I’ve felt sick and disgusted since November, and those feelings only increased after I read about what ABC News did. If Donald Trump sues me for doing my job, I will not cave like ABC News, and I’ll tell him to go suck a lemon (replace lemon with something else).
Trump has villainized the media and has tried to take away the credibility of the press. Trumpers believe legitimate news outlets are “fake news” while they share “news” from YouTube and repeat Trump’s lies. Back when I freelanced for CNN and I’d try to discuss an issue with a MAGAt, they’d say, “Oh, you’re with CNN. That explains a lot,” without ever telling me exactly what it explained.
Anytime a Trumper tells you a news outlet lies, they can’t cite one example. Yet, these same idiots are in a cult that worships a man who told over 30,000 in a span of four years.
And it’s not just the cultists who are kissing Trump’s ass.
Jeff Bezos is donating $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration. He also pulled an endorsement from The Washington Post which was for Kamala Harris. When Bezos purchased the Post, he promised he would never meddle with editorial decisions. Bezos said he’s “very optimistic” about a second Trump administration (sic) and will be meeting with the orange goon this week. What’s Bezos’ deal with kissing Trump’s ass after years of criticizing him? It’s Elon Musk.
Bezos has government contracts such as with the Post Office delivering Amazon shipments (which is why you see angry mailmen on Sundays) and through Blue Origins, his rock company (it’s the one that looks like a giant penis). Bezos has lost government contracts to Elon and his rocket company (it’s the one owned by a giant penis). How can Bezos compete when his competition is firmly entrenched up Trump’s ass. It’s why you can’t see Trump anymore without Elon by his side. He’s afraid if he goes to the toilet for one minute, he’ll find Bezos up Trump’s butt when he returns despite the fact he called dibs.
Mark Zuckerberg, who banned Trump from Facebook for a minute (along with Russian trolls until they started paying to post), is also pledging $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and said Trump’s “fight fight fight” after being nipped in the ear was “badass.” Zuck probably also thinks My Little Pony is badass. Zuck is also donating his hydrofoiling board along with his CD that contains Country Roads.
Sam Altman, the owner of OpenAI, is also pledging a million bucks to the grift and said Trump will “lead our country in the age of AI.” That’s great news actually because I hate AI and if Trump is leading it, it’s doomed. But the thing is, Sam knows this and is only saying stupid shit to kiss Trump’s ass.
There’s no word yet on all the donors but former contributors to inaugurations are keeping mum, such as Google, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, etc, but nobody seems concerned about how their money is spent and they’re probably all resigned to the fact their donations will probably be grifted.
Trump raised $107 million for his inauguration in 2017 and a lot of that money disappeared. Sure, they paid for Three Doors Down (opening shot makes me think of what Trump must look like first thing in the morning) to sing Kryptonite and there was a very fine parade of tractors (look at the crowd size), but that didn’t cost $107 million. At least $1 million of it was spent for a ball at what was then Trump’s Washington hotel, but how many more millions landed in Trump’s bank account?
Trump has refused government funding for his inauguration in order to accept private donations. He says he’s saving taxpayer’s money when the truth is, he just wants to be bribed.
The donors didn’t care what happened to the money just so long as they won Trump’s favor, but what’s even more disgusting is when the media kisses the royal rump.
Bezos kissing Trump’s ass and using the Post to do it is one disgusting thing, but then there’s ABC News giving Trump $15 million for his stupid library.
ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump. He was miffed by the way George Stephanopoulos used the term “liable for rape” to characterize a 2023 civil case in Manhattan, the one where a jury ruled that Trump, the rapist, was liable for sexual abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, who won $83 million from Rapey Trump. The judge noted that the jury’s verdict didn’t mean Carroll failed to prove Trump, the rapist, raped her.
The bar is high for libeling a public figure and Mr. McRapey is the most public of them all. News organizations usually don’t settle these bullshit lawsuits as they have the First Amendment on their side. When they do settle, it’s usually because it’s cheaper than paying their lawyers through a long tedious lawsuit, and not for something like $15.
Fox News had to settle with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million but they were guilty as fuck and they’re not a real news organization. So why did ABC settle with a guy liable for rape?
ABC News, which is owned by Disney, settled to kiss Trump’s ass but all they did was give him more encouragement to file bullshit lawsuits. What ABC selfishly did was hurt the entire news industry, which Trump, the rapist, has called the “enemy of the American people.”
Disney should understand that they shouldn’t kiss the ring of Darth Sidious. They own Star Wars. At least Palpatine never had over two dozen women accuse him of rape and sexual assault, not even a female gundark.
Today, Trump scolded the government for not giving out more information about drones in New Jersey, but if the government knows what’s going on with Jersey drones, then Trump probably does too. Sorry to scare you like this but since he’s president-elect (sic), he’s getting daily briefings which means Vladimir Putin is getting daily briefings. Maybe the drones are delivering Big Macs to Bedminster.
Creative note: Proofer Laura asked if I intended to make a Hunger Games parallel with this cartoon. Since I’m the only person in the nation who’s never watched Hunger Games despite there being abundant nudity with dragons (I’ve been told and I hope it’s not just naked dragons), I did not intentionally make that reference, but it sounds cool the way Laura described it.
Laura told me, “In the Hunger Games the “tributes” are the people forced to fight to the death, and drones are used to deliver gifts from audience members to help the tributes survive.” What kind of drones? Dragon drones? What if they smoked the tributes? Can you say a dragon ate my homework?
Laura also said, “In the Hunger Games the gifts sent to competitors are hugely expensive and only very wealthy sponsors can afford to send them, Bezos and Musk types.” That sounds about right. The only people who won’t be eaten by a dragon over the next four years will be people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
And how long is this ‘masculinity crisis’ going to last?Read on Substack
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Last week, I watched Girls Gone Wild: The Untold Story on Peacock, which, unsurprisingly, was fairly disturbing on a number of levels, starting with the fact that most people at the time thought “getting young women extremely drunk and then convincing them to take their tops off on camera” was a fairly normal, “boys will be boys!” thing to do.
The thing that really struck me, though, was the fact that it remained “normal” until about 2011, when creator Joe Francis was arrested for false imprisonment and assault, after he brought three women home after a night out and refused to let them leave, ultimately attacking one of them and bashing her head into the floor. Francis had long been Public Enemy #1 for feminists (along with, on the other end of the spectrum, the Christian patriarchs who fake-married their daughters at Purity Balls), but at that point, no one was really paying any attention to us.
The reason I bring this up, the reason it struck me, is because I don’t think I really realized until just then what an incredibly short time period it was between the end of that era — this era where bro culture was celebrated, where rape culture was celebrated, where women’s sexuality was a thing within their control whichever way they chose to control it, in which beautiful female celebrities were excoriated for being a size four in public — and the era we are now in.
Because we hear a lot about it from their end, right? The story, as they tell it, is that there were all these ostensibly “liberal” men who “voted for Obama,” but then the Left “just went too far” and drove them into the loving, misogynistic arms of Andrew Tate and Donald Trump. And now they’re lonely and they don’t know how to be men and it is a full-on crisis! A crisis I tell you! And an epidemic!
The way they talk, you would think that they had been forced to live in this horrible matriarchal world for years, during where they weren’t allowed any free speech, were constantly accused of rapes they didn’t commit, were told constantly by everyone that they were garbage and that they had to apologize for being born male.
But let’s piece together this timeline, shall we?
2011: Joe Francis arrested, “Entourage” ends.
2012: During a stand-up set, comedian Daniel Tosh starts talking about how rape jokes are “always” funny — causing a woman in the audience to yell, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”, to which he responds, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her?”
— Also, Tucker Max, who was celebrated for having written a book called I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, in which he tells multiple stories of having sex with extremely intoxicated women, “retires” from being Tucker Max.
2013: We have the rape joke discourse, led by then-Jezebel writer Lindy West. On the one hand, you have feminists saying “This shit isn’t actually funny,” and on the other, approximately 87 million op-eds about how we must protect the sanctity of rape jokes.
— The campus rape discourse begins. Women who have been raped on campus discuss both the problem of rape on campus and the tendency of school officials to do nothing about it, asking people to take it more seriously and criticizing men who have sex with women when they are too intoxicated to consent. This is followed by years of people complaining that we can’t take these women seriously, because what if they are just having day-after regrets because the man didn’t send them flowers or call them back or something?
2014: In May, incel Elliot Rodger kills six people because he is angry that women won’t have sex with him.
— In August, Gamergate begins — starting out as a rage against progressive videogame developer Zoë Quinn from gamers who believe that she only got good reviews for a game she made that they didn’t like because she had a sexual relationship with a video game reviewer (who never actually reviewed her game). It turns into unfettered rage and harassment against women who dare to criticize games for being misogynistic, and then against all “Social Justice Warriors” in general.
