Stereo – a film about reversed gender stereotypes

I hope this short video means as much to others as it meant to me.  Growing up gay meant I was different.   Coming from an abusive family meant I had no support and it hurt my sexual identity even more as those abusing me used homophobic slurs against me, but they were the ones forcing me to submit to them.  I have watched several videos of reverse gender stereotypes and sadly the ones that need to see it won’t and I doubt they would absorb the message if they were forced to view them.  but it is important to understand the stereotypes are created to give the majority a feeling of security and normalcy as they try to force every child into the mold preset by their thinking that the child should be.  Making mini me copies of the parents.  That is not normal or how it should be.  Each child is a new being and should be allowed to have the feelings and express themselves are they really know themselves to be.   Openly and freely without repercussions and targeted harm.  Please watch the short video, it is eye opening at the end.  Hugs.  Scottie

They’re part of a community ‘who have the most to lose.’ So they’re showing up for Harris.

(Note from Ali: I’ve seen a couple of headlines that the Don’s campaign plans to run heavy anti-trans ads in the swing states. I’ve used all my free NYT articles for life, but they have a story about it. So this is of interest to All Women.)

Black trans women are a small subset of trans voters, who make up a small portion of the electorate — but they’re also longtime leaders of the LGBTQ+ rights movement who know what’s at stake.

Originally published by The 19th

Your trusted source for contextualizing LGBTQ+ and Election 2024 news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

Five years ago, Democratic presidential primary hopeful Kamala Harris stepped onto a stage at a CNN LGBTQ+ town hall in Los Angeles.

“My pronouns are she, her and hers,” Harris said in her introduction.

Offering her pronouns, which wasn’t nearly as commonplace in 2019 as it is now, showed solidarity with transgender and nonbinary Americans. It was a simple but impactful gesture for a community in the midst of an unprecedented homicide crisis, whose rights and humanity had been challenged by former President Donald Trump, who was in office at the time, and other Republicans

In standing shoulder to shoulder with transgender people, Harris began to shift a relationship that had been dogged by decisions of her past, like her support for bills cracking down on sex work during her time as a prosecutor in San Francisco and, while California’s attorney general, her state’s opposition to gender-affirming care for an incarcerated transgender woman in 2015.

Today, Black transgender women, some of the same people who questioned her candidacy five years ago, are supporting Harris on and off the campaign trail. One way they have shown up is by raising money and drumming up support, like a Zoom call in August that was joined by more than 1,000 transgender people, the brainchild of veteran Black trans activist Zahara Bassett.

“I felt that we need to let people know that our voices are at the ballot,” Bassett said. “When we speak to you about our rights, about our visibility of being here, that needs to be respected.” 

Bassett enlisted the help of several trans luminaries, including Precious Davis, who had long heard criticism of Harris among her LGBTQ+ peers. Davis, chief strategy officer of Center on Halsted, Chicago’s largest LGBTQ+ community center, said she knew it would be critical for Black trans women to show up for Harris, in part as a way of signaling to Black trans women and queer communities they had permission to vote for the vice president.

“We are a part of a community who have the most to lose,” Davis said of Black trans women. “Our rights and freedom are at stake. We have seen Donald Trump’s attacks against the trans community time and time again.”

Many LGBTQ+ advocates have argued that even if Harris has room for growth on LGBTQ+ issues, it’s nearly impossible to compare her with Trump, who regularly misgenders trans women and refers to trans people as “insane.” 

“I will say that I would rather have a fighting chance with her than have no chance at all with Trump,” said Hope Giselle-Godsey, executive director of the National Trans Visibility March, another organizer of the Zoom call for Harris. 

While she was roundly criticized four years ago for mixing up language in referring to transgender women, overall, Harris’ record on LGBTQ+ rights is largely viewed positively. She provided some of the earliest support for marriage equality of any presidential hopeful when, as district attorney in San Francisco, in 2004 she officiated a same-sex wedding in California. She also opposed so-called gay and trans “panic defenses,” where perpetrators attempted to claim that fear or disgust of LGBTQ+ people was reasonable motivation for attacking them. 

