An the thing that hurts the worst is the haters / racists are proud of what they are doing, loving the attention, happy with the harm they are inflicting / inciting on others. They seem to feel that anyone different from them just shouldn’t be allowed in society, must be removed. The Russia model of life. Please take notice of the date. It was worthy read and important reporting then. Since then it has gotten much worse. Please help our LGBTQIA community members, especally the kids that in that group of people. They do know who they are, who they are attracked too, even if they have sexual or gender feelings at all. But they all know pain, hurt, fear, longing to belong, and need accpetance along with protection. Hugs. Scottie
The mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, which saw a 22-year-old man charged with hate crimes and murder on Monday, came after years of intensifying anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, acts of violence and intimidation, and discriminatory legislation from far-right individuals and groups, including powerful Republican politicians.
These actors have made LGBTQ Americans into targets: of hateful social media posts that direct harassment, threats, and attacks at schools, hospitals, and individuals; of abuse, intimidation, and violence from hate groups; of laws that limit their care or censor information about gender and sexuality.
ANTI-LGBTQ INFLUENCERS CHANNELING HATE
A cluster of online influencers have ramped up bigoted and conspiracy-laced messaging in the last two years, directing hostile attention at drag shows, businesses, Pride festivals, children’s hospitals, and other places where LGBTQ people come together or receive care.
Many such peddlers of fear and disinformation about LGBTQ people – including the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, his boss Ben Shapiro, and Candace Owens – took to Twitter in the wake of the shooting to attack “the left” and “Democrats” for drawing the obvious link between months of heightened anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and homophobic and transphobic murders. The attack, which killed five people and injured 25, took place on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, though it’s unknown if the shooter chose the date on purpose.
For her part, Chaya Raichik greeted news of the mass shooting in Colorado with a post on Twitter directing her followers’ attention to a youth-oriented LGBTQ nonprofit in that state and two state representatives who had expressed support for it.
Since early 2021, Raichik has posted a stream of transphobic and homophobic messages on platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Substack, and far-right favorite, Gab, under the pseudonym “Libs of TikTok.” Her typical operating procedure involves spotlighting LGBTQ users of the platform TikTok, especially trans people, and targeting them individually for mockery and abuse.
She helped popularize the anti-LGBTQ slur, “groomer,” which falsely equates non-heterosexual sexualities and non-cisgender gender identities with pedophilia. The “groomer” smear also plays into a conspiracy theory that underpins the propaganda of Raichik and other like-minded influencers: that LGBTQ people and their sympathizers have entered mainstream institutions to prey on children, recruit them to “transgenderism” and divide them from their families.
Joshua Thurman, center, gets comforted by friends at a makeshift memorial near Club Q on November 20, 2022 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thurman was inside the club when the shooting began. An attacker opened fire in a gay nightclub late Saturday night killing five people and wounding at least 25, officials said. The club said the suspect was subdued by patrons and Colorado Springs police said he was taken into custody and hospitalized for treatment of his injuries. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Raichik has also branched out into anti-Black racism, with tweets denying that George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, mocking the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, and taking pains to deny the existence of systemic racism. She has directed outrage towards schools offering racially inclusive curriculums.
Originally, Raichik used her platform to single out LGBTQ people and school teachers with inclusive approaches to education, many of whom would subsequently receive harassment and death threats. But her online schtick has evolved to encompass campaigns against school districts, libraries and hospitals.
Hospitals and medical workers across the country have been subject to harassment and even bomb threats after being targeted in posts from Raichik and others including Matt Walsh. In June, members of the Proud Boys hate group attacked a Drag Queen Story Hour event at a San Lorenzo, California public library after Raichik highlighted it. Alameda County Sheriff’s Office investigators reportedly said that Libs of TikTok had caused the attack.
Later that month, more Proud Boys tried to break into a bar that was scheduled to host a drag event after Raichik alerted her followers to the event.
Also in June, Hatewatch reported that Raichik had posted about a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, days before police thwarted an attempted disruption of the event by white nationalist hate group Patriot Front.
Security experts have described Raichik’s output as “stochastic terrorism,” by which they mean that her hateful rhetoric is calculated to promote violence in some proportion of her followers.
Her posts frequently contain false information. Raichik has presented fake curriculum materials as if they were real and presented covert recordings of uninformed responses from non-medical hospital staff as if they represented treatment policies at the facility.
Her habit of spreading hate and disinformation has seen Raichik briefly suspended from the platforms she is active on, including Twitter. Since Elon Musk acquired the platform, however, Raichik has availed herself of the opportunity to purchase a “blue check,” and has even engaged in ableist banter with the new proprietor.
Raichik tried hard to maintain her anonymity as the author of the hate account, but the Washington Post unmasked her in April, noting that Raichik’s “content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers.”
