I can’t understand living just to hate and harm others who are not doing anything that harms you. To carry that bitterness and to work so hard to deny to others what you demand for yourself seems like poisoning one’s self. With so much to enjoy in diversity and inclusion why work so hard to create a homogeny of everyone being the same. Hugs
As the M4L annual summit kicks off this weekend, here’s how one of the group’s original chapters is sowing chaos and pushing anti-LGBTQ policies in Indian River County.
Mink Tyner says some people call her a “helicopter parent” because of how protective she is over her kids. Despite this, she wasn’t concerned about bringing her daughter, then 14, to the Indian River County, Florida, school board meeting in August 2023, where they were discussing changes to the state’s curriculum relating to race and slavery.
That’s why she was shocked when she saw community members at the podium reading excerpts of sexual content from books.
“I hate lights out now because my D has a mind of its own,” one woman read. Then a man came up and read, “When Doris had just turned 11, her current stepfather started having sex with her.” And a third person read, “He took a long long time peeling off my jeans and T-shirt, pink bra and panties, and a longer time stroking and kissing me.”
The meeting had turned into more of a stunt led by protestors affiliated with the local chapter of Moms for Liberty (M4L), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated far-right extremist group.
“I’m not gonna have my kid in here listening to these adults doing this shit,” Tyner remembers thinking.
She took her daughter out of the room and pleaded with security to intervene, but they refused. So she spoke up to disrupt the meeting herself, only for security from the Sheriff’s office—who told Uncloseted Media their deputies responded “appropriately and in accordance with established procedures”—to escort her out.
As she was leaving, conservative pastor John Amanchukwu, who had attended the meeting with M4L, confronted her while recording a video that he would later post to X calling her “demonic” and lashing out about her being pro-LGBTQ: “You’re okay with DEI. … You’re okay with Pride Month. You’re okay with the rainbow flag. You’re okay with all that junk,” he yelled. Tyner responded by calling him a “fucking weirdo” and walked out.
That video opened a floodgate of harassment that tormented Tyner and her family for years: She received insults, accusations of pedophilia, and persistent threats of violence from a Facebook account displaying the name CURTIS COUSINS who called her a “fent-using fat fucking dyke” and told her she deserved to have “a potato peeler peel her clit right off to the bone.”
“I never know if this week or 10 years from now somebody’s gonna show up [to my business] based on some kind of misinformation that Moms for Liberty started about me [or] want to harm me and my family,” Tyner, who owns a tattoo shop, told Uncloseted Media.
Indian River County is home to one of the first of M4L’s 320 chapters nationwide. The group’s annual summit is this weekend and will feature a variety of politicians with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Oklahoma’s former state superintendent Ryan Walters, who made headlines for making anti-trans comments after the death of 16-year-old trans teen Nex Benedict. Last year, conservative heavyweights spoke at the event, including President Trump, Tulsi Gabbard and Sebastian Gorka.
Over the last four years, M4L have built a reputation for chaos and controversy. Members have made the news for quoting Hitler, stripping at a school board meeting and offering bounties to report teachers who teach about “critical race theory.”
At one point in Indian River County, close allies of M4L made up a majority of the school board where they pressured the district to ban scores of books, many of which contain LGBTQ themes, and reverse a racial equity policy—all while harassing, doxing and defaming their adversaries.
Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science from the University of Massachusetts, says what’s playing out in Indian River County is a microcosm for so many other chapters across the country.
“[The media are] falling like suckers for this story that they’re a grassroots moms organization. They are not, they are connected to … the far right establishment,” he says. “And that’s become … more and more apparent. So this whole grassroots thing is hogwash.”
Beginnings
Moms for Liberty was founded in Florida in 2021 by three current and former school board members: Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler, the latter of whom has since left the group after being involved in a sex scandal wherein her husband allegedly prowled local bars to solicit women for threesomes.
Shortly after M4L launched, Justice tapped Jennifer Pippin, who had made a name for herself for leading activism against COVID-19 restrictions, to lead the chapter for her home county, Indian River.
While the anti-mask circles that would later be folded into M4L always had a conservative lean, multiple county residents told Uncloseted Media that the group’s discriminatory views were not initially apparent.
Tyner, a lesbian who identifies as politically independent, actually felt welcomed by the group when she worked with them on their anti-mask mandate advocacy. However, that changed as M4L’s focus turned towards opposing LGBTQ inclusion measures in schools.
“Once they organized and got the appearance of a grassroots start … and many people in the community that were siding with them, it’s like they took the steering wheel and they just steered another direction,” she says.
When Tyner began speaking up against this rhetoric, she says she was blocked from the group’s Facebook pages. But as she continued to oppose them publicly, Justice offered to meet with her to address her concerns.
Over breakfast at a local cafe, Tyner says Justice gave her a “scripted” response in the hopes of winning back her support. She even invited Tyner to an M4L chapter meeting. However, Tyner declined as the meeting was allegedly to be hosted by a community member who had made an online post suggesting necrophilia and pedophilia are part of the LGBTQ umbrella.
“I was like, ‘Alright, this is not a good or a safe movement,” says Tyner.
Justice did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Pippin told Uncloseted Media that M4L have “members and members children that are LGB in [their] chapter and across the country.”
Another local parent, who requested anonymity due to concerns about his job security, says while he’d initially been on board with M4L’s parental rights advocacy, he ran into conflict with the group when they started opposing the school district’s racial equity policies and tried to ban books with antiracist themes, including Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby”and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.” Like Tyner, he says he was approached by Justice and Pippin to win him over again but was ultimately unconvinced.
After he split from M4L, he began publicly criticizing the group’s book bans. In retaliation, some M4L members accused him of supporting pedophiles.
When he reached out to Pippin to ask for the people making such accusations against him to be held accountable, he says she waved him off—all while blocking him on social media and accusing him of “bullying.” He also says that she doxed him after another dispute—a major factor in his decision to remain anonymous.
“Her response to me basically was ‘free speech,’ ‘we don’t control what our members say.’ And I’m like, ‘But Jennifer, you know me, and you know I’m not a pedophile, and this is unacceptable,’” he told Uncloseted Media.
Building Political Power
The Indian River County School District’s J.A. Thompson Administrative Center. Photo by Kiran891.
Efforts to ban LGBTQ and racial justice-related books in schools are part of M4L’s national ammo that helped them quickly explode in popularity.
Cunningham says M4L were boosted by high-profile connections on the right. Ziegler and Descovich both served as presidents of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members, a group billed as a conservative alternative to the Florida School Board Association. Ziegler’s husband, Christian, was vice chairman of Florida’s Republican Party at the time and worked as a media surrogate for the Trump campaign in 2016.
Since their launch, M4L have had their conferences and events sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute; were directly advised by Leadership Institute founder Morton Blackwell; and were a part of Project 2025’s advisory board. And this summer, Justice was hired as executive vice president of Heritage Action.
In 2022, the Indian River County chapter leveraged this influence to carve out power in local government: They got two close allies, Jacqueline Rosario and Dr. Gene Posca, elected to the school board, and they developed closerelationships with the Ron DeSantis-backed county sheriff Eric Flowers. Pippin was even appointed by Florida’s Department of Education to a statewide workgroup to develop compliance training for Florida’s classroom censorship policies, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.
As M4L became notorious for pushing exclusionary measures in schools, some officials—including school board member Peggy Jones—criticized the group. In retaliation, Jones reportedly received so many death threats that the district had to increase security detail at all school events where she was present.