She lost significant ground going into 2020 after her support of FOSTA/SESTA, a  2018 package of bills that aimed to crack down on websites used by sex workers. Transgender people are disproportionately forced into underground economies like sex work due to a lack of employment opportunities.  

Trump, however, has fared much worse. During his four years as president, the National Center for Transgender Equality labeled his cabinet the “Discrimination Administration” and the media advocacy group GLAAD logged 210 attacks on queer people. He also barred transgender people from serving in the military, banned Pride flag displays at embassies and gutted transgender health care protections under the Affordable Care Act, among other things. 

Channyn Lynn Parker, CEO of the Brave Space Alliance, which serves trans and gender nonconforming youth on the south and west sides of Chicago, speaks about both candidates with resignation. She, too, helped organize the Zoom for Harris, though less enthusiastically than her peers. 

Parker has worked with street-based and unhoused youth for more than 10 years and has seen Democratic candidates come and go, all of them with different promises for the community; for example, Biden pledged to trans kids that he “had their backs.” 

Meanwhile, the kids she works with still face the same challenges. Many are still kicked out of their homes by their own parents and they’re particularly vulnerable to the anti-trans laws and hate that has also flourished across the country.

“I have never seen a candidate where I feel completely safe, and I’ve ever been able to breathe a full sigh of relief, never,” Parker said. “So, I don’t know if Kamala is going to be any different in that regard.”

Black trans women are a small subset of the transgender voters, who make up a small portion of the electorate. An estimated 825,100 transgender adults of all races will be eligible to vote in November, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. As of last year, 161 million Americans were registered to vote. 

Queer Americans now make up 7.6 percent of the overall population, Gallup reports. According to GLAAD, 94 percent of those LGBTQ+ Americans are motivated to vote.  Black trans women have an outsized influence on these voters, a group that tends to lean heavily Democratic

In recent years, advocates have invested heavily in giving credit to Black trans activists for leading the charge at the Stonewall uprising in 1969, where queer people famously fought back against homophobic policing in New York City. 

At the same time, Black trans women have been overrepresented in the numbers of trans homicide victims and often underrepresented in the media.

At the 2019 LGBTQ+ Town Hall, where Harris introduced herself with her pronouns, Black trans women made headlines by interrupting the event repeatedly, noting that not a single Black trans woman had been invited to ask candidates a question.

The town hall also included a gaffe: Immediately after Harris shared her pronouns, CNN’s Chris Cuomo replied, “Mine too.” To transgender people, the moment highlighted how, even at an event centered on LGBTQ+ communities, transgender issues could become an afterthought. And in the four years since, Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have repeatedly attacked transgender people; 176 anti-trans bills have become law; and none of the debates have delved meaningfully into LGBTQ+ issues. 

The Black trans women backing Harris see the setbacks — and also an opportunity if Harris wins. Davis said she is ready to lobby Harris on trans issues the moment Harris takes the oath of office. Bassett has at the ready a wish list of policies that would make gender-affirming care more accessible and less stigmatized. 

And Parker is clear about one thing: Supporting a candidate doesn’t mean agreeing with them unconditionally. It means challenging them to be better. 

“We’re going to provide you with all the necessary tools and resources and individuals to help you to get this right,” she said. “If you don’t use those tools, meaning the individuals who are providing you with the level of access and education needed, then shame on you.”

To check your voter registration status or to get more information about registering to vote, text 19thnews to 26797.

Q&A: How the UK became the first G7 country to phase out coal power

https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/coal-phaseout-UK/

Snippet:

By Molly Lempriere and Simon Evans

26 September 2024


The UK’s last coal-fired power plant, Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, will close this month, ending a 142-year era of burning coal to generate electricity.

The UK’s coal-power phaseout is internationally significant.

It is the first major economy – and first G7 member – to achieve this milestone. It also opened the world’s first coal-fired power station in 1882, on London’s Holborn Viaduct.

From 1882 until Ratcliffe’s closure, the UK’s coal plants will have burned through 4.6bn tonnes of coal and emitted 10.4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – more than most countries have ever produced from all sources, Carbon Brief analysis shows.

The UK’s coal-power phaseout will help push overall coal demand to levels not seen since the 1600s.

The phaseout was built on four key elements.

First, the availability of alternative electricity sources, sufficient to meet and exceed rising demand.

Second, bringing the construction of new coal capacity to an end.

Third, pricing externalities, such as air pollution and carbon dioxide (CO2), thus tipping the economic scales in favour of alternatives.

Fourth, the government setting a clear phaseout timeline a decade in advance, giving the power sector time to react and plan ahead.

The UK’s experience, set out and explored in depth in this article, demonstrates that rapid coal phaseouts are possible – and could be replicated internationally.

As the UK aims to fully decarbonise its power sector by 2030, it has the challenge – and opportunity – of trying to build another case study for successful climate action.

(snip-MORE)

Bathrooms with a view: Cutting windows into student restrooms is a new level of weird

https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/opinion/editorials/2024/10/02/bathrooms-with-a-view-cutting-windows-into-student-restrooms-is-a-new-level-of-weird/75479753007/

I bet the next election will be well attended and these people will lose their seats and new progressive inclusive people will win.  That is what has happened all over when the right bigots and haters snuck into school board seats, they go too far trying to erase the LGBTQ+ kids / people from existence, then they get kicked out.   Sadly by then the damage is done.  What they hell do they want people perving on kids in the bathrooms for?  To make the kids scared to use them and to make sure the weird kids are not doing weird gay stuff in them, right?    Hugs.  Scottie.

By the way.  We have a hurricane headed right at us.  It will be here Wednesday at around noon, but we have three days of wind and rain beforehand.  It will hit at a class three.  It is projected to hit just above us but could hit us directly.  We will be spending the next few days getting as much done as possible, stocking in cat food Ron forgot and getting more gas and propane for the generator.  It is unlikely that pole of ours will survive another storm as it is already leaning hard.  Repair crews are already stretched thin in other areas so won’t be able to come rescue us in our time of need.  Going to be a very long few months.  Hugs.  Scottie

YORK DISPATCH EDITORIAL BOARD
York Dispatch
 
 

At the risk of stating the obvious, South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions.

For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms.

After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policies as something to aspire to.

UPDATE:Amid parent complaints and national scrutiny, South Western School District boards up bathroom windows

Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut windows so passersby can look into the so-called “gender-identity” student bathrooms.

Yes, you read that correctly.

These adults want to make it easier for other people to watch your children while they’re in the bathroom. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.

For more than a year, South Western School Board officials have grappled with how LGBTQ+ students use the bathroom. Most recently, school officials cut windows into Emory H. Markle Middle School's gender neutral restrooms, allowing anyone passing by to peer inside.

For more than a year, South Western School Board officials have grappled with how LGBTQ+ students use the bathroom. Most recently, school officials cut windows into Emory H. Markle Middle School's gender neutral restrooms, allowing anyone passing by to peer inside.
 

Gelazela, who’s steadfastly refused to explain the logic here, said in a public meeting that the windows help “[add] privacy in the toilet facility” and that they “increase oversight of the wash area.”

There’s a reason public restrooms tend not to have windows — or, if they do, they have frosted glass.

No one wants to be spied on when they’re relieving themselves.

Gelazela, in pursuing his book ban, repeatedly said he’s trying to protect the children.

But this latest decision does just the opposite.

More:Parents question school that cut windows into student bathrooms amid anti-LGBTQ+ push

More:‘Our politics can be done with a sense of joy,’ Tim Walz tells York crowd

The parents who spoke to The York Dispatch about the latest bathroom renovations said their children no longer feel comfortable using these bathrooms. One of the parents went to the principal and asked for an exemption to allow her son to use a different bathroom further away from class.

Her 13-year-old doesn’t want to be spied on while he’s in the bathroom.

And we don’t blame him.

It’s creepy and weird.