— We have the street harassment discourse, started by Black women on social media, in which women publicly discussed the general unpleasantness of not being able to walk to the grocery store without some guy yelling “Nice tits!” at us. This is quickly followed by approximately 87 million “How are men even supposed to talk to women if they can’t yell at them while they walk down the street?” and “But it’s a compliment!” and “I’m a woman and it makes me feel pretty when men I don’t know compliment my ass!” op-eds.
— The height of the affirmative consent discourse, in which people discuss why it’s important to have affirmative and enthusiastic consent at each stage of sexual activity. Some states implement “Yes Means Yes” laws — so that, instead of asking campus rape victims whether they were clear enough that they did not want to have sex with someone, accused rapists will be asked how they obtained consent, This was, naturally, followed by lots of complaining that it will ruin sex.
2015: Donald Trump begins his presidential campaign, ultimately winning in part due to a backlash to “social justice” activism — feminist activism and rape culture discourse in particular.
So let’s just stop there for now. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, because I know we had a few more discourses and we certainly had a lot more incel mass murders. But it doesn’t need to be, because the main thing I want to point out is that, at the very most, we had a few years of public discussions of things women had grown real fucking sick of, each of which was swiftly followed by an inevitable “Has feminism gone too far?!?” backlash from those who thought everything was fine the way it was and had been — mostly from those with bigger platforms and more power than we ever had.
This, frankly, has been the case for all social justice movements that have occurred over the last few years — not just feminism and rape culture, but also racism, police brutality and trans rights. You see a groundswell of actual people talking about their experiences and how best to change things so that other people don’t have to go through them, and a swift and terrible backlash from those who say they would like those other people to shut up, please.
Donald Trump was elected again this year, and again we were all told “This is all because you all just went too far! They just couldn’t take it anymore!”
But like, in the end, what did they have to take? People talking publicly on social media? People making art, movies, television shows, music, video games, etc. that they don’t like? Or publicly criticizing things they do like or behavior they enjoy engaging in?
That’s nothing. Especially when compared to everything that everyone else was expected to go through and shut up about. I’d like to point out that, quite notably, taking rape more seriously did not lead to any epidemic of men being sent to prison for not sending flowers or calling the day after.
One of the most jarring points of the “Girls Gone Wild” documentary is one in which a girl recounts how she ended up in a video when she was 17 years old (making it, legally, child pornography), and one of the male teachers at her high school responded by asking her to autograph a copy for him. That’s just one moment, one small snapshot of what was meant to be acceptable back then.
And, you know, at no point did anyone back then publicly wonder or wring their hands about “Is the patriarchy going too far?” Rather, then, as now, most public discussion was about what was wrong with the girls who were doing this, not the men who produced it.
It’s not at all surprising to me that men living in that social environment felt “safe” voting for Barack Obama, or felt like they were totally liberal because they wanted to legalize weed and didn’t care if people were gay or not. Because they could vote for Obama and feel like a good liberal while chanting “Iron my shirt!” at Hillary Clinton. Everything was going really well for them and no one was really challenging the status quo, at least not anyone they were paying any attention to. This is part of what they mean when they say “the Left left me!”
(And, again, that’s just the feminist side of it. They were also “totally fine” with Black people until Black people started bringing up police brutality and racism, and fine with LGBTQ+ people when they thought that civil rights push would end with marriage.)
We’re being punished right now for a feminist utopia we never even had. We went straight from the Girls Gone Wild Era to the Gamergate/Incel mass murder era to the the Trump era. And while a whole lot has changed in terms of what we are willing to put up with or be quiet about, the only thing that has actually changed about the patriarchy has been the flavor it takes on.
Israeli strikes pounded the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday, with one attack ripping through a home where displaced people were sheltering in the isolated north. The strikes killed at least 33 people including children, Palestinian health officials said.
Violence also flared in outside Jerusalem, where an Israeli bus came under fire from a suspected Palestinian attacker late Wednesday, wounding three people including a 10-year-old boy, according to the military and hospital officials. The attack took place on a highway near major Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the army was looking for the shooter in the area around Bethlehem.
The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza shows no end in sight, even after Israel reached a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants and attention shifted to the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad by insurgents. Both the current and incoming U.S. administrations have said they hope to end the war in Gaza before the inauguration in January, but ceasefire talks have repeatedly stalled.
The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved resolutions Wednesday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and backing the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees that Israel has moved to ban.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, although they do reflect world opinion. The votes in the 193-nation assembly were 158-9 with 13 abstentions to demand a ceasefire. Israel and its close ally the United States were in the tiny minority voting against.