In the midst of increasing chaos surrounding M4L, the group mounted a campaign of hundreds of requests to ban books containing “sexual content.”
While some librarians continued to hold the majority of books where bans were unsuccessful, M4L convinced Flowers to investigate one school library, alleging that keeping the books on the shelf could constitute a sex crime. While the investigation found that no crime had been committed, Flowers concluded that “we do not feel that this content is appropriate for young children,” putting even further pressure on local librarians.
Pippin at the school board meeting in August 2023. Photo via YouTube.
This kind of direct action proved very effective. Even the reading protest where Tyner was escorted out won them 34 additional book bans from a unanimous board vote.
“You can’t deny that the kind of tactics that they have have been useful,” Cunningham says. “Some of the places they’ve taken over, [including] Sarasota County, where Bridget Ziegler was on the board, became much more conservative over the past few years.”
Silencing Opposition
In addition to school board meetings, the group has a track record of trolling progressive events. Tyner and the anonymous parent remember an incident where a group of M4L members showed up to a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting that had been organized to discuss plans for opposition against new state regulations that required classes to portray slavery in a more positive light.Tyner says white M4L members attempted to shout down NAACP speakers, with one member allegedly using the n-word. Thomas Kenny, a M4L member who was at the event, said this “did not happen” and that one of their members using the n-word is “an absolute lie.”
Cunningham says these disruptions are part of M4L’s playbook. He pointed to the example of Jennifer Jenkins, the liberal school board member who unseated Tina Descovich in neighboring Brevard County, who says protestors spurred by M4L have turned up outside her home calling her a pedophile and burning “FU” in her lawn.
“They [use the] same kind of tactics … over and over again,” says Cunningham.
Pippin
Chapter leader Jennifer Pippin has mastered those tactics, becoming widely known as one of the most influential book banners in the country. She’s also made headlines for filing a complaint against the Kilted Mermaid, a Vero Beach wine bar, alleging that they had hosted an all-ages drag event with sexual content, which the bar owner denies. M4L rallied against the bar online, spamming the posts of one of the bar’s drag performers, telling the queen to “stay away from children.” This stunt caught the attention of Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier, who launched an investigation and issued subpoenas for video recordings of the bar on the day of the event as well as identifying documents for employees and performers.
Pippin has also claimed to be a nurse, despite no public records showing that she has a license, and appeared on the antisemitic and homophobic far-right news website TruNews, where she claimed, without evidence, that anti-M4L activists have been killing pets and livestock owned by the group’s members.
Fear
Tyner and the other anonymous parent both say that they’ve had to take a step back from the school board and local activism because of the toxic environment M4L have created.
“It’s been turned into such a circus,” Tyner says.
In the meantime, things have gotten worse for the LGBTQ community in Indian River County, and in Florida overall, between the “Don’t Say Gay” law and anti-LGBTQ legislation that requires teachers to deadname trans students unless they have signed parental permission slips. The anonymous parent says he’s watched many of the LGBTQ people in his life, including one of his own children, who is a teacher, leave the state due to the hostile environment.
“It’s not safe for a lot of people,” he says.
Greener Pastures?
Despite all of this, a sea change may be on the horizon. A 2024 Brookings report found that the success rates of M4L-endorsed candidates were on the decline, and in Indian River County’s elections last year, both of M4L’s school board candidates lost. With the continued controversies of the Trump administration and the growing popularity of groups that oppose M4L’s ideology, Cunningham feels the tide may be turning for M4L’s influence in Indian River County and across America.
“In school board races, the Moms for Liberty label is toxic, so try to not get attached to that,” he says. “They’ve had quite an impact … I don’t wanna downplay that. But in terms of popular appeal and growth, I think it’s much more limited than it is portrayed.”
Editor’s Note: In an email, Jennifer Pippin responded to the allegations made about her in this story. You can read them here.
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Steve Bannon, former advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives for a hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court on February 11, 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
With Republicans and Democrats embroiled in a fight over redistricting around the country, GOP operatives are beginning to openly discuss their plan to leverage institutional power — from statehouses to the Supreme Court — to usher in a near-unbreakable House majority.
In Texas, Republicans are pushing forward a plan to create five new GOP House seats, which alone could be enough to prevent Democrats from retaking the House in the 2026 midterms. The new Texas maps are part of a larger redistricting play, in which Republicans think they can squeeze out a dozen new GOP seats from states such as Texas, Florida, Missouri and Indiana.
The redistricting play from Republicans, however, is only part of a larger campaign to totally change the state of play in the House of Representatives. If successful, that effort could see Republicans pick up more than 40 seats without having to win any more support from voters, according to GOP operatives.
GOP strategist Alex deGrasse, an advisor to Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., spoke about the emerging plan on Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” outlining three changes that Republicans are counting on to bail them out of potential democratic accountability: partisan gerrymandering; a Supreme Court ruling that guts the Voting Rights Act; and an unprecedented and unconstitutional mid-decade Census.
“You’ve got these three vectors,” deGrasse said. “Back of the envelope map this morning — when I woke up with a smile — was Democrats could lose 42 seats.”
Potentially the most important part of this plan hangs on the fate of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This section of the landmark civil rights law generally bans race-based discrimination in voting laws, and has been an important part of the legal framework that currently guarantees House districts where the majority of the voters are a minority group. This then allows members of that minority group the ability to elect their chosen representative.
The case before the court directly concerns one of Louisiana’s two majority-Black districts, with the group of voters who brought the case seeking to overturn the current map used in the state. Republicans, however, are hoping the Supreme Court will issue a maximalist ruling that would allow their party to dilute minority voters in the South, effectively eliminating Black representation in Congress in swaths of the country. This would also, in effect, eliminate many Democratic seats across the South.
The Republican dominated Supreme Court has steadily dismantled the Voting Rights Act in recent decades, with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 allowing some states, mostly concentrated in the South, to change the rules and procedures around voting without a federal review.
The potential gains for Republicans here are huge. In 2024, there were 141 majority-minority House districts;119 of these districts elected Democrats to represent them.
The specific number of seats that Republicans would be able to pick up through a change in the Voting Rights Act would depend on the specifics of the ruling, as well as practical constraints on the GOP’s ability to gerrymander. Still,it’s clear Republicans are hoping to be given a free hand to eliminate majority-minority districts altogether.
“The other third aspect that we’re talking about here, Steve, is that voting rights are up in the Supreme Court; they said, ‘Hold on, do we need race-based seats? Does this go against the 14th and 15th Amendments? And does the Constitution supersede racial seat drawing?” deGrasse said.
The third part of the GOP plan, alongside the current round of redistricting and their hopes at the high court, has to do with President Donald Trump’s ordering of a new mid-decade Census.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, signaled at the purpose of Trump’s mid-decade Census plan when he claimed on Fox News that “Democrats rigged the 2020 Census by including illegal aliens.” Miller made these claims despite the fact that Trump was president and in charge of the 2020 Census.
For context, non-citizens have been counted in every Census since 1790, and the framers of the Constitution explicitly included non-citizens in the Census by stating in Article One that it shall count the “whole number of persons in each state.” For the 2020 Census, Trump also pushed to have a question about citizenship included in the Census, acknowledging that the Census was meant to count all persons in the United States, including noncitizens.
Miller went on to reveal the goal of Trump’s mid-decade Census plan, saying that “20 to 30 House Democrat seats wouldn’t exist but for illegal aliens.”
Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who maintains a personal line of communication with Trump, indicated in an interview with the Daily Caller that the Census scheme would also help to lock Democrats out of the presidency and “potentially subtract 20 electoral votes from Democrats in the electoral college system, as congressional seat appropriation is directly correlated with Electoral College totals.” Kirk is a co-founder of Turning Point USA, an organization dedicated to indoctrinating high school and college-age students in conservative ideology. The organization was also among the groups Trump’s 2024 campaign delegated get-out-the-vote efforts to.
The GOP’s Census plan will almost certainly be challenged in court. Federal law holds that a mid-decade Census can be conducted, but not used for apportionment. And, since the country’s founding, the U.S. has conducted a Census once a decade for the purposes of apportionment.
Democrats in Texas say that this current push from the Republicans — to totally reconfigure American elections to retain power — should be a wake-up call.
Texas state Rep. Venton Jones, the House minority whip in Texas, told Salon that national Democrats need to realize that “there’s a bigger plan at play and we need to wake up and address that as a nation.”
“We have to continue to overperform to at least get back the majority and be ready for an electoral fight when that happens, because we’ve already seen what happens when this president, or even this Congress, doesn’t get what they want,” Jones said. “They don’t always play by the rules. They just change the rules to make it benefit them.”
So much for the will of the voters and the desires of the public. Republicans do not want democracy, they want a one party authoritarian rule with them in charge. Hugs
Voters in GOP-controlled states are passing progressive policies at the ballot—only to watch Republican legislators repeal them. Will it change how voters choose candidates?
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe
Last November, Missouri voters approved a ballot measure guaranteeing paid sick leave to workers in the state and raising the minimum wage, which will reach $15 an hour in 2026. It passed by a solid 58 percent.
But last month the Missouri legislature,where Republicans have a supermajority in both chambers,overturned the paid sick leave part of the law, as well as a provision that would have continued to automatically increase the minimum wage in the future. “Today, we are protecting the people who make Missouri work—families, job creators, and small business owners—by cutting taxes, rolling back overreach, and eliminating costly mandates,” Republican Governor Mike Kehoe said in a statement. That’s disingenuous, to say the least. They simply disagreed with the majority of voters—and were under pressure from industry groups like the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry that called the law a “job killer.”
Completely overturning a ballot measure passed by a substantial margin is fairly new and bold, but it’s part of a more recent trend in red states to undermine the will of voters who have passed progressive initiatives at the polls. Increasingly, these approved initiatives are being challenged and weakened by their state legislatures, which may blunt ballot initiatives in general as a progressive policy tool. What happened in Missouri also illustrates the unusual nature of our current state of politics: We’re in the midst of a huge disconnect between what voters want and who they’re voting for to get it. Ballot initiatives make voters feel like they can have it all, choosing policies they like à la carte while voting for candidates based on completely unrelated criteria. It lets legislators off the hook while giving voters a false sense of control. But what’s happening to ballot initiatives in Missouri and other states could be a wake-up call for voters about how they choose candidates.
Twenty-six states allow some kind of ballot referendum process, usually either to amend the state’s constitution or pass new laws, or both. In the recent past, conservative ballot initiatives, like the same-sex marriage ban that passed in California in 2008 (and was overturned by the courts in 2013), were used to drive Republican turnout in an otherwise blue state and try to sway the presidential election. More recently, organizers have focused on passing popular progressive initiatives that legislatures were reluctant to take up, like increasing minimum wages, medical and recreational marijuana legalization, and expanding Medicaid. Many of these measures have proven popular even in majority-Republican states like Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, and Ohio. Last year, Nebraska and Alaska joined Missouri in passing referenda on paid sick leave and the minimum wage.
After the success of those initiatives, states with Republican legislatures hostile to those changes have been trying to find ways to undermine direct democracy. Most often, they pare back statutes so that the laws are less powerful than voters perhaps intended, as Florida has done with felon enfranchisement and gerrymandering initiatives, and Nebraska did with its own paid sick leave law. Other times, states try to revamp the ballot referendum process to make it more difficult to get through. The Arkansas legislature has tried in the past to require a supermajority of 60 percent to pass initiatives, and this year groups in the state are working to enshrine direct democracy rights into the state constitution to prevent more of these efforts. Florida voters passed a ballot initiative requiring a supermajority of 60 percent to amend the constitution in 2006, making a lot of popular changes harder to enact. (Notably, this initiative got 58 percent and wouldn’t have passed under the new rules.)
“We’re in a phase of pushback against the process right now, because the policies have been responding to one direction that the state legislatures have been going for about 15 years, which is in a more conservative direction,” said Craig Burnett, the chair of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University. Responding to the moment may limit conservative lawmakers’ tools in the future, though. “That does swing. You may think this is a good idea today, but you know, tomorrow it may work against you.”
Constitutional amendments are more resilient than new laws passed by referenda because state legislatures can’t tinker with them, and they’ve recently become a battleground over state-level abortion rights. When states try to implement voter-passed statutes, though, the legislatures generally have some authority to decide how they should be implemented, but it’s not always clear what the limits are. Efforts by Republicans to change a referendum that passed in Michigan raising the minimum wage, eliminating the tipped minimum wage, and requiring paid sick leave were overturned by the state’s Supreme Court, and there are questions about how some of those laws will be implemented.
This isn’t always nefarious. Deciding how to implement laws is the job of the legislature, and voters are essentially hiring legislators to do that job for them when they elect candidates. In some cases, asking voters to consider too many referenda, or overly complicated ones, could be seen as shirking their responsibility. In California, for example, voters are asked to weigh in on dozens of initiatives, some of them redundant and counterproductive. Many of these are complicated questions that are better left to legislators.
There’s also a lot of evidence voters don’t always know about the initiatives before they vote on them. That doesn’t mean they don’t realize what they’re voting for—protections like paid sick leave and even longer-term family leave are extremely popular, for example—but they’re not always researching how their elected officials feel about them or what the policies are in their states before Election Day. Practically, that means they might be casting votes in favor of measures while also voting for candidates who wouldn’t support them.
Initiatives also require organized campaigns to collect the signatures and other qualifiers necessary to make it to the ballot, which means the process can be hijacked by millionaires and billionaires who back those campaigns. State officials and campaigns also often wrangle over the language used on the ballot itself, leading to court fights and sometimes to language that is unnecessarily confusing. That can overwhelm voters, turning what is supposed to be direct democracy into another area of politics where big money can distort the process.
Outright repealing popular provisions, however, is new. “Missouri is very pro economic policy, and to see that, it definitely shows that there’s like a new resolve from Republicans to really dismiss the will of the voters and really not care about who they represent,” said Caitlyn Adams, executive director at Missouri Jobs With Justice, which supported the initiative. She said there were some districts where the initiative passed with more votes than the Republican candidates in those districts who later voted to overturn it had. The initiative also had support from small businesses in the state, but the state’s Chamber of Commerce lobbied against it anyway, she said.
Still, ballot initiatives give voters only limited power. Voters approve initiatives they support, but that doesn’t always mean they care enough about the issue they voted for—like paid sick leave—to later vote against a politician who helped to overturn it. Typically, voters have felt more strongly motivated by culture-war issues like abortion than by things like minimum wage laws. Missouri Jobs With Justice is in the early stages of trying to get a constitutional amendment guaranteeing paid sick leave, which would not be vulnerable to legislative tinkering, on the ballot next year. “Ballot initiatives were never a silver bullet,” Adams said. Referencing the Republicans who overturned paid leave, she added, “I think we are going to be spending time telling voters who did this to them; making sure they know who took this away.”
