A new rule proposed by the Biden Administration would protect LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system by requiring adoption agencies to place them in homes that affirm their sexual orientations and gender identities. Republicans, however, have come out in opposition to the change.
This is the most important issue the republicans think they have to deal with. Trans and gay people / kids. Not kids being hungry, not schools shootings, not educations test scores or financing. Nope what bathroom a person can use and what medical treatment is available.
The republicans think they have a winning issue with their base because these are hate bills, socially regressive bills. But these are a driven minority fueled either by hate or driven by religious beliefs, possibly both. The majority rejects that hate, that bigotry, that demand to control how others live. These anti-trans bills mirror the anti-gay bills of the 1970s, and that mirrored the anti-race integration. It is all about resisting changes in society and inclusion of those who are different. It is about not progressing, instead wanting things to never change. But look at history, every generation advances society in some way, with causing more friction with the older generations, that forget they changed society of their elders also. Think of the bathroom bills and then think how white people did not want to share bathrooms or any place with black people. The bathroom bills trying to keep trans kids from public bathrooms and out of locker rooms is the same bullshit that I faced as a gay man, these same people wanted to keep me from using bathrooms, using locker rooms claiming gay men would sexually attack straight men. Sounds just like trans women would attack cis women. The bills about keep trans people out of sports are very like the racial segregated sports teams in the 1950, claiming first black people were inferior then also saying that black men would take over the sports winning over the whites. Does it all sound so familiar. It is the same hate, same bigotry, just repackaged to use against a new group for these people to hate.
Also these people just refuse to accept well known documented medical science / studies that show people are not made gay or trans, but born that way. You cannot force a straight person to be gay, and you can not force a gay person to be straight. Also while these bills forbid any mention of a non-cisgender or non-straight orientation, that requires the forced reinforcement of cis heterosexuality. Hugs. Scottie
The state is considering 41 other bills attacking transgender rights this year.
An opponent of one of several anti-trans bills testifies before the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee.Photo: Screenshot
Lawmakers in both the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate debated a total of eight anti-transgender bills in a single day this week.
The measures, affecting trans people’s ability to access healthcare, bathrooms, and other facilities, and legal recognition of their gender identity, represent just a fraction of the 49 anti-trans bills Missouri Republicans have already introduced this month. Trans journalist Erin Reed described the latest wave of proposed laws as “a firehose of legislation that touches every aspect of trans people’s lives.”
State law allows the university to provide gender-affirming care, but it still refuses to do so.
On Wednesday, Missouri’s Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee heard testimony on S.B. 728, one of two bills, which would establish a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” in the state. Among other provisions affecting school curriculum, S.B. 728 “prohibits public school officials from encouraging a student under the age of eighteen years old to adopt a gender identity or sexual orientation.” It also requires school officials to “inform a student’s parent within twenty-four hours if the student expresses confusion about their documented identity or requests to use personal pronouns that differ from their documented identity” and to “obtain written parental consent before allowing a student to use a name other than the name provided by the parent when registering the student for school and before encouraging a student to wear certain items of clothing.”
Effectively, the bill requires schools to out suspected trans and nonbinary students to their parents.
The committee was also scheduled to hear S.B. 770, another “Parents’ Bill of Rights” measure that included a ban on transgender girls participating in school-sponsored girls’ athletic teams. The hearing on S.B. 770 was canceled, however.
Meanwhile, in a nine-hour hearing, the state’s House Emerging Issues Committee took up seven separate anti-trans measures.
Two bills sponsored by Missouri state Rep. Brad Hudson (R) target access to gender-affirming healthcare. H.B. 1519 would allow healthcare professionals—including, as Reed noted, pharmacists, desk workers, and nurses—to refuse to treat trans people receiving gender-affirming care. During public testimony, opponents of the bill noted that it would not only legalize discrimination but could also result in cisgender, nonbinary, and intersex people being denied medication by providers who mistakenly assume they are trying to access gender-affirming treatment.
This witness talks about how the same medications given to them (they didn't give pronouns, genderfluid) for their transition are the same ones given to cis men for hair loss, talks about the hatred the laws create. pic.twitter.com/3EH1eS9MLm
Hudson’s H.B. 1520, meanwhile, aims to strengthen and extend Missouri’s “Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.” Signed by Gov. Mike Parson (R) last June, the law banned all gender-affirming care for minors but included an exception for trans young people who are already receiving such care, as well as a sunset provision, causing the law to expire in August 2027. H.B. 1520 would remove those provisions, forcing trans minors who are currently receiving gender-affirming care to detransition and extending the law beyond the 2027 expiration date.
State Rep. Ashley Aune (D) noted that the sunset provision was included in the SAFE Act so that lawmakers could assess the law’s “unintended consequences.” Hudson responded that there is already “enough evidence out there” and that he knows “these drugs are not good for kids.”
In fact, every major American medical association has acknowledged that gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, is evidence-based, safe, and effective for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
The committee also heard testimony on four bills aimed at banning transgender Missourians from using bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity. Proponents of such laws almost universally focus, without evidence, on the supposed threat transgender women pose to cis women in public restrooms. But during Wednesday’s hearing, opponents noted that, far from alleviating any discomfort, the bills would force masculine-presenting trans men to use women’s restrooms and also endanger trans women forced to use men’s facilities while doing nothing to prevent actual predators from accessing women’s bathrooms.
