May 11, 1973 Charges against former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg (including conspiracy, espionage and larceny) for his role in the release of The Pentagon Papers (a comprehensive classified study of the origins and conduct of the Vietnam War) were dismissed. Judge William M. Byrne cited government misconduct, including attempts to bribe him with an appointment as FBI Director, and previously undisclosed wiretaps of Ellsberg. His compatriot, Tony Russo, a former RAND Corporation analyst, was also released. Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers a book review Daniel Ellsberg’s website
May 11, 1975 80,000 turned out in New York City’s Central Park to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War.
As the House Ways and Means Committee prepares to mark up a major tax bill, it is important to step back and consider which priorities it will reflect — whether it will prioritize tax policies that help families meet basic needs, require corporations and the wealthy to pay a fairer share of tax, and strengthen the nation’s fiscal outlook to allow us to meet existing commitments and make high-value investments.
Numerous independent analyses have shown that the 2017 tax law, which the bill is expected to extend, was skewed to the rich, drove up deficits and debt, and failed to deliver on its economic promises.[1] It also has proved unpopular with the public.[2] The 2025 bill should be held to a much higher standard than the 2017 bill, given its poor record of achievement, the higher risks the country now faces due to higher levels of debt, and the more uncertain economic outlook.
President Trump’s extreme and chaotic tariff policies pose a major threat of recession and are already raising consumer prices.[3] The President’s attacks on the rule of law, scientific and medical research, top universities and law firms, and the functioning of the federal government — including its ability to collect revenue and deliver core services — pose large additional economic risks, over both the short and long term.
Any forthcoming Ways and Means bill should respond to the current economic moment and the growing risks that families face: rising costs, increasing risks of job loss, and high uncertainty about their future financial stability. The bill also must be examined in connection with the other central pieces of the Republican economic agenda: massive cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and other forms of help for families and communities to partially offset the cost of the bill’s tax cuts.[4]
The answers to the following ten questions will illuminate what House Republicans prioritized as they put together their signature tax bill.
Prioritizing Tax Policies That Help Families Meet Basic Needs
1. Do House Republicans block the President’s reckless global tariffs to protect their constituents and stop a potential recession?
The tariffs’ impact on consumers and the economy is already impossible to ignore. Importantly, the Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction not only over tax policy but also over Congress’ constitutional trade policy authority.[5] Thus, the committee can and should respond to the President’s destructive tariff policy.
Unless they are stopped, tax increases due to the tariffs are likely to more than erase any forthcoming tax cuts for households in all income groups except the top 10 percent, whose incomes are above $317,000. (See Figure 1.) Moreover, while the 2017 tax cuts won’t expire until the end of this year, households and businesses are already feeling the impact of the tariffs on prices, supply chains, and business viability.[6]
Figure 1
Soon after President Trump imposed the highest tariffs since the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s on more than 100 countries, a number of states and businesses filed lawsuits challenging his legal authority.[7] Yet House Republicans, despite their constitutional responsibility over tariff policy and the obvious risks the tariffs pose to their constituents, have failed to act. Meanwhile, the tariffs and the frequent shifts in the Administration’s tariff policies are paralyzing businesses, raising costs on consumers, and sharply increasing the risk of recession, which could lead to a rise in unemployment and the number of people who need help to afford the basics, just as those supports are slated for cuts.
A major question for the committee markup is whether House Republicans will, in parallel with the tax bill, assert their constitutional trade policy authority to stop these destructive policies and protect the country from a potential self-inflicted recession.
Furthermore, as Figure 1 shows, these historic tariffs represent major tax increases on households with low or moderate incomes.[8] Given that extending the 2017 tax law would give the biggest benefits to high-income households, it will be important to see if Republicans modify the upcoming bill to reflect the current economic situation, including through measures discussed below.
2. Do House Republicans extend enhanced premium tax credits for marketplace health coverage to protect millions of people, including many small business owners, from sharp premium increases?
While the Ways and Means bill is expected to extend many other expiring tax provisions, it may not extend the premium tax credit enhancements, which are critical to making health coverage in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace more affordable.
Failing to extend them would drive up health care premiums by an average of 79 percent for over 20 million people, including 3 million small business owners.[9] (Figure 2 shows the average premium increases nationally for a family of four at different income levels; in some states the increases would be far higher.)[10] Roughly 4 million people would then be expected to lose their health insurance as its cost rose to unaffordable levels.[11] As a result, they would be more likely to forgo necessary care or to incur medical debt.
