Category: Health / Healthcare / Illness / Vaccines

Iowa Republicans set hearing on bill removing civil rights protections for gender identity

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/25/gop-bill-would-remove-civil-rights-act-protections-for-transgender-iowans-gender-identity/72351459007/

What is it with this time in history that we have such a hard push by one political party to remove rights and remove protections from individuals.  For most of this country’s history, we moved toward expanding rights, to removing barriers and expanding opportunities for oppressed people.  Now the right / republicans are all about denying healthcare rights for women and trans people, denying the right to equal treatment in services, public spaces, housing, and even in expressing publicly support for the oppressed.   For example, taking away reproductive rights from women, and making illegal medically approved gender affirming best practices promoted by all the major medical associations.  Allowing public businesses to refuse services to anyone they think is gay or trans or has a religion the businesses disagree with, such as wedding planners, restaurants, home renters, adoption services, and even restricting movies / books based on dislike for LGBTQIA characters or plots.  Why do the republicans need to promote hate, why not just live and let live?   Hugs.  Scottie

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Stephen Gruber-Miller
Des Moines Register
 

Iowa Republican lawmakers have again proposed removing protections against discrimination for transgender people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act — and this time a key committee chair says he’s open to the conversation.

GOP lawmakers, who hold majorities in the Iowa House and Senate, have filed several bills over the past few years seeking to remove gender identity as one of the protected classes in the state’s civil rights law. But those bills have not received hearings.

This year, Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, has scheduled a subcommittee hearing on House File 2082, which would remove gender identity protections from the civil rights law and add gender dysphoria “or any condition related to a gender identity disorder” to the definition of a disability that would be protected under the law.

“I just want to hear a conversation about it,” Holt said. “I want to have a subcommittee and hear a conversation about it.”

In 2020, Holt used his position as Judiciary Committee chair to kill a similar bill that would have removed gender identity protections from the civil rights law.

The hearing, where the public can speak to lawmakers about the bill, will be held Wednesday at noon in room 102 of the Iowa State Capitol.

Keenan Crow, the policy and advocacy director for One Iowa, a group that advocates for LGBTQ rights, called Holt’s position “alarming.”

“Whenever you have somebody who’s willing to have a conversation about removing the civil rights of an entire class of people, that’s not a good conversation to be having,” Crow said. “Those rights should not be up for debate. Transgender people should be able to rent houses, get credit cards, get loans, go buy a sandwich, rent a hotel room, just like anybody else should be able to.”

More:Gender-affirming care ban for kids, trans bathroom bill are now Iowa law. What they do:

The Iowa Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, ancestry, disability and gender identity. Lawmakers added the protections for gender identity in 2007 when Democrats held the Iowa Legislature and governor’s office.

People who fall under one of the protected classes in the civil rights law are protected from discrimination in employment, wages, public accommodations, housing, education and credit practices.

Holt said he believes transgender people would still have protections under Iowa and federal law even if lawmakers stripped gender identity out of the civil rights act.

“I think there’s plenty of other places in federal and in state law that would prevent discrimination,” he said. “Because I think we should all be opposed to discrimination based upon someone’s skin color or gender identity or whatever the case may be.”

Holt called it “an interesting concept” to look at specifying that gender dysphoria could qualify as a disability that merits protection. He pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer that found people with gender dysphoria are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Crow said because that court decision is already on the books, adding gender dysphoria as a disability wouldn’t provide any additional protections. But it could harm low-income transgender Iowans who can’t afford to go to the doctor to receive a diagnosis, they said.

More:Iowa’s gender-affirming care ban is chasing transgender kids out of state for medical care

“Now they don’t have any housing protections and a landlord can literally just say, ‘no, I don’t want you in my space, you’re transgender,'” they said. “And there’s nothing that that person can do about it. So this is an extremely dangerous, extremely harmful bill.”

Holt didn’t guarantee that the bill would advance beyond the subcommittee hearing, but said he believes it’s time to have a conversation.

“I still have concerns about this, but I at least want to have the conversation and see where it goes,” Holt said.

Iowa Republicans in recent years have passed a flurry of laws impacting transgender Iowans, including banning transgender youth under 18 from receiving gender-affirming medical care, restricting transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity and banning transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

  

Iowa GOP Bill Would Legalize Anti-Trans Discrimination

 

April Smith 15 hours ago

The hate.

It never ends…

Sister_Bertrille  April Smith15 hours ago

There are some really awful people in this country, aren’t there?

John Conley  Sister_Bertrille14 hours ago

More than I ever knew.