Raichik has been a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, and her content has been promoted by far-right media figures and influencers including Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald, Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr.
Her tweets frequently form the basis of content pushed out by right-wing media – from items on Carlson’s Fox News show to dozens of articles in so-called ” pink slime” junk news sites.
More disturbingly, Raichik and other anti-LGBTQ influencers have shaped policy by encouraging divisive campaigning and mustering support for anti-LGBTQ laws.
DESANTIS DANCES TO RAICHIK’S TUNE
In March, Christine Pushaw, press secretary to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, defended the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill with anti-LGBTQ smears accusing people of “grooming” children.
The bill, which DeSantis signed into law later that month, would prevent teachers from discussing gender and sexuality in any way with children in kindergarten through third grade. Critics have pointed out that the rule would prevent children with LGBTQ parents from participating in age-appropriate activities like making family trees. The bill also allows state intervention on any discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools through high school.
Also in March, Pushaw credited Raichik’s account with having “opened her eyes” to conspiracy-minded views on schools’ approaches to gender and sexuality in the classroom.
This was evident in scores of interactions between Pushaw and Raichik on the platform stretching back to June 2021, at the beginning of Raichik’s focus on anti-LGBTQ campaigning.
Florida’s law is just one of many recent pieces of state-level legislation across the U.S. targeting LGBTQ people, and especially trans people. Five other states have passed laws that censor classroom discussion of gender and sexuality, and four more require parents to be notified ahead of such discussions.
Eighteen states, meanwhile, have passed laws banning trans women and girls from competing in K-12 girls and women’s sports. Some of these laws also ban their participation at the college level.
In Arizona and Arkansas, gender-affirming care for trans youth is banned, and in Alabama providing such care is a felony crime. Other states, including Texas, have attempted to pass similar laws. The American Academy of Pediatrics laid out their best practices for gender-affirming care in 2018, highlighting in particular that such care improves mental health outcomes for trans youth, especially in contrast to “conversion” models of intervention. Contrary to persistent disinformation from right-wing reactionaries, such care never includes surgical or chemical castration.
As far back as 2016, many states attempted to pass so-called “bathroom bills” mandating that public restrooms in state-owned buildings could only be used by people according to the sex assigned on their birth certificates. Three states – Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee – still have such laws on their books. Missouri and South Dakota, meanwhile, prohibit schools from adding LGBTQ-specific provisions to schools’ nondiscrimination policies.
ANTI-LGBTQ HATE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
In 2022, encouraged by political operatives like Christopher Rufo, many Republicans made “anti-woke” messages targeted at LGBTQ people the centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.
Anti-trans political ads did not stop on Election Day. On Monday, Herschel Walker’s campaign released an ad whipping up fear about trans girls and women competing in sports according to their gender identity, which referred to them as “biological males.” Walker has been delivering regular anti-trans stump speeches during his effort to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia, where the candidates now face a runoff.
Some commentators suggested that the GOP has employed this strategy to mobilize white Evangelical Christian voters, so that they would turn out in sufficient numbers to neutralize the backlash against the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned 50 years of legal precedent safeguarding access to abortion.
Rufo, a Gig Harbor, Washington based far-right propagandist and a fellow at the hard-right Manhattan Institute, was initially prominently involved with the conservative campaign to demonize critical race theory (CRT), which the right used as a proxy for all forms of inclusive education.
In August, Rufo explained to the New York Times that he had advocated for Republicans to pivot from anti-CRT campaigning to attacking LGBTQ-inclusive curriculums. He told the newspaper,”The reservoir of sentiment on the sexuality issue is deeper and more explosive than the sentiment on the race issues.”
Days before that profile was published, Rufo appeared alongside DeSantis at the signing of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which bans workplaces and schools from teaching that any person is privileged due to their race or sex and was the culmination of DeSantis’s multi-faceted public fight with the Disney corporation.
Many commentators – including some Republicans – have attributed the GOP’s failure to generate a “red wave” election to the malicious anti-LGBTQ messaging Rufo recommended. Based on the lukewarm outcome, such rhetoric either did not resonate with, or repelled voters around the country.
That rhetoric did pay off for DeSantis, however, who won almost 60% of the gubernatorial vote, led his party to large majorities in both houses in the legislature, and helped elect a slate of hand-picked school board candidates who were also running on platforms that opposed inclusive curriculums.
His successes have seen DeSantis touted as a possible 2024 election candidate, raising the prospect that the use of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policy as political tactics will continue on the national stage.
ANTI-LGBTQ HATE IN COLORADO
In Colorado, meanwhile, far-right figures – including Republican politicians – also actively spread smears, conspiracy theories, and falsehoods about LGBTQ people in the months leading up to Saturday’s mass shooting.