Voters will be impacted by the repeal in varying ways, of course. Many workers already have sick days and paid family leave available from their employers, and since the law had kicked in and some workers were already accruing sick days before its repeal, some businesses may decide to keep the benefits in place. It’s the lowest-paid, most vulnerable workers in the economy who are the least likely to have sick leave and are probably the most vulnerable without laws to enforce. And since the repeal also scrapped a provision that would have protected Missouri workers who actually used their sick leave from being retaliated against, the most vulnerable workers might be unable to actually use any leave they technically have.
We are in the middle of a huge partisan reshuffling. In the past three election cycles, non–college educated voters have shifted to the Republican Party, while the Democratic base, once full of blue-collar and union rank-and-file workers, is now full of college-educated, relatively well-paid white-collar workers. These are workers who already have access to benefits through work, but they are voting for the party with a platform that supports increasing the same benefits for others. At the same time, Republicans seem to have successfully painted Democrats as elite and culturally remote, even while they’re the ones passing tax cuts for the wealthy and generally catering to the whims of business interest groups.
It means that the values that drive people to vote aren’t neatly aligned with personal economic interests—though the degree of this disconnect is still in flux. “We’re not going to be marching to one side of the spectrum and staying there,” Burnett said. “It’s probably more likely to be how it’s been for the last hundreds of years in American politics, which is, we kind of go back and forth, but there is a reasonable expectation that we are going to reshuffle people.” We just don’t know what issue will be the big one that will make that reshuffling settle down a bit, at least until the next major issue upends politics again.
This is the big question hanging over the Democratic Party. For now, however, it’s clear that many of the people who benefited from Biden’s populist economic agenda had no hesitation in voting against him. Adams said future campaigns will also focus on educating voters on candidates who support the initiatives and those who don’t. “We do have to be able to do multiple things at the same time—pass really great statewide policies, and create consequences for elected officials who go against the will of the voters,” Adams said.
But given the Republican assault on ballot initiatives, perhaps it’s also time to educate voters on the problem with depending on these initiatives in the first place. Voters need to decide what policies they want from their political parties—and actually demand them, by choosing candidates accordingly. That remains the surest path to change in this rickety democracy.
The suit alleges the new state law unconstitutionally silences the viewpoints of students and teachers. The law’s supporters say DEI programs use public funds to promote political agendas.
The ACLU and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing Texas to block the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Texas Tribune
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing to block a new state law that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools.
In a lawsuit filed last month in federal court, attorneys from the ACLU of Texas and Transgender Law Center argued that Senate Bill 12 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Equal Access Act. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation last June, and it will go into effect Sept. 1 alongside an array of other transformative laws for public education in Texas.
“Senate Bill 12 is a blatant attempt to erase students’ identities and silence the stories that make Texas strong,” said Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Every student — no matter their race, gender, or background — deserves to feel seen, safe, and supported in school.”
Supporters of SB 12 say DEI programs use class time and public funds to promote political agendas, while opponents believe banning those initiatives will disproportionately harm marginalized students by removing spaces where they can find support.
Here’s what you need to know about the effort to block the law.
What the ban would do: Authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, SB 12 prohibits public school districts from considering race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation in hiring decisions. The ban also bars schools from offering DEI training and programs, such as policies designed to reduce discrimination based on race or gender identity, except for when required by federal law.
The law requires families to give written permission before their children can join any school club, and prohibits school groups created to support LGBTQIA+ students. Parents will be able to file complaints if they believe their schools are not complying with the DEI ban, and the law requires school districts to discipline employees who knowingly take part in DEI-related activities.
Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, said SB 12 builds on a 2021 state law barring public schools from teaching critical race theory, an academic discipline that explores how race and racism have influenced the country’s legal and institutional systems. While critical race theory is not taught in Texas public schools, the term has become a shorthand used by conservatives who believe the way some schools teach children about race is politically biased.
DEI advocates say initiatives that promote diversity provide support for marginalized communities in workforce development and higher education, while critics say DEI practices give preference to people based on their race and ethnicity rather than on merit.
What the lawsuit says: Attorneys from the ACLU and the Transgender Law Center are suing Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and three school districts on behalf of a teacher, a student and her parent. They’re also representing the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, two organizations that say they would be harmed by the ban. The ACLU amended the complaint in September, adding as plaintiffs the Texas American Federation of Teachers, another student and his parent.
The suit calls SB 12 an “overzealous” attempt to ban DEI in public schools and argues that it censors constitutionally protected speech and restricts students’ freedom of association. It’s also vague and overly broad, the suit says.
“S.B. 12 seeks to erase students’ identities and make it impossible for teachers, parents, and volunteers to tell the truth about the history and diversity of our state,” said Cameron Samuels, executive director at Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. “The law also guts vital support systems for Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and LGBTQIA+ students and educators.”
As part of the lawsuit, the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network claims SB 12 singles out the organization by explicitly restricting student clubs based on “sexual orientation or gender identity,” language the group uses to describe the student organizations it sponsors at schools. That restriction harms the freedom of speech of the group and its members, the suit says. The Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network has chapters in Texas at more than a dozen school districts, according to the filing.
Lawsuits against similar laws have had mixed results in the past.
Because of SB 12’s ban on discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, opponents have compared it to Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which attracted widespread media attention in 2022 due to its far-reaching impacts in public schools. Civil rights lawyers sued to block it, saying the law violated free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. But a federal judge dismissed the case and said the plaintiffs had no legal standing and had failed to prove harm from the law. The attorneys ultimately agreed to a settlement with Florida education officials that clarified the law to allow discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms only if it’s not part of instruction.
The Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The broader push against DEI:The DEI ban on K-12 schools comes two years after the Texas Legislature passed a similar ban for the state’s higher education institutions. Senate Bill 17 requires public universities to close their diversity offices, ban DEI training and restrict hiring departments from asking for diversity statements, or essays in which a job candidate expresses their commitment to promoting diversity in the workplace.
Creighton, who also authored that bill, has warned higher education leaders that they could lose millions of dollars in state funding if they fail to comply with the law. Earlier this year, Abbott threatened Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh III’s job after claims spread online that Texas A&M was sending students and staffers to a conference that limited participation to people who are Black, Hispanic or Native American.
At the national level, President Donald Trump has ordered all federal agencies to end “equity-related” practices and asked contractors to certify they do not promote DEI efforts. Trump also told schools and universities they would lose federal money if they do not eliminate diversity practices.
Over the last five years, Texas and other Republican-led states have also taken other steps to abolish and ban DEI efforts in public education and the workforce. Similar to Trump, Abbott issued an executive order in January mandating that Texas agencies end all forms of DEI practices.
“We must always reject race-based favoritism or discrimination and allow people to advance based on talent and merit,” Abbott said.
Disclosure: ACLU Texas and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
“Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” protestors chanted in the middle of Times Square, among a sea of signs that read “love reigns not kings,” “gays against faux-king Trump,” “we stand with … our trans family” and “the future is coming.”
On Saturday, independent analysts estimated that the No Kings March drew between 5 and 8 million people, and organizers say over 7 million people attended 2,700 events across all 50 states. The event, which was organized to push against the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S., was the largest single-day protest in America since 1970.
