ANALYSIS: Trump Made $82 Million From Ireland And UK Properties He Relentlessly Promoted While In Office
Something everyone knew / knows. Trump failed at every business attempt he made, and he clearly was into money laundering. He got a break on TV when the show promoted him as a super wealthy, smart businessman that was a total fiction. But he burned through the nearly 500 million he made from that like a drunk sailor on their first shore leave after a long voyage. The financial experts say if he had put the 400 million his dad gave him in the bank, he would have far more money than he does now. The most profit trump ever made was when he was president, and that was because his focus as president was enriching him self. Too hell with the country, too hell with the laws, and to hell with the constitution, and worse every foreign decision was made with trump’s family profits in mind. Trump’s focus has always been only on himself and his needs.
There are a lot of great comments, but I am seriously pushed for time and Ron pushed himself too hard outside when the heat on him was 102. He has MS which means heat is the enemy, but he won’t listen until like now when he is feeling very bad, ill, sick. So I have to divert my attention to caring for him. Hugs
https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-race-ban-schools-4c4df1728f5265eee3684268035570c2
*** seriously this is a very important read to understand how the laws red states are enacting to restrict access to history, to black history, to LGBTQ+ protections, and to stop bullying are effecting the students. It is tragic. All for the white Chritian adults to be happy we are destroying the schooling and school years of minority kids. The artical is long and I couldn’t color it like I want to do, but it is super worth the read. Hugs ***
Oh for some reason my spell checker is refusing to work on these open tabs, so sorry about any thing I mispelled. Hugs
This is the republican fundamentalist Christian nationalist racist bigots right wants to happen. Cruelty is the goal, causing hurt and pain to anyone different from themselves. So disheartening. This made me ill to read, it is heart breaking that kids in 2023 have to go through the bigotry and hate that I did as a gay teen in 1970s. Us gay kids felt so alone and unable to find others like us. I now know that many kids at school were gay, but all of us were terrified to reach out to others or being found out. The lifelong damage that caused to me and so many other kids. The open bullying that was not stopped and even encouraged by homophobic conservative teachers. There was no safe space, no rainbow flags, nothing to read giving any insight to why I felt different. No positive role models or good gay characters in media to counter the hate coming from the religious right pushed hard by Anita Bryant with accusations of the most disgusting kinds. We cannot go back to those times; we must stop this regression somehow. Our elders were fighting for us then, putting their lives on the line to do so, we must do so again. As one student says in the article ““Taking away a whole group of people’s right to be who they are, that’s just like, this is a typical day. I think I was more scared that that was a reality than I was sad about the bill itself.”” On the errasing black history one student was forced to go outside the school to learn about the true history. Attending predominantly white schools means Harmony has had to go out of her way to learn about Black culture and history — often outside of school. That has shaped where she wants to go next. She’d like to attend a historically Black college and pledge a Black sorority. Hugs
NOLENSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The first encounter with racism that Harmony Kennedy can remember came in elementary school. On a playground, a girl picked up a leaf and said she wanted to “clean the dirt” from Harmony’s skin.
In sixth grade, a boy dropped trash on the floor and told her to pick it up, “because you’re a slave.” She was stunned — no one had ever said anything like that to her before.
As protests for racial justice broke out in 2020, white students at her Tennessee high school kneeled in the hallways and chanted, “Black lives matter!” in mocking tones. As she saw the students receive light punishments, she grew increasingly frustrated.
So when Tennessee began passing legislation that could limit the discussion and teaching of Black history, gender identity and race in the classroom, to Harmony, it felt like a gut punch — as if the adults were signaling this kind of ignorant behavior was acceptable. The law was broad, but to her, the potential impact was crushing.
“When I heard they were removing African American history, banning LGBTQ, I almost started crying,” said Harmony, 16. “We’re not doing anything to anybody. Why do they care what we personally prefer, or what we look like?”
As conservative politicians and activists push for limits on discussions of race, gender and sexuality, some students say the measures targeting aspects of their identity have made them less welcome in American schools — the one place all kids are supposed to feel safe.
Some of the new restrictions have been championed by conservative state leaders and legislatures, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who say they are necessary to counter liberal influence in schools. Others have been pushed by local activists or school boards arguing teachers need more oversight to ensure classroom materials are appropriate.
Books have been pulled from libraries. Some schools have insisted on using the names transgender students had before they transitioned. And teachers wary of breaking new rules have shied from discussions related to race, gender and other politically sensitive topics, even as students say they desperately need to see their lived experiences reflected in the classroom.
Among them are a transgender student at a Pennsylvania school where teachers are directed to use students’ birth names, a bisexual student in Florida who sensed a withdrawal of adult support, and Harmony, a Black student outside Nashville alarmed by efforts to restrict lessons on Black history.
For these and other students of color and LGBTQ+ kids, it can feel like their very existence is being rejected.
‘NEUTRALITY’ POLICY MAKES SCHOOL FEEL LESS SAFE
In late 2020, during the pandemic school closures, Leo Burchell started using different pronouns, trying on new clothes and shorter hair. The changes felt right.
At school outside Philadelphia, Leo started telling teachers about using a different name and they/them pronouns, and the teachers were immediately accepting. A shift to using he/him pronouns followed.
“I changed my name to Leo, and for a while it was tough,” he said. “I told some of my friends. I told the people close to me, but I wasn’t ready to come out to everybody yet … and I had the space to do that in my own time.”
To tell his parents, Leo shared a poem he had written about his transition. He worried it would be hard for them, as parents who had always identified as “girl parents” to three daughters. His mom, dad, older and twin sister were all supportive.
Then, over the last year, the Central Bucks School District’s board barred staff from using students’ chosen names or pronouns without parental permission.
The board passed what it called a “neutrality” policy that bars social and political advocacy in classrooms — a measure opponents have seen as targeting Pride flags and other symbols teachers use to signal support for LGBTQ+ students. Reviews of the appropriateness of books have mostly targeted LGBTQ+ literature.
Each step felt like chipping away at the spaces that made Leo feel safe enough to explore his gender identity.
Across the district, parents and students told the board stories of slurs, hate speech and sometimes violence directed toward transgender children. But other adults pressed forward in their effort to restