Social Workers are protesting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-trans polices by quitting their jobs. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.
“Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) order to investigate the parents of transgender youth for child abuse caused behind-the-scenes tumult at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services caused by, according to internal emails.
In February, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R) issued a non-binding opinion stating that gender affirming health care for transgender youth is a form of child abuse. A week later, the governor directed DFPS to investigate parents who support their transgender children and allow them access to gender affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors in a letter sent to the agency.
Gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and other major medical/mental health organizations as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals. Gender affirming care for minors does not involve surgical procedures.”
The Christian Taliban moves forward with their effort to control women. The republican warn on abortion was about control of women’s bodies and their reproductive systems. Think about it, women are the only people required by law to let another to organism use the resources of their body to keep alive. Even babies that are fully delivered and breathing on their own don’t have that right. No man can even be forced to give blood for their own child, nor any other part of their body. Not even a sample of their bone marrow, nothing. Yet woman must provide a zygote full use and priority of her body, at least until it is born, possibly causing her lifelong injury or even death. It is about control, or the anti-abortion laws would have these provisions for every child applying to both sexes involved with creating it. So what was the issue with trans women? Control over the trans woman and their body? Well let’s take it one step further and ask what girls really should be doing to get ready to be incubators of a man’s offspring? Hugs
“Are they out there wearing dresses and skirts while they’re playing sports? Are they learning to be a feminine woman?”
It turns out that some far-right Christians aren’t just opposed to transgender girls playing on sports teams, they’re opposed to any girls playing sports at all… and that opposition may have landed one Christian school in legal trouble.
Valley Christian Academy (VCA) in Santa Maria, California recently forfeited its scheduled October 29 football game against nearby Coast Union High School (CUHS) after discovering that CUHS had two girls on its team.
While it might seem strange that females should be allowed to play on sports teams that are predominantly male, it’s actually required under Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in sports within any schools that receive federal government funding. Title IX states that, in sports where a girls’ team is not available, girls must be allowed to try out for the boys’ team and participate on the same basis as boys.
VCA hasn’t issued a public comment about its forfeit against CUHS. However, the school explained its similar decision to forfeit a football game last year against Cuyama Valley High School (CVHS) because it had a girl on its team.
At the time, VCA lead pastor and school superintendent Joel Mikkelson told The Santa Maria Times, “Football is a violent game and we understand the value of such in training our young men within the boundaries of an organized sport.”
CUHS’ Head Coach Andrew Crosby told The Tribune that he’s upset that VCA singled out the two girls on his team just because of their gender. The girls’ names are Emily Reed and Andrea Aguilar.
Crosby said that he would never force Reed or Aguilar to stay off the field to accommodate VCA, nor does he want the girls to feel like the cancellation of the game is their fault.
“It’s not fair,” he said, “and I hope that because of the support of their families, the team, and community, that they can have confidence that we support them…. They are part of our team and will suit up for every game.”
The forfeited game will count as a victory for CUHS. However, VCA’s decision to forfeit its games could’ve violated federal law and state rules for student-athletes.
When VCA canceled its game against CVHS last year, it sent a letter to the school stating that its female athlete wouldn’t be allowed to compete on the VCA campus. That letter may have violated Title IX. The letter may have also violated the California Interscholastic Federation’s (CIF) rules requiring schools to comply with Title IX.
The parent of the female CVHS player has since filed a lawsuit against VCA seeking a jury trial and “unspecified damages over loss of education and career opportunities, reputation, well-being, and attorney’s fees.” The suit seeks to stop VCA from committing such sex-based discrimination in the future.
Unsurprisingly, VCA isn’t the only group of Christians who are against girls playing sports, whether or not it’s with other boys.
Tanner Furrh of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas — a man who has said that lesbians deserve violent deaths — recently said that he is against girls playing any organized sports because sports cause girls to be “more masculine.”
“Are they out there wearing dresses and skirts while they’re playing sports? Are they learning to be a feminine woman?” Furrh asked in a recent sermon. “No, that’s not what sports do for women…. . My daughters are not going to be in any organized sports team.”
For the record, female field hockey players do actually wear skirts, but that doesn’t matter because — as with Christian misogyny in general — fundamentalist opposition to female athletes isn’t really about preserving “femininity.” It’s about controlling girls’ bodies, freedoms, and life choices.
