FL Senate Passes Bill Outlawing Minors At Drag Shows

I am stunned at how fast and how forceful some religious groups are pushing their demand that everyone live by their church dictates instead of civil law.   In One state the pride parade is barely going to be allowed to have a permit after 20 people showed up to push religious reasons to deny the parade permit.   They claimed their bible / religious views took priority to any other considerations because of their god / Satan.   These people a decade ago wouldn’t have been listened to yet now seem to be calling the shots.   In Florida Christian religious views trump all other considerations at town council / legislative meetings.   I know in the south a lot of Christian privilege is assumed and there is little you can do right now against it, but it used to never take over the state legislatures.  It is terrifying to see how entitled these Christians Taliban are in regulating other people’s personal lives, what other people’s kids can read, what other people’s kids can watch.   These religious Taliban are not about keeping their freedoms they are about taking away other people’s freedoms, they are not about being to worship as they believe but about forcing others to follow their churches dictates in what is right or wrong.    Hugs

Florida Politics reports:

Blistering Democratic opposition couldn’t stop legislation that criminalizes allowing minors into adult shows with “lewd” content from winning Senate approval. The Senate legislation, advancing on a 28-12 party-line vote, doesn’t mention “drag shows.” But (SB 1438) that Clay Yarborough, sponsored, is largely aimed at stopping children from attending those shows.

It authorizes state government officials within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) to suspend or revoke the liquor license of any establishment that admits minors to a live, adult performance. A person who admits a child to such a show would face a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and up to a year in prison.

Read the full article.

Democrats believe that the bill could also criminalize public drag shows such as those at outdoor Pride events.

Sen. Clay Yarborough [photo above] first appeared on JMG in 2010, when as a member of the Jacksonville City Council he declared that gays, Muslims, and atheists should not be permitted to hold public office, otherwise God will smite the fuck out of the country. Or something.

“I would say that when I read Romans Chapter 1, I see striking resemblances between where Rome was just prior to its fall in comparison to where America is today. There are striking similarities in what we allow in our societies. Rome did not fall from an outside attack, whether it was military or otherwise. It fell from within because it was morally bankrupt. And I believe we have been treading in that area for a while and the more that we do not embrace that which honors the Lord, we shouldn’t be surprised if the blessings do not continue on our land.”

 

“Adult shows with lewd content”?????

Every public beach in Florida has Adult shows with lewd content everyday.

You should see the parade of young women at the LA Fitness locations here in the Fort Lauderdale area. The women are dressed like something out of Mad Max, strips of clothing barely covering their tits, hanging out all over the place. I don’t object to what they are doing. I’m objecting to the application of one standard at LA Fitness (nothing…kids can go) and drag shows (aunties in drag are being banned).

So vague…how will the law hold in court?

 

It may take years for the law to be ruled unconstitutional but before that happens, many people lives and careers will be ruined.

 

It may take years for the law to be ruled unconstitutional but before that happens, many people lives and careers will be ruined.

 

Which is the point, to drive LGBT people into the closet and out of society.

GOP: We must protect the children!!!!!!!!!!!

Note:

Since November 1, 2022:

Church leaders arrested for sexually abusing children or owning child porn: 124.

Drag queens arrested for sexually abusing children or owning child porn: 0.

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And the leading cause of kids dying is guns.

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You’re confused, Caitlin. It’s only embryos/fetuses (esp White ones in ‘merka) that are sacred. After they’re born, fuhgettabout ’em! AR-15 target practice the lot of the lil’ rugrats!

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The party of individual responsibility and parents’ rights proves yet again that it is neither. The nannyfascist state strikes again.

Catholic mass is basically a drag show, so it is outlawed too, right?

LOL! I am (was) a WASP, but I went to a Catholic college. First time I had (yes, mandated due to course work) to go to mass, I kept thinking, these men are in dresses. With filigree, embroidery, and really ornate hats.

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They allow parents to determine what is taught in schools, but don’t trust parents to determine what shows their own children can attend.