And let’s not ignore the bigger picture: This is happening at a time when this and other York County school boards are pushing policies that would restrict what books students read, what sports teams they compete on and even which pronouns they use.

All of this is part of an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ people.

Cutting a window into these bathrooms is an intimidation tactic designed to make sure students who use the so-called “gender-identity” facilities — and, let’s be honest, any student who doesn’t fit neatly into the worldview of the school board’s far-right majority — know they’re being watched, controlled and judged.

In their quest to punish LGBTQ+ kids, however, the misguided “adults” on this South Western School Board are doing the things they accuse others of doing.

This is an invasion of privacy and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

It needs to stop.

‘It’s very powerful’: New Hampshire ruling protects trans kids from being outed

Nico Romeri, 17, joined an amicus brief supporting a policy that bars school personnel from disclosing students’ gender identities – and won

When Nico Romeri came out as transgender at 14 years old, he first shared the news with his closest friends and a therapist. The private conversations he had outside of the home helped him feel more comfortable to then approach his parents, who supported his transition. If anyone else had revealed his gender identity to his family on his behalf, he said it would have been disruptive to his coming out process.

“I really wanted to have a one-on-one discussion with them, where they knew I trusted them and they trusted me,” Romeri said. “Having that break of trust before you’re confident enough to tell other people is a huge deal.”

A recent ruling helps ensure that other trans students will have the protection to come out to their families when they’re ready. The case came about in May 2022 after a New Hampshire mother inadvertently learned from a teacher that her child used a different name and pronouns in school. The parent argued that the school policy, which advises school personnel not to disclose a student’s transgender status, infringed upon her ability to raise her child as she sees fit. Along with his mother, Heather, Romeri joined an amicus brief in support of the school policy.

In August, the New Hampshire supreme court upheld a lower court’s ruling on the school district policy, affirming trans and gender nonconforming students’ rights to privacy concerning their gender identities and presentation at school. The decision is the first such ruling to come out of a state supreme court, and according to Chris Erchull, senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the ruling could set guidance for other states and federal courts fighting similar cases.

“When there’s no US supreme court precedent, federal courts have to look around at what other courts are saying for precedent,” said Erchull. “So it is going to be very powerful and persuasive.”

Erchull, who filed an amicus brief in the case, said it was critical for students to have a supportive framework that allows them to explore their gender identity in school.

Hearing that [my children are trans] from someone else would have been not good for our relationship

Heather Romeri

“It’s not a public school teacher or administrator’s place to make a decision about how and when to talk to families about these really intimate, sensitive matters,” he said. “It is in the best interest of everyone if the information comes from the student when the student is ready, on the student’s own terms.”

Policies on LGBTQ+ students’ right to privacy varies by school district throughout the nation. In 2015, the New Hampshire school board association issued a model policy to protect the privacy of trans students and to prevent discrimination, which was adopted by 48 of 196 school districts and charter schools, according to a 2020 ACLU New Hampshire report.

The policy was rescinded in 2022 due to conservative pushback, but some school districts, including Manchester, the largest in the state, continue to advise school personnel not to share a trans or gender nonconforming student’s identity to others without the child’s consent. In July, California became the first state to ban school district policies that require staff to notify parents when a child changes their name or pronouns.

Revealing a child’s gender identity or sexual orientation to their family when they’re not ready can lead to suicide and the child getting kicked out of their home, he added. LGBTQ+ youth are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than their cisgender and heterosexual counterparts.

For Heather Romeri, it is crucial that students make their own choices about who they disclose their gender identity to and when. “Two of my children are both trans, so they have both been able to come to me at their own time when they were ready to disclose the information they needed to,” she said. “Hearing that from someone else would have been not good for our relationship, not good for … our children [being able to come] out safely and happily.”

Nico Romeri has trans friends who haven’t shared their gender identity with their parents because they fear for their safety, Heather said. “They really believe they will be hurt or they will be kicked out of their house,” she explained. “They have [seen] others who have tried to come out to their parents, and it’s had negative repercussions to them emotionally.” She sees the victory of the New Hampshire ruling as a prime example for other states considering policies for LGBTQ+ students’ rights.