Over 100,000 New Yorkers marched in all five boroughs in NYC on Saturday. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
Among the crowd were countless LGBTQ people, fighting back against an administration that has introduced a litany of anti-LGBTQ executive orders and used vile rhetoric to denigrate queer people. This backsliding of LGBTQ rights, according to experts, has a deep connection to authoritarianism, with research showing that when governments weaken protections for queer and trans people, they often turn to broader democratic institutions next.
“Threats to democratic institutions and threats to LGBTQ rights are mutually reinforcing, generating a vicious cycle that strengthens authoritarian control,” Ari Shaw, director of International Programs at the Williams Institute, told Uncloseted Media. “Increased persecution of minority groups, including LGBTI people, is itself evidence of democratic backsliding by indicating the erosion of liberal democratic norms [meant to protect] minority rights.”
Legal Abuse of Power
One of the ways the Trump administration’s abuse of power has been most evident is through its legal actions.
He’s also slashed HIV funding at a staggering rate. Uncloseted Media estimates that the National Institutes of Health has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research, including 71% of all global HIV grants.
Jeffrey Cipriano at the NYC No Kings protest Saturday. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
It was these cuts that prompted Brooklynite Jeffrey Cipriano to turn out to protest. “The specific reason that I’m protesting is actually on the shirt I’m wearing,” says Cipriano.
“My best friend works for an organization called AIDS United. … His job is to travel the country and help people get AIDS medication, specifically trans and unhoused community members. But his job is at risk,” he says. “The end outcome of his work is that people who have issues in their lives have the issues resolved and that’s going away under the current administration.”
Executive orders are based on powers granted to the president by the U.S. Constitution or by Congressional statutes. The president cannot use an executive order to create new laws or spend money unless Congress has authorized it. They are meant to direct how existing laws are implemented. But Trump has ignored democratic norms, often filling agencies with loyal supporters, using orders to go after political opponents and pushing the limits of what the law allows.
In some cases, he has moved illegally. “The President is directing various executive branch officials to adopt policy that has either not yet been adopted by Congress or is in violation of existing statutory law,” says Jodi Short, professor of law at UC Law San Francisco. “The analogy to a king and what has troubled many about this presidency is the sheer consolidation of executive branch power in one individual.”
Short’s colleague, Dave Owen, agrees. “Illegality has been rampant,” he told Uncloseted Media in an email. “People are often cynical about the government, and they might think what Trump’s doing is nothing new. But most of the time, the executive branch takes the law seriously, and both legal constraints and norms of good governance matter,” he wrote. He says that through history, there’s been “a lot more integrity and a lot less lawlessness than most people realize.”
“This administration has broken with those traditions,” he adds.
Revolt Against Executive Orders
Many Americans have recognized this. A survey from April found that 85% of Americans agreed or strongly agreed that the president should obey federal court rulings even if he doesn’t like them.
In response to Trump’s overreach, more than 460 legal challenges have been filed across the country challenging his executive actions. One of these is a federal lawsuit by Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation that challenges the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people. Another lawsuit challenges Trump’s order directing federal agencies to withhold funds from medical providers and institutions that provide gender-affirming medical treatments for people under 19.
Zoe Boik and her father, Derik, protesting on Saturday. Photo by Sean Robinson.
Both of those lawsuits are one reason 17-year-old Zoe Boik came out to protest with her friends and her dad. “Obviously, I’m disappointed and kind of helpless because there’s nothing I can directly do to change or impact anything that’s going on,” says Boik, who identifies as pansexual and gender fluid and is not legally allowed to vote.
Boik—who was seven years old when Trump announced his run for presidency in 2015—says she’s doing a research paper on Trump’s trans military ban and is frustrated because she sees it as inexplicable discrimination. “They’re not letting trans people serve … which doesn’t make any sense.”
Zoe as a child with her dad, Derik. Photo courtesy of Boik.
LGBTQ Rights and Democratic Backsliding
This type of blatant discrimination is often a key sign of a country moving closer to authoritarianism and away from democracy. According to a 2023 research paper by Shaw and his colleagues, anti-LGBTQ stigma may contribute “to the erosion of democratic norms and institutions.”
The paper found that when a country with relatively high acceptance of LGBTQ rights introduces anti-LGBTQ legislation, it clashes with what most people believe and can weaken public trust in democracy, deepen political divides and make it easier for populist or extremist movements to gain power.
“The level of acceptance of LGBTQ people is closely associated with the strength of democracy in a country,” Shaw says. “In some cases, we even saw that rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric or policies preceded a broader decline in democracy.”
In Brazil, for example, early democratic gains coincided with rising LGBTQ acceptance, including legal recognition of same-sex unions and workplace protections. But as populist President Jair Bolsonaro came into power in 2019, he began questioning—without evidence—the security of Brazil’s voting systems, saying he would only lose his re-election campaign if there were fraud. He was also accused of trying to intervene in operations held by the Federal Police about the alleged criminal conduct of his sons, and he told his ministers that he had the power and he would interfere—without exception—in all cabinet ministries. At the same time, LGBTQ protections were rolled back, and schools and civil society faced censorship, suggesting that falling LGBTQ acceptance may have “preceded Brazil’s democratic erosion,” according to Shaw’s paper. In September of this year, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup.
Another example is Poland’s democracy weakening since 2015 under the Law and Justice Party, which consolidated power by undermining the Constitutional Tribunal, installing loyal judges and restricting independent media. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric became central to the party’s nationalist platform, fueling the creation of nearly 100 “LGBT ideology free zones,” inciting violence against LGBTQ individuals and stymying legal recourse through politicized courts.
When it comes to LGBTQ rights, Trump has mimicked the moves of these leaders even though most of his constituents don’t want it: A 2022 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 80% of Americans favor laws that would protect LGBTQ people against discrimination.
“The definition of an authoritarian system is a system where power is consolidated in one individual whose power is unchecked by any other institution. And I fear that in certain domains, that’s the direction in which this administration is trying to move us,” says Short. “I think it’s incredibly dangerous.”
Attacks on Higher Education
Another common tool in the authoritarian playbook is attacking higher education.
While many universities are rejecting Trump’s demands, others are experiencing a chilling effect, changing their policies before the administration tries to hold up funds.
James Revson, Maddy Everlith and Shay Wingate holding their signs at the No Kings protest. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
“I’m here because I’m angry and I feel that we aren’t angry enough,” Maddy Everlith, a sophomore gender studies major at Pace University, told Uncloseted Media as she marched with her friends. “Being a woman of color in America and having so many intersectional identities is also what affects me. … I want to stand up and advocate for other people.”
Everlith’s university responded to Trump’s threats in September by renaming its DEI office to the “Division of Opportunity and Institutional Excellence.”
“I am beyond horrified how quickly our university was willing to bend the knee on this decision,” Austin Chappelle, a senior at Pace, told the student newspaper. This change comes in the midst of uncertainty under the Trump administration, which has already caused many LGBTQ students to feel uneasy on campus.
“It’s part of an electoral strategy to try to mobilize right-wing voters to distract from other sorts of political or economic scandals,” Shaw says, adding that this tactic is another way to gain power.
Lars Kindem protesting for his trans sister at the No Kings protest. Photo by Sean Robinson.
The pain of this rhetoric has affected millions of trans Americans and allies alike, including Lars Kindem, a 64-year-old retired pilot from Minnesota who was marching to support his transgender sister.
“What Trump has done is he’s taken people that haven’t done anything wrong and has turned them into scapegoats,” he says, adding that Trump’s language is “hateful, petty, mean and hurtful.”