Israeli strike in north Gaza wipes out 3 generations
The strike on the home killed 19 people in the northern town of Beit Lahiya near the border with Israel, according to nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, which received the bodies. Hospital records show that a family of eight was among those killed: four children, their parents and two grandparents.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas militant in the vicinity of the hospital. It said reports about the number of casualties in the strike were inaccurate, without elaborating. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and accuses militants of hiding among them, putting their lives in danger.
The hospital said another strike near its entrance on Wednesday killed a woman and her two children.
The hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said Israeli drones struck nearby residential blocks overnight, causing explosions that sparked panic among the facility’s more than 120 sick and wounded patients.
“We have received distress calls from neighbors and trapped people, but we’re not able to leave the hospital because of the continued risk,” he said. “We are witnessing a massive loss of life, with many martyrs in the targeted areas.”
Another strike in the decades-old Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, according to the Awda Hospital. The dead included two children, their parents and three other relatives, it said. Later, the hospital said another attack hit the same camp, killing four people and injuring 16 more.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the other strikes.
In Lebanon, where near-daily Israeli attacks have continued despite the ceasefire, at least five people died Wednesday in Israeli strikes in the south, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry and state news agency.
Elsewhere in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces withdrew from a strategic town and handed it back to the Lebanese army in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers, the two militaries said. It appeared to be the first Israeli pullout from a Lebanese border town captured during the ground invasion.
In Syria, the Israeli military estimates it has destroyed 70% to 80% of Syrian military assets in recent days, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence assessment. The military has said it has carried out hundreds of airstrikes.
Evacuation orders in camp after rocket fire
Militants in central Gaza fired four projectiles into Israel on Wednesday, two of which were intercepted, the military said. The other two fell in open areas, and there were no reports of casualties.
The military ordered the evacuation of a five-block area of the built-up Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, saying the rockets had been fired from there. The orders indicated that Israel would soon carry out strikes in the area.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people, including children and older adults. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials. They say women and children make up more than half the dead but do not distinguish between fighters and civilians in their count. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
UN says Gaza civilians face ‘utterly devastating situation’
Israel has been waging a renewed offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza’s heavily destroyed north since early October. Troops have surrounded Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, allowing in almost no humanitarian aid and ordering tens of thousands to flee to nearby Gaza City.
Israeli officials have said the three communities are mostly deserted, but the United Nations humanitarian office said Tuesday it believes around 65,000 to 75,000 people are still there, with little access to food, water, electricity or health care. Experts have warned that the north may be experiencing famine.
Sigrid Kaag, the senior U.N. humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters on Tuesday that civilians trying to survive all across Gaza face an “utterly devastating situation.”
Kaag said she and other U.N. officials repeatedly ask Israel for access for convoys to northern Gaza and elsewhere, to allow in commercial goods, to reopen the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the south and to approve dual-use items.
The Israeli military says it allows in enough humanitarian aid and blames U.N. agencies for not distributing it, saying large amounts of aid have accumulated just inside Gaza’s borders. U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order and ongoing fighting make it difficult to access the aid and distribute it, and have repeatedly called for a ceasefire.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have mediated talks between Israel and Hamas for nearly a year, and diplomats say those efforts have recently gained momentum.
But Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned and has said Israel will maintain a lasting military presence in some areas.
___
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Remember Mace is a notorious attention hound, demanding her staff book her constantly on different media. She does any stunt she thinks will gain her attention. She made over 500 tweets in two days about a new trans member to congress and the bathroom ban she was pushing but at no time did she mention anything helping her constituents. She even sent a staffer back an hour or so later to ask the man to repeat what he said to Mace. So she clearly did not feel assaulted then. But after a time thinking how to spin it for more attention she suddenly claimed to have been badly assaulted with damage to both wrists and her arm so bad that she is parading around with her arm in a sling. What a phony. Slandering an advocate for foster youth and trans kids for clicks and views. She never grew up, she is still a high school girl chasing fame on social media. Hugs
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Aformer foster youth and award-winning advocate for children was arrested at the U.S. Capitol tonight — a bizarre twist in an otherwise celebratory day of events — after South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace accused him of assault.
The incident took place outside a House of Representatives office building following an event honoring the anniversary of a landmark child welfare law where Mace, a firebrand Republican, had given a speech. Three witnesses at the scene told The Imprint their accused colleague James McIntyre had done nothing more than shake the congress member’s hand at the House reception, and asked her to protect the rights of transgender people.
But in a post on the social media platform X, Rep. Mace described a violent confrontation.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace
“I was physically accosted at the Capitol tonight by a pro-tr*ns man. One new brace for my wrist and some ice for my arm and it’ll heal just fine,” she posted at 8:43 p.m. “The Capitol police arrested the guy. Your tr*ns violence and threats on my life will only make me double down.”