Figure 2
3. Do House Republicans expand the Child Tax Credit for children in working families who get less than the full credit, whom 169 House Republicans voted to help last year?
Under the Child Tax Credit now in place, 17 million children receive less than the full credit, or none at all, because their families’ earnings are too low; the large majority of these children live in families with earnings.[12] Last year, Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith negotiated and championed legislation to expand the credit for the vast majority of these children. The bill, which passed the House, would have corrected many (but not all) key flaws in the credit’s design.[13]
First, the bill would have improved how the credit phases in with earnings. As it stands now, higher-income families get a $2,000 credit for each child, but because of the way the phase-in works for low-income families, many families with two or three children receive roughly the same total credit as a family with one child at the same earnings level. Not allowing lower-income families to claim the credit on a per-child basis harms the roughly three-quarters of children in lower-income families who live in a family with more than one child.
Second, the bill would have treated families with low or moderate incomes the same as higher-income families when it comes to the maximum credit they can receive. Currently, these families are restricted to a smaller maximum credit. The lower maximum credit for families who don’t owe income taxes means that when they are able to increase their earnings, they often receive no additional Child Tax Credit, as they remain stuck at the lower maximum credit. This is seemingly at odds with Republicans’ rhetorical focus on increasing returns to work.
If Republicans simply increase the $2,000 maximum credit, or index it for inflation, not one of the 17 million children or their families would benefit from the change. The children who wouldn’t benefit include an estimated 650,000 children in veterans’ families, as well as millions of children whose parents work important jobs for low pay, such as truck drivers, cooks and waiters, nursing assistants, home health aides, construction workers, cashiers, and others. These children should be the top priority, not the lowest.
Some prior Republican proposals to expand the Child Tax Credit would offset the cost by cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for families with children and eliminating the head-of-household filing status for single parents.[14] In effect, this would increase income support for single parents with one hand while taking away part or all of that added support with the other. The Ways and Means bill should boost the incomes of single parents, an economically precarious group — not take away support.
4. Do House Republicans prevent low-paid working adults not raising children in their homes from being taxed into poverty?
More than 6 million working adults aged 19 and older who aren’t raising children at home will be taxed into, or deeper into, poverty by federal income and payroll taxes in 2026 if House Republicans do not improve the very limited EITC for this group.[15]
Republicans should increase the paltry size of their EITC, expand the income range for people to qualify, and expand the age range (currently 25-64) to include anyone aged 19 or older. This would help young adults entering the workforce, who currently do not qualify for any EITC, and adults aged 65 and over, many of whom continue to work but aren’t eligible for any EITC. And it would provide a larger credit for currently eligible adults aged 25 to 64.
These changes would also be consistent with the President’s attention during the campaign to the economic circumstances of young men, especially those who don’t go to college.
5. Do House Republicans protect energy tax credits that help families lower their utility bills and create economic opportunities for struggling communities?
Tax credits for investments in clean, affordable energy have spurred tremendous growth in the solar, wind, and geothermal energy industries, and they are bringing new economic opportunities to areas of the country facing underinvestment and hardship, including many rural areas.[16] But House Republicans are reportedly considering large cuts to energy tax credits, which risks upending this progress.[17]
Repealing these credits would result in higher utility bills for households and businesses (increases of 7 percent and 10 percent, respectively)[18] at a time when consumers already face higher costs from the President’s tariffs. Repeal could also add up to $49 billion in annual health care costs and lost productivity.[19]
Requiring Corporations and Wealthy Households to Pay a Fairer Share of Tax
6. Do House Republicans end costly tax cuts targeted to high-income households?
Extending the expiring individual income and estate tax provisions of the 2017 law would benefit households with considerable wealth and high incomes far more than households with low or moderate incomes. Roughly half the cost of extending the expiring tax cuts would flow to households with incomes in the top 5 percent (those with incomes over around $320,000).[20]
This tilt to the top reflects several costly provisions that primarily benefit the most well-off:
Lower top rate. The 2017 law cut the top individual income tax rate, which now applies to taxable incomes over roughly $730,000 for married couples, from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. Some House Republicans have reportedly considered including a higher top rate in their bill — such as 40 percent for people with taxable incomes over $1 million — but President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have both rejected the idea.[21]Allowing the top rate to revert to 39.6 percent while extending all of the 2017 law’s other expiring provisions would still give households in the top 1 percent a $40,000 average annual tax cut, according to the Tax Policy Center.[22] That’s because most high-income households receive large tax cuts from the law’s other provisions, like the pass-through deduction (see below), and also benefit from the law’s rate cuts that apply to the lower tax brackets. Still, even this modest change would be a welcome departure from the failed “trickle-down” approach to tax policy.