They demand that parents have the right to make medical decisions for their kids, like not vaccinating them, then make it a serious crime to get their child gender affirming care.

GOP: “Parents know best what’s right for their children so government should back off!”

Also GOP: “Our (Republican) government knows better than parents what’s right for children when it comes to drag shows, CRT, education, gender affirming care, rape and pregnancy.”

“When are the sane Floridians going to wake up and do something?“

Probably about the same time that all the sane women in America finally organize to protect reproductive rights….. I’m frankly amazed it hasn’t happened.

 

Christians Seek To Ban Tennessee Pride Festival

 

One mother claimed that the festival was part of a coordinated national movement to groom children.

 

No, you’re thinking of churches, lady.

It’s horrifying how quickly we’re backsliding. Decades of work by the LGBT+ community is at risk of being undone.

The one thing that keeps me hopeful is that, socially, we have not backslid. One could make an argument that social progress is still moving forward. What’s critical is that our straight Allie’s be very awake and stand by us as we beat back these laws. If they “sit this one out” politically, we’re in (deeper) trouble.

Already is undone. Im just shocked at how quickly they are being allowed to take over. Before the feds wake up and realize it, its going to be to late to cut out this cancer

How about this…

Don’t take *your* kids or your fucking self to this and other events if you’re against them.

Don’t fucking force your religious beliefs and views on other people.

People that want these events also pay taxes.

Many years ago (about 30) I was out with my friends at Houston’s pride parade. In addition to the gay and lesbian people you’d expect to see there, there were also a good number of Hispanic families with their kids. I found that odd until a friend told me that this is what Carnaval is like where they are from (including drag queens) so this is just good fun for the whole family to them. They didn’t think they had to shield children from adults in elaborate costumes. They were just putting on a show to entertain the crowd. They got it. I think most Republican leaders get it too. They just need a minority group to bash to distract their base from how sucky their lives are under GQP policies.

The people who habitually groom children into their stupid fucking cult feel they have the right to control others’ freedom of expression, and without any sense of irony, seek to enforce that control by labeling all expression they don’t approve of as “grooming”.

If you REALLY are concerned about children, why not protect them from Ministers and Priests? I mean, if you consider EVERY GAY PERSON a groomer, shouldn’t you consider EVERY Priest and Minister a child diddling monster? Close, or at least tax, the chucrhes.

A man read a passage from the Bible about resisting “sexual immorality.” “You think you are doing things based on laws,” a crying woman said, “but … you are letting Satan in.”

 

1) We don’t govern based on the Bible.

2) Actually, this is more like letting Satan *out.* :p

OT, but relevant;
Back in the day when segregation laws were repealed, white people would just close down all the public pools and fill them in with concrete in order to spite black people. They literally made their own lives joyless in order to prevent other people from having fun as well.

And now that the children of those bigots are being told that reading is not a crime and they have to put all the hidden books back…. they’re doing the same thing and making new rules to just get rid of public libraries altogether.

 

It’s always the same shit with the Christians. They could quite easily change the channel, not check the book out, not go to the movie, not marry someone of the same sex, not have an abortion, but that isn’t enough. They have to prevent other people from doing things they object to. Newsflash, Christians: your god is losing ground and followers BECAUSE of your annoying and destructive nonsense.

They have their tax-exempt Churches, their schools, home schools, their colleges, their businesses, their radio/TV stations, their internet sites, their Christmas national holiday since 1870, and their cult is protected by the constitution…but that’s not enough, they want to force everyone to join their cult.

Festival organizers have already agreed that there won’t be any drag performances.

 

Just goes to show it doesn’t matter how may times you make concessions to these maniacs they will not stop until the entire LGBT+ community is erased. I’d go so far as to say that banning drag for fear of being called “groomers” merely encouraged them, and they clearly did not shy away from alleging child sexual abuse, “drag performances” or not.

This infuriates me.

It’s been said many times, but there’s no hate like christain love.

They claim moral superiority and at the same time overwhelmingly support the most immoral leaders the world has known. They screech about obscenity and at the same time are the most vociferous consumers of porn. They harp on “family values” and at the same time their kids are getting impregnated in middle school, are being beaten by their fathers and are being sexually abused by their clergy. They label us as sexual deviants and at the same time there’s no sexual act that we enjoy that they don’t also engage in. They lie and lie and lie and lie again–claim “gay friends” that they clearly do not have, claim knowledge about us, our lives, our intentions and our activities that they clearly do not hold, and the biggest lie of all–claim that their oppression and marginalization is an expression of love. The glee and schadenfreude that can clearly be seen on their faces every time they succeed at fucking over our community exposes their hypocrisy and treachery.

They may claim to love people like me despite my being an evil sodomite, but I don’t mirror their lie. So I feel free to say that I hate these assholes with the burning heat of a thousand suns. Every time one of these brain-dead morons opens their mouth to mewl about protecting their drooling simpleton brats from people like me, I want to smash their face with a bat. Every obstacle that our community has ever faced can be traced back to the hands of these religious freaks. They cannot die off soon enough for me.

Fuck your god, fuck your families, fuck your values, fuck your churches, fuck your morals and fuck you!

 

UPDATE: Tennessee Speaker admits his family lives hours away from the district he represents

https://popular.info/p/update-tennessee-speaker-admits-his

It seems the republican view is that it is OK to break the laws if you are republican.   No matter what it seems they give a pass to themselves while wanting everyone else to “take personal responsibility” or “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”   Hugs

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (Screenshot/NBC News)

Yesterday, Popular Information published an article that posed this question: Where does the Tennessee House Speaker actually live? 

The issue is that Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) represents District 25, which encompasses the community of Crossville, about two hours outside of Nashville. Under the Tennessee Constitution, Sexton can only represent District 25 if he is “a qualified voter of that district.”

A Popular Information investigation uncovered substantial evidence that Sexton and his family lived year-round in Nashville, not Crossville. The piece cited property records, school enrollment, and the observation of his neighbor in Crossville. Sexton’s office, however, did not respond to a request for comment. 

After yesterday’s story was published and spread rapidly online, Sexton did communicate with Phil Williams, a high-profile Tennessee reporter. Williams reported that “Sexton argues, as Speaker, he has to be in Nashville so often that it’s easier to have his family here.” So now we know the answer to the question: Sexton, and his family, live in Nashville. 

In addition to not living in Crossville, Sexton has also not paid his property taxes on his two-bedroom condo in Crossville for the last two years, according to the Cumberland County website.

Under Tennessee law, “[t]he place where a married person’s spouse and family have their habitation is presumed to be the person’s place of residence.” So, now that Sexton admitted he and his family live in Nashville, there is a presumption that Sexton also resides in Nashville for the purpose of voting registration. That would make his representation of District 25 unconstitutional since he wouldn’t be “a qualified voter of that district.” 

The presumption can be rebutted if “a married person who takes up or continues abode with the intention of remaining at a place other than where the person’s family resides is a resident where the person abides.” But Sexton does not “abide” in Crossville while his family lives in Nashville. Sexton, by his own account, lives with his family in Nashville. 

According to Williams, Sexton also cited a different section of Tennessee residency law, which states, “a person does not gain or lose residence solely by reason of the person’s presence or absence while employed in this service of… this state.” The issue, however, is not the time Sexton is in Nashville during the four-month legislative session or other official business. The issue is that he lives there year-round, whether or not he is conducting legislative business. 

According to the 2022 House Ledger Sheet, for example, Sexton reported working on official business just 42 days outside of the four-month legislative session. But when he is not conducting official business, Sexton still appears to live in Nashville. 

John Spragens, an attorney in Tennessee who litigates election law issues — including residency challenges — agreed that there were legitimate issues about whether Sexton was a legal representative of his district. “Residency for voting purposes involves several factors, but someone could easily conclude that Sexton is living in Nashville,” Spragens said. “He’s not the first speaker to do that — just the first to expel members while his own house is not in order.”