Not long after she was first elected to the House of Representatives, Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican congresswoman for Colorado’s 3 rd District, responded to the passage of the federal Equality Act with transphobic remarks claiming trans people would spy on “young girls” in school locker rooms.
Boebert – who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, hurled Islamophobic slurs at a fellow congresswoman, and amplified Donald Trump’s false claims about a stolen 2020 election – narrowly won re-election this month.
Colorado Springs, where the shooting took place, has itself has long been a hub for the Christian Right, which for decades has pumped out anti-LGBTQ propaganda in the name of a narrow and exclusionary definition of family.
In the 1990s, Colorado Springs’s Focus on the Family led the fundamentalist charge in support of Amendment 2, a Colorado ballot measure that banned municipalities from including LGBTQ people in their anti-discrimination policies. Though the initiative passed in 1992, in 1995 the Supreme Court found that it violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The SPLC’s hate map lists four anti-LGBTQ hate groups in the state, with two – the Family Research Institute and the Pray in Jesus Name Project – headquartered in Colorado Springs. The state also plays host to active chapters of other hate groups who have taken violent or disruptive actions against LGBTQ people, like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front.
Since the nadir of Amendment 2, Colorado has evolved to boast one of the most progressive policy slates for LGBTQ rights in the country.
But more liberal laws have not made the state immune from the right-wing moral panic sweeping the country.
Proud Boys attempted to disrupt Denver drag shows as early as 2019. Denver-based drag performers told reporters this year of a new atmosphere of confrontation and hostility at child-friendly performances around the state.
Now five are dead, at least 25 are injured, and an unknown number are traumatized for life by an act of violence primed by conspiracy thinking and hateful propaganda.
Photo by Helen H. Richardson/Media News Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
For more resources, visit ONEColorado. If you were affected by the attack and need to access mental health resources, community support or you’d like to get in touch with law enforcement as a victim or witness, visit coloradosprings.gov/clubq. Finally, if you would like to donate to help the victims of the tragedy, visit Colorado Healing Fund.
Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsletter on SubStack, discusses the state of anti-trans legislation moving its way around the country in 2024.
Erin Reed then joins, diving right into the busy 2024 in state-level anti-trans legislation in the US, first parsing through the media’s insistence on emphasizing bigoted and misinformed perspectives – as seen in the New York Times’s recent piece by Pamela Paul – and how the arguments seen in those texts are perfectly reflected in the statehouse hearings in red states.
He was reminded that that is not a legal requirement, only an anti-trans anti-LGBTQIA desperate wish that teachers and schools would do. Why? If a child doesn’t feel comfortable being themselves with / around, there is maybe a good reason. They live their parents, not school officials. But the republicans want to use the child’s fear of their parent’s response to keep them hidden at school so they are not outed. Plus it gives the parent time to try to force the kid to be straight and cis while they have control. That is the goal, to force the LGBTQIA out of the public view. To remove acceptance and tolerance for non-straight non-cis people. To pretend the entire country is straight and cis, that anything else is abnormal and wrong. These republicans can not accept the modern age or that everyone else is not living by their idea of god’s will. What happened to the idea of live and let live? Later in the article a judge claims that parents have the right to control what their minor children are called. Yet when kids are taunted and harassed, the teachers don’t rush to interfere or send notes home to the parents. Seems a very one-sided policy. Hugs. Scottie
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and nonbinary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is nonbinary.
Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools that they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home
ByJOHN HANNA Associated Press and GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press
February 9, 2024, 12:18 AM
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home, though Kansas is not among the states with a law that explicitly says to do that.
Republican Kris Kobach’s action was his latest move to restrict transgender rights, following his successful efforts last year to temporarily block Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration from changing the listings for sex on transgender people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. It’s also part of a trend of GOP attorneys general asserting their authority in culture war issues without a specific state law.
Kobach maintains that failing to disclose when a child is socially transitioning or identifying as nonbinary at school violates parents’ rights. He sent letters in December to six school districts and the state association for local school board members, then followed up with a public statement Thursday after four districts, all in northeast Kansas, didn’t rewrite their policies.
The Kansas attorney general’s letters to superintendents of three Kansas City-area districts, Topeka’s superintendent and the Kansas Association of School Boards accused them of having “surrendered to woke gender ideology.” His letters didn’t say what he would do if they didn’t specifically require teachers and administrators to out transgender and nonbinary students.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and nonbinary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is nonbinary.
Five states have laws requiring schools to inform parents if their children use different pronouns, socially transition to a gender different than the one assigned at birth or present as nonbinary, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which supports transgender rights. Another six have laws that encourage it, the project says.
Kansas is on neither list. A bill introduced last year would bar schools from using the preferred pronouns for a student under 18 without a parent or guardian’s written permission, but it did not clear a Senate committee.