"Did you get this language from the Heritage foundation?"
Also, if you force trans men into women's bathrooms, you force people like this into women's bathrooms. A person could just as easily, if they want to use the "Wrong bathroom," claim they are a trans man if this bill passes. pic.twitter.com/sMBhYtFXg9
Rep Aune: "In a situation where you are in public, if a law went into place that required you to use the restroom as defined in this bill, would that leave you using women's restrooms?"
Additionally, one of the bathroom bills introduced by state Rep. Adam Schnelting (R), H.B. 2308, would legally define the terms “male” and “female” according to a person’s reproductive biology.
Similarly, H.B. 2309, also introduced by Schnelting, aims to legally redefine “gender” as synonymous with biological sex. According to Reed, the bill would end any legal recognition of transgender people in the state and would likely affect the gender markers on their birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and other forms of ID.
Schnelting testified that his bills would affect “bathrooms, dorms, shelters, everything” and might even “nullify sex-specific scholarships” given to trans individuals.
Democrats on the committee blasted their Republican colleagues’ seemingly single-minded focus on limiting the rights of transgender Missourians. State Rep. David Tyson Smith (D), who noted that Republicans make up 40 percent of his constituents, argued that people want lawmakers to address “inflation, grocery store prices.”
“People are wondering why we are spending time on this,” Smith said.
State Rep. Doug Mann (D) sounded an even more urgent alarm. “When it became no longer acceptable to be anti-gay in public, people moved to being anti-trans,” he said. “When you start to attack an already vulnerable group of people, you do not stop with that already vulnerable group of people.”
“I’m going to be honest, I do not trust that this is the end,” Mann said of the anti-trans bills. “Everything I have seen as a student of history, as a student from politics, as a student of government, tells me that it is going to go farther. Things are going to get worse, not better.”
Thankfully President Biden is still able to enjoy the progressive advances in society. His republican right wing critics are against any advances in society since the 1940s / 1950s. The majority of the country wants to move forward with equality and acceptance of differences, and a small vocal violent minority wants to rule over every aspect of others peoples lives. That fraction demands that others live by the same restrictions, same hates, and do only what they do. Most base their belief in how others must be forced to live in the land of the free by their religious beliefs, regardless of what the other person believes. This small fraction of the public wants the right to have complete control over their own children and yours, denying other parents that right to raise their children progressively in a way. Hugs. Scottie
Trans teenage boys are just as likely to get pregnant as cisgender girls, but sex-ed programs don’t speak to them.
The Biden administration is dedicating approximately $700,000 to a sexual health program aimed at pregnancy prevention for transgender boys.
The Department of Health and Human Services has approved a grant to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research in California, which will spearhead a program focused on sex education and condom usage for trans boys.
It’s not the first time the high court have allowed trans students to pee in peace.
The grant summary explains that trans boys are “at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable.”
It also said trans youth who were assigned female at birth “may be less likely to use condoms when having sex with people who have penises and are at least as likely as cisgender girls to be pregnant.” The organization plans to try out a texting strategy originally designed for cisgender teenage girls who are sexual minorities. It will also hold focus groups to learn more about the sex lives of trans boys.
The Biden administration has been investing in other trans health programs as well. In 2022, it granted $1 million to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to study thrombosis risks in trans youth undergoing hormone therapy, according toShore News Network.
Despite the relatively small grant allocated for the sexual health program, the right is outraged that any funds would be appropriated to help trans youth. Conservative media blasted the program as “woke” and “radical” and mocked the fact that it is indeed possible for boys to get pregnant.
President Biden has been the most vocal president in history in support of trans rights. Most recently, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest supporting a trans inmate seeking gender-affirming care. The administration has also participated in multiple lawsuits against states seeking to ban gender-affirming care.
Discussing the incredible speech given by academic, activist, and BET host Marc Lamont Hill at Saint Sabina over the recent protest (and subsequent reaction) to Joe Biden’s speech at Mother Emanuel AME.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just said the quiet part out loud, in complete rejection of what the Biden administration has been trying to accomplish while at the same time taking all the money & aid the U.S. has been providing.
By my dogs that love gravy … damn, damn, damn, fucking bastards, goddamn swear word swear word. I can not even think of enough vile words to say about this. This is a sickening example of how the Israeli government see the Palestinians, including children. I watched a video this morning of an Israeli government official justifying this mass slaughter and genocide saying they were not causing it, Hamas was. They hit us (why because we were mistreating their people) hurting / killing 1,200 hundred of our so we can kill over 23,000 of them 10,000 of them confirmed children, and force the others to live in worse conditions than abandon animals. Oh, and Israel took over a university / school system in Gaza, used it as their headquarters, “interrogated” Palestinians there, then proudly blew it all up, so no Palestinian could come back and someday be educated there. That is a war crime. All of this is.