Spragens added that, at the moment, “the legislature is the sole arbiter of any member’s qualifications, so it’s up to [Sexton’s] colleagues to decide whether he or any representative should be expelled.” Spragens said that Sexton’s residency could be challenged in court if he runs for reelection.

Gary Blackburn, an attorney who has practiced law in Tennessee since the 1970s, said that what Sexton is doing “violates the obvious spirit of this law” and is “contrary to the intent of the statute.” Blackburn said, however, that enforcement may be difficult because of vague language in the residency statute. Nevertheless, according to Blackburn, the issue of Sexton’s residency is “worthy of public discussion.” He agreed that Sexton could face a court challenge in any subsequent run for office. 

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Spain’s new ‘transgender’ law breaks new ground on LGBTIQ+ rights

https://www.euronews.com/2023/04/06/how-spains-transgender-law-is-changing-the-lives-of-those-affected

Hello everyone.   Again I want to thank Ali for sending another trans positive article.  The sea change is happening on trans rights as they did in the US a decade ago.  Yes we are seeing a backlash against acceptance and tolerance by the right as they try to force intolerance and bigotry on everyone.  But in the arch of history the progressive acceptance of equality wins.    If we keep fighting for it.   We know the right will fight for intolerance and enforced removal from society of those the right thinks shouldn’t get equality.    Hugs

By Valérie Gauriat  & Davide Rafaelle Lobina
 

A new national law for “real and effective equality for trans people” came into force in Spain on 2 March 2023, allowing a person to change their gender identity in the civil register without undergoing a two-year hormonal treatment or obtaining a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, as required by previous legislation.

Euronews reporters Valerie Gauriat and Davide Rafaelle Lobina travelled to Madrid to hear the testimonies of those who are affected by the law.

Ezekiel: Gender transition ‘not a decision you take lightly’

Ezekiel is a 23-year-old sports coach whose dream is to become a firefighter. But behind his athletic figure lie years of inner struggle, as Ezekiel was born a woman. 

 

He started his physical transformation after years of feeling like he didn’t belong in his own skin. 

“I looked in the mirror and thought to myself that I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to talk to people about it, to be recognized for who I was, and that I had to start my transition to feel comfortable with myself”.

Ezekiel started hormone therapy two and a half years ago, and underwent a mastectomy.

“It’s a big change. It’s like jumping into the void, hoping there is some water below,” Ezekiel told Euronews. “It is a very difficult process. It is not a decision you take lightly.”

Thanks to the new law, Ezekiel is glad that he will be officially recognised as a man. Spain is one of the few European countries that allow citizens to determine their official gender through a simple administrative declaration. 

We followed Ezekiel to the Madrid Civil Register Office, where he submitted his gender change request; he will have a new identity card in three months, after ratifying his demand.

“I’m happier than ever!”, he exclaimed, coming out of the Register office.”This will make a lot of things easier. I won’t have to give all sorts of explanations when applying for a job for instance. It will also help with my courses to become a fireman; my diploma will be consistent with my gender,” he explains.

Euronews
Ezekiel Latorre Fernandez, 23, sports coach: “Happy as ever”Euronews

The new law for broke all the locks remaining the previous legislation.

Like the World Health Organization, it depathologizes transsexuality.

And allows self-determination of gender on simple request from the age of 16, and with parental consent from the age of 12.

A first in the European Union. And one of the most controversial points of the law.

“At 16 people can work, have sexual relations, abort; they should also be able to chose their gender”

Spain’s Ministry of Equality claims it’s Europe’s most progressive law LGBTIQ+ rights

“In Spain, at 16 people can work, they can have sexual relations, women can have an abortion if they want”, said  Secretary of State for Equality, Ángela Rodríguez Martínez. “It is reasonable that people should also be able to declare their own gender. In addition, this law dissociates the change of sex in the civil register from the need to take hormones or undergo any type of surgical intervention. In the event of a change of mind, it would just be a matter of canceling the change at the register with all the legal guarantees needed.”