Now 17, Romeri said that he joined the amicus brief to support his friends who don’t have the same supportive environment to transition. “It’s really important to represent the people that can’t voice [their identity fully] and to keep the laws in place.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/new-hampshire-trans-identities-outing

A year of war accelerates ‘silent departure’ of Israel’s elite

Brain drain could undermine the country’s hi-tech economy as liberal families conclude social contract has been broken

This summer, the Nobel laureate Prof Aaron Ciechanover joined a group of prominent Israelis gathered in the ruins of the Nir Oz kibbutz to demand a hostage release and ceasefire deal.

Nir Oz was the worst hit of all the communities targeted by Hamas on 7 October, with a quarter of its residents kidnapped or killed. Twenty-nine are still in Gaza.

If the hostages were not brought back, the basic social contract that underpinned Israeli society would unravel, the 77-year-old professor of medicine warned – with catastrophic consequences for the entire country.

He cited an accelerating “brain drain” of doctors and other professionals as a worrying sign that some of Israel’s elite already feel they no longer have a future in the country. And without them, Israel itself might struggle to have a future.

Ciechanover is a long-term critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and joined protests against his government before the war. But concern about this trend is not limited to political opponents of the Israeli leader. Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s former chair of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, joined forces with the administrative expert Ron Tzur to warn that Israel faces an existential threat.

In a paper calling for a new political settlement, they warned that under a business-as-usual scenario “there is a considerable likelihood that Israel will not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the coming decades”. (snip)

The problem precedes the 7 October attacks and the war that followed, as demographic and political shifts have prompted some secular, liberal Israelis to question their future in a state increasingly dominated by religious traditionalists.

Noam is a father of three with businesses that include a PR consultancy and a cannabis pharmacy. He expected that his 40s would be a time of “less doing, more enjoying”, after decades of hard work.

Instead, he and his wife spend evenings poring over school options in European countries as they weigh up where to start a new life. The war increased the urgency of the search, but it has been a decision born out of longstanding concerns.

“The main reason we are leaving is that we are seeking a better future for our children. Even if peace can be brokered tomorrow, we still can’t see a future we want to be a part of,” Noam said. “The demographics speak for themselves.”

(snip-MORE- not tl;dr)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/06/as-war-and-religion-rages-israels-secular-elite-contemplate-a-silent-departure

PA School District Spends $8,700 Putting Surveillance Windows in Gender-Neutral Bathrooms

The windows were approved following legal counsel from Independence Law Center, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which has been designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. BY SAMANTHA RIEDEL

(I don’t like this. Aside from the important and actual reasons, how’re the kids gonna smoke in the bathroom? Or buy tampons? Or trade clothes? Now, I realize kids likely don’t do two of those things at school anymore, anyway. But people need their privacy in restrooms. This from the people who are so worried about their own privacy in bathrooms? -A)

A Pennsylvania school district is under fire for installing windows looking into middle-school bathrooms, seemingly at the recommendation of a conservative anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

Gender-neutral bathrooms at Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover now have large windows on their outer walls, which allow those outside to see the bathrooms’ sink area, but not inside the stalls, as seen in photos shared with local news outlets. The windows have reportedly not been installed in gendered multi-user bathrooms or in changing rooms — and according to South Western School District (SWSD) board president Matthew Gelazela, that means privacy isn’t an issue.

Our students should not consider the space outside of our stalls as private within the multiuser restrooms,” Gelazela said in a statement to PennLive this week, highlighting a district policy that specifically requires “private changing areas” be provided to students. “Areas between our stalls and sinks in multiuser restrooms are not private changing areas under that policy.” Gelazela further claimed that the district is in the process of adding higher stall walls to gender-neutral bathrooms to increase privacy.

According to district board records, SWSD board members approved the bathroom windows — the installation of which has already cost the district $8,700 — after receiving a recommendation earlier this year from the Independence Law Center (ILC), which the district contracted as an outside legal counsel in March.

