Florida English teacher pushing book bans is openly racist and homophobic, students allege

This teacher doesn’t want stories of black people overcoming racism because she claims it will make the white kids uncomfortable, but she is not worried about the black students being uncomfortable as she uses the “N” word and talks racist crap including stating her entire clan fought for the confederacy whose goal was to keep blacks as slaves. Imagine the discomfort of being a black kid in her class knowing the teacher who grades you supports the idea of you being a slave with no rights. Not to mention her other out of time ideas. She claims books like “And Tango Makes Three” gives kids the idea that gay couples are OK something she also claims kids wouldn’t think if they were not told that. WTF! They are OK, it is normal, and kids should be told it is OK / normal / acceptable as straight couples. Just because she is a racist bigot who is filled with hate and intolerance doesn’t mean she gets to tell all of society and other peoples children that same sex couples are wrong. She is living in a distant past not the modern society but she cannot and wont accept it, and in Florida the kingdom of DeathSantis and the regressive Christian nationalist right she doesn’t have to. It appears that her superiors support her views even denying a parents demand their child be removed from her class, what happened to the great parents rights laws passed in Florida? Oh yes that is really only right wing racist bigoted Christian maga parents have rights bills passed in Florida. Hugs

Northview High School English teacher Vicki Baggett during an interview with Studio 850 in September 2022. (Screenshot via Facebook)

Vicki Baggett, an English teacher at Northview High School in Florida, is pushing for the Escambia County School District to remove nearly 150 books from school libraries. In an interview last month, Baggett told Popular Information that she is challenging books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball — the story of a sprinter who overcame racial discrimination to become an Olympic champion — because she’s concerned the book could make white students “feel uncomfortable.” Baggett said she has “a responsibility to protect minors” from this kind of content.

While Baggett claims she is keeping inappropriate content away from children, her former and current students tell Popular Information that Baggett openly promoted racist and homophobic beliefs in class.

Peggy Sunday, who graduated from Northview in 2021, told Popular Information that, during a 10th-grade English class, Baggett said she opposed interracial marriage. “[Baggett] said in the Bible somewhere it says that it is a sin for races to mix together and that whites are meant to be with whites and blacks are meant to be with blacks,” Sunday alleged. About 15 students, from a variety of racial backgrounds, were enrolled in the class.

Another student in the same class, Stone Pressley, recalled the same incident. Pressley said that Baggett said she was opposed to “race mixing” because “she wanted to preserve cultures” and “didn’t want everyone to turn the same color eventually.” Pressley said that although Baggett had a reputation for controversial remarks, he found Baggett’s comments on interracial relationships “shocking.” After the incident, Pressley recalled asking his science teacher if it was possible, as Baggett claimed, for everyone to be “the same color one day.”

Another student in the class, Hamza Jacobs, confirmed Baggett’s comments opposing “race mixing.” A fourth student in the class, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of the allegations and Baggett’s standing in a small community, also confirmed the episode.

Sunday said that Baggett is known throughout Northview as an “openly racist teacher.” Sunday worked at a local pool and, one day, Baggett asked her about “the black-to-white” ratio. According to Sunday, Baggett then asked two Black students if they “knew how to swim” because “most black people don’t know how to swim.” The incident was confirmed by one of the Black students targeted by Baggett, who asked to remain anonymous. That student said Baggett “asked me and another girl of color in my class ‘could we swim because black people usually can’t.'” Jacobs and Pressley also confirmed the incident.

A Black student in the class also alleged Baggett said that “she didn’t understand why black people get tattoos in black ink” because “you can’t even see them.” Pressley and Sunday confirmed the incident. Sunday and Jacobs recalled Baggett frequently commenting on the hair of a Black female student. Sunday said Baggett questioned why the young woman wore hair extensions and asked if her hair “was heavy or hurt her.”

Popular Information previously reported that, in 2015, Baggett posted an image of the Confederate Flag to her Facebook page. In the December 2022 interview, Baggett defended the posting, because “everyone in my clan fought in the Civil War” and she was not “ashamed of that.” Baggett added that she was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, which has been designated as part of the Neo-Confederate movement.

The Escambia County School District did not answer a detailed list of questions about Baggett’s behavior but did provide the following statement to Popular Information: “We categorically condemn any form of discriminatory speech. Our mission is to reach all students, regardless of race, background, or gender identity.”

Baggett did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the allegations made by her students. She has, however, continued to submit challenges to books in Escambia County school libraries. Most recently, Baggett challenged a bestselling book of poetry available in high school libraries, The Sun and Her Flowers, on January 5.

Baggett accuses a student of “faking being a lesbian”

Both Sunday and Pressley recalled another incident involving Baggett that “the whole school talked about.” According to Sunday, Baggett told a 10th-grade student that her sister, who had a girlfriend, was “faking being a lesbian for attention.” Baggett allegedly said that “nobody’s born that way.”

The incident was confirmed by a student, who asked to remain anonymous, who witnessed Baggett’s comments. Popular Information also confirmed the identity of the targeted student and her sister but is not publishing their identities due to the nature of the allegations.

In September 2019, a Northview parent emailed principal Michael Sherrill objecting strenuously to Baggett’s classroom conduct. (The email was obtained by Popular Information on the condition that the identity of the parent not be disclosed.) In the letter, the parent accused Baggett of “a toxic and hostile learning environment for her students” and asked that “a full investigation of her actions be conducted.”