The arrest stunned onlookers.
A group of McIntyre’s fellow foster youth advocates rushed to the outside of the Rayburn House Office Building to watch the scene unfold. They stood by tearfully as he was searched for several minutes by police, asking officers where he’d be taken and calling frantically for an attorney who could represent him.
McIntyre, 33, has spoken publicly about his excruciating experience growing up in foster care, and is now a leading voice in policymaking in his home state of Illinois. He is also a chapter co-founder of the influential group Foster Care Alumni of America. In 2019, the National Association of Social Workers’ Illinois chapter named him the “Public Citizen of the Year.”
An officer with the Capitol Police Department told a reporter present at the scene that they were responding to a call about an “assault.” McIntyre was then placed into a police van and driven off.
Other attendees have reacted with outrage since McIntyre’s arrest.
“I want to express deep disappointment in the fact that Congresswoman Nancy Mace came to a national foster youth event, told participating youth that it was a safe space — and literally had one of them arrested by Capital police for simply shaking her hand and asking about trans rights,” said Lisa Dickson, a veteran advocate for foster youth from Ohio, in a Facebook post.
Mace is not new to such publicity. In recent weeks, she has been in the news for her successful campaign to bar newly elected Rep. Sarah McBride — a Democrat from Delaware who is transgender — from using the public women’s bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol.
At tonight’s event, Mace, who co-chairs Congress’ bipartisan foster care caucus, joined a group of legislators at a House reception celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999. The act created the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood, legislation that significantly expanded federal support for foster youth who leave the system after turning 18 without a permanent home.
Today’s events featured speeches from some of the former foster youth whose advocacy led to the writing and passage of the law known as the Chafee Act.
In her remarks at the House event, Rep. Mace told the crowd that while she was not an adoptee or former foster youth, she had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child. She called the dozens of advocates and foster youth in attendance — McIntyre among them — “the cream of the crop.”
“I look forward to working with each and every one of you. God bless you, I will be praying for you,” Mace said.
As she finished her comments and moved to leave the room, McIntyre approached her near an exit door, witnesses said.
Elliott Hinkle, a former foster youth and advocate for LGBTQ rights, said McIntyre shook her hand, and made a comment about how many transgender youth are in foster care, adding: “They need your support.”
“From what I saw, it was a normal handshake and interaction that I would expect any legislator to expect from anyone as a constituent,” said Hinkle, a consultant who has advised the federal government on issues affecting youth in foster care.
Later, Hinkle said, one of Mace’s aides returned to the reception and asked McIntyre his name and whether he would repeat what he had told the legislator. Two other people who witnessed the interaction confirmed that description of the brief episode.
McIntyre left the celebration, but he was later summoned back to the Rayburn Building by police.
Hinkle said his subsequent arrest “sends a chilling effect of, you’re not actually safe to go to the Capitol Hill and share an opinion that is true for you, that isn’t violent — because right now if you do, a congressperson might say that they were physically assaulted and call the police on you. So how would a young person in care feel safe?”
Michael Fitzgerald contributed to this report.
I hope everyone can see what the rabid right haters are trying to do. Not only gaslight everyone lying that a horrible assault happened and trans people are the fault and guilty party, but that the left endorses it. A woman was assaulted by a pro trans … trying to hint or make it sound like it was a trans man who did it. The log cabin people are the silliest as they claim she is a supporter of the LGBT, notice the last letter. They can not find a real attach on a woman by a trans person so now they are trying to make one up. Normal maga right dirty tricks. Hugs
With new restrictions on gender-affirming care, prisons confiscate underwear from trans people and compel them to cut their hair.
Earlier this fall, Florida officials ordered transgender women in the state’s prisons to submit to breast exams. As part of a new policy for people with gender dysphoria, prison medical staff ranked the women’s breast size using a scale designed for adolescents. Those whose breasts were deemed big enough were allowed to keep their bras. Everyone else had to surrender theirs, along with anything else considered “female,” such as women’s underwear and toiletry items.
This article was published in partnership with the Tampa Bay Times.
The examinations came after people who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria by the prison system’s own providers were brought into meetings at the end of September and told of the prisons’ new policy, which would make it nearly impossible for them to get hormone therapy and other gender-affirming medical care, according to interviews and emails with more than a dozen transgender women who said they attended the meetings.