Christian hate-preacher Tanner Furrh says girls shouldn't be athletes.
"Are they out there wearing dresses and skirts while they're playing sports? Are they learning to be a feminine woman? No." pic.twitter.com/9cMtK4jpI8
This is the damage that the rabid right wing rhetoric causes. Attacks on hospitals caring for kids. The right wing is working overtime to spread lies and misinformation about trans and other LGBTQ+ children getting the maga thug base so worked up they attack / abuse the LGBTQ+ over things that are not happening. This rhetoric gets repeated by people using the right wing sources yet claim not to be right wing? But you don’t see the misinformation posted in mainstream media, just in the rabid right media arm of the republican party. These toxic bomb throwers do not care about the truth which is the major medical group in the US promote and support with affirmative care for trans kids. Here is a short list from https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/
Medical Organization Statements
Leading medical groups recognize the medical necessity of treatments for gender dysphoria and endorse such treatments. Most of these groups have also explicitly rejected insurance exclusions for transgender-related care.
As you can see, I am tired of the lies that are now increasing the threats and abuse of the LGBTQ+ and their supporters by maga thugs using these lies as a reason to attack. Just like these same thugs went after school boards and Dr Fauci along with any organization promoting medically approved safe practices for Covid. The right wing media kept promoting / pushing fringe doctors that were making lies, misinformation, and using misdirection to achieve their goal of making a political issue out of a medical one. The right wing media is the media arm of the republican party and they do not care how much what they lie about hurts people, as they say it is OK as long as they win. I am done with it. Learn the facts. don’t let the fringe groups lie to you. Hugs
The hospital’s own phone operators and website made the situation much much worse.
Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. has been targeted with bomb and death threats after the far-right anti-LGBTQ Twitter account Libs of TikTok falsely claimed that the hospital was performing hysterectomies (the removal of the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, and sometimes ovaries) on transgender children.
The post may have caused the Twitter access for Libs of TikTok to be suspended, The Daily Dot reported, as it hasn’t tweeted since last Friday.
Last Friday, Libs of TikTok’s founder Chaya Raichik posted an audio recording of her discussion with hospital telephone operators who said that “a 16-year-old trans boy would be eligible for a hysterectomy at the hospital’s gender development clinic,” The Washington Post reported.
One operator told Raichik that a 16-year-old child would be “in the clear” to receive the operation. A second operator told her that “all different type[s] of age groups” come in for the operation and that “kids” younger than 16 have come in for the procedure.
Right-wing media outlets like Fox News and The Daily Caller shared articles about the recording.
The hospital has since said that the telephone operators provided incorrect information. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has said that hysterectomies shouldn’t be performed on minors.
🚨BREAKING EXCLUSIVE REPORT🚨
.@ChildrensNatl admits in damning audio recording that they do “gender affirming” hysterectomies on minors including 16-year-olds and “younger kids”
“None of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients,” hospital spokeswoman Ariana Ahmadi Perez said. “We do not and have never performed gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18.”
However, the Twitter account’s claim was bolstered by the hospital’s website which stated, before Thursday, that gender-affirming hysterectomy was available to patients “between the ages of 0-21.” The erroneous statement has since been corrected, Perez told The Post.
This isn’t the first time that Libs of TikTok has directed ire against a hospital’s trans youth clinic.
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.”
Anti-LGBTQ politicians and activists have falsely claimed that medical providers are giving “irreversible” treatments to trans “children.” However, in reality, young children are only encouraged by medical professionals to continue exploring their gender. Pubescent children are given “puberty blockers” to give them time to stave off further biological changes while they decide on their future course of treatment.
Numerous states have introduced bills seeking to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth even though major U.S. medical associations have said such treatment is essential for the youths’ well-being.
Alabama and Arizona have both passed laws banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. Similar bills remain in committee in the Ohio and New Hampshire legislatures. Similar bills failed to become law in 12 other states.
Mothers Against Greg Abbott, a political action committee founded by a group of mothers, created a powerful back-to-school television advertisement against Governor Greg Abbott showing a young child wearing body armor on his “first day of school.” Texas Paul reacts.