The letter states that Baggett “has expressed her utter distaste for homosexuals to her students.” According to the parent, Baggett “stated she thinks homosexuals are DUMB/STUPID for wearing the rainbow and pink colors because, according to Mrs. Baggett, that is the way that Hitler marked homosexual males during the Holocaust.” (The pink triangle was used by Nazis but has been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community as a symbol of pride.) The parent expressed concern that these comments would make students in her class feel “judged” and “humiliated.”

Many of the books challenged by Baggett have LGBTQ themes. Among the books challenged by Baggett is And Tango Makes Three. The book is the story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo. The pair build a nest together and raise an adopted child, Tango. Baggett alleges the book promotes the “LGBTQ agenda using penguins.” On the form, Baggett said she believes the purpose of the book is “indoctrination.”

In the December 2022 interview with Popular Information, Baggett said And Tango Makes Three includes sexual “innuendo” and K-3 students are “too young to even be concerned about sex.” Baggett explained that she objected to the book because if a second grader read the book “that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.” Baggett’s challenge says the book is inappropriate for all grade levels.

The September 2019 parent letter also claims that Baggett “openly stated that men and women should ‘Know Their Role.'” Baggett allegedly said that “men are the protectors and the women are the nurturers” and that is why “women have the children and the men go to work to provide and protect the women.”

The parent demanded their child “be removed from Mrs. Baggett’s classroom effective immediately.” But the parent told Popular Information that no action was taken in response to their complaint. The school did not address the specific allegations in the letter, and Principal Sherrill told the parent that Baggett was “a good person.”

A former student in Baggett’s class told Popular Information that, despite her “wild” conduct in class, “a lot of people were scared” to complain to administrators about Baggett. Northview is a small high school, with about 90 people in each graduating class, and Baggett has taught English at Northview for more than 30 years.

Inside Baggett’s classroom today

Baggett is seeking to remove books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball from Escambia County libraries, claiming texts that detail historic discrimination amount to “race-baiting.” The form Baggett submitted to the school district says When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball “opines prejudice based on race” and is inappropriate for students in any grade.

But a current student in Baggett’s 12th grade English class told Popular Information that Baggett’s curriculum includes texts that cover racial issues in crude terms. Popular Information is withholding the name of the student because the student is a minor and is currently enrolled in Baggett’s class.

Among the texts covered in Baggett’s 12th grade English class this academic year was A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, an acclaimed but controversial author. (See “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” in the New Yorker.) In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, a man named Edgar Atkins Teagarden courts a woman by leaving a watermelon at her doorstep every Saturday carved with his initials — E.A.T. The punchline is that a Black child, referred to in the story with the n-word, ate the watermelon because he interpreted Teagarden’s initials as an invitation.

According to the student, Baggett played an audio version of the story that included the unredacted racial slur. During the classroom discussion, Baggett also allegedly spelled out the n-word, which the student said made many of her classmates uncomfortable. Another student in the class posted a screenshot of the of the passage from A Good Man Is Hard to Find with the n-word to social media, commenting that it was a “regular day in Ms. Baggett’s class.”

Baggett previously told Popular Information that her 12th grade class included texts with the n-word. But Baggett claimed that when the text was read in the classroom, she “basically skipped over” the part of the book that included the slur because it was her job to make “students all feel comfortable.” (During the December 2022 interview, Baggett herself used the racial slur in full oin describing the incident.) Baggett declined to name the text, so it’s unclear if it was A Good Man Is Hard to Find or another story.

There is nothing particularly unusual about including a Flannery O’Connor story in a 12th grade English class. But it highlights a troubling contradiction in Baggett’s approach. Baggett maintains that A Good Man Is Hard to Find is appropriate for high school students but books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball and And Tango Makes Three are inappropriate and should be removed from all school libraries.

Koris Story [Informational Video]

An incredible video. One I hope no one ever has to make, and this young man is so brave to face his own death so well. At 11 years old and to understand your body is shutting down and you are going into and fighting organ failure. I know adults who do not face end of life with such dignity. Warning the video deals with a child struggling to live since birth and the pain and hardships in that struggle. Remember everyone who subscribed to his channel helped make his end of life wish come true. He also has been getting stuff off a wish list he has and the amazing thing is he asked for things for other sick kids and for the hospital where he was treated. Please click the link to go to YouTube and watch the video, his fight is not over yet. Hugs

A very real video about Koris journey. Viewer discretion is advised.

Conservative Hotline to “Report” Drag Shows Flooded with Messages About Predator Pastors

A conservative hotline in Texas was created for concerned citizens to “report” any and all drag shows happening in the state. Once LGBTQ allies learned about it, well, this hotline got a little bit more than it bargained for.

Florida schools ban book about gay penguins in reaction to Don’t Say Gay law

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/01/373813/

And the erasing of gays from society continues in Florida. The don’t say gay law is working just the way the republican’s hoped it would. It is a fact that some kids have two dads or two moms, yet the republicans inred states want to outlaw anyone knowing about them. They are demanding those families are not real families, that those kids are dirty somehow. They want them ostracized and targeted for bullying. They want the fact that being gay is normal and shared widely in the animal kingdom. Kids will be forced into a heterosexual mode of acting only. Hugs

Schools are banning innocuous books about LGBTQ+ people to comply with the anti-LGBTQ+ law.