Octoberfurst  John Conley 2 hours ago

Same here. Ever since a black man became president I’ve seen nothing but an escalation in hate in this country. It’s like a huge swath of this country decided that anyone who is not white, straight, male and Christian is subhuman and need to have their rights taken away. I am disgusted with my country.

S EQ  April Smith15 hours ago

It’s getting worse

another_steve  Swamp Yankee15 hours ago

Theofascist monsters (the core of today’s Republican Party) are as we speak working furiously to devise their challenge to Obergefell.

Their war against the trans community is a warm-up act for them.

Merely practice.

Tim 🇺🇦15 hours ago
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Tim 🇺🇦15 hours ago
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JWC 15 hours ago

They came for the blacks. I said nothing i wasn’t black Then they came for the jews, I said nothing I wasn’t jewish. Then the came for……..

ASFT15 hours ago

““I just want to hear a conversation about it,” Holt said.”

People’s basic rights aren’t (or shouldn’t be) up for conversation.

Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️  ASFT15 hours ago

We never have had a discussion about his Rights, have we?
Maybe the People of Iowa need to gather in the public square and begin that discussion…

liondon#traitortrash15 hours ago

It’s another distraction from poor governance…

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danolgb15 hours ago

Won’t they be surprised to find out that this, (Yes this SCOTUS!) has already ruled that gender identity is covered under sex discrimination.

Bruno  danolgb15 hours ago

Only under the Civil Rights Act of 64, which doesn’t include discrimination in the realm of public accommodations.

danolgb  Bruno15 hours ago

But that’s only because the Title II of Civil Rights Act of 64 which covers public accommodations doesn’t include sex.

 

Just so you know

Just so you know posting and replying to comments will be slow this morning.  I have a doctor’s appointment, seeing my new pulmonologist this morning.   Trying to figure out why I struggle with shortness of breath a lot of the time.   It may take a while.   Hugs. 

It did not work, but was kind of relaxing

Hello all.   So Sunday I decided to dump my video computer, clean out some old stuff, clean it up, reorganize it, and tweak the setting.   The reason was I had a Microsoft security update that kept faulting out on installation.  I did a quick search on it, did not see anything about it online, and Ron kept pushing me to do stuff to distract me.   I had suffered from the resurfacing of some abuse memories, I was feeling sick because on Thursday I had steroid injections into my spine, Friday I got allergy shots, and then this weekend I was to take my testosterone injection and that really hurts.  Then to top it off, the new roof has leaked and water leaked down into the ceiling and now we had mold growing in the bedroom.   

I decided to do a full deep clean.   I could have just reset windows and left the drive alone.   But I wanted a good clean up.  So I had the computer wipe the drives, remove everything on them, which means I had to rebuild the directories, switching things from the C drive to the D drive that has twice the room for data, photos, videos, movies, TV, and any other storage needs than the C drive which I save for program files.  That took most of one day.  Then Monday I was really feeling badly, and noticed I still had the same issue.  This time I did a deep dive search in the error codes and self repair.  It involved the size of the rescue environment section on the hard drive.  I was seeing how large I would have to make it to fix the issue when I saw that a lot of people who tried this self repair did not get the issue fixed and had to end up reinstalling windows and or repartitioning their hard drives again.  While I have good software for this and have done it many times, I was not wanting to spend the time because I was not feeling well.  Still am not. So I did what I should have done in the very first place.  I started reading the Microsoft Windows support community posts, and more important, the replies from Microsoft staff.   Turns out on Jan 10th they released a statement acknowledging the problem, the failure of the update to install on a lot of computers and they were working on a fix for the next batch of Windows updates.  Everything I had done until then and the next day and half of putting all my programs back on and their settings correct, was not needed.   Grrr.   All because I did not want to spend a half a day wading through all the community support stuff I ended up doing anyway.   Well I was distracted from the other issues.   Hugs.   Scottie

Great Biden Ad

Let’s talk about Trump, Nikki, and Nancy….

What in the fuck is going on

How far the down in the gang thug chaos are the republicans wanting to go?  Attacking the defenseless simply because they already have nothing and nowhere to go.   What happened to bettering society, making things better for everyone?  These people only want to make it great for them, the rest are for exploitation and amusement.  This country, the US, had a brief resurgence of enlightenment and now in the last 8 years, especially the last 3, the right wants to tear it all down, destroy anything good or enlightened in the country.   They mock decency and act like they are superior for being cruel.   I am at a loss these days what is driving these people.   I have seen them before, in my childhood.  I thought they were going extinct, yet here they are within inches of full power over everything.   Hugs.  Scottie

The bill would at the same time enhance penalties for drug use (specifically fentanyl, as it is their go-to talking point at the moment), and making it a felony to run away from the police…

Just anything that is observed among those whose living situation is so desperate, and basically saying it is illegal for anyone from a minority community to be fed up with this shit..