Pass-through deduction. The 2017 law adopted a special 20 percent deduction for certain income that owners of pass-through businesses (partnerships, S corporations, and sole proprietorships) report on their individual tax returns. Over half of the benefits go to 200,000 business owners with incomes over $1 million, who now face a lower top rate (29.6 percent) than their employees (37 percent).[23] Research finds the deduction had no trickle-down benefits for workers’ wages or business investment.[24]At a minimum, Republicans can follow through on their rhetorical support for small business owners by letting the deduction expire for millionaires, which would reduce the deduction’s cost by over $350 billion from 2025-2034, and instead extending enhanced premium tax credits that help 3 million business owners (see above) for a somewhat lower cost.[25]
Tax break for large estates. The 2017 law doubled the estate tax exemption to $22 million per couple and indexed it for inflation going forward; today a couple can pass on an estate worth up to $28 million tax free. Extending this generous exemption amounts to a $5.7 million tax cut for the wealthiest 1 in 1,000 estates, whose value consists largely of unrealized capital gains income that has never been taxed.House Republicans may double down on this costly estate tax break, with some even calling for permanently repealing the estate tax altogether.[26] Providing tax breaks to multi-million-dollar estates would be especially egregious given that Republicans also appear poised to steeply cut vital health care and food assistance, while the President’s sweeping tariffs will cost families with low or moderate incomes hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year and drive up the likelihood of a recession.
7. Do House Republicans revisit the 2017 law’s permanent and steep cut in the corporate tax rate?
The centerpiece of the 2017 law was a deep, permanent cut in the corporate tax rate — from 35 percent to 21 percent — that cost $1.3 trillion from 2018-2027 and is tilted even more heavily toward wealthy people than the expiring individual tax cuts.[27] (See Figure 3.) Rigorous research shows that the corporate rate cut did not produce the promised economic benefits: a study by economists from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Federal Reserve Board found that workers in the bottom 90th percentile of their firm’s income scale saw no change in earnings from the rate cut.[28]
Rather than revisit this costly, skewed rate cut, which was even deeper than corporate lobbyists had expected to achieve in the 2017 law,[29] House Republicans are likely to go in the opposite direction: reverse scheduled business tax increases that Congress added to the 2017 law to partially offset the cost of the corporate rate cut. Reversing these increases without a corresponding increase in the corporate rate would amount to hundreds of billions in additional tax cuts for corporations.[30]
figure 3
8. Do House Republicans reject additional unwise tax cuts?
The House-passed budget resolution calls for $4.5 trillion of tax cuts over fiscal years 2025-2034, which leaves room for $1.2 trillion in additional tax cuts on top of extending the 2017 individual and estate tax cuts. In addition to the likely business tax cuts discussed above, House Republicans may include some costly new tax cuts that disproportionately benefit high-income households.
Notably, Republicans appear poised to weaken the2017 law’s $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). The SALT cap has received outsized public attention, potentially creating the mistaken impression that the affected filers fared relatively poorly under the 2017 law. Even with the SALT cap, the 2017 law delivered the biggest average tax cut, measured as a share of pre-tax income, to households with incomes in the 95-99th percentiles, a group making roughly between $400,000 and $1 million.
These households would also be the biggest winners from most proposals to expand the SALT cap. For example, increasing the cap to $25,000 for married couples would mean an additional $5,550 to high-income couples, or 12 times as much as households with incomes in the bottom 60 percent would receive from extending the entire 2017 law.
The Ways and Means bill also will likely include other tax cuts President Trump proposed during the campaign, such as exempting Social Security income and tips from income taxes. But these policies would do little for households with low incomes and would add significantly to the cost.
For example, repealing the taxation of Social Security benefits would weaken the financing of Social Security and Medicare and make the Social Security system less progressive.[31] About half of Social Security beneficiaries already pay no tax on their benefits, primarily because their incomes fall below the specified thresholds. Similar proposals, like retaining the tax on benefits but fully offsetting it with an equal income tax credit, would still dig a large and growing hole in the federal budget (costing well over $1 trillion over ten years) without benefiting low-income seniors.[32]
The President’s proposal to eliminate taxes on tips would help only a small minority of low-paid workers and barely add to the tax cuts going to families with low and moderate incomes.[33] It also could open up significant tax gaming opportunities as people with high incomes seek to reclassify their income as tips to avoid tax.