Arguments which do not convince those who feel the new law is too lax.

Vicenta Esteve Biot is  a member of the working group on transsexuality at the General Council of Psychology of Spain. For this psychologist, the abolition of medico-psychological diagnoses for sex change in the civil register could encourage too hasty transitions.

“The problem with this law is that it does not leave time to reflect.It’s not the same thing to follow a process accompanied by a professional who can help you make your own decisions when you need to make them, and not before or in a rush. People need to make well-considered decisions.And not just trans people, but also families.There are parents who take the initiative to avoid the suffering of their children. And it’s just as bad to be ahead of your kids as it is to be behind and holding them back. »

Encarni Bonilla Huete: ‘The problem is society, not gender identity’

Encarni Bonilla Huete is the president of the Chrysallis Association, which brings together families with transgender children who are fighting against stigmatisation. 

“Our youths are increasingly diverse and demand diversity. Either we adapt to it or we move further apart from them,” she said.

Born a girl, Encarni’s 12-year-old son, Marc, chose to become a boy a year and a half ago. Encarni and her husband decided to support his transition, after he verbalised it and asked them for help.

 “I knew I was out of place somehow, but I didn’t know how to express myself. When I started to develop, I felt very bad.I didn’t want to see my body.” explains Marc. And then when I realized I was a boy, I felt much better. My relationship with my parents, with my friends, with myself is now much better. » Asked whether he thinks about the future, Marc briefly ponders and smiles:

“Sometimes I think about what it will be like to take hormones, what people will think of me when I go to school, or what it will be like to work as a trans person. The world may be very different tomorrow. Anything can happen. I try to focus on the present. »

His mother is adamant that the family’s life has changed for the better. 

“He had an inner rage that prevented him from being happy. All that has disappeared, and he’s a very happy child now.” says Encarni. “It’s not gender identity that’s the problem, it is society, which doesn’t accept diversity and doesn’t accept difference. And that’s why it must evolve,” she added.

Euronews
Encarni Bonilla Huete, supportive of Marc’s transitionEuronews

“I’m asking those who are against my transition to let me live my life. They shouldn’t speak about it as they don’t know what it’s like, and I’m asking them to let me be happy,” concludes Marc.

 

No, Gay and Lesbian Children are Not Being “Transed” to Appease Homophobic Parents

https://www.readtpa.com/p/no-gay-and-lesbian-children-are-not

Thank you Ali for sending this link.   I saved this author to my morning read file.  The work below is not done by me I am only sharing it and all credit and support should go to the author at the link above.   Hugs   

 

Debunking one of the more bizarre anti-trans arguments making the rounds among pundits.

 

 

“Nobody in my life was particularly enthused that I turned out to be a man,” Liam told me. “My ex-girlfriend actually took my phone out of my hands when I was scheduling my first HRT consultation and hung up the phone. My mother cried. My father is still in a state of mourning.”

Liam (not his real name) is a trans man in his late teens who began transitioning a couple of years ago. He says he did not receive a lot of support from family, medical professionals, or peers.

An activist holds a sign calling for federal protection of transgender rights, in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on April 1, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Contrary to what some anti-trans pundits would have you believe, Liam’s experience as a trans youth has been sadly typical. It’s far from the fictitious anti-trans narrative that we live in an affirming-to-a-fault society with an out-of-control left-wing medical establishment hellbent on “transing” cis lesbian and gay children.

For instance, on Twitter, Andrew Sullivan wrote, “A gay friend confided in me the other day: ‘If I’d been born twenty years later I would have been put on puberty blockers.’ Protect gay kids from the TQIA+ extremists.”


This guest post was made possible by paid subscribers to The Present Age. To support more of this work, please consider subscribing.