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Also, considering the rate of LGBT+ homelessness compared to the general population. 5% of the youth population in general, yet accounting for 25% of homeless youth. I consider the Bill to be specifically targeted at LGBT+ people.

http://banconversiontherapy…

Considering the above. Some bigoted parents could disown their kid, kill them, and claim it was homeless trespass?

Republicans Are Fighting to Let Bigoted Foster Parents Abuse LGBTQ Kids They Adopt

A new rule proposed by the Biden Administration would protect LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system by requiring adoption agencies to place them in homes that affirm their sexual orientations and gender identities. Republicans, however, have come out in opposition to the change.

Missouri just debated 8 anti-trans bills in a single day

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/01/missouri-just-debated-8-anti-trans-bills-in-a-single-day/

This is the most important issue the republicans think they have to deal with.  Trans and gay people / kids.  Not kids being hungry, not schools shootings, not educations test scores or financing.  Nope what bathroom a person can use and what medical treatment is available. 

The republicans think they have a winning issue with their base because these are hate bills, socially regressive bills.   But these are a driven minority fueled either by hate or driven by religious beliefs, possibly both.   The majority rejects that hate, that bigotry, that demand to control how others live.  These anti-trans bills mirror the anti-gay bills of the 1970s, and that mirrored the anti-race integration.  It is all about resisting changes in society and inclusion of those who are different.  It is about not progressing, instead wanting things to never change.  But look at history, every generation advances society in some way, with causing more friction with the older generations, that forget they changed society of their elders also.  Think of the bathroom bills and then think how white people did not want to share bathrooms or any place with black people.   The bathroom bills trying to keep trans kids from public bathrooms and out of locker rooms is the same bullshit that I faced as a gay man, these same people wanted to keep me from using bathrooms, using locker rooms claiming gay men would sexually attack straight men.  Sounds just like trans women would attack cis women.   The bills about keep trans people out of sports are very like the racial segregated sports teams in the 1950, claiming first black people were inferior then also saying that black men would take over the sports winning over the whites.  Does it all sound so familiar.  It is the same hate, same bigotry, just repackaged to use against a new group for these people to hate. 

Also these people just refuse to accept well known documented medical science / studies that show people are not made gay or trans, but born that way.   You cannot force a straight person to be gay, and you can not force a gay person to be straight.  Also while these bills forbid any mention of a non-cisgender or non-straight orientation, that requires the forced reinforcement of cis heterosexuality.  Hugs.  Scottie

The state is considering 41 other bills attacking transgender rights this year.
By  
An opponent of one of several anti-trans bills testifies before the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee.
An opponent of one of several anti-trans bills testifies before the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee.Photo: Screenshot

Lawmakers in both the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate debated a total of eight anti-transgender bills in a single day this week.

The measures, affecting trans people’s ability to access healthcare, bathrooms, and other facilities, and legal recognition of their gender identity, represent just a fraction of the 49 anti-trans bills Missouri Republicans have already introduced this month. Trans journalist Erin Reed described the latest wave of proposed laws as “a firehose of legislation that touches every aspect of trans people’s lives.”

RELATED:

Two students sue University of Missouri for denying trans-related healthcare

State law allows the university to provide gender-affirming care, but it still refuses to do so.

On Wednesday, Missouri’s Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee heard testimony on S.B. 728, one of two bills, which would establish a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” in the state. Among other provisions affecting school curriculum, S.B. 728 “prohibits public school officials from encouraging a student under the age of eighteen years old to adopt a gender identity or sexual orientation.” It also requires school officials to “inform a student’s parent within twenty-four hours if the student expresses confusion about their documented identity or requests to use personal pronouns that differ from their documented identity” and to “obtain written parental consent before allowing a student to use a name other than the name provided by the parent when registering the student for school and before encouraging a student to wear certain items of clothing.”

Effectively, the bill requires schools to out suspected trans and nonbinary students to their parents.

The committee was also scheduled to hear S.B. 770, another “Parents’ Bill of Rights” measure that included a ban on transgender girls participating in school-sponsored girls’ athletic teams. The hearing on S.B. 770 was canceled, however.