GOP lawmakers did enact a law over Kelly’s veto that ended the state’s legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities by defining male and female for legal purposes based on a person’s “reproductive anatomy” identified at birth. But Republican state Sen. Renee Erickson of Wichita, a vocal supporter and a former middle school principal, said it does not cover issues about whether schools must inform parents about a child’s gender identity at school.
Erickson said she now favors taking a look at the bill before a Senate committee, saying it addresses a “policy gap.”
“The parents have a right to know what is affecting their child,” she said.
In 2022 a federal judge hearing a northeast Kansas teacher’s lawsuit concluded that her school district’s policy of not informing parents of a child’s gender identity at school without their consent violated a parent’s constitutional right to raise children as they see fit. The district settled the case, paid the teacher $95,000 and revoked the policy.
The judge said parents’ constitutional rights include a say “in what a minor child is called and by what pronouns they are referred.”
But Kobach cited neither that case nor Kansas law in his letters to the state school boards association, the Topeka school district and the Kansas City, Shawnee Mission and Olathe districts in the Kansas City area. Instead he cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions going back as far as 1923 that he said affirmed parents’ rights. His office released copies Thursday.
He told each district that its policies on transgender students violated parents’ rights and said two other districts in the Wichita area quickly rewrote their policies after his letter arrived. In his letter to the school boards group, he noted it provides legal help to local districts.
In each letter he said withholding such information from parents would be “arrogant beyond belief.”
State attorneys general serve as the lead lawyers for state governments, and most also oversee at least some criminal prosecutions. But they also look outward, and Kobach’s letters weren’t the first to issue warnings not grounded in a specific state law.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launched an online form Tuesday to gather complaints about “objectionable curricula, policies, or programs affecting children” in education. His office said it will follow up on submissions that may violate Indiana law but added that materials don’t have to meet that criteria to be posted for people to review.
Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent requests to at least two medical providers that don’t operate in his state for information about providing gender-affirming care as part of an investigation, though it’s not clear what Texas law would cover them. Washington state’s attorney general invoked a law there to block Seattle Children’s Hospital from complying, and QueerMed, a Georgia-based telehealth provider, said on its website that it will not comply.
As for Kobach, Tom Alonzo, a Kansas City LGBTQ+ rights advocate, argued that the attorney general is bent on “intentional marginalization” of transgender people. Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said Kobach is ignoring students’ right to privacy and called the attorney general’s stance “cruel” and “dangerous.”
While the Kansas City district declined comment, the other three districts said they deal with transgender and nonbinary students case by case and seek to work with parents. The Topeka district expressed confidence that its practices are legal. The four districts are among the largest in Kansas and together have more than 88,000 students or 18% of the total for the state’s public schools.
The strongest response came from Michelle Hubbard, the Shawnee Mission superintendent, in her district’s response in December. She chided Kobach for not citing actual cases in the district of parents’ rights being violated and suggested that he was relying on “misinformation” from “partisan sources.”
“We are not caricatures from the polarized media, but rather real people who work very hard in the face of intense pressure on public schools,” Hubbard wrote.
___
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Isabella Volmert in Indianapolis contributed.
This is a teenager targeted by adults based on that she played a sport too well, had a bigger build than some other girls, and was not pretty enough for this school board member due to the board member being anti-trans. Yes to protect minors from all that sexualization of mentioning LGBTQIA people exist and rainbow flags these people attacked a minor for not being as pretty and girly as they thought she should. This is what happen with bathroom bills baring trans people. Bystanders attack cis women who they don’t think are pretty or feminine enough. They base who can use a bathroom on looks. Hugs. Scottie.
Gov. Spencer Cox denounced the official, Utah State School Board member Natalie Cline, saying she has embarrassed the state.
A Utah state school board member is facing widespread condemnation and calls to resign after she shared a post on social media that appeared to suggest a 16-year-old girl on her school’s basketball team is transgender.
Natalie Cline, a member of the Utah State Board of Education, posted earlier this week on Facebook a flier for a high school girls’ basketball team in Salt Lake County, suggestively writing: “Girls’ basketball…” The post has since been deleted.
The teenager’s parents said the post invited a swarm of cyberbullying directed toward their daughter, whom they said is not trans and described as a “tomboy,” and are calling for Cline’s resignation.
Cline shared a photo of the 16-year-old basketball player on social media and appeared to question the girl’s gender.Utah State Board of Education
“Here’s a person that is supposed to be in a position of leadership that advocates for our children’s safety, well-being, their privacy, and she’s the one who has instigated this post that has led to all this hate,” Al van der Beek, the girl’s father, told NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City.
Cline apologized on Facebook on Wednesday, acknowledging that her post created a “firestorm” around the teenager and that “derogatory comments about the player were made.”