Josie Takach, who is incarcerated in a men’s facility south of Tallahassee, said a male doctor told her to lift up her shirt, then glanced at her breasts and wrote something down without saying a word. When she tried to ask a question, a nurse “told me not to ask any questions and to just shut up and do what I’m told,” she recalled.
“It felt like I was being treated less than human,” she said.
The state’s chapter of the ACLU sued Florida’s Department of Corrections, which operates the prisons, in late October, calling the policy draconian and arguing it amounts to an unconstitutional ban on gender-affirming care. The new policy is the latest maneuver in the culture war around transgender people’s civil rights in the Sunshine State. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis championed a raft of anti-trans legislation, including a law passed last year that prohibited children with gender dysphoria from accessing treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy. A similar law in Tennessee was the subject of arguments in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court last week.
In Tallahassee Monday, a federal judge held a preliminary hearing in the ACLU case. The state had asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit altogether, and the ACLU asked him to stop the state from enforcing the new rules. The judge is expected to issue a ruling on these questions in the coming weeks.
The Florida Department of Corrections’ media office did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls with detailed questions, but in court papers responding to the ACLU’s lawsuit, the department’s lawyers argued that the new rules are “a carefully crafted policy that creates an individualized course of treatment for each inmate based on scientific evidence and clinical judgment.”
Under the new policy, the Department of Corrections stated that the prisons will only provide those with gender dysphoria with psychotherapy — and not cross-gender hormones — except “in rare instances … if necessary to comply with the U.S. Constitution or a court decision.” The policy argues that “unaddressed psychiatric issues and unaddressed childhood trauma could lead to a misdiagnosis of gender dysphoria,” and that cross-gender hormones “may be requested by persons experiencing short-termed delusions or beliefs which may later be changed and reversed.”
Florida has the country’s third-largest state prison system, with more than 87,000 people incarcerated at the end of September. Of those, 181 have been identified by the department as transgender, and about 100 received hormone treatment, according to documents state officials filed with the courts in the ACLU case.
The new policy was announced in meetings in several prisons across the state at the end of September. Transgender women who attended the meetings said they were told by officials that everyone identifying as transgender would be “re-evaluated” to assess whether they can have continued access to the care and accommodations they had been receiving, such as permission to grow their hair long. Officials have not told the women whether and under what circumstances they will be allowed to stay on the hormones they have been receiving.
Since then, more than a dozen transgender people said corrections officers ordered them to cut their hair. Mariko Sundwall told The Marshall Project that she was given a disciplinary infraction and spent 10 days in solitary confinement for refusing to cut her hair before officers put her in handcuffs and led her to the prison barber where her hair was cropped short.
“[Before] my hair was long enough for a ponytail. Now I have a buzz cut,” said Jada Edwards, incarcerated in Dade Correctional Institution south of Miami. “I’m very sad and depressed. I feel like they’re taking away my identity.”
Scores of women also had their breasts examined, according to filings in the suit and interviews with some of the women. A medical provider for the state assigned each transgender woman a rating on the Tanner scale, a system used by pediatricians to assess the development of adolescents during puberty. Several of the women said they weren’t told what stage was required for permission to keep their bras, but that almost everyone they knew had theirs taken away.
Some report hiding bras or sewing makeshift underwear — although now women’s undergarments are considered contraband and could result in disciplinary charges — because they feel naked and exposed without them.
“I feel like I’m 12 years old again, sneaking around wearing a bra,” said Takach, after her female undergarments were confiscated.
The new policy, which requires psychotherapy to treat underlying issues rather than treating the dysphoria, “comes off like conversion therapy,” says Daniel Tilley, the lead attorney from the ACLU of Florida. “We’re trying to change your fundamental nature to get you to stop being who you are.”
Sarah Maatsch, who is incarcerated in a men’s prison south of Orlando, said she was told that the gender dysphoria diagnosis she received from corrections department doctors in 2019 would now be considered a serious psychiatric illness. If she wants to continue her treatment, she said she was told, she would have to move to a more restrictive prison with more psychiatric services, but fewer work and programming opportunities.
“We are all devastated,” said Maatsch. “There are good days, bad days and the very bad days where a part of you hopes you have a heart attack.”
The new policy is the latest change in health care for transgender people in Florida after a 2023 law said any “governmental entity” in Florida “may not expend state funds … for sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures.” It did not name prisons specifically, but the Department of Corrections’ new policy says it “shall comply” with this law.
Shortly after DeSantis’ anti-trans bills were passed, transgender people in state prisons began reporting that medications were abruptly changed or delayed with little or no explanation.