This is what it is coming to. Where LGBTQ+ groups doing a legal event have to have their own armed people to defend against the violent maga brownshirts who are armed and violent. The LGBTQ+ have faced these bullies before and refuse to give in to them now. It will escalate because the maga gang thugs don’t care about the law and feel most police back them up. There is going to be a fire fight, a gun shooting where many people are hurt. Is that going to be what it takes to wake up the people to the dangers of the maga brownshirt enforcer gang thugs! These vigilantes feel it is their right and entitlement to shut down anything they don’t like. They are egged on and riled up by republican politicians that are openly calling the LGBTQ+ groomers, pedophiles, and claiming we are forcing / talking kids into changing sexual orientation and gender. This is why the rhetoric used by the right is so problematic, it gives their more violent member thugs permission to attack the LGBTQ+. Also notice how fast the two tough alpha Porud Boy thugs run to the police claiming to be spit on thinking the police will move against the LGBTQ+ protectors for them. The police lady was having none of that. She told them they were trying to start trouble and shouldn’t have been there. That causes the big tough Proud Boys to whine. Hugs
The anti-LGBTQ protesters held signs that said, “Drag the queens out of town” and “Stop sexualizing children.”
A counter protestor wears a rainbow while carrying a rifle. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-LGBTQ demonstrators protesting a Sunday drag brunch at Anderson Distillery and Grill in Roanoke, Texas were met by armed counterprotesters carrying rifles. The incident illustrates the growing culture war as rightwingers baselessly accuse drag performers and the queer community of “sexualizing children,” leading to threats of violence and mounting tensions.
The restaurant held a “Barrel Babes Drag Brunch” on August 28. Its advertisement said, “All Ages Welcome!” The brunch was hosted by drag performer Trisha Delish.
News of the event quickly spread on right-wing social media with groups like Texas Family Project and Protect Texas kids both alerting their followers to the event. Both groups regularly post messages against transgender youth and LGBTQ civil rights.
Steven Monacelli, a journalist with Rolling Stone and Texas Observer magazines, posted a tweet with pictures of the protest. Monacelli’s tweet read, “Anti-trans activists are protesting a drag brunch in Roanoke, Texas, but are outnumbered by supporters of the event. I’ve only been here for about five minutes and I’ve already seen quite a few heated exchanges.”
NOW: anti-trans activists are protesting a drag brunch in Roanoke, Texas, but are outnumbered by supporters of the event. I've only been here for about five minutes and I've already seen quite a few heated exchanges. pic.twitter.com/l4RcwWFlSZ
— steven ''italian elon musk'' monacelli (@stevanzetti) August 28, 2022
The images he shared showed anti-LGBTQ protesters holding signs that said, “Christ is KING,” “Drag the queens out of town,” “Children cannot consent,” “Stop sexualizing children,” and “Caution: Monkeypox hotspot approx. 50 ft away. Stay back.”
Proud Boy outside of a Drag Brunch in Roanoke, TX today
A Reddit user named werdmouf posted a nearly two-minute video of the incident which showed the armed counter-protesters standing outside of the venue. One of them carries a queer Pride flag while a bearded man claims that another one of the guards spit on him.
When approached by an interviewer, the man admits that he called the armed guards “F**king pu****s,” and says, “I’m here to support people who don’t indoctrinate and groom little eight-year-old kids.” Republicans have repeatedly claimed that anyone who lets children know that LGBTQ individuals exist is trying to “groom” them for rape.
When a female police officer tries to get the man to stand away from the armed guards, another man wearing an Infowars T-shirt comes over and tells the man that he doesn’t have to listen to the officer. Infowars is a far-right program that peddles conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, which accused a gay-owned Washington D.C. pizza shop of running a child sex trafficking ring in its non-existent basement.
Another man in the video expresses anger that the armed guards have covered their faces in bandanas and sunglasses. Some Antifa and Proud Boys members hide their faces to avoid having their images taken and identified by police or web users.
Kris Cruz, a producer on the far-right media outlet Blaze TV, wrote via Twitter, “Armed #Antifa showed up in Roanoke, TX to protect the ‘kid friendly’ drag show at this bar. Armed #Antifa escorted attendees to the vehicles. I counted about 9 AR-15s.”
At other drag events, anti-LGBTQ protesters have followed, harassed, and doxed the performers and parents who bring their children to the events.
In response to news of the incident, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) wrote “A drag show is no place for a child. I’m working to ban these entirely next session. I look forward to working with @FamilyProjectTX to make this happen.”
Slaton has previously said that he would like to sponsor such legislation. He characterizes kids attending drag shows as tantamount to sexual abuse. “The events of this past weekend were horrifying and show a disturbing trend in which perverted adults are obsessed with sexualizing young children,” he said.
However, Slaton hasn’t yet specified exactly what he means by “drag shows,” how they’d be defined in a bill, or how his bill would avoid violating the Constitution’s protections for free speech.
A drag show is no place for a child. I’m working to ban these entirely next session.
I look forward to working with @FamilyProjectTX to make this happen.
For those that think sexual reassignment surgery is happening frequently and done on a whim, the article corrects those misconceptions.
Greene’s tweet was far from honest; Biden has never said that he supports “castrating boys.” Surgery is not even a part of gender affirming care for minors, and Biden has never said that the standard of care for transgender youth should be changed. His position on the issue has been that medical care is a decision to be made by trans youth, their families, and their doctors.
In June, Biden signed an executive order telling the Department of Health and Human Services to counter state efforts to limit gender affirming care for minors by releasing sample policies for states to expand health care access. Gender affirming care for trans youth can include talk therapy, social transition, reversible puberty blockers, and hormone therapy in some cases.
Gender affirming care for trans youth doesn’t include surgery, that is a misleading right wing talking point. If you think that is happening you are being fooled into agreeing with Marge Green and the right wing hate media. Hugs
She also falsely accused Joe Biden of “sick & perverse child abuse.”
Biden tweeted yesterday about how the extremism of the right will inspire more women to vote in the midterms this year.
“These MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women in America,” Biden wrote. “They are about to find out.”
It’s a fairly innocuous message from a political leader – “Our party will win the next election” – but Greene responded by accusing him of “perverse child abuse.”
“This is coming from a man that supports castrating boys with so called ‘gender affirming care’ before they are even old enough to vote,” Greene wrote. “We know you’re slipping Joe, but those aren’t women.”
“Yes there is an awakening coming. We will STOP your sick & perverse child abuse.”
This is coming from a man that supports castrating boys with so called “gender affirming care” before they are even old enough to vote.
We know you’re slipping Joe, but those aren’t women.
Greene’s tweet was far from honest; Biden has never said that he supports “castrating boys.” Surgery is not even a part of gender affirming care for minors, and Biden has never said that the standard of care for transgender youth should be changed. His position on the issue has been that medical care is a decision to be made by trans youth, their families, and their doctors.
In June, Biden signed an executive order telling the Department of Health and Human Services to counter state efforts to limit gender affirming care for minors by releasing sample policies for states to expand health care access. Gender affirming care for trans youth can include talk therapy, social transition, reversible puberty blockers, and hormone therapy in some cases.
“My message to all the young people: Just be you,” Biden said when announcing the measure. “You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. You do belong.”
Greene introduced a bill last week to ban gender affirming care for young transgender people and to make it harder for transgender adults to access such care. While gender affirming care for trans youth doesn’t include surgery, Greene’s bill includes a list of surgical procedures that she would ban for transgender minors.
The online right has been spreading false stories about how certain children’s hospitals are performing surgery on young trans people, leading to death threats against children’s hospitals and pediatricians. Right before she introduced her bill Greene was on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show claiming that her bill would stop “horrific ‘sex change’ genital surgeries” on minors.
The Build Back Better plan that Biden tried to get passed had money for these types of projects to fix many of the utilities that people depend on, but the republicans and Manchin couldn’t stand the idea of the government doing something that helped the public, the people. The republicans and Manchin only want the government to help the wealthy corporations gain more money like in the latest bill Manchin negotiated that required the offering of 2000 acers of public land to oil companies before one renewable project like a wind turban can be built on any public lands. This is called the wealthiest nation on earth, but we cannot provide drinkable water to our people. But we instead give all the money in the country to the wealthy, we fail to tax them while giving them rebates and tax breaks. Back when the wealthy and corporations paid the largest amount of taxes it took to run the country, because they had the most money, this country did wondrous things building huge infrastructure projects that raised the living standards of everyone. Now that the tax burden has shifted to the lower incomes that cannot afford the burden, the system is falling apart as there is no money for repairs. I wonder if this is going to be used by republicans to privatize the water systems costing the people more and losing them the rights over the water resources. Hugs
Jackson’s water system is failing and water across the city is entirely unsafe to drink, officials said at an emergency briefing Monday night. State leadership have warned all residents of Mississippi’s capital city to boil water before drinking or even brushing their teeth.