Sullivan’s evidence here doesn’t even rise to the level of anecdote; his friend is making up a story, not reporting on anything that actually happened to him. And in fact, there is overwhelming evidence—from studies, from experts, from parents and children—that Sullivan’s friend is wrong. People are not pushed to be trans. Instead, trans people in our society face many social barriers to transition and little encouragement. 

Not even anecdotes

Sullivan’s tweet is just a tweet. But full-length articles claiming a crisis of cis lesbian and gay “transing” aren’t much more rigorous.

David Moulton, writing in Tablet, claims, “The interests of legacy gay rights organizations have increasingly become divorced from their traditional constituents, gay men and lesbians” and as evidence points out that the Human Rights Campaign is using the word “transgender” more than lesbian and gay in its annual report. That probably has to do with an assault on trans rights. HRC’s report details and pushes back against attacks on LGBT people. When states are passing hundreds of anti-trans bills, you say “trans” a lot. (“When bigoted lawmakers took aim at transgender youth, our volunteer-based organization defended them with determined vigor.”) The use of the term is evidence of how much discrimination there is against trans people, not the opposite.

Similarly, Katie Herzog argues that the decrease in lesbian bars is a sign that the trans and nonbinary establishment has made lesbianism uncool or embarrassing. But couldn’t the issue just be that lesbians are more accepted now and, as a result, feel more comfortable going to mainstream venues?

Both Moulton and Herzog are trying to pit trans people against cis lesbian and gay people by framing support for trans people as inherently homophobic. It’s a tactic picked up with glee by straight transphobes like Graham Linehan, who has penned condescending odes to “our baby homosexuals.” It’s also embraced by active homophobes like the Family Research Council.

Trans youth face enormous stigma

Moulton and Herzog cobble together a bunch of anecdotes and vague accusations based on little more than their discomfort with an LGBT movement that includes trans people. But when you actually look at the extant evidence, the suggestion that cis lesbian and gay people are being oppressed by a trans establishment is ludicrous.

In the first place, there is a strong correlation between transphobia and homophobia; researchers found that “homophobia is likely to always be the ‘best’ predictor of transphobia and these two constructs probably share a common foundation.” Where transphobia and homophobia diverge, however, the evidence that trans people face serious stigma, and often worse stigma than cis gay or lesbian people, is extensive. 

Most obviously, Republicans and conservatives across the country are pushing more than 400 draconian anti-trans bills through state legislatures. These bills criminalize trans health care, force trans youth to detransition, criminalize trans use of public bathrooms, force schools to out trans youth to their parents, and more. While these bills may harm gay and lesbian and gender nonconforming youth in some ways, they are particularly framed as an attack on trans people–hardly a sign that trans identities are seen as more acceptable and legitimate than gay or lesbian ones.

Young trans people demonstrate in the center of Rome for the rights of trans people, organized by the Gender x movement, on April 1, 2023, in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Simona Granati – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Homeless statistics mirror the current public anti-trans panic. Homophobic parents often throw their children out of the house or make life so miserable for them that they leave home. As a result, according to the Trevor Project, 23% of cis queer youth report experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives. Those figures are however even worse for trans youth; 38% of trans women, 39% of trans men, and 35% of nonbinary youth said they had experienced homelessness.

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Similarly, thanks to widespread social stigma, queer youth often experience severe mental distress and mental illness. According to the Trevor Project, 1 in 3 cis queer youth contemplated suicide in the past year, and 1 in 10 cis queer youth attempted suicide in the same period. Those are horrible numbers. But statistics for trans youth, again, are even worse. More than half of trans and nonbinary youth contemplate suicide, and almost 1 in 5 reports making a suicide attempt.

It’s also worth noting that researchers have found that “many if not most trans people are LGBQ following transition.” Liam, for example, had thought of himself as a lesbian before transition, but after coming out as a trans man, he also realized he was bisexual.

“I just never entertained the idea of being with a man until after I was presenting as a man,” he told me. “Being a straight girl was the farthest thing from myself that I could imagine.” If there is a sweeping plot to turn gay people straight by forcing them to be trans, that plot failed spectacularly with Liam. Trans people do not transition because they want to be straight. They transition because they are trans.