Meanwhile, in a nine-hour hearing, the state’s House Emerging Issues Committee took up seven separate anti-trans measures.

Two bills sponsored by Missouri state Rep. Brad Hudson (R) target access to gender-affirming healthcare. H.B. 1519 would allow healthcare professionals—including, as Reed noted, pharmacists, desk workers, and nurses—to refuse to treat trans people receiving gender-affirming care. During public testimony, opponents of the bill noted that it would not only legalize discrimination but could also result in cisgender, nonbinary, and intersex people being denied medication by providers who mistakenly assume they are trying to access gender-affirming treatment.

Hudson’s H.B. 1520, meanwhile, aims to strengthen and extend Missouri’s “Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.” Signed by Gov. Mike Parson (R) last June, the law banned all gender-affirming care for minors but included an exception for trans young people who are already receiving such care, as well as a sunset provision, causing the law to expire in August 2027. H.B. 1520 would remove those provisions, forcing trans minors who are currently receiving gender-affirming care to detransition and extending the law beyond the 2027 expiration date.

State Rep. Ashley Aune (D) noted that the sunset provision was included in the SAFE Act so that lawmakers could assess the law’s “unintended consequences.” Hudson responded that there is already “enough evidence out there” and that he knows “these drugs are not good for kids.”

In fact, every major American medical association has acknowledged that gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, is evidence-based, safe, and effective for the treatment of gender dysphoria.

The committee also heard testimony on four bills aimed at banning transgender Missourians from using bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity. Proponents of such laws almost universally focus, without evidence, on the supposed threat transgender women pose to cis women in public restrooms. But during Wednesday’s hearing, opponents noted that, far from alleviating any discomfort, the bills would force masculine-presenting trans men to use women’s restrooms and also endanger trans women forced to use men’s facilities while doing nothing to prevent actual predators from accessing women’s bathrooms.

Additionally, one of the bathroom bills introduced by state Rep. Adam Schnelting (R), H.B. 2308, would legally define the terms “male” and “female” according to a person’s reproductive biology.

Similarly, H.B. 2309, also introduced by Schnelting, aims to legally redefine “gender” as synonymous with biological sex. According to Reed, the bill would end any legal recognition of transgender people in the state and would likely affect the gender markers on their birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and other forms of ID.

Schnelting testified that his bills would affect “bathrooms, dorms, shelters, everything” and might even “nullify sex-specific scholarships” given to trans individuals.

Democrats on the committee blasted their Republican colleagues’ seemingly single-minded focus on limiting the rights of transgender Missourians. State Rep. David Tyson Smith (D), who noted that Republicans make up 40 percent of his constituents, argued that people want lawmakers to address “inflation, grocery store prices.”

“People are wondering why we are spending time on this,” Smith said.

State Rep. Doug Mann (D) sounded an even more urgent alarm. “When it became no longer acceptable to be anti-gay in public, people moved to being anti-trans,” he said. “When you start to attack an already vulnerable group of people, you do not stop with that already vulnerable group of people.”

“I’m going to be honest, I do not trust that this is the end,” Mann said of the anti-trans bills. “Everything I have seen as a student of history, as a student from politics, as a student of government, tells me that it is going to go farther. Things are going to get worse, not better.”

Gay couple sells restaurant after enduring years of torture from MAGA neighbors

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/01/gay-couple-sells-restaurant-after-enduring-years-of-torture-from-maga-neighbors/

Notice that the gay couple were there first.  But you know how tolerant and easy to get along with maga Christians are … only if they get their own way all the time.  Otherwise they are violent self entitled gang thugs who can not be talked to, reasoned with, coexisted with.  Look how tolerant these people are of LGBTQIA kids and people who are a different non-white skin tone, that is how they want communities and businesses to be run also, totally intolerant and aggressively unaccepting demands they be removed from the public.   Hugs.  Scottie.  

A slew of dirty tricks marked the MAGA family’s reign of terror, and the couple couldn’t take it anymore.
By  
Gay couple sells restaurant after enduring years of torture from MAGA neighbors
The Front Porch Market and Grill in The Plains, VAPhoto: Screenshot DMV Adventures

Gay restaurant owners William Waybourn and Craig Spaulding have hung up their aprons.

The longtime married couple have sold the restaurant they founded several years ago, the Front Porch Market and Grill in The Plains, VA. The new owner will change the name and try to make a fresh start with the restaurant’s combative Christian and MAGA-loving neighbors, Mike and Melissa Washer, who did their best to drive the gays next door out of business — and succeeded.