She also defended her intent saying that the girl “does have a larger build, like her parents,” and did not suggest she would resign.
“We live in strange times when it is normal to pause and wonder if people are what they say they are because of the push to normalize transgenderism in our society,” she wrote on Facebook. “But that is definitely not the case with this student, and I apologize again that the conversation around the post turned personal, that was never the intention, and again, I removed the post as soon as I realized what had transpired.”
“In a world that sometimes uses children as human shields to push radical agendas, it has become increasingly difficult to trust and to know how to protect children without hurting children when children are the targets and victims in so much of the chaos and confusion swirling around us,” Cline’s post said.
Cline did not immediately return a request for further comment.
The online uproar and ensuing backlash come as the debate over whether trans people should be allowed to participate in competitive sports leagues that match their gender identities continues to be a politically explosive issue in schools, elite sport and legislatures nationwide.
It is also the latest example of how the issue of gender roles and norms has roiled the country, even outside of the trans community.
“She cut her hair short because that’s how she feels comfortable, she wears clothes that are a little baggy, she goes to the gym all the time so she’s got muscles,” Al van der Beek told KSL.
Rachel van der Beek, the girl’s mother, also defended her daughter’s appearance.
“I would try to kind of maybe guide her into being what was more normal or what the world sometimes pictured a girl should look like, and that’s when we would butt heads and we would totally disagree,” she said. “As I encouraged her, then she started to blossom and her personality started coming out.”
Cline’s lengthy written apology did little to quell her critics.
Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, both Republicans, denounced Cline on Wednesday, saying she had “embarrassed the state of Utah and State Board of Education.”
“We were stunned to learn of the unconscionable behavior of board member Cline and others toward a high school student today,” they said in a joint statement. “The last thing our children need is an elected official harassing them on social media.”
“We urge the State Board of Education to hold her accountable and we commend Granite School District for taking swift action to protect this student’s safety and well-being,” they added.
Local reports have alleged that Cline — who was elected to her first term on Utah’s state school board in 2020 — has made controversial remarks regarding LGBTQ people in the past and has previously faced calls to resign.
Equality Utah, a state LGBTQ advocacy group, called Cline’s post “callous and cruel” and also called for her resignation.
“America has a tragic history of moral panics leading to the humiliation and expulsion of minorities from public life,” the group’s leadership said in a statement posted on X. “Hysteria often leads to violence.”
The controversy comes as trans athletes’ participation in sports has become a political lightning rod in recent years.
In the last handful of years, it has prompted 25 states to pass laws that restrict trans athletes’ participation in sports, including 11 that enacted the limitations last year, according to LGBTQ think tank the Movement Advancement Project.
Elite sporting bodies around the world, including USA Swimming, the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA, have also struggled to grapple with the issue, creating new guidelines around trans athletes that have often spurred backlash. Last month, a lawyer for trans swimmer Lia Thomas — who has become the de facto face of the debate — confirmed that Thomas is asking the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland to overturn the new World Aquatics rules that effectively ban trans competitors.
Cline isn’t the first to face backlash for appearing to falsely suggest someone is trans.
In June, a woman sued a local movie theater in New Jersey after her son was kicked out of the theater. The lawsuit alleges that the movie theater manager yelled “this is not a transgender bathroom” while kicking the mother and her son out of the theater.
On Wednesday, the van der Beeks said Cline’s apology did not go far enough.
“What if our daughter didn’t have that strong character and have our support, and community support to where she internalized this?” Al van der Beek told KSL. “Worst case scenario, she could’ve ended her own life.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
Read the full article. In 2021, Cline also faced calls to resign over allegedly racist and anti-LGBTQ posts on Facebook. Cline has said that public schools “brainwash children into queer gender-bending ideologies.” This time even Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who recently signed an anti-trans bill, is calling her out.
We are pleased to see state leaders calling on swift action to address Natalie Cline’s abhorrent behavior. The Utah Legislature is right to pursue impeachment. https://t.co/vUnxqctjLzpic.twitter.com/OUat0MfVk3
Utah State Board of Education member Natalie Cline should be forced to resign. Immediately.
She posted pictures of a minor child, without the parents' permission, and then questioned the child's gender? Now the child is under protection because of threats those posts caused.
Gov. Spencer Cox, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson denounce behavior of Utah School Board Member Natalie Cline. Read the full statement here ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/XLZbfT4450
No School Board member should ever share any photos of any students without the student’s permission, particularly with identifying information like a name, regardless of intention or accuracy.
Given that this student is now being harassed, resignation isn’t good enough, though it’s a start. Resignation doesn’t undue the harassment the student has faced, nor makes her whole. The School Board member should be subject to civil action — and would be wise to immediately negotiate with the student’s family for a settlement. And should the student experience actual physical harm from it, the School Board member should also face criminal consequences.