By Alex Bollinger Friday, January 6, 2023

Photo: Little Simon

In the wake of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law, schools in the state are banning books with LGBTQ+ themes, including And Tango Makes Three, a book about a baby penguin named Tango who has two dads.

The Don’t Say Gay law, also known as the Parental Rights in Education Act, was signed into law last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K through 3 and restricts such discussions in older grades.

Conservatives said the bill was necessary to stop sexual discussions in schools as well as instruction about sex and that the law wasn’t anti-LGBTQ+. The DeSantis administration called opponents of the bill “groomers,” another word for child sex abusers.

But it turns out that the bill is doing what opponents said it would do: making LGBTQ+ people a taboo topic in schools.

Popular Information reports that Lake County’s school district banned three books in grades K-3: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (about a gay bunny who likes hula hooping), And Tango Makes Three, and In our Mothers’ House (about three kids with two moms).

A statement says that the books were “administratively removed due to content regarding sexual orientation/gender identification prohibited in HB 1557.” H.B. 1557 is the Don’t Say Gay law.

Seminole County Public Schools banned three books citing the Don’t Say Gay law. The books were 10,000 Dresses (about a boy with a dream of making dresses), I am Jazz (about the experiences of trans activist Jazz Jennings), and Jacob’s New Dress (about a boy who wants to wear a dress to school).

None of the books contain sexual content, but the district said they, “pursuant to the aforementioned statute [the Don’t Say Gay law], would be deemed as not being age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in kindergarten through grade 3.” They were removed from district libraries and “will only be available for check-out to a student in grade 4 or 5 when the parent has provided written consent and picks up the book from the principal or designee at the school.”

The DeSantis administration said in response to one of the legal challenges against the Don’t Say Gay law that it only applies to classroom instruction and not library books, but the Florida Department of Education is telling school librarians that “there is some overlap between the selection criteria for instructional and library materials” in its training materials for the Don’t Say Gay law and they should be “avoiding unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination.” The materials tell librarians to “err on the side of caution.”

Opponents of the Don’t Say Gay law cited high suicide rates among LGBTQ+ youth and argued that erasing LGBTQ+ identities from school will make them feel more alone and isolated.

“42% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide last year,” Chasten Buttigieg said of the bill last year. “Now they can’t talk to their teachers?”

Trying to catch up with news after spending most of the last four days in bed

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CPAC’s Matt Schlapp Accused Of Groping Man’s Crotch

https://www.thedailybeast.com/herschel-walker-staffer-matt-schlapp-groped-my-crotch?ref=home

Oklahoma Anti-Trans Bill Cites “Millstone” Scripture

Joe Rogan Sorry After Doctor Harassed For Fake Tweet

NJ Youth Pastor Gets 27 Years On Child Sex Charges

FL Man Charged With Anti-Gay Mass Shooting Threat

Afghan war orphan remains with Marine accused of abduction

https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-politics-united-states-government-virginia-children-97a4e2f4c38925d50e5511a3232974f0

Burried in the story is what I think it clearly amounts to, forcing a change of religion for the child. The Marine claimed that taking the girl amounted to Christian love and that his family was raising the girl as a Christian in a good Christian home, despite the family she was with being devote Muslims who was raising the girl in the Muslim faith. What I don’t understand is this is a simple case of kidnapping and religious bigotry of a adoption court that ruled for the Marine even though other courts and the government had ruled that the little girl belong with the Muslim family. if you read the story the court not only had to skip my of the required procedures in order to let the Marine adopt the child he kidnaped, but they flat out broke the law to do it. I can not understand why this is being allowed. Is it religious bigotry, political, or the fact that he is a Marine that keeps the police from taking the child from the kidnapper and returning her to her real family. Even the US government who said the Marine broke several laws by taking the child has not ordered him to return the child. Weird. Hugs

By MARTHA MENDOZA, CLAIRE GALOFARO and JULIET LINDERMANyesterday

1 of 5

FILE – A Qatar Airways aircraft takes off with foreigners from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, as some 200 foreigners, including Americans, flew out of the country, the first such large-scale departure since U.S and foreign forces concluded their frantic withdrawal at the end of the previous month. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

The Afghan woman ran down the street towards her friend’s apartment as soon as she heard the news: the White House had publicly weighed in on her family’s case.

Surely her child, who she says was abducted by a U.S. Marine more than a year ago, would now be returned, she thought. She was so excited that it was only after she’d arrived that she realized she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“We thought within one week she’d be back to us,” the woman told The Associated Press.

Yet two months after an AP report on the high-stakes legal fight over the child raised alarms at the highest levels of government, from the White House to the Taliban, the baby remains with U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast and his family. The Masts claim in court documents that they legally adopted the child and that the Afghan couple’s accusations are “outrageous” and “unmerited.”

“We are all concerned with the well being of this child who is at the heart of this matter,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after the AP detailed the child’s plight in October.

Last month, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to intervene in the legal wrangling over the fate of the child, arguing that Mast’s adoption should never have been granted. The government has said Mast’s attempts to take the child directly conflicted with a U.S. foreign policy decision to reunite the orphan with her Afghan family. They asked that the case be moved from a rural Virginia court to federal court, but were denied by Presiding Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore.

Additionally, federal authorities say multiple investigations are underway.

“We all just want resolution for this child, whatever it’s going to be, so her childhood doesn’t continue to be in limbo,” said Samantha Freed, a court-appointed attorney assigned to look after the best interests of the child. “We need to get this right now. There are no do-overs.”

The legal fight has taken more than a year, and Freed is worried it could take months — maybe even years — more. The child is now 3 ½ years old. The Afghan family spoke with the AP on condition of remaining anonymous out of fear for their safety and concerns for their relatives back in Afghanistan.

Mast became enchanted with the child while on temporary assignment in Afghanistan in late 2019. Just a few months old, the infant had survived a Special Operations raid that killed her parents and five siblings, according to court records.

As she recovered from injuries in a U.S. military hospital, the Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross identified her relatives, and through meetings with the State Department, arranged for their reunification. The child’s cousin and his wife — young newlyweds without children yet of their own — wept when they first saw her, they said: Taking her in and raising her was the greatest honor of their lives.

Nonetheless, Mast — in spite of orders from military officials to stop intervening — was determined to take her home to the United States. He used his status in the military, appealed to political connections in the Trump administration and convinced the small-town Virginia court to skip some of the usual safeguards that govern international adoptions.

Finally, when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan last summer, he helped the family get to the United States. After they arrived, they say, he took their baby from them at the Fort Pickett Virginia Army National Guard base. They haven’t seen her since and are suing to get her back.

The Afghan woman gave birth to a daughter just weeks after the girl they’d been raising was taken from them. Every time they buy an outfit or a present for their daughter, they buy a second matching one for the child they pray will come back to them soon.

The Masts did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Stepping out from a recent hearing, Joshua Mast told AP they’ve been advised not to speak publicly.

In court filings, Mast says he acted “admirably” to bring the child to the United States and care for her with his wife. They say they’ve given her “a loving home” and have “done nothing but ensure she receives the medical care she requires, at great personal expense and sacrifice.” Mast celebrated his adoption of the child, whose Afghan family is Muslim, as an act of Christian faith.

The toddler’s future is now set to be decided in a sealed, secret court case in rural Virginia — in the same courthouse that granted Mast custody. The federal government has described that custody order as “unlawful,” “improper” and “deeply flawed and incorrect” because it was based on a promise that Afghanistan would waive jurisdiction over the child, which never happened.

The day Mast and his wife Stephanie Mast were granted a final adoption, the child was 7,000 miles away with the Afghan couple who knew nothing about it.

In court, Mast, still an active duty Marine, cast doubt on whether the Afghan couple is related to her at all. They argue that the little girl is “ an orphan of war and a victim of terrorism, rescued under tragic circumstances from the battlefield.” They say she is a “stateless minor” because she was recovered from a compound Mast says was used by foreign fighters not from Afghanistan.

The case has been consumed by a procedural question: Does the Afghan family — who raised the child for a year and a half — have a right under Virginia law to even challenge the adoption?

Judge Moore ruled in November that the Afghan family does have legal standing; the Masts’ appeal is under review.

The child’s Afghan relatives, currently in Texas, believe the U.S. government should be doing more to help them, because numerous federal agencies were involved in the ordeal.

“The government is not doing their job as they should,” said the Afghan woman. “And in this process, we are suffering.”

A State Department official said one of the agency’s own social workers stood with Mast when he took the baby at Fort Pickett, but “had no awareness of the U.S. Embassy’s previous involvement in reuniting the child with her next of kin in Afghanistan.” The official described how the U.S. had worked hard in Afghanistan to unite the child with her relatives.

“We recognize the human dimension of this situation,” said the official.

The Department of Defense said in a statement that the decision to reunite the child with her family was in keeping with the U.S. government’s foreign obligations, as well as international law principles that mandate family reunification of children displaced in war. The Defense Department said it is aware that Mast “took custody” of the child but declined to comment further.

The Afghan couple pleaded for help from the tangle of agencies at Fort Pickett: the military, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the police. Some didn’t believe them, some said there was nothing they could do, some tried to intervene to no avail.

The couple eventually reached Martha Jenkins, an attorney volunteering at the base.

“When I first heard their story, I thought there must be something lost in translation — how could this be true?” said Jenkins. She contacted authorities.

Almost two months after they lost the child, Virginia State Police dispatch records obtained by the AP show “an advocate” called to report what had happened.

“The family is on Fort Pickett, they are requesting an investigation to the validity of the adoption and if it was done under false pretenses,” wrote the dispatcher. The record notes that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were involved.

Jenkins, who was in Virginia temporarily, called every Virginia adoption attorney she could find until she reached Elizabeth Vaughan.

“It was very surprising to me that no one helped them,” said Vaughan, who offered to represent the Afghan couple for free. “I don’t think they had a lot of the paperwork Americans like to see when someone’s proving that they have custody. But there are laws about people, trusted adults, who arrive with a child. So much more investigating should have been done.”

A Marine Corps spokesperson wrote in a statement that they are fully cooperating with federal law enforcement investigations, including at least one focused on the alleged unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. In emails Mast sent asking for help bringing the child from Afghanistan, now submitted as exhibitions in court, he referenced reading classified documents about the raid that killed the girl’s family.

Investigators and prosecutors declined to comment, citing the ongoing inquiries.

On the other side of the globe, the Taliban issued a statement saying it “will seriously pursue this issue with American authorities so that the said child is returned to her relatives.”

Now every night before bed, the Afghan couple scroll through an album of 117 photos of the year and half they spent raising her — a sassy child with big bright eyes, who loved to dress up in shiny colors and gold bangle bracelets. There’s a photo of the child wearing a black and green tunic and tiny gold sandals, nestled on the young Afghan man’s lap, smiling mischievously at the camera. In one video, she runs alongside the man, bouncing down the sidewalk to keep up with his stride.

They’ll soon be moving to a new two-bedroom apartment. There, they say, the little girl’s room will be ready for her, whenever she comes home.

Homosexuality: It’s about survival – not sex | James O’Keefe | TEDxTallaght

This passionate talk from Dr. James O’Keefe MD gives us a deeply personal and fascinating insight into why homosexuality is indeed a necessary and extraordinarily useful cog in nature’s wheel of perfection.

James H O’Keefe MD, is a Board Certified Cardiologist and Director of both the Charles & Barbara Duboc Cardio Health & Wellness Center and the Preventive Cardiology service at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute. He is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His postgraduate training included a cardiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr O’Keefe is board-certified in Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Nuclear Cardiology, and Cardiac CT Imaging. He is consistently ranked among the ‘Top Doctor’ lists regionally and nationally as one of America’s Top Rated Physicians in Cardiology. He has been named as one of USA Today’s Most Influential Doctors. Dr O’Keefe has contributed more than 300 articles to the medical literature and has authored best-selling cardiovascular books for health professionals including: The Complete Guide to ECGs (which is used for Cardiology Board Certification), Dyslipidemia Essentials, and Diabetes Essential.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Trans rights activist Imara Jones on the anti-trans hate machine the far right has assembled

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/12/trans-rights-activist-imara-jones-anti-trans-hate-machine-far-right-assembled/

For those who had any doubts that this was not really the people rising up but actually a well funded well organized by right wing billionaires’ effort to stop society from progressing further from the bible views of how to live. This article points out how these groups get started and funded. It points out the ones driving these issues are the religious ones founded by Christian fundamentalist billionaires with the goal of creating a repressive society that will conform to a hierarchical theocracy with them at the top being the rulers. It is not so much about god as it is power to rule over others as god’s messengers. The interview is not long but really informative. Hugs

By Greg Owen Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Imara Jones accepting the NABJ-NAHJ Journalist of Distinction AwardPhoto: Screenshot

Imara Jones is an award-winning journalist, thought leader, and content creator whose work focuses on trans people and the intersection of religious fundamentalism, the LGBTQ+ community, and civil rights. The sequel to her award-winning podcast The Anti-Trans Hate Machine drops in March.

Jones shared some time on a chilly afternoon in Brooklyn to describe the state of the far right’s campaign targeting trans kids, drag queens, and “groomers,” from a billionaire Christian cabal spreading nationalist gospel and unlimited cash to a new and made-to-order frontline hate group called Gays Against Groomers.

LGBTQ Nation: I imagine for your work it’s got to be a full-time job just keeping up with all the connections between attacks and protests and media fueling them, and the money fueling the organizations. Do you have a giant bulletin board in your office, like a detective, with pictures and pushpins and strings connecting everything?

IJ: Yes, we have. Generally, we create what we call sitemaps. And we kind of look for who’s where, and who are they connected to, and how they link back. And at a certain point it, you know, you don’t even have to do that as much anymore because you hear a name, or you see an organization, and you go, “Oh yeah, there are links to X.” In the right-wing space that fuels a lot of his hate, you see the usual suspects and don’t have to look that hard.

LGBTQ Nation: There’s been a recent focus on drag shows and story time hours by frontline groups and media outlets like Libs of TikTok and Project Veritas. Is that a shift away from casting young people as villains, like the ones playing girls’ sports and 10-year-olds testifying in state legislatures, and moving to adults as villains or what they’re calling groomers? Is that an easier sell for hate groups and far-right media than attacks on kids and parents?

IJ: I don’t see it as an either/or. I see it as an expansion of the battlespace rather than a conversion of it from one thing to the other. We have to understand from the perspective of the right that these distinctions about gender and gender identity, it’s like blurred into one thing. Drag is very threatening because it has wide acceptance. It’s about bending gender, right? And about the part of gender that’s an illusion. And so for them that fits very much in the space of trans people.

And when I look at conservative media, they haven’t let up at all on trans people and trans kids. You know, we have anti-trans bills that were passed this year in Georgia and in Florida, and as a centerpiece of the campaigns of [Republican Gov. of Texas] Greg Abbott and [Republican Gov. of Florida] Ron DeSantis, and on and on and on. There was a huge emphasis in Uvalde in an online campaign that moved to conservative media that then moved to a member of Congress to say that the shooter was trans. So, I don’t think that it’s a flip. It’s looking new to us because it’s greatly expanded, but it’s actually not.

LGBTQ Nation: Tell us about the Betsy DeVos/Prince clan, and why we don’t hear about their influence.

IJ: Can I take those questions in reverse? I would say why don’t we hear about it, one, because they’re powerful people and people are afraid of powerful people, including newspapers, and we know that. Secondly, I think it’s because they have a degree of mainstream credibility because she was a secretary of education, even in the midst of a controversial administration. And one of the reasons why they’re so effective is because their extremism is cloaked behind this air of comity and rectitude. There’s a certain way in which she composes herself, which I think doesn’t scream extremist.

LGBTQ Nation: And how about the DeVos/Prince clan itself?

IJ: When we say the DeVos family, we’re talking about the fusion of two billionaire families into one. Betsy DeVos was born Betsy Prince into the really wealthy Prince family. And then she married Richard DeVos. It’s actually a giant clan, a billionaire clan. And there is not a far-right organization, and in many cases designated hate groups, who exist without the largess of that family. Betsy DeVos, or Betsy Prince and her husband, Richard DeVos are the second generation in this billionaire kind of clan.

Richard DeVos’ father, for example, was extremely important to the founding of the Heritage Foundation. The Prince family, which is Betsy DeVos, helped to fund the headquarters of the Family Research Council, which is designated by the SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] as a hate group. And they’ve been involved in so many far-right organizations throughout the decades. And so what you have here in this second generation is kind of a sophistication of their operation and particularly in Betsy Prince, this kind of fusion of strategy, of money and a whole host of other things.

LGBTQ Nation: How does that manifest itself?

IJ: So this family is kind of the royal family of the Christian nationalist movement. And they set the example for how to move money throughout the right wing for all of the other really wealthy families. They participated in an annual gathering of Christian nationalist billionaires called The Gathering, in which Betsy DeVos is on tape coaching them in terms of how, as a wealthy person in this far-right movement, you move money to other things, and encouraging them to do so. There is religious extremism in their views, which is what’s driving a lot of this.

As well, all of the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies came out of the DeVos Center for Family and Religion that’s housed in the Heritage Foundation. People were moved from that center into the Trump administration where they began to disseminate these policies. I think that we have to keep in mind that Betsy DeVos is just the most visible person of this large, far-right billionaire clan that has been active for over 40 years.

LGBTQ Nation: How did DeVos end up as education secretary in the Trump Administration?

IJ: They didn’t know who to appoint to anything because their win was a surprise, right? So they were like, “What in the world are we going to do?” So they turned to Erik Prince. It’s gonna sound familiar, younger brother of Betsy. And he’s like, okay, we’ll get you linked up with the right people. And one, he clued them into his sister and, two, they went to the Heritage Foundation, and the Heritage Foundation said, “Boy, you know, this is actually what we’ve wanted to do for a really long time.”

And so it flows that the Heritage Foundation would recommend Betsy DeVos because their family is a longtime founder at that center and they know that she’s been really active in education and educational circles. And then they basically started to populate the entire administration with people recommended by a combination of the Heritage Foundation and Erik Prince and that’s literally how she got in the mix.

LGBTQ Nation: The DeVos family are adherents of Dominionism. What is that?

In Ecclesiastes, there is the charge to basically create theocracies that are based on kind of a real religious caste system. And so how do you do that? The way you do that is something called Dominionism. And that is to say that you seize the seven mountains of society, you gain control of those things. And once you have control of them, you can then move society towards this theocratic vision. And so what are some of the seven mountains? They’re business and finance, they’re education, they’re the media, arts, etc. So the charge for Betsy DeVos at this epic gathering in the early 2000s was to charge really wealthy people and billionaires to pick their mountain, and then focus on it. As people who have been told over and over and over that their wealth flows from the fact that they are chosen and special, you can see how they gravitate towards something like Dominionism, and they have. Their whole family has.

LGBTQ Nation: I’d like to zero in on one particular group as an example of one at the bottom of this organizational hierarchy. What can you tell us about Gays Against Groomers? It appeared out of nowhere about six months ago, fully formed and led by a woman named Jaimee Michell. Do you think it’s organic?

IJ: There’s very little on the right that’s organic. It’s really funny, because I have to explain this a lot to mainstream and even the liberal funders, where, you know, on the left, a lot of things are organic, and people just form them and then they get funded. A lot of times, what happens on the right is, they’ll say, “Who’s gonna start an organization that will do X?” And then someone raises their hand.

This is one of the things we’re going to document next year on the podcast, but one of the things that they do on the right is that they go out and they shop for people from the communities that they’re targeting who are willing to essentially carry the message that they want them to carry if they give them a large enough check. And so they will go out and they’ll look for a Jaimee Michell — this is not uncommon — they’ll be actively looking for these people online or elsewhere. And once they find them, they will either engage them or platform them or say, “Can we introduce you to other people?” and that’s literally how it gets started.

A lot of the TERFs that you see platformed, and TERF organizations, it’s all because the Heritage Foundation went and found them and put them on a panel, and after that, all those people began to be kind of off to the races in terms of their public voice and platforming and a whole host of other things.

LGBTQ Nation: It says very prominently on the Gays Against Groomers website that they’re “a 100% independent, self-funded nonprofit organization.”

IJ: They’re not an official 501(c)(3). I think they claim that. I don’t think there are any 990’s on them. So, to self-assert that you’re self-funded, without in any way showing that you’re self-funded, and the fact that they have so many people — I can look at it right now and say they have a budget of close to a million dollars? Or over a million dollars? So where did that come from? There’s not a million dollars-worth of Gays Against Groomers money in the gay community, right? It’s not an organic conversation. Whereas like, okay, Gays Against Guns. Can they go out and do a GoFundMe campaign amongst people, raise money? Yeah. There’s support for that. But no, there’s nothing organic about this. It reads to me like a slick version of the ex-gay organizations that were funded and founded by Focus on the Family in the 1980’s.

LGBTQ Nation: What’s in store for Season 2 of Anti-Trans Hate Machine?

IJ: We are focusing on the way that the right has manufactured a cultural and media debate about the validity and worthiness of trans people and trans kids, and then has gone on to weaponize that to justify both political and actual violence.

LGBTQ Nation: What do you mean by weaponize, exactly?

IJ: So, you create a conversation. It’s like what happened in the 1930s — and there’s nothing analogous to the Holocaust — but there is an analogy to how you got there as a society. And one of the things that happened in the 1930s is that they just started a conversation about the bad people that needed to be separated from Germany. And that conversation was actually started by the Nazis. Once that conversation had reached a certain level, they use it as justification — they weaponized it — to then begin this campaign of physical separation and then targeting. You create the conversation, and then you recognize the conversation that you created, in order to take the action that you really want to take.

How Drag Artists Became the Far Right’s Ultimate Villains

https://www.them.us/story/drag-gop-right-wing-attacks-explained

I wonder if the far right republican fascist hate drag because it is the opposite of what they are. Drag is about exploring boundaries, about expressing yourself, about color and fun. What is authoritarian fascism about? doing what you are told, stay in the line, don’t be an individual, don’t be colorful, always fit nicely in the boxes. Hugs

BY COLLEEN HAMILTON

DECEMBER 23, 2022

Over the past year, the sense of safety and joy experienced at drag performances has been punctured and replaced.

“Baby, you’re a plaaaaaaastic bag,” sings the drag queen Per Sia, parodying Katy Perry’s “Firework” as reusable tote bags sail around a usually-silent library in San Francisco. The children around her delight in the chaos, hanging on to Sia’s every word. Between sermons on the importance of reducing plastic and loving yourself, the kids leap up, grab the floating tote bags, and begin to dance. Their bodies wiggle with glee as they experience the joy — costumes! music! dance! — of drag.

The scene would be familiar to any kindergarten teacher: “It’s the play and pleasure of reading time, but dialed up a few notches,” says Harper Keenan, a Professor of Education and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. Keenan is referring to Drag Story Hour, events where drag performers read, sing, and make crafts with children in schools, libraries, and bookstores across the country.

Sia, who is an elementary school teacher, says that when she began performing for Drag Story Hours, “we would walk into schools and get treated like royalty.” Initially the opportunity to integrate her expertise in early childhood education with drag was a dream come true. It was a chance to embody her full humanity and show students that a world existed in which they could unapologetically be themselves, too.

Over the past year, however, that sense of safety and joy has been punctured and replaced with a miasma of fear and danger. A year ago, a sizeable backlash against the art form seemed an improbability, but this year, threats against drag performances across the country, including Drag Story Hours, have increased in number and hostility. In Oklahoma, a donut shop was fire-bombed for the second time this year after hosting a drag performance. In Nevada, a man identified as a member of the Proud Boys, a white nationalist group, interrupted a Drag Story Hour reading with a gun, forcing the children in attendance to flee for safety. And in California, a group of eight Proud Boys stormed into a library where drag performer Panda Dulce was reading to children. The men made white power hand gestures and hurtled homophobic and transphobic comments at Dulce, who was rushed out of the room, along with the children. According to several parents in attendance, the far-right protesters were traumatizing the children they claimed to want to protect.

These are just some specific examples of a worsening trend. This already-horrific year, which saw at least 124 significant threats and protests against drag performances, according to a November report from GLAAD, was punctuated by immense tragedy on November 19, when a shooter killed five people during a “Drag Divas” night at Club Q in Colorado Springs. An art form that has provided LGBTQ+ people a sense of community for decades has been weaponized against them, and has forced drag queens to question what safety means in a culture intent on causing them harm.

Per Sia, courtesy of the artist.

The current string of attacks against drag performers is part of a broader movement by the far-right to demonize LGBTQ+ people, including by claiming they are “groomers” and “pedophiles,” and therefore a threat to young children. Across the media landscape, from Fox News host Tucker Carlson to the far-right podcast InfoWars, conservative pundits are increasingly perpetuating the dangerous, harmful lie that proximity to drag queens and trans and nonbinary people increases the likelihood of child abuse.

Accounts like Libs of TikTok, a conservative social media account that has become notorious for anti-queer and anti-drag rhetoric, post videos making fun of LGBTQ+ people and drag performers without context or consent. The video has also been caught posting doctored videos that make it seem as if drag queens are performing sexually in front of children, even if the videos are blatantly false. Criminal investigators even believe that Libs of TikTok may have provoked the Proud Boys attack on Drag Story Hour in California. In a segment from October, Carlson, who has been a vocal supporter of the social media account, called on his three million nightly viewers to “arm” themselves against drag performers. This messaging has been dangerously effective: according to the Human Rights Campaign, there was a 406% increase in tweets using “groomer” or “pedophile” in the first six months of 2022. Tragically, there has been accompanying escalation of attacks on drag performers during the same period.

“The LGBTQ+ community is constantly at the whim of disinformation and misinformation,” activist Raquel Willis wrote on Instagram the day after the Colorado Springs shooting. “Hateful politicians craft dangerous narratives about us and encourage the general public to continue to do the same. Ignorance is disgusting AF and we need to be vigilant about confronting it.”

As Willis notes, these in-person acts of violence are often stoked — and, in some cases, engineered — by far-right politicians. Florida Governor Ron Desantis has stated that parents who bring children to drag shows should be investigated for child abuse. Florida Senator Marco Rubio even featured Lil Miss Hot Mess, a member of Drag Story Hour, in a reelection campaign video in which he claimed that the “radical left” seeks to “indoctrinate children and turn boys into girls.” These politicians foster a climate of fear in which hatred and misinformation proliferates.

However, as many drag performers are quick to point out, this rhetoric obscures the fact that gender identity and drag are distinct, though sometimes overlapping, categories. Both cisgender men and transgender women, for example, can do drag. Crucially, though, “drag generally refers to a kind of consciously artistic performance intended for an audience. In contrast, trans people do not seek primarily to entertain,” wrote Keenan and Lil’ Miss Hot Mess in a June 2021 academic article about Drag Story Hour.

According to Keenan, though, violence against drag queens is rooted in transmisogyny, or the intersection of transphobia and misogyny as experienced by trans women and transfeminine people. In videos such as Rubio’s, the phrase “turning boys into girls” exemplifies this trans and femme-phobic line of attack, and the underlying truth that the far-right’s goal is not simply to stop all-ages drag performances. It is to exploit transphobia for political points, no matter the cost to human life.

In a year in which over 300 state bills have been introduced to curb LGBTQ+ student and teacher rights, what’s become clear is that a rising right-wing moral panic against LGBTQ+ people — including smearing drag performers as groomers, nonbinary children as mentally ill, and gender-affirming healthcare providers as pedophiles — has ensnared the drag community. Today, after Club Q, it’s become increasingly clear that this rhetoric has concrete, real-world ramifications.

Guy Smallman/Getty Images

“It’s the scariest it’s ever been. I fear for my safety, even when I’m not doing Story Hour,” said Sia. The attacks have left many drag performers feeling torn between doing what they love and subjecting themselves to the possibility of violence, leading some drag queens to pause or stop their performances altogether. Programmers at one San Antonio music venue, were forced to cancel an entire season of drag performances due to violent threats. In North Carolina, when the power went out during a drag performance, performers said their immediate instinct was to listen for gunfire.

Paradoxically, some experts believe that the far-right has taken such extreme steps against drag performances because drag has become so popular. The visibility of shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag brunches, and online drag personalities have enabled performers to share their unique vision of liberation—and millions of people have found that vision appealing.

Drag Story Hours and family brunches, in particular, have helped LGBTQ+ youth feel accepted and seen. Keenan notes the surprising number of straight parents among attendees of drag story hours and brunches nationwide. “They’re looking for resources,” he says, to provide their children with a LGBTQ+ affirming space that they may not know how to cultivate at home. It is a chance to move past the rigid expectations of gender they were raised with, and offer their children something new.

All of this visibility comes at a cost. It has drawn attention to some of the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community, such as the trans, queer, and femme people of color who pioneered the “iconic” dance moves and looks we now associate with drag, without protection. “If what you really want is to target queerness and transness, then drag is a huge part of that. It’s a visible celebration of culture,” said the attorney Chase Strangio in a recent interview with The Atlantic.

Boston Globe/Getty Images

Indeed, in the midst of escalating fear and violence, drag performances continue to offer a unique form of celebration as resistance. This impulse toward new worlds was on full display during a recent prom for LGBTQ+ youth in Birmingham, Alabama. During the drag portion of the night, performer Sharon Cocx unexpectedly stopped in the middle of her set.

“You can be anything you want to be. You can be president, you can change the world,” she told the crowd. After such a difficult year in the state — Alabama has passed some of the strictest anti-trans legislation in the country — it was a cathartic moment of release for the directly-impacted teens there. According to several people who attended the event, many were in tears by the end of the speech. This is drag’s unique power: to challenge the conditions of the present, and embody a longed-for future.

The day after the attack in San Lorenzo, Per Sia had a performance a few miles away in Piedmont, CA. When she arrived at the library, half a dozen police officers were outside with their sirens on, “which was triggering in and of itself,” she said. Since many performers, like Sia, are queer people of color, the presence of police at performances can feel like a compounding of the violence they face, not an alleviation of it. As a result, organizers across the country have created safety plans rooted in abolitionist frameworks. These plans seek to keep children and performers safe without involving the police.

As Sia entered the library, several staff members walked her through a hastily developed safety plan, which Sia had never experienced before. They walked up a claustrophobic flight of stairs. “If anything happens, I will bring you up here,” the librarian said, “Then go down this hall and hide under that desk. If anything happens, do not come out until you hear my voice.” In her decades of teaching children and performing drag, it was unlike anything Sia had experienced before. It was terrifying in a visceral, cruel way.

“It was a hard pill to swallow,” she said, “but queer folks are resilient. We have always had to fight for our basic needs to be met, and simply to exist.” The performance took place in the library’s parking lot during a cloudless, blue summer day. The sunlight streamed over Sia as she read to the jam-packed crowd, who hung on her every word. Many had come to support Drag Story Hour in response to the previous day’s violence. “It was beautiful,” she said. “It really, really was.”

MAGA hits NEW LOW with SHAMEFUL Inhumane STUNT

On Christmas Eve, Radical Right Republican Texas Governor, Gregg Abbott, dropped off another 50 migrants in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence. Meidas Contributor Texas Paul reacts to the MAGA Republican Disgusting act.