Strengthening the Fiscal Outlook to Meet Existing Commitments and Make High-Value Investments
9. Do House Republicans offset the cost of their tax cuts with sound revenue proposals?
Despite rising needs due to the aging of the baby boom generation and underinvestment in public services and the economy, policymakers have enacted tax cuts in the past two decades that have eroded the revenue base.[34] This has undermined investments and driven up deficits and debt, increasing future risks to the economy.
Instead of raising revenues, many congressional Republicans have used the increase in debt to push for deep cuts in Medicaid and SNAP even as they seek to extend costly tax cuts and add a trillion dollars or more in new cuts on top.
Republicans could cut the cost of extending the 2017 law by more than half, from $4.2 trillion to $1.8 trillion over 2026-2035, by reversing the tax cuts for anyone with income above $400,000.[35] Moreover, sound tax policies are readily available for Republicans to pay for the tax cuts they want to extend.[36]
10. Do House Republicans avoid gimmicks and timing shifts that prior tax bills (such as the 2017 law) have used to hide their true cost?
The 2017 law relied on budget tricks such as making many tax cuts temporary or having tax increases phase in later to make its tax cuts appear less costly, which allowed Republican lawmakers to squeeze in a larger corporate rate cut. They may do so again this year, despite authorizing an even more costly bill than the original 2017 law.
For example, House Republicans are reportedly considering limiting any new tax cuts — that is, those other than extensions of the 2017 law, such as eliminating tax on tips — to just four years.[37] This would lower the bill’s official cost relative to permanent new tax cuts but would mask the true cost of those provisions, because lawmakers could be expected to push for their extension later, likely without offsetting the cost. An even more egregious gimmick would be for House Republicans to copy Senate Republicans in adopting a “current policy” baseline, where the expiring tax cuts are simply assumed to continue after 2025 and thus that they would have zero cost.[38]
[5] The House Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over “Revenue measures generally,” including tariffs. See Clause 1(t)(3) of House Rule X. Other committees, including the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have jurisdiction over export controls.
[35] Treasury, “The Cost and Distribution of Extending Expiring Provisions.” Treasury’s analysis reflects the Biden Administration’s pledge not to raise taxes for people making up to $400,000 a year. Its estimates of reversing the tax cuts for people with incomes above $400,000 include certain tax changes that would modestly increase tax rates for households in the top 1 percent (those with incomes over $743,247) relative to allowing all the tax cuts to fully expire. For example, the 2017 tax law’s revenue-raising provisions are assumed to be extended for all income levels rather than being allowed to expire.
Trigger warnings for starving and abused kids / people. Sadly this is what the US government is supporting and keeping other world leaders from stopping. This was because Biden was an old person who remembered being part of Israels founding and thought they were so important that it excused everything they did. tRump doesn’t care about the human cost, he wants the value of the land or as much of the share he can get. This is sickening. Personal note. I was so lacking nutrition in my childhood that my childhood doctors were concerned enough to tell my adopting mother if I did not get more food I would never see five feet in height. I ended up in a child ICU rushed to the hospital by my grandfather and I had clinical death. Hugs
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Democratic controlled cities of Salt Lake City and Boise adopted new city flags this week showing support for LGBTQ+ people in defiance of their states’ Republican-controlled Legislatures, which have banned traditional rainbow pride flags at schools and government buildings.
The newly adopted city flags are displayed at the Salt Lake City and County building showing support for LGBTQ+ in defiance of their state’s Republican controlled Legislature, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Melissa Majchrzak)
Utah’s capital of Salt Lake City created new flag designs while Boise, the capital of Idaho, made the traditional pride flag one of its official city flags. The move in Utah came hours before a ban on unsanctioned flag displays took effect Wednesday.