Courts have held that prisons are required under the U.S. Constitution to provide gender-affirming hormones as needed. Dan Karasic is a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco who helped develop international standards for treatment of transgender people and who has testified against bans on gender-affirming care in Florida and elsewhere. He read Florida’s new guidelines at The Marshall Project’s request and called them “a fig leaf on their efforts to ban gender-affirming care. They are really trying to skirt the law, as determined by multiple courts, that gender-affirming medical and surgical care must be provided when medically necessary.”
The Florida prison system’s program to treat prisoners with gender dysphoria began in 2017, after Reiyn Keohane sued the state. The federal judge in the case said that the Department of Corrections’ refusal to provide Keohane with hormones and social accommodations, like women’s clothing and haircuts, caused her “to continue to suffer unnecessarily and poses a substantial risk of harm to her health.” During the course of the lawsuit, the state began providing gender-affirming hormone therapy, access to makeup, women’s clothing and other social accommodations within its prisons.
Behind the scenes, Danny Martinez, the state prison system’s medical director, began revising the state’s gender-affirming care program in 2020, he said in a court declaration in response to the ACLU’s recent lawsuit. As many as one-third of the people on hormones in Florida’s prisons were not attending group or personal therapy sessions, he said. “I observed no decrease, and in fact an increase in grievances to the medical and mental health staff from inmates receiving hormone therapy, indicating to me that the treatment solely based on hormone therapy without additional mental health treatment produced limited success,” he wrote. An email to Martinez seeking comment was not returned.
Martinez said he designed the new program based on a 2022 report by Florida’s Medicaid organization that found “insufficient evidence” that medical interventions for gender dysphoria are safe or effective. The report led to the state’s Medicaid program banning coverage of gender-affirming medical care. But a federal judge, in striking down the Medicaid ban last year, found that the report was “a biased effort to justify a predetermined outcome, not a fair analysis of the evidence,” and the report’s conclusion was “not supported by the evidence and was contrary to generally accepted medical standards.”
So far, none of the transgender women incarcerated in Florida have reported being taken off their hormones, but the looming threat has led to widespread anxiety.
“If they took away my hormone therapy treatment, I would be ready to end my life. I’m at that point,” said Sasha Mendoza, who is incarcerated in a men’s prison near Miami, in a declaration filed in the ACLU case. “It may sound drastic. But FDC just let me start my transition and I was doing so well, and now they are making me stop. I’m halfway there and halfway not there.”
Republicans are against the public having healthcare for some reason. Paxton, Texas leadership, and a good segment of the republican part simply want non-white people / all immigrants to suffer as much as possible. As if just by living they have committed the worst possible crime. Plus dreamers? Look republicans keep passing laws that kids are property so they had no choice being dragged to the US with their parents. Plus they have been here, raised here, never caused problems, added to the economy. Denying them healthcare is stupid and just trying to hurt them. Plus it costs taxpayers more as dreamers need care they must have but can’t afford to pay for. Hugs
PSA: migrants desperately seeking shelter may be in your area. Call ICE asap if seen.
Government run by gang thugs. That is what maga and the maga republicans want. tRump has always been a mob boss wannabe but was never good enough to really do it. He is a school yard bully who never grew up and has only regressed over the years. He thinks might make right, and that who ever can bully or threaten the most gets all the toys and their way on everything. Is this how we think things should be run? Is this for the good of the country? And if this is the way the republicans are going to act then how should democrats respond? Corporate media both print and video are afraid to attack tRump so they ganged up on Biden and the democrats, but they never pointed out that tRump was everything they attacked Biden for being. Now the brownshirts and thugs are making congress people offers they don’t dare refuse. Hugs
In recent days, allies of Trump adopted an approach that is not novel for the president-elect and his followers: Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him. The swarm of MAGA attacks that Sen. Joni Ernst has experienced is a warning of what’s in store for others who express skepticism of his personnel choices.
Read the full article. As I noted yesterday, among the attacks on Ernst are threats to resurface allegations of an adulterous affair.
If you are a bigot who hates gay people then you believe this false idea. If you are a racist you believe that black / brown people are inferior and erode standards. In fact that was said about blacks when the military was first integrated. However that notion got totally destroyed due to the bravery and proficiency of the black divisions in the 1930s and 1940s. Same with gay people. Most people in the military don’t care your sex partner as longs as they are not forced against their will to join you. It is only the bigots, the fundamentalist religious people. It is the Christians like Hegseth who has said that the goal is to make the military Christians who want all the gay people out. Notice it was gays he objected to, not lesbians. The upper military brass has studied this, the idea of LGBTQ+ in the military and all the studies show that the military benefits greatly for allowing the LGBTQ+ to serve openly. Look let’s be honest the military was full of gay people in the 1980s when I was in, both the Navy and the Army. We just stood the chance of getting blackmailed or discharged if a bigot like Hegseth found out. Again all of maga want desperately to return to the fantasy time of the 1950s thinking that was the best of times, but only if you were a white straight cis male. The rest of the population suffered from the unfair laws. Hugs.