Around the same time, the board adopted an ILC-recommended policy that restricted teachers from using anything but a student’s pronouns based on “biological sex” and legal name, or a nickname commonly associated with their legal name, at school. They also adopted a plan to allow parents to restrict their children from specific categories of books, another ILC recommendation.

At an August 14 meeting, one board member noted that demolition for the bathroom windows had begun before the board officially approved their installation or knew the costs associated; the board then voted to go forward with the windows by a vote of 6-3.

ILC is a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Family Institute (PFI), itself tied to the far-right Family Research Council, both of which have been designated as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. ILC’s website claims it acts to “secure the blessings of liberty,” which it apparently seeks to accomplish by filing amicus briefs in numerous anti-LGBTQ+ legal cases like 303 Creative v Elenis and Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado.

ILC chief counsel Randall Wenger appeared to distance his organization from the SWSD policy this week, however, telling NBC affiliate WGAL that it was “not our recommendation to create a line of sight into a restroom that lacks adequate privacy” and that ILC believes “privacy in multi-user facilities starts at the door of the room, not the door of stalls,” but that if stalls were made more “like the bathrooms on airplanes,” bathrooms may “open to a public area” where staff can monitor students for drug use or loitering. It was not clear whether SWSD’s policy extended beyond what ILC originally recommended, or if the district had simply not implemented stalls with greater wall-to-ceiling coverage before installing the windows.

Them reached out to ILC for further comment, and received the following statement from Wenger, further denying ILC’s responsibility for the policy: “Independence Law Center always recommends privacy, including increasing privacy within existing facilities. We never suggest putting a window into restrooms with stalls. Facilities with full privacy, like bathrooms on airplanes can open to a public area just as we are all used to on airplanes and coffee shops.” Them also reached out to Gelazela for comment, but did not receive a reply before publication.

According to mission statements and case examples on its website, ILC primarily acts to curtail LGBTQ+ rights and advance Christian ideals and policy goals under the auspices of protecting “liberty,” including what it terms “marriage and the family” and the “protect[ion of] human life” — i.e., opposing abortion, a major goal of the PFI. The organization also has ties to past fundamentalist Christian groups. Prior to his work with the ILC, Wegner was employed by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, an “intelligent design” advocacy group that published and distributed the creationist textbook Of Pandas and People. The distribution of Pandas in a Pennsylvania public school district led to a 2005 district court decision that determined the school board had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Parents of students at Markle Middle School told local outlets they were shocked to learn that the district had installed windows in bathrooms, pushing back against Gelazela’s claim that students’ privacy rights were not affected. “It just raised a ton of concerns for me: privacy concerns, safety concerns, concerns for the kids who need those facilities. I feel like this is a deterrent to keep them from using them,” parent Jennifer Holahan told WGAL. “I can understand needing to have supervision [….] But I also think windows aren’t a solution. I think if it was a real issue, it wouldn’t just be [in the] gender-inclusive restrooms.”

Eric Stiles, executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Rainbow Rose Center in York, PA, told PennLive he believes the windows may likely be used to harass and intimidate LGBTQ+ youth in school.

“They’ve done book banning and not using pronouns and outing students to their parents, and now this latest attempt is these bathroom windows that really call into concern the safety of students,” Stiles said. “There will be other students that use the windows, which means they can track each other [….] What does it mean for victims of violence that haven’t been able to come forward? Now you have a big window there. Are they going to have to plan their day on how and when to use the bathroom?”

https://www.them.us/story/pennsylvania-school-district-spends-8700-surveillance-windows-gender-neutral-bathrooms

Federal judge dismisses Denver parent’s lawsuit seeking to put ‘straight pride’ flag in classrooms

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/courts/federal-judge-dismisses-denver-parents-lawsuit-seeking-straight-pride-flag-display/article_2c351eb4-7ee3-11ef-a4c4-3f644b322a60.html

The display of LGBTQ pride flags at the plaintiff’s children’s school is government speech not regulated by the First Amendment

Denver Public Schools hoping to return 'as close to full strength as possible' after spring break

Denver Public Schools

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from a Denver Public Schools parent who sought to force the district to honor his request to display “straight pride” flags in his children’s classrooms.