RELATED:

MAGA couple caught throwing rat in gay-owned restaurant’s property as part of a long war

They’re trying to get their gay neighbors’ restaurant closed by any means possible.

“In the end, the decision was easier to make than I expected,” Waybourn told The Washington Post, which detailed the years-long feud — instigated by the Washers not long after they moved into the neighboring property — last July.

News of the Christian couple’s dirty tricks and clinical obsession with making their neighbors’ lives miserable brought Waybourne and his husband support from around the world.

“On some level, I know I am disappointing many people, especially those who have stood by us these past three years, many of whom I have never met from places I’ve never heard of,” Waybourn explained.

But he said he knows that for his own health and well-being, and for his adopted town’s, he needed to step away from the toxic environment that the MAGA-loving Washers had created.

For the longtime gay rights activist, who proudly flew a rainbow flag from the restaurant’s porch since it opened, there was no compromising with people who planted a rat by his back door and then shared a picture of it with the local health department. Incessant complaints over garbage, deliveries, parking, noise, Covid mandates, permitting, no-trespassing orders on both sides, and a lawsuit followed.

Restaurant employees reported Mike Washer had called the owners “f****ts”.

The Washers were MAGA bullies, and there was no stopping them.

Last summer, Waybourn was knocked back with a mild stroke, revealing the toll the Washers’ campaign was exacting.

For a few months after that, things quieted down.

But in November, after the Washers’ son was elected to the Board of Supervisors, a fresh round of harassment came The Front Porch’s way. The restaurant’s so-called Christian MAGA oppressors were relentless.

“My presence became so personal with the Washers that removing myself would give the new owner and the restaurant a fresh start,” Waybourn concluded.

The couple sold the Front Porch at the end of December.

Waybourn describes the restaurant’s new owner, chef and restaurateur Shawn Malone, as “very laid-back.”

Malone has a five-year lease on the building from Waybourn and Spaulding, with an option to buy. Plans are for the new business to open in February under the name Bistro at the Porch. 

Waybourn hopes Malone can set the restaurant — and the relationship with his neighbors — on a new course. “I don’t think he’s going to personalize the Washers’ antics as much as I have.”

“I just can’t continue to have the emotional turmoil of owning a business that I can’t enjoy,” Waybourn said.

Biden administration allocates $700,000 to sex-ed program for trans boys

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/01/biden-administration-allocates-700000-to-sex-ed-program-for-trans-boys/

Thankfully President Biden is still able to enjoy the progressive advances in society.  His republican right wing critics are against any advances in society since the 1940s / 1950s.  The majority of the country wants to move forward with equality and acceptance of differences, and a small vocal violent minority wants to rule over every aspect of others peoples lives.  That fraction demands that others live by the same restrictions, same hates, and do only what they do.  Most base their belief in how others must be forced to live in the land of the free by their religious beliefs, regardless of what the other person believes.  This small fraction of the public wants the right to have complete control over their own children and yours, denying other parents that right to raise their children progressively in a way.  Hugs.  Scottie

Trans teenage boys are just as likely to get pregnant as cisgender girls, but sex-ed programs don’t speak to them.
 
By 
President Joe Biden
Photo: Shutterstock

The Biden administration is dedicating approximately $700,000 to a sexual health program aimed at pregnancy prevention for transgender boys.

The Department of Health and Human Services has approved a grant to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research in California, which will spearhead a program focused on sex education and condom usage for trans boys.

RELATED:

Trans students win as Supreme Court leaves school bathroom victory in place

It’s not the first time the high court have allowed trans students to pee in peace.

The grant summary explains that trans boys are “at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable.”

It also said trans youth who were assigned female at birth “may be less likely to use condoms when having sex with people who have penises and are at least as likely as cisgender girls to be pregnant.” The organization plans to try out a texting strategy originally designed for cisgender teenage girls who are sexual minorities. It will also hold focus groups to learn more about the sex lives of trans boys.

The Biden administration has been investing in other trans health programs as well. In 2022, it granted $1 million to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to study thrombosis risks in trans youth undergoing hormone therapy, according to Shore News Network.

Despite the relatively small grant allocated for the sexual health program, the right is outraged that any funds would be appropriated to help trans youth. Conservative media blasted the program as “woke” and “radical” and mocked the fact that it is indeed possible for boys to get pregnant.

President Biden has been the most vocal president in history in support of trans rights. Most recently, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest supporting a trans inmate seeking gender-affirming care. The administration has also participated in multiple lawsuits against states seeking to ban gender-affirming care.