The cities’ mayors spoke Tuesday morning to discuss their individual plans and offer each other support, said Andrew Wittenberg, a spokesperson for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s office.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall smiles as she attends the IOC session in Paris, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)Mayor Lauren McLean listens during a news conference at the Linen Building in Boise, Idaho, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)
May 8, 1882 The American Peace Society was established when the peace societies of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania merged to become a national organization. Currently based in Boston, the merged organization was a result of the leadership of William Ladd, an advocate of a “Congress and High Court of Nations” for solving international disputes. William Ladd, one of the founders of the American Peace Society American Peace Society
May 8, 1933 Mohandas Gandhi began a 21-day fast to support political rights for the Dalit (or untouchables) whom he called Harijans, the children of God. He had been jailed by the British to interfere with his movement to end colonial control of India. He was released the day after he began his personal purification because the colonial authorities were afraid he might die in prison. Gandhi And His Fasts
May 8, 1962 An estimated 9,000,000 people in Belgium participated in a ten-minute work stoppage to protest nuclear weapons.
May 8, 1971 Nguyen Thi Co immolated herself in protest of the Vietnam War, as did Thich Nu Tinh Nhuan later that month.
May 8, 1984 Presbyterian minister Reverend Benjamin Weir was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon, while out walking with his wife, Carol. Members of Islamic Jihad (later known as Hezbollah), a terrorist group in Lebanon, held Weir for sixteen months—twelve of them in solitary confinement—along with six other Americans who were released later, including journalist Terry Anderson. Before the kidnapping, Weir had spent nearly three decades in Lebanon as a Christian missionary and teacher at the Near East School of Theology. In his various positions in the Presbyterian church since his release, Weir was a voice for reconciliation and tolerance. Reverend Benjamin Weir
When books burn, humans follow – a warning we cannot afford to ignore Read on Substack
When I tell you that fascists don’t start with violence—they start with books—I’m not speaking in fucking hypotheticals. On May 6th, 1933, while the ink was barely dry on Hitler’s chancellorship, young Nazis stormed the Institute of Sexual Research. They ransacked the place that night, and then four days later, they took more than 20,000 books from the Institute’s library to Berlin’s Bebelplatz Square and burned them.
They didn’t just burn paper. They burned hope. They burned sanctuary. They burned the world’s first transgender clinic and decades of groundbreaking research that might have spared generations of queer people unimaginable suffering.
I’m not being dramatic when I say this is one of the most gut-wrenching episodes in queer history. The visceral image of Magnus Hirschfeld—a gay Jewish doctor and pioneering advocate for gay and transgender rights—watching on television as his life’s work went up in flames should haunt us all. Because make no mistake: these weren’t military operations. These were everyday people, your neighbors, your classmates, who decided certain knowledge was too dangerous to exist.
A Haven of Revolutionary Care
The Institute for Sexual Research wasn’t just ahead of its time—it was blazing the trail for a future we’re still fighting to reach nearly a century later. Opened in 1919 by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin, this non-profit institution provided care that modern transphobes claim is “experimental” today, despite the fact that Hirschfeld was performing these procedures over a hundred years ago.
Initially hesitant about gender-affirming surgeries, Hirschfeld changed his mind when he recognized a simple truth: this was life-saving care that prevented suicide. Think about that—while most of the world was still living in willful ignorance, this man understood that people would rather die than live in bodies that betrayed them. The Institute provided facial feminization and masculinization surgeries, hair removal, and complex gender reassignment procedures when most doctors wouldn’t even recognize trans people as human.
It’s hard to wrap your mind around just how revolutionary this place was. Hirschfeld recognized that gender identity and sexual orientation were entirely separate entities—a concept some people still struggle with a century later. He coined the terms “transsexual” and “transvestite,” creating language for experiences that had been silenced for millennia. The Institute was staffed with every specialist imaginable—psychologists, gynecologists, radiologists, lawyers, general practitioners—providing low-cost or free care to those whom society had abandoned.
History Doesn’t Repeat, But It Does Rhyme
My friend (and my Editor-in-Chief) thepoetmiranda saw the dark echoes of history when one of Trump’s first orders was for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control to start scrubbing medical literature related to healthcare for transgender Americans from government databases (an erasure policy that has spread beyond healthcare to all historical references of transgender people—even on the Stonewall National Memorial website). She wrote the poem linked below, which is a fucking must read:
Hirschfeld’s clinic wasn’t just a clinic. It was a fucking sanctuary. Hirschfeld and his partner Karl Giese lived in the building, creating a warm, plush space filled with life. They hosted costume parties where queer people could express themselves freely. They recommended local bars and venues where LGBTQ+ folks could find community instead of isolation.
When trans women struggled to find employment after transitioning, Hirschfeld hired five of his own patients to work at the clinic. He fought for the repeal of Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexuality, and even secured legal identification passes for his trans female patients with a “transvestite” gender marker to prevent them from being arrested for crossdressing.