New: Pete Hegseth Lamented Don't Ask Don't Tell Change, Women in the MilitaryThe Trump nominee's views on women and LGBTQ+ individuals raise questions about his fitness
Hegseth’s views risk alienating large segments of the armed forces and undermining morale by suggesting that certain groups are inherently less capable of serving. The Department of Defense has long moved toward embracing equality and diversity as pillars of strength. A leader who dismisses these values could jeopardize decades of progress and fail to inspire trust and cohesion among service members.
In a time when military challenges require unity and innovation, the Secretary of Defense must represent the best of modern leadership—respect for diversity, evidence-based policy, and a commitment to national security above outdated biases. Pete Hegseth’s comments reveal a personal belief system with negative views which raises doubts about his fitness to lead the military
This is more gang thuggery. Notice this part: … as he threatened local officials to open the city and its county jail to the will of federal immigration agents. Hugs
The very same weaponizing the government and the DOJ to attack enemies that tRump and the maga right claims is happening under Biden was routine under tRump. Notice the use of the deep state tools to gather information including personal information which should have been protected legally. That is why all these people who claim tRump won’t be vengeful and won’t weaponize the government are just blowing smoke, he will and he has. Hugs
Oh wow, think of all those poor people who voted for tRump because they believe everything he says and think he is a smart businessman. Too bad no one tried to explain to them that tariffs are paid by the consumer, that means the person buying the item. Oh wait yes there were people trying hard to tell them that. In fact the black woman they just couldn’t vote for was saying that very clearly as was everyone but right wing media that is deep into the cult of tRump. Hugs
This man has shown nothing but contempt for all normal behavior and respect for the those in congress. He has done a lot to destroy the post office and to make it unreliable. Remember that he was destroying sorting machines and shortening delivery routes during an election so many mail in ballots never got counted. In deeply rural areas no other mail delivery service covers that area so they depend on the post office. The post office is the only government service mandated in the constitution. Remember DeJoy is a multimillionaire who owns a company that competes with and contracts with the post office that he is in charge of. Sounds like a conflict of ethics that needs real instigating. Hugs
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy covered his ears during a congressional hearing as Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) repeatedly pressed him on postal service oversight. https://t.co/hdpF8bnhu4pic.twitter.com/CpSHfh52PF
As normal Musk is spouting off on stuff he knows nothing about. Homelessness is caused by several factors, a major one being the cost of housing. With hedge funds and wealthy investment companies buying up all the housing in an area and jacking up the rents while providing no maintenance support. They don’t care, a large profit is demanded. The fact that people can not afford to live these days because people like Musk demand ever more profit, a man who has so much money he could waste 44 billion on a whim and not suffer any lowering of his lifestyle. That is what life is like for these clowns. They have no conception of what life is like for the rest of us. By the way, the article he cites as his proof says the exact opposite of what Musk claims. That is why you need to read more than the headlines and look at the pictures. Providing housing does work, but as the article referenced states the programs need the correct amount of funding and supervision. Hugs
The article does not support the contention that providing shelter to people who need it is fruitless or that all unhoused people are criminals. Rather, the article details how the converted hotels in San Francisco were “underfunded and understaffed,” leading to substandard living conditions.
Read the full article. As the linked piece notes, a large percentage of the homeless are children, veterans, queer kids rejected by their parents, and women escaping domestic violence. But they’re all violent, drug-addicted liars, according to Musk, whose tweet currently has 25 million views.
Elon Musk accused the homeless of being violent drug addicts. Many are victims of domestic violence, hard workers with low paying jobs, multiple children to feed and clothe, veterans, students, young adults aged out of foster care, LGBTQ youth kicked out by intolerant parents etc pic.twitter.com/eUbrEECGdd
Delusion run strong in this one. Need I say more. A fox entertainment host is also claiming tRump will buy a large track of property for the US making more states. Hugs
Donald Trump is once again “joking” about annexing Canada into the United States, this time calling Justin Trudeau the “Governor” of the “Great State of Canada.”Totally normal and not crazy at all
Scottie's Playtime 