He says his sister and her partner are having issues getting the correct gender markers issued on their passports. Because of the Trump administration’s treatment of the community, they are making plans to move to Denmark, where “there’s a lot more acceptance.”
Christian Nationalism
This scapegoating has played into the hands of Trump’s voter base of white evangelical Protestants, the only major Christian denomination in the U.S. in which a majority believes society has gone too far in accepting transgender people.
Since 2020, Trump has increasingly embraced Christian nationalism in his rhetoric and imagery. He’s sold Bibles, created a federal task force on anti-Christian bias and been intrinsically linked to Project 2025, the 920-page plan calling for the establishment of a government imbued with “biblical principles” and run by a president who holds sweeping executive powers.
Experts say that “a strong authoritarian streak” runs through conservative Christianity. A 2023 study found that supporters of Christian nationalism tend to support obedience to authority and the idea of authoritarian leaders who are willing to break the rules. Nearly half of Christian nationalists support the notion of an authoritarian leader.
“They are trying to use the language of Christianity, but they are abusing it and misusing it constantly,” Rev. Chris Shelton, a gay pastor at the protest, told Uncloseted Media. “Our faith is all about reaching out to the marginalized, reaching out to the people who are ostracized by society and embracing them and offering love and welcome and a sense of dignity and worth. And to see any human being’s worth being denied is just a mockery of our faith.”
Rev. Chris Shelton marched in Saturday’s NYC protest. Photo by Sean Robinson.
Heidi Beirich, the vice president and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, says that “the LGBTQ community is the prime target of modern authoritarian regimes.”
“For Christian nationalists, attacking LGBTQ rights is the first pillar in destroying civil rights for all. This has happened in countries like Hungary and Poland as authoritarianism consolidated and now it’s happening here,” Beirich told Uncloseted Media.
Moving Forward
As the country bleeds toward authoritarianism, LGBTQ protestors are encouraging people to use their voice, something the queer community is familiar with doing: One 2012 survey found that queer folks are 20 times more likely to be active in liberal social movements than their straight, cis counterparts.
“It is imperative that people continue to pay attention,” Short says. “There is so much going on, a lot of it is disturbing and intense, and there’s such a strong impulse to look away. But we have to engage in political action and resist inappropriate assertions of authority and continue to show up and vote for our democracy.”
17-year-old Zoe Boik is ready. She remembers being in second grade and crying the day after Trump won his first election in 2016. She couldn’t believe how he could lead the country despite “all the bad things he said.”
Boik can’t wait until the midterm elections, when she will be 18 and finally able to vote. “If we don’t vote, then our voices won’t be heard,” she says.
Despite this, she’s also concerned about her freedom to exercise that right being jeopardized.
“My fears about Trump don’t stem specifically from me being queer, but from his authoritarianism as a whole,” she says. “I am scared about how far he will move into dictatorship, [and] my biggest fear is that our right to vote will be compromised, leaving us no recourse.”
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He has additionally espoused a view of the United States as a white, Christian nation, claiming that white people are undergoing a “cultural genocide” and deliberate replacement.
Multiple Trump nominees have had histories of racist, violent, white supremacist, and even pro-Nazi tweets. But almost all of them still end up being confirmed by Senate Republicans.
NPR identified more than a dozen files released by the DOJ on Friday that are no longer available Saturday afternoon, including one that shows President Trump’s photo on a desk among several other photographs. The removed files also show various works of art, including those containing nudity.
A video posted to Instagram by the University of South Florida’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) shows three men interrupting students during their morning prayer, spitting and yelling at them, and waving strips of bacon at them. USF said that their police department is currently gathering evidence and anticipates asking the state attorney to bring criminal charges.
Last Tuesday morning, Nov. 18, several MSA members gathered on top of a parking garage on USF’s Tampa campus for Fajr, Islam’s morning prayer. A livestream by Warriors for Christ—an organization recognized by the SPLC as a hate group—shows Muslim students kneeling in prayer as one of the men, identified in the video only as Ricardo, approaches with a painted cardboard box that reads “KAABA 2.0 JESUS IS LORD.” The Kaaba is a stone building at the center of the holiest site in Islam. While praying, Muslims face the geographical direction of the Kaaba.
The man sets up the box in front of the crowd while two other men, identifiable via their social medias (where they posted the video along with many other similar videos at other locations) as Richard Penkoski of Oklahoma and Christopher Svochak of Illinois, start to “insult” the Muslim prophet, Muhammad, in obscene and sexual ways. One of the men calls them all terrorists. “Go back to Mecca,” he shouts.
At one point, Penkoski brings out a small Wawa container with bacon in it and waves it around while snacking from it.
“We do care about you, so we brought you some bacon,” Penkoski says. “It’s really good. Bacon? Bacon? Anybody?”
Like all pork products, bacon is considered haram, meaning Islam’s rules forbid eating it. All of the students remain kneeling and continue on with their prayer.
“I spit on the grave of Muhammad,” the man identified as Ricardo says before spitting on the ground within a few feet of the students, who are still praying on the ground.
“Take that towel off of your head,” he says, pointing to a woman in the back wearing a religious head covering. At this point, after several minutes of the men shouting at the largely silent students, Ricardo lunges towards a student and points his finger in his face, prompting the student to briefly grab his wrist. Immediately, all three Christian men say this is evidence that Islam is a violent religion.
“This is not how you preach,” one of the students can be heard saying. “Brother, you’re harassing us,” he says to Penkoski.
“You’re not my brother,” Penkoski responds. “This isn’t harassment; this is free speech. But thank you for doing what you did to give us more ammo to prove you’re a bunch of violent psychopaths.”
The video continues like this until the students leave and the Christian content creators do the same. “That was awesome. That was fun,” one of the men can be heard saying as they walk away.
“By the way, don’t ever spit on the ground. It’s actually illegal,” one of the Christians says to the man identified as Ricardo. “What? Spitting on the ground?” “Yes, it’s illegal.” “Well, uh, I didn’t know that.”
Penkoski later posted a screenshot from the MSA group chat, in which one member gives an update on legal proceedings with the state attorney’s office.
“It’s not a hate crime,” Penkoski writes in the caption. “For a ‘hate crime’ to exist, there has to be an actual crime first.”
Florida Statute 871.01, which makes disrupting religious assembly a crime, reads: “Whoever willfully and maliciously interrupts or disturbs any school or any assembly of people met for the worship of God, … commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.” In Florida, a first-degree misdemeanor is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and one year in prison.
Florida Statute 775.085 contains rules for hate crime enhancement when there is evidenced prejudice against “race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, or advanced age of the victim.” This bumps first-degree misdemeanors up to third-degree felonies. Third-degree felonies are punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison.
Florida Statute 784.0493 deals with harassment based on religious or ethnic heritage. It makes it illegal (first-degree misdemeanor) to “willfully and maliciously harass or intimidate another person based on the person’s wearing or displaying of any indicia relating to any religious or ethnic heritage.”
The man, identified as Ricardo repeatedly told two women with religious head coverings to “get that towel off your head,” and called one a “wicked woman” and a “Jezebel dog.”
As the men left the parking garage, Svochak spoke to the camera, saying Jesus helped him and Penkoski beat drug addiction.
“What did he save you from?” Penkoski asks Ricardo. “I used to be a heathen,” Ricardo replies.
The state attorney typically decides what initial charges to bring. The 13th Circuit State Attorney’s Office has plans to speak with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay this morning, but as a policy it waits to start a case until police send investigative information along.