The fact that the student isn’t actually trans shouldn’t make a difference. The School Board member shouldn’t have done this even if the student was trans.
I don’t think it’s legal to share images of minors without parental consent anyway. So yeah, this is probably actionable. And for a school board member to shame any student, no matter who it is, even if they had done something bad (which this student did not and even what she claims about the student isn’t something to be shamed for) even that would be inappropriate. It’s bad enough we have cyberbullying from other children. But from an adult and from one that holds and important position? That’s horrible. She should be shamed and get the fuck sued out of her.
Just going to get worse and worse. They want transgender people beaten to a pulp. That is their goal. Oh, and if you think the rest of us queers are any safer….
even Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who recently signed an anti-trans bill, is calling her out. – anti-trans bills legalise bigotry, harassment, and discrimination by putting a target on the backs of trans people. You own that Cox. There’s blood on your hands. And yes, the school board bitch needs to resign.
I think it was Dan Savage (probably among many others) who called this over a decade ago when these “bathroom bills” were starting…while this will be terrible for trans people who just need to pee (like we all do) the majority of people who are harassed in all that are going to be cisgender people who are a little butch or fem. And here we are. She shouldn’t be harassed, trans or not, but she’s getting this without even being trans. She’s not the first and won’t be the last. They don’t care who they hurt and after all with that crowd the cruelty IS the point.
Psst: The bigots want to hurt women in general too, this is just another excuse, like all the homophobia and breeder cultism and rape cculture always have.
Why is so interested in a minor’s genitals? THAT’S the question to be SCREAMED at her in public NON-STOP. I’d call her a cunt, but cunts have depth & warmth. This used anal tampon has neither.
My personal trainer shared with me that the person leasing the commercial space next door to his gym had been smearing what appeared to be his own semen on the door handles of women that work out there. Got him on video doing it. Several women had complained. SLPD took a report and reviewed the evidence and said they did not have the resources to pursue the case at this time due to budget cuts, naming the mayor as the reason behind the cuts. Cute, right? And all the while conservatives in Ewetah are spun up good about protecting women and girls from evil trans persons that might go tinkle or play high school sports.
Husband and I have both seen him coming and going when we are using the gym facility. He’s a dumpy little man, probably feels he deserves some attention from the women that come and go throughout the day. I think that he is jealous of my trainer who is built like a Norse god and has built a thriving business. The landlord cancelled his lease on a technicality when he saw the video footage. As a result the gym is expanding. Not the beat down the dude deserves but picking his business up and moving it with 30 days notice is a expensive undertaking.
Impeachment is the nicest thing that should happen to Ms. Cline. If the child whose picture she posted is NOT transgender, her parents should sue. If she is, can the child herself go after Ms. Cline for the threats and intimidation she has been made to suffer? I certainly hope so.
Utah has an anti-trans students in sports law on the books. It was originally vetoed by the Governor but the legislature overrode it. Ironically, the law says the results of the decisions of the panel, even without the names included are to remain secret from everyone but the school and the student’s parents. But the author of the bill seems to have violated her own law by saying how many students have been denied access to sports because of their law.
Posting a picture of a minor on Facebook by an adult in political office for the purposes of harassment should be grounds for removal from that office.
State-level legislation and executive orders this year shifted from censoring racial issues in classrooms and instead focused on censoring LGBTQ+ issues, according to a new report from PEN America. At the same time, this significant shift also created an increased resistance to these unpopular laws and policies.
The free-expression nonprofit PEN America has been tracking what it describes as “educational gag orders” since 2021. While such bills introduced in 2021 and 2022 focused on limiting how issues of race and racism could be taught in classrooms, in 2023, conservative lawmakers and advocates turned their attention to banning discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in K–12 classrooms.
The anti-LGBTQ+ group’s candidates lost big in at least four states.
“It appears that America’s would-be censors now see proposals to restrict conversations about sexual orientation and gender identity as more of a winning political issue than efforts to restrict discussions of race and racism,” the report stated. “Leveraging that presumed support, [conservatives] have attempted to enact sweeping restrictions on what school-age children can read and learn.”
PEN America documented 110 state-level bills introduced during the 2023 legislative sessions that it defined as educational gag orders. Only 10 became law, while four other restrictions on education were imposed via executive orders or state or system regulations. Of those 110 bills, 39 specifically targeted how public school teachers could discuss LGBTQ+ issues (five of those also applied to private schools).
According to the report, about three-quarters of those anti-LGBTQ+ bills were modeled on Florida’s infamous “Parental Rights in Education Act,” commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
These restrictions resulted not only in the marginalization of LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ family members, they have also had a devastating impact on public education more broadly, forcing teachers to self-censor and contributing to teacher shortages across the country, the report added.