“I have never in my entire career encountered a parent who pushed their child to identify as trans”

 

Daniel Summers, a Boston-area primary care pediatrician, confirmed that in his experience, parents are “notably more comfortable with their children being lesbian or gay than trans.” Even supportive parents of trans kids see it as a challenge, he said; that’s not the case for supportive parents of lesbian and gay children. “I have never in my entire career encountered a parent who pushed their child to identify as trans if they did not already identify that way themselves,” he concluded. “Not once, for any reason.” 

Kelly Storck, a therapist who has provided gender-affirming care in St. Louis for 15 years, agreed. Acceptance of gay and lesbian identity has improved slowly over the years, but, “most of my clients, regardless of age, still hold a lot of fear around having a gender that’s different than their assigned sex,” Storck emphasized. She added that her clients often have an “overwhelming fear of rejection from their families and peers.” That’s not what you’d expect if there were a successful coordinated campaign to make cis gay and lesbian people adopt trans identities.

Clara Baker, a parent of four in Bar Harbor, Maine, told me her son transitioned when he was three, and is now 12. Baker’s mother was a feminist scholar, and Baker was very familiar with third-wave feminism and gay rights. But she was “really ignorant” of trans issues. “My first thought was, if I let him wear boy clothes, will I turn him into a boy?” she said. 

In order to deal with her son’s dysphoria, she educated herself and got him the care he needed, but “there was a ton of resistance from health care providers, family members who were super educated…” Even logistically, there were major barriers, since she had to drive an hour to an endocrinologist to get monthly blood tests. “I was so without support,” she said.

Young trans people participate in a demonstration in the center of Rome for the rights of trans people organized by the Gender X movement, on April 1, 2023, in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Simona Granati – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Sam (not his real name) an author and journalist, told me he had, himself, resisted when his son came out as trans at 15. Sam had close friends who were gender critical, and he read some feminist anti-trans books. “We had arguments about it,” he said, “where I’d say, ‘Do you think you’re erasing your female identity?’” Eventually, though, he said he realized that his concerns were “just because I was more comfortable with lesbian and gay people [than with trans people]. And so that was on me.” 

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Sikh freelance journalist Veerender Singh Jubbal was the one exception among those I interviewed; he said that his parents had more context for trans identity than for bisexual identity. In India, there is an established category of “Hijra” to refer to people who are trans or intersex and are viewed as a third gender, Jubbal said. As a result, he said, his  parents, “definitely know more stuff in regards to transgender issues than queer issues.” That’s the “opposite” of North America, where people are more comfortable with queer identities that are not trans. 

From the perspective of a culture that does, to some degree in some situations, treat trans identities as less stigmatized than some cis queer ones, Jubbal can say with some certainty that the US does not see things that way.

A pretext for discrimination

“With my mother assuming and my father asserting that I was in fact a lesbian (though I had told the both of them about my crushes on boys as a kid) it was incredibly hard to find myself until I moved out,” Liam told me. His experiences with the medical establishment were disheartening and discouraging as well. “I found a lot of the questions superficial,” he said. “If I hadn’t answered that I only own five shirts, would I have been rejected from medical transition? It left me wondering why it was necessary for me and other trans people to present in such a binary way to receive proper medical treatment.”

When you look at the research or speak to clinicians, parents, or young people themselves, it is clear that no one is being pushed to be trans. Instead, trans people face persistent discrimination and resistance from family, friends, doctors, and politicians when they try to be true to themselves. 

The claim that trans people are somehow infecting cis gay and lesbian people is part of that discrimination. Framing trans people as a danger to themselves and others creates the pretext for anti-trans legislation, for parental rejection, for the denial of medical care.  Building that foundation of bigotry empowers Christofascists, homophobes, and reactionaries. In the long run, and even in the short run, it will not help any LGBT youth, cis or trans. 

___

Where indicated, some names have been changed to allow interviewees to speak freely.

 
 

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