Nathan Feldman brought suit on behalf of himself and his two children, alleging discrimination and a violation of the First Amendment stemming from DPS declining to add a straight pride flag in his children’s classrooms alongside displays of LGBTQ pride flags.

In a June 26 order, U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez determined the pride flags amounted to the government’s own speech, which the First Amendment does not regulate. Therefore, a decision by DPS not to display a flag did not violate Feldman’s rights.

 

“DPS policy reflects careful consideration about what views can be expressed and that any expressions must reflect DPS’s policy of equality and inclusion. Accordingly, the Court finds that DPS has maintained control over the flag displays,” wrote Rodriguez, an appointee of President Joe Biden.

Feldman filed suit after school administrators allegedly allowed “non-binary and non-cisgender students to have flags displayed that represent their genders but not allowing Plaintiffs to have flags displayed that represent their genders.” He asked for damages of at least $3 million and for an order allowing him to display the straight pride flag.

Straight pride flag

A “straight pride” flag. Source: Feldman et al. v. Denver Public Schools et al.

DPS, in moving to dismiss the lawsuit, noted Feldman’s allegations were contradictory, as he simultaneously asserted “each” classroom at Slavens School had a pride flag and that “not all teachers displayed these flags.” Nonetheless, the district argued the display of flags constituted government speech, as DPS policy endorsed the use of LGBTQ pride flags as “symbols consistent with the District’s equity-based curriculum.”

“Plaintiffs assert that passing a resolution recognizing LGBTQIA+ students or staff without providing equal recognition to those who don’t so identify is an actionable distinction. Not so,” wrote the district’s attorneys.

Feldman responded that individual teachers at his children’s school made the decision to display pride flags. Therefore, DPS was not in control of the displays and they did not constitute the government’s own speech.

In August, U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak recommended that Feldman’s claims be dismissed. He cited a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Boston’s practice of allowing private entities to fly flags outside city hall. The court did not find such circumstances amounted to speech by the government.

 

However, wrote then-Justice Stephen G. Breyer, “when the government speaks for itself, the First Amendment does not demand airtime for all views.”

“Here, DPS selected the Pride Flag, and not Plaintiffs’ Flag, as representing the message that DPS wished to convey,” Varholak wrote in deeming the flag displays governmental expression. “Conversely, there is no allegation that DPS had a history of accepting for display other flags submitted by the public.”

Pridefest Parade

In this 2018 file photo, a supporters of the LGBTQ community fly a Pride flag in the Colorado Springs PrideFest Parade.

As for Feldman’s sex discrimination and equal protection claims, Varholak noted that unless there are allegations of unequal treatment, there is no legal claim based on the absence of a flag representing cisgender, heterosexual students.

“Plaintiffs plainly disagree with DPS’s selected messaging, and phrase this disagreement in constitutional terms,” he concluded, “but ultimately fail to allege any injury except exposure to a flag that they do not feel represented by.”

Feldman objected to portions of Varholak’s analysis, but Rodriguez, the district judge, concluded Feldman was either raising new arguments for the first time or had failed to show why Varholak was mistaken.

To the claim that displaying a flag is discriminatory when it repesents a different group’s sexual orientation or gender identity, “Plaintiffs offer no legal support for their argument,” she wrote, “and the Court finds none.” 

Attorneys for both parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is Feldman et al. v. Denver Public Schools et al.

A Coupla Comics Apropo Of Nothing (or, maybe they are…)

https://www.gocomics.com/furbabies/2024/10/03

FurBabies by Nancy Beiman for October 03, 2024

FurBabies Comic Strip for October 03, 2024

==========

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2024/10/03

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for October 03, 2024

Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strip for October 03, 2024

Busy Reading All These Articles

so reblogging Ten Bears’s page here-this one’s a doozy!