“If teachers are afraid to make any mention of race or LGBTQ+ identities in the classroom, if they are afraid to answer student questions, if quality educators are leaving and cannot be replaced, students are the ones who suffer most,” PEN America’s report stated.
While efforts to impose educational censorship are expected to continue into 2024, the report also offers reason for hope in the form of increased resistance to such legislation. According to PEN America, at least 13 different lawsuits challenging educational gag orders are currently pending, and political resistance has also grown.
“Over the last three years — and especially in the past twelve months — an increasing number of national groups have begun dedicating significant resources to combat educational censorship,” according to the report. “Simultaneously, a network of state-centric groups — many of them founded by parents, community members, and educators themselves — has emerged to take the fight directly to the local school board or state legislature.”
As PEN America notes, growing public opposition to educational censorship targeting issues of race and LGBTQ+ identity could ultimately make such legislation less attractive to conservative lawmakers.
Hate costs. These people wanted to limit other people, the LGBTQIA and their supporters, from public participation. But they tried to do it based on a lie they created. They tried to claim that drag was obscene and sexualized kids. I find it strange it only does it to kids in their minds, yet they want to ban porn from adults also? But there are already laws on obscenity if they think someone was showing a body part that should always be hidden to save the world. They did not want that, because it would still let the parade happen. So they passed a law outlawing one group … for public good. Just like in Russia, and just like that they were able to deny the pride parade permits, stopping “those people” from a public event. The law is illegal. Just because you don’t like a group, don’t like someone’s views or that they are different doesn’t give you the right to deny their human rights, their civil rights, and full equal participation in society publically. I wonder if it will pause some of the other laws pushed by fundamentalist religious right-wingers. Hugs. Scottie
A Tennessee city must pay $500,000 as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups over an ordinance designed to ban drag performances from taking place on public property, attorneys announced Wednesday.
Last year, the Tennessee Equality Project — a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights — filed a federal lawsuit after Murfreesboro leaders announced they would no longer be approving any event permit requests submitted by the organization.
At the time, the city alleged that the drag performances that took place during TEP’s 2022 Pride event resulted in the “illegal sexualization of kids.”
Read the full article. My October 2023 posts on the Murfreesboro ban are here and here.
STATEMENT from @tnequality on winning the settlement against Murfreesboro: "We celebrate the resolution of this case… Now we can turn our attention to preparing for the 2024 BoroPride and defending rights at the state legislature.” https://t.co/JlYvTFF4mdpic.twitter.com/j2ffhXjgBu
The thing about Murfreesboro is it’s a small town with a large university and campus population exceeding 20k. A lot of partying happens there and the student body is very diverse. The fact that the city council was trying to tamp down Pride activities tells me their Pride must really be a popular event. Murfreesboro, TN, Rutherford Co, is adjacent to Franklin, TN, Williamson Co. It also tried to ban Pride only to lose that effort when the LGBTQ community fought back. My friends in Franklin ( the home of Marsha Blackburn) tell me it’s Pride event was well attended with many Het families bringing their children to the festivities. FYI: In my childhood Murfreesboro TN was a sundown town. That might give you an idea about it’s deep and obviously still politically active Confederate roots.
Illegal sexualization of kids? Drag queens are only sexual if you find drag queen sexual. but if you really want to talk about the LEGAL sexualization of children, Let’s talk about this:
When I lived in PA in the 90s (“Pennsyltucky”), there was a country station which the entire frickin’ region listened to (“Froggy 98”).
They had a TV commercial w/ two little girls dancing to a country song. The younger of the two girls had obviously been (though I didn’t know this term then) GROOMED to “dance sexy”. It was beyond disturbing even then, but I regret not being aware enough to protest it.
These small towns and medium sized cities seem to be unable to consult with their attorneys, or they decide that they don’t like the answer and forge ahead. Inevitably they lose at least some of the lawsuits, and their taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Maybe the city fathers have swallowed the ALEC-like model legislation without considering that the model legislation is not viable when challenged.
Fiscally, won’t dent their budget much. According to their 2022-’23 budget docs, their budget was $573 million.
$500K is nothing for them. But the humiliation of spending taxpayer money to try to keep their homophobic and transphobic ordinance active, only to publicly retract it, will deservedly embarrass the local government there.
