenario guaranteed.”
Coltrain was applauded for his concise, and heartfelt, advocacy.
After a contentious meeting, Hughes’ original parental rights resolution was voted down, and a compromise version, without the parental notifications, was adopted. It did, however, keep language from the preamble that Coltrain objected to, leaving the former student a fight for another day.
He could have a chance soon enough. Coltrain is running to become the youngest representative ever elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.
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