A statement issued by USF says that campus police are still trying to identify the men in the video. USF also said that it has reached out to the affected students, and will issue trespass warnings to the men who interrupted the prayer. They anticipate referring the perpetrators to the state attorney for criminal charges.
This wouldn’t be the first time Penkoski found himself in court over a stunt. The Christian content creator takes videos of himself and others “street preaching,” often insulting and demeaning nearby targets. Penkoski uploads the videos to his social media accounts and makes other targeted posts and includes a donation link through a Venmo account under his wife’s name.
In 2022, Penkoski was accused of targeting two leaders of Oklahoma for Equality, who later filed for a protective order against him. They were granted the protective order, but it was overturned on appeal by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, since Penkoski was targeting organizations rather than individuals.
Penkoski has also been the plaintiff in several legal battles, including an attempt to overturn federal marriage equality for gay couples, a suit against the mayor of Washington D.C. for allowing a “Black Lives Matter” mural, and a lawsuit against a school district that sent his daughter home for wearing a shirt that said “homosexuality is a sin.”
Svochak gave this reporter a statement about his religious beliefs over Instagram DM, but would not answer specific questions. Svochak, who is affiliated with the recognized hate group Warriors for Christ, said that he is trying to spread Jesus’ message of love.
An Uncloseted Media investigation finds that Alberta’s government is using many of the same tactics that were used to pass anti-LGBTQ bills in the Deep South.
Jay, a 24-year-old trans man who immigrated from East Africa to Canada in 2016, used to think of Canada as a safe place for queer people. But with Alberta—arguably Canada’s most conservative province—attempting to pass the country’s first gender-affirming care ban, he doesn’t feel this way anymore. “It’s really heartbreaking as a person who, back home, would not be able to live the way that I do, seeing the same rights being stripped away from folks here,” says Jay, who asked to go by first name because he’s not out to everyone in his life.
Since September, when Alberta’s anti-trans sports ban and pronoun policy officially went into effect, Jay has felt his province’s values inch closer to those of the U.S.
“I’m constantly thinking maybe I should leave this province. It’s not very safe for me here,” he told Uncloseted Media. “It’s starting to feel like a foreign place.”
Alberta’s anti-trans policy push started making headlines last year. On Dec. 3, 2024, more than 80 Albertan politicians assembled in the province’s capital, Edmonton, to debate the Health Statutes Amendment Act, also known as Bill 26. The act—which is likely to go into effect—would impose the strictest ban on gender-affirming care for minors that Canada has ever seen.
Conservative Adriana LaGrange, who in 2019 introduced an amended act that made it legal for parents to be notified if their child joins a gay-straight alliance, sponsored the bill. During the assembly, LaGrange told her colleagues a ban “would preserve choice so that [minors] can make adult decisions in the future,” and that while “Albertans know that our government is committed to safeguarding individuals’ rights … there are times when public health measures must be taken to keep our communities safe.”
As the legislative debate continued, Sarah Hoffman, a member of the Legislative Assembly for the New Democratic Party (NDP), accused Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and those closest to her of “playing political games that will have potentially deadly consequences for teens.” And Peggy Wright, another member of the NDP, referenced American trans kids whose lives have been upended from similar state bans: “Kids in the United States shouldn’t have to travel away from home to get the health care that they deserve, and neither should the kids that I know that are already thinking about what it is that they’re going to do once this [Canadian] legislation is passed. … As a mom, as a grandma, I am asking that every single person in this House think about those kids in your life. What kind of a future do you want for them?”
Alberta Legislature, facing the front entrance. Photo by Daryl Mitchell.
After this assembly, Alberta’s plans for the ban were stalled when families of transgender children and LGBTQ groups took legal action against the province. But on Nov. 17, Premier Smith announced her government will attempt to nullify this litigation and enact the ban by using a constitutional provision called the notwithstanding clause. If it goes through, this clause—which was used inAlberta in 2000 to push through legislation opposing gay marriage—will override efforts to stop the ban for up to five years.
“I’m not aware, and I have looked into it, of any other constitutional democracy in the world that has a similar provision,” says Bennett Jensen, director of legal at Egale Canada, one of the groups that pursued legal action against Alberta.
“[Smith] has been following in the steps of some of the worst actions of lawmakers in the United States,” he says. “It’s really important, especially for Americans, to understand that with the exception of the pronoun component of this, all these other laws are new in Canada. No government has ever acted to ban gender-affirming care for minors before.”
Following in Alabama’s Footsteps
Jensen sees a connection between Alberta’s anti-trans policy and that of the United States, where the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is tracking over 600 anti-LGBTQ bills. He points to the provincial government’s citation of an Alabama ban, known as the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, that prohibits the prescription of hormones and puberty blockers for minors, as well as gender-affirming surgeries. This legislation also establishes criminal penalties for doctors who violate the ban and requires parents to be notified if their child wishes to change their name or pronouns in school.
The Alberta government submitted an affidavit to the provincial court citing Alabama’s ban. This included the Alabama bill as well as a written statement by Clay Crenshaw, the state’s chief deputy attorney general.
Crenshaw spent nearly $1 million to defend the Alabama ban and told legislators he hired “lawyers from the Cooper & Kirk law firm up in D.C. to help [them] with the transgender litigation.” This law firm is known for legislating against LGBTQ rights and led the defense when Californians challenged their state’s decision to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Alberta’s ban mirrors Alabama’s in that it prohibits surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for minors, though—unlike Alabama—they would allow youth who are already receiving gender-affirming care to continue receiving it.
“[The Alberta government] relied on information from the government of Alabama in the context of its ban on gender-affirming care,” says Jensen. “So the government seems to be deeply informed by the actions of American lawmakers, and that is deeply troubling.”
A Shared Expert Witness
Alberta also hired James Cantor, one of the expert witnesses that Alabama used to push its ban through. Cantor is a Canadian psychologist who has acted as an expert witness in dozens of U.S. cases on trans issues. He was first hired in 2021 by the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom. The Christian legal group has advocated for laws banning sodomy, has helped overturn Roe v. Wade, and is currently arguing the Supreme Court to overturn Colorado’s conversion therapy ban.
In a 2024 interview, Cantor told Uncloseted Media that his perspective on trans rights makes him “marketable” to U.S. conservatives. He compares his testimony to Marisa Tomei’s feisty character in “My Cousin Vinny” and references “Ally McBeal” and musical comedy “Schmigadoon!” as theatrical elements involved in being an expert witness.
“The first time I was going in court, we were just laughing,” says Cantor. “It was just teasing about how I love being a performer on stage enjoying an audience, and here I am doing it in a courtroom. … In Ohio, there was a television camera for the news at the courtroom. The next day on social media, all I kept hearing was what a good hair day I was having.”
Cantor is cited at least 36 times throughout Alabama’s defense of its gender-affirming care ban.
In his expert witness testimony in Alberta, Cantor makes dubious claims, including that trans adults consist “primarily of biological males and only those sexually attracted to females” and that kids identifying as trans “is a distinct phenomenon that, without social transition, usually desists.”
In taking legal action against the Alberta government, Egale Canada stated in February that “Dr. Cantor’s astonishing lack of insight into the limitations of his own expertise is wholly inconsistent with the role of an expert in a court proceeding and is disqualifying in itself.” And in a West Virginia Court case where they used Cantor’s expert testimony, the ACLU argued that Cantor’s “views, which pathologize transgender people … are irrelevant, harmful, and unfit for use by the Court.”