13 year old children trying to be the parents of 7 siblings because their parents are dead, with only other refuges to help. They have nothing, and Israel gloats over this. I am angry. Hugs. Scottie
As Israel presses on against Hamas in Gaza, children there are facing growing misery. Richard Engel reports on a 13-year-old who is now raising his seven siblings after his parents were likely killed.
I forget what year it was, maybe 2012 or 2013 I was being treated by a doctor for my abuse. I forget what he was titled, but he was the mind / personality doctors. After testing and sessions of talking, he said I had a bunny personality unable to protect myself, with the bunny personality that kicked in that made the bunny protect those who were smaller or more vulnerable than me being attacked, even to the point of sacrificing my self. In other words, I think he was saying I was unable to protect my self but will try to find ways to protect those who I feel are in danger. I wonder if he said the second part just to shore up myself esteem as I never really felt I had a protector role. In fact, I sort of got used to the idea I was to suffer to take the pain issued to me.
Please remember, this was before Ron knew of most of my abuse, he only knew I was hurt as a kid, and it was by the family I grew up in. I was scared to tell him what was happening, his job and mine were our income. If I told him Ron would have reacted, would have been angry, would have stopped it but I was worried we would lose our jobs and our income.
There was a reason I was back in treatment, but the short story is I was being sexual assaulted at work. One of the male nurses, a larger guy, thought it was cute and funny to grab the gay guy by the dick, touch his ass, and push him in to a wall or counter and press themselves into me while fondling my penis. My supervisors found out it was happening by accident because another male nurse who today would be the typical maga republican threaten to kill me in front of everyone for being gay and when I had to be interviewed by HR and legal it slipped out what the other guy was doing. So the company insisted on sending me to a psychologist for examination / treatment. Side note I should some day describe the meeting it was surreal with them makings sure nothing blocked the door or my path to it, repeatedly telling me I could leave, and if I felt unsafe or upset to tell them, kept asking me if I need a break or wanted someone with me … I mean I like the feeling behind what they were doing, but it was over the top in my opinion. But maybe they were trying to prevent a sexual assault claim against the hospital.
But the real point of the post and what I was so happy and excited over is, when I told Randy what was happening and what the doctor said my personality was, Randy sprang into action. My wonderful friend, the brother I never had growing up, sent me a tee shirt I wore until I wore it out. I wore it everywhere. It was something I took great joy in.
It was a Psycho Bunny tee shirt with this logo
And I don’t know if you can understand the power this tee shirt gave me. I may be a bunny, but I was now a bunny with teeth. Randy kept telling me that maybe as a child I couldn’t stop the abuse, but now I had power, skill, and support such that I could protect my self. The shirt and the feeling behind it was every empowering. It was what I needed then to help me. And Randy was always there to help me, uplift me, and keep me from despair as best he could. I love Randy, I loved the tee shirt, I love the idea behind it. Yesterday and today I keep reminding myself … I AM A PSYCHO BUNNY, AND I HAVE TEETH, HEAR ME ROAR! Even if right now it is coming out as a squeak. Hugs, Scottie
Short update. When Ron got home from shopping, he sensed something was wrong. He asked me about it. I told him briefly I had some more intrusive memories. He was quiet and then said when we put the groceries away we will talk. After we got done I went and sat down, I was not sure that I wanted to tell him, I had hid so much for so long. He asked if I wanted to talk and could he know what was upsetting me. We sat and talked, I told him the new memories, the details that were flooding my brain, the feelings I was experiencing with them. Every time I got to points where I would be too upset to talk, starting to cry he would tell me to slow down, breathe, take your time. Then when I got it all out, I couldn’t look at him. He softly said I needed to distract myself, and I explained how that was what I was trying to do but that wouldn’t help me heal or get over anything, we both knew from experience. I told him I needed a few minutes alone and he gave me that. When I came out he walked slowly to me and held his arms out, and I grabbed him, I clutched him. He held me back and kept telling me they were gone, they couldn’t hurt me anymore. Finally, I stepped back and said to him, but that is where you’re wrong, the memories don’t stop. The feelings don’t stop. And when I remember the abuse, I also feel the abuse. He pulled me to him and held me tight. He had no words, and I don’t have any either. I know eventually I will share this with all of you who want me too or are able to deal with it. I have learned that talking about it does help in a weird way. Yes it hurts at first, deeply intently, but ignoring it makes the pain build and become much worse.
For some reason at first when I was telling him I thought Ron was going to reject me as he started looking away. Then after I now realize he was struggling not to cry and with his anger, both which would have hurt me had he shown them. He has gone to lay down for a nap, talking to me about it first. I feel weird again. I know he will be watching me, he will be worried. Did I do wrong to tell him? Should I have hidden it, gone back to the days before he really knew much? Now my doubts are creeping in and trying to take root.
I am not going to proofread this for errors. Sorry, I do need to step back. Please overlook them or if they are important call me out in comments. I have spine shots tomorrow at 10. I have to get my mind in a better place, I have to find peace. Hugs. Scottie
An opponent of one of several anti-trans bills testifies before the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee.Photo: Screenshot
Photo: Shutterstock
Scottie's Playtime 