Remember it started with protecting children, first by stopping trans girls from playing on female teams so they wouldn’t take trophies from daughters that don’t earn them. Then they moved on to protecting kids from having mutilation surgery at 9 years old, as they are convinced is happening. Then to protect kids they had to remove any mention of trans kids from schools and libraries. But now it is not enough hate yet. These people never stop, give them an inch and they will take a mile while still wanting more. So now red states are forcing trans adults to detransition, forcing younger adults to delay their needed treatment until 25 or 26 years old, forcing insurance companies to pay for conversion therapy which is well known to be a fraud and sham. It can not work, it will not work, it causes more medical problems, and the major medical organizations are totally against it. But fundamentalist religious politicians know far more about medical issues than the very doctors who went to medical school and study those same issues. When the doctors say puberty blockers are safe and reversible, the right wing politicians say only for cis kids, but for trans kids they are deadly dangerous. WTF? I would suggest you read the linked article, the plan the republicans are pushing to remove trans people from society is more than Joe quoted.
This is simple, wipe out trans people, remove them from society. Then go after the rest of the LGBTQIA and wipe them out, remove them from society. It is about returning the country to the same public society of the 1950s. It is about rejecting the modern age, the modern society. It is about wanting a return to a time when their prejudices were acceptable, their hates tolerated. We must not only reject them, we must fight back against what they are doing. We may not win in all red states, and I fear that Florida is going to remain a maga paradise for some time, the rest of the country is savable.
These are people that refused to issue mask or vaccine mandates for public safety because it was against people’s freedom, yet these people feel free to regulate every aspect of other people sexual / gender lives even though that doesn’t affect anyone else. Freedom for them to hate and control, freedom for you is to obey them, doing as they tell you. Hugs. Scottie
A Florida House panel has backed a measure that would require state-issued identification cards to reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth and impose requirements for insurers who cover gender-affirming care.
The Republican-controlled House Select Committee on Health Innovation approved the bill (HB 1639) along party lines, despite opposition from transgender people and their allies.
Under the bill, insurance companies and health plans that cover such treatments as hormone-replacement therapy and surgeries for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria would additionally be required to cover the cost of “de-transitioning,”
Read the full article. My first report on the bill is here.
Florida House panel backs measure to require ID cards to show sex assigned at birth https://t.co/REUGshGNoR
Republican supermajority in Tallahassee heard their constituents wanted solutions to the insurance crisis in this state and this is what they’re proposing.
Vote these fucking idiots out already….oh wait it is Florida…so many residents are FUCKED in the head
Most of the legislation you are seeing pop up all over the country is a product of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. The create boilerplate legislation like this and push it to the ultra conservatives in various state legislatures. No lack of any of that in Floriduh or here in Utah. Those that sponsor the bills are normally looking for that unique “LOOK AT MEEEEE!” media moment so they can get some air time and remind everyone of who to hate and what to hate about them. They are admittedly devout christians and that should surprise absolutely nobody.
You got that right. Since trump was prez all the qanaon and maga followers have flooded into the state. Its a cess pool and will not be blue or purple ever for generations and generations to come.
Floridians appear to be perfectly fine with Republican bs. I barely even hear about protests or pushback. It’s amazing to see a state move from semi-purple to dark red so quickly.
But are they? Or is the media not reporting on the public pushing back. Notice. We don’t hear a lot of people complaining about the skyrocketing insurance cost in the media either. That’s not impossible with the conservative takeover of most of the media in the United States.
I’d swear this sounds like one of those super evil “regulations” that the GOP is always complaining about… what ever happened to the “invisible hand of the free market” that they praise?
If you want to know what republicans are doing, listen to their accusations against liberals. Projection is a republican thing. They do it but don’t seem to know it.
Sad thing is it wont stop here. And it seems like we have no recourse. Our federal gubment is shocked and awed and seems to not know how to respond. Now that TX has blatantly said they will defy the FEDS and the SCOTUS red states know they are free to do what they want.
The other point is that these GOP goobers ain’t got nuttin’ else but sex, gender, and pregnancies on their minds. International diplomacy? Bah! National debt? Pfff! National infrastructure? Nah! Equality for all per the Constitution? Nuh-uh, spurshally not for women, ick! Improving First Nations people’s well-being? Fuck that!
These cruel mutherfuckers…what happened to having politicians between your and your doctor? For that matter, what happened to the liberty these fuckers are always talking about?
GOP won’t OK mandates for vaccine.. but “re-de-sexualize” you against your will is Just OK with GOP ?! Whaaaaot?!? – well kids, this is it.. this IS the GOP on parade rain or shine.. FL IS the GOP End Goal “town with the parade” on parade.. sad it is that GOP patterns get set in like this, as if rehearsal.. GOP Kock Bro. plays in WI for rehearsing Dark Money influence, GOP Abbot in/with TX as rehearsal in Cruelty, GOP states follow in with Trigger Laws and stair steps to the GOP 6-3 supreme court (no, I don’t capitalize that anymore).. and GOP base so Warped and manipulated and trained to distraction the GOP base cannot see the ways this plays out against them down the road.. Gads, Work for DEM WINS Ahead !
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Scottie's Playtime 