Even in Alabama, one of America’s most conservative states, U.S. District Judge Liles C. Burke wrote in his opinion and order that he gave Cantor’s testimony as an expert witness “very little weight” after it was uncovered that he had never treated a transgender child.
Still, Alberta hired him as an expert witness.
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DEARBORN, MI — A pair of dueling demonstrations unfolded along Schaefer Road and Michigan Avenue on Tuesday, Nov. 18, as anti-Islam activists and pro-Muslim counter-protesters clashed in front of a heavy police presence before moving toward Dearborn City Hall for the evening council meeting.
The city, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States, has recently become a repeated target for out-of-state activists who falsely claim it operates under “Sharia law.”
The tensions began when Jake Lang, a Jan. 6 rioter who has described himself as a political prisoner, arrived on Michigan Avenue attempting to burn a Quran.
Lang tried several times to ignite the book, holding it up with a lighter, but counter-protesters repeatedly knocked it from his hands.
At one point, Lang stepped into the center of Michigan Avenue and tapped the Quran with a slab of bacon before a Muslim counter-protester snatched the book and ran off with it.
Lang’s group later marched toward City Hall ahead of the 7 p.m. meeting.
Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, released the following statement.
“Attempting to burn a religious document is an unacceptable act of hate,” Hertel said. “Dearborn is a beloved, multicultural city with tens of thousands of people who are cherished friends, family members, and neighbors.”
A pro-Muslim and pro-Palestinian supporter holds a sign reading “Defeat Trump’s Fascist Movement” during a counterprotest in Dearborn on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
A Dearborn police officer told MLive there were about seven police cars stationed nearby to help keep the situation calm.
At the same time this was happening, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson, who had previously organized a separate protest without affiliation to Lang, walked with supporters along the sidewalk.
Hudson’s and Lang’s demonstrations were unrelated but appeared in the city on the same afternoon, drawing a mix of residents, activists, and counter-protesters on both sides of Michigan Avenue.
Yet after visiting three mosques in the area, Hudson declared “that there are many false and misleading narratives about Dearborn being spread and that all he found from Muslims in Dearborn was hospitality.” He further stated that he was opposed to outsiders coming to Dearborn with plans to burn the Quran.
As a result, Lang spray-painted the word “cuck” on what appeared to be Hudson’s campaign bus in Dearborn, accusing the Republican candidate of “selling out” for visiting mosques and expressing sympathy toward Muslims.
Hudson later denied the bus belonged to him.
Michigan gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson walks with supporters during a protest on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
One Hudson supporter, Kelly Elias, said she drove several hours from Northern Michigan because she wanted to see the situation firsthand.
“I just wanted to come and see what the mainstream media (is reporting) — if they’re lying to us. I’m Arabic too. I’m from the God of love. I don’t want to hurt anybody. If we’re in danger or if there’s any problem, I want to know. But if not, let’s be peaceful with each other and solve this problem. We need to work together and be just. Love each other. We don’t need any problems. Anybody with hate.”
Elias described herself as culturally mixed.
“I’m Lebanese, I’m Syrian, Italian,” she said. “I’m a mix.”
She said she has long viewed Dearborn positively.
“I’ve always thought it was a wonderful area. I’ve had friends here. I worked in Detroit. I lived in Detroit,” Elias said.
On the other side of the street, Muslim and pro-Palestinian counter-protesters rallied in response to Lang’s actions and the broader anti-Islam messaging.
Dearborn resident Karrar Haidar explained why he attended the protest.
“To show the American people that we are a religion of peace and we can coexist as the Abrahamic religions have coexisted in previous times,” Haidar said. “Some people are a little bit more extreme in their ideology, but we’re here to show them that we also have a voice and this is our country, too.
“Everybody comes from some sort of immigration, and we’re all happy to be here. We all pay our taxes, we go to work and try to provide for our family.”
Haidar also addressed claims that Dearborn is governed by Sharia law.
“If they really do believe Sharia is the jurisdiction here in Dearborn, when you walk in, you see a monument in regards of Maryam and Prophet Jesus,” he said.
He said protesters coming to Dearborn misunderstand the community.
“I think they lost their core beliefs with Christianity,” Haidar said. “I feel like there’s a form of Christianity that exists in this country that is more toward spreading hate. Because if you go towards Ford Road, you’ll see a mosque and two churches side by side, standing strong in solidarity. So, I don’t know what their ideology is. I think it’s more of a political extremist view rather than a religious one.”
Muslim demonstrators pray outside Dearborn City Hall during protests on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
As both sides continued chanting and walking toward City Hall, police kept a perimeter on the sidewalks and along Michigan Avenue, intervening briefly when tensions escalated over Lang’s attempted Quran burning.
One person was seen arrested at the Dearborn City Hall. No injuries were immediately reported.
Fuad Shalhout
Fuad Shalhout is the business and community reporter at MLive.com-The Flint Journal. He joined MLive in July 2022 and covers a range of topics from new business openings, property sales and human interest…
Department of Defense “contractors” landed on a Mexican beach and accidentally declared it United States territory in a bizarre incident on Monday.
A group of unidentified men hammered six signs into a beach near Playa Bagdad in Northeast Mexico on Nov. 17. The signs declared that the area was “Department of Defense property” and had been classified as a “restricted area” by “the commander.” The area is roughly twelve miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Heavily armed Mexican Navy personnel came to investigate the scene and discovered that the men had landed in Mexico by mistake and intended to plant the signs in South Texas. The situation was resolved without violence, and the Mexican Navy removed the signs. Pictures and videos of the incident circulated on social media over the following days.
The sign U.S. contractors were placing on Mexican soil.X / @MORRIS80766176
The accidental annexers were later identified by the Pentagon as “contractors” hired by the Department of Defense to plant the signs on the Texas side of the border to mark “National Defense Area III.” The Pentagon has been installing a series of “National Defense Areas” in 2025 to tighten control of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Changes in water depth and topography altered the perception of the international boundary’s location,” said the Pentagon in a statement. “Government of Mexico personnel removed six signs based on their perception of the international boundary’s location.”
The statement added that the contractors will “coordinate with appropriate agencies to avoid confusion in the future.”
The Mexican government has begun investigating the incident.
“The Mexican Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (CILA) will begin technical consultations to fully clarify the incident and will review the maps and instruments that mark the border between both countries, as established by existing boundary and water treaties.”
Armed members of the Mexican Navy arrived to investigate the U.S.’s accidental invasion of Mexico.X /MORRIS80766176
“Would I want strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” he said in an appearance alongside FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected that notion at her Tuesday press briefing, saying it’s “not going to happen.” She also addressed the accidental invasion, saying the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), a binational agency overseeing the U.S.-Mexico border, would get involved in the dispute.
“The river changes its course, it breaks loose, and according to the treaty, you have to clearly demarcate the national border,” she said.
Sheinbaum was referring to the Rio Grande River, which marks the U.S.-Mexican border, per the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The IBWC has had to negotiate additional treaties to mark the border in the years since, as the river has naturally shifted over nearly two centuries. The latest treaty on record was signed in 1970.
U.S. troops’ declaration of a Mexican beach property of the Department of Defense violated that treaty.
The Pentagon, IBWC, and U.S. Embassy in Mexico did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The ACLU and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing Texas to block the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools. 
USF logo. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (Aug. 2015).
(L-R) Richard Penkoski, Christopher Svochak, and Ricardo.Credit: 
Design by Soph Holland. Photo by Jake Wright.
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