“We need to provide water for up to 180,000 people for an unknown period of time,” Reeves said tonight.
“Please stay safe,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at the evening briefing. “Do not drink the water. In too many cases, it is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes. Be smart, protect yourself, protect your family, preserve water, look out for your fellow man and look out for your neighbors.”
Reeves said Monday night that he is declaring a state of emergency after excessive rainfall exacerbated problems in one of Jackson’s water-treatment plants and caused low water pressure through much of the capital city.
The low pressure raised concerns about firefighting and about people’s ability to take showers or flush toilets.
Reeves said that on Tuesday, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency will start distributing both drinking water and non-potable water in the city of 150,000 residents, and the National Guard will be called in to help.
Jackson residents already have no or little water pressure, and officials cannot say when adequate, reliable service will be restored. The city water system has been plagued with problems for years, including tens of thousands of residents losing water between one and three weeks during a 2021 winter storm.
Jackson’s antiquated, poorly maintained water and sewerage system has seen recurring failures — including loss of water for much of the city for a month after winter storms in 2021. Federal authorities have issued warnings the system is at risk of failure and of harmful contaminant levels.
In a press conference on Monday to announce the Pearl River crested lower than expected and likely won’t bring widespread flooding of homes and businesses, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba announced the city had to reduce pressure for the entire city water system because of infiltration of floodwater.
Fine GQP management of State resources. Indiana just gave tax payers a rebate rather than put it to the infrastructure or schools, or any number of things.
Republicans: “There’s no such thing as climate change.” Also Republicans: “Financial assistance from the Feds would be socialism.” And Republican President Ronald Reagan: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
But now? “No one could have seen this coming. Help!”
Also Republicans: “Financial assistance from the Feds would be socialism. (But we will take the money anyway, Republicans in Congress will make sure we can spend it on what we please.)”
We need money for a world class water system so we can upgrade our infrastructure and make it safe and reliable for years to come so we can apply a bandaid and then spend the rest on our richest residents.
Come on, what’s more important, a safe, reliable water source for poor and working class people or tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? I think we know the answer every Republican, including Tate Reeves would give.
Oh yes it will be. Only spun to place the problem in the lap of the black mayor. The reality is simple and it was easy to see coming. They spent the last few decades differing maintaining and upgrading the systems while also under funding the water and waste systems. After the last 10 years they now know where the weak poi ts are in their infrastructure in both winter and summer seasons. They, being a red state, are so cash poor and under funded that they will only put a bandaid on this one and only with federal funds with their source in the blue states.
They’ll get handouts of government money like they always do, the vast majority of which comes from prosperous blue states And they’ll still sit back and smugly bitch about homeless people in California while taking that money.
Extreme heat dries out the ground. Which pushes water into the air, which then comes down even harder than normal when conditions hit right. Which then can’t soak into the too-dry ground, so it flows into systems for getting water to people while mixing with sewage treatment and whatever else along the way.
Combine climate change with crumbling infrastructure, and what do people expect?
Cut to the part where the R gov and legislature beg for federal financial aid, and meanwhile complain about federal spending and the deficit.
I would love to see, as a condition of getting financial aid, the Gov and State Legislature leaders had to accept one of those giant checks from Biden for a great photo op.
Today we’re looking into a story from Irish news on a drag story telling event that took place during Belfast Pride. Armed with holy water, “Parents Against Grooming” showed up to protest. Like and subscribe if you enjoyed!
A Christian conservative cellphone company is breaching into school boards to spread their ideas and policies onto school districts. Jayar Jackson and Yasmin Khan break it down on The Watchlist. Watch LIVE weekdays at noon ET.
“A little more than a year after former Trump adviser Steve Bannon declared that conservatives needed to win seats on local school boards to “save the nation,” he used his conspiracy theory-fueled TV program to spotlight Patriot Mobile, a Texas-based cellphone company that had answered his call to action.
“The school boards are the key that picks the lock,” Bannon said during an interview with Patriot Mobile’s president, Glenn Story, from the floor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Dallas on Aug. 6. “Tell us about what you did.”
Scottie's Playtime 