Instead of the torturous conversion therapy that was common practice, the Institute taught “adaptation therapy,” instructing queer people how to navigate a hostile world while staying true to themselves. Their motto was “Through science to justice”—a radical notion that education and understanding were the path to equality.
The Day Knowledge Became Dangerous
When the Nazi youth and the German Student Union piled the contents of the Institute in the square on May 10th, 1933, they topped it with Hirschfeld’s bust before setting it ablaze. This wasn’t random destruction—it was a deliberate erasure of knowledge they deemed threatening. This happened just three months after Hitler was named Chancellor. It wasn’t soldiers who did this; it was civilians, ordinary Germans who had been convinced that minorities were the root cause of inflation and social problems.
Anyone who wasn’t white, cisgender, and Christian was deemed immoral and dangerous to German youth and the “traditional family.” Sound familiar? It should, because we’re hearing the same bullshit rhetoric recycled today by people who would burn books all over again if given half a chance.
Hirschfeld, who was out of the country, watched the destruction on television. He never returned to Germany and died of a stroke in 1935, his life’s work reduced to ashes. The loss was immeasurable—not just papers and books, but decades of research that could have advanced trans healthcare by generations.
The Brutal Reality of Lost Knowledge
We lost so much ancestral knowledge about our community in this one raid. The world’s first transgender clinic—gone. Groundbreaking research on gender identity—gone. Records of successful gender-affirming surgeries—gone. Resources for queer people to find community—gone. All of it, up in smoke because knowledge in the wrong hands threatened the status quo.
The memorial for this event bears the quote, “Where they burn books, in the end, they will burn humans, too”—a line from Hirschfeld’s own library that would prove prophetic. The Nazis began with books but ended with concentration camps where thousands of queer people wore pink triangles to their deaths.
Practical Tools for Preserving Our History
Document and digitize queer history in multiple locations and formats
Support LGBTQ+ archives financially and through volunteer work
Learn and share the stories of pioneers like Magnus Hirschfeld
Recognize warning signs when marginalized communities are blamed for societal problems
Protect trans healthcare by understanding its long history and scientific basis
Community Connection
The story of the Institute’s destruction isn’t ancient history—it’s a warning. When you hear politicians targeting trans healthcare, when you see books about queer experiences being banned from libraries, when you witness the demonization of drag performances, remember the Institute. Remember what happens when fear and ignorance are weaponized against knowledge.
Today, organizations like the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation continue his legacy, but the threat remains. Every time a state bans gender-affirming care, every time a library removes LGBTQ+ books, every time a transgender person is denied basic dignity, we’re watching echoes of that burning pile in Berlin.
Conclusion
Knowledge is a form of rebellion, and the facts and history you carry in your mind can never be taken away from you. Education and queer joy are our greatest protections right now, just as they were in Hirschfeld’s time.
When we learn about the Institute for Sexual Research, we’re not just studying history—we’re resurrecting knowledge that fascists tried to erase. When we speak the names of Magnus Hirschfeld and his patients, we’re undoing their work of erasure. Every time we share these stories, we’re rebuilding what they tried to destroy.
The memorial’s warning echoes across time: “Where they burn books, in the end, they will burn humans, too.” We must never forget this. We must never allow it to happen again.
Because our history isn’t just about the past—it’s about fucking surviving the present and building a future where institutes like Hirschfeld’s aren’t revolutionary; they’re just how we treat each other.
References:
Hirschfield, M. 1912 “Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung über den Erotischen Verkleidungstrieb”
Hirschfield, M. 1920 “Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes”
Hirschfield, M. 2017 (Reprint) “Berlin’s Third Sex”
While RFK Jr. wanders the Earth saying foolish things like “autistic people are broken,” a 10-year-old prophet named Teddy stood before his school board and said, “I have autism. I am not broken.”
Well said, Teddy! Bless you!
1. And a Child Shall Lead Them
RFK Jr., the walking cautionary tale of nepotism, recently claimed that people with autism “can’t work” or “have families.” He said this with the confidence of a man who’s never Googled the words “ableism” or “shut up.”
Teddy is a fourth grader in Princeton, New Jersey. He has autism. He also has courage,poise, and the holy fire of truth.
He stood before the Princeton School Board and said:
“Recently, the U.S. secretary of health, RFK Jr., made false comments about autism like people with autism are broken, that autism is caused by vaccines, and that people with autism will never have jobs or families. But that’s not true. I have autism and I’m not broken, and I hope that nobody in Princeton Public Schools believes RFK Jr.’s lies.”
“PPS already recognizes Autism Awareness Month. But not much. There are posters in the cafeteria that say to be kind and inclusive. Students wear blue on April 2nd. But we are never taught about the spectrum of autism.”
“Kids need to be taught more about the different kinds of autism, that autism is a natural variation in the genes that you are born with (NOT caused by vaccines), and about successful people with autism. The lessons should also be extended to other “disabilities” like ADHD, cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, dyslexia, apraxia, and more.”
“I want everyone to know that people with autism and other disabilities are not tragedies, but just different, like all people. If everyone understood more about autistic people, and about people with other disabilities, they would know more about how to treat them, what their lives are like, and that they don’t need to be fixed or cured.”
“This will help kids with disabilities have a better life. When people are aware of disabilities and are accepting them, they will have friends and less bullying. Also, the teachers might be more aware because they learned about the disabilities also.”
“Kids and teachers should know more about disabilities so they do not believe RFK Jr. is right about autism, and they choose to treat them in a way that is good for the kid. By knowing more about it, kids and teachers will be nicer to kids with disabilities.”
“This is important to me and PPS because I have a ‘disability’ and I noticed that disabilities are not being taught, only a few people mentioning autism. When teaching about culture, we teach many different cultures to accept them better. Because that’s what disabilities are like, a culture, a culture of differences.”
“PPS must add this to the curriculum of all grades and students, so we don’t have people like RFK Jr. in the future.”
BOOM. The Earth shook. Angels clapped. And lo, that dummy RFK Jr. dropped his dumbbell on his foot mid-curl.
I think the tide is turning and the superexpressive attacks on the LGBTQ+ people, both adults and kids is not working well for republicans. I think they will see at local levels people are not buying it and are working to stop efforts to wipe all mention of LGBTQ+ people from society. Hugs
‘This is more than a policy victory,’ Equality Florida said.
LGBTQ advocates are celebrating several bills — including one that could have banned Pride flags flown at government buildings — stalling out this Session.
“Once again, we’ve done what many thought was impossible: not one anti-LGBTQ bill passed this session,” Equality Florida’s Executive Director Nadine Smith said in a statement Saturday.
The Legislative Session ended Friday although lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget.
Some of the dead bills including HB 75/SB 100 that would have banned government buildings, schools and universities, from flying flags that represented a “political viewpoint.”
The proposal was sponsored by outgoing state Sen. Randy Fine before he left for Washington, D.C.
“How would we feel if the city of Palm Bay or the city of Ormond Beach flew the Make America Great Again flag from City Hall? How would we feel if a teacher hung that in their classroom?” Fine said during a March committee hearing. “The idea is whether it’s political viewpoints that we agree with or we disagree with, let’s keep that stuff out of government buildings.”
Equity Florida lobbied against the bill with its public policy director Jon Harris Maurer calling the flag ban “unnecessary, unclear, unconstitutional and dangerous.”
“It does not help Floridians struggling with insurance and housing affordability,” he said. “Instead, it is a made-up solution to a culture war for political purposes, but it will have real harms.”
Ultimately, Fine’s bill was withdrawn, failing to reach the Senate floor.
Equity Florida also heralded the defeat of other bills, including HB 1495/SB 440 to prevent governments from using the preferred pronouns for people who are transgender and other bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI.)
The organization pointed to its grassroots campaign this Session with 400 LGBTQ activists lobbying during “our largest largest advocacy week ever,” 16,000 emails sent to lawmakers and about 325 in-person meetings with legislators.
“It’s students and seniors, faith leaders and frontline workers, parents and teachers, standing together and making sure lawmakers hear us loud and clear: we will not back down,” Smith said in a statement.
Gabrielle Russon
Gabrielle Russon is an award-winning journalist based in Orlando. She covered the business of theme parks for the Orlando Sentinel. Her previous newspaper stops include the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Toledo Blade, Kalamazoo Gazette and Elkhart Truth as well as an internship covering the nation’s capital for the Chicago Tribune. For fun, she runs marathons. She gets her training from chasing a toddler around. Contact her at gabriellerusson@gmail.com or on Twitter @GabrielleRusson
Gabrielle Russon
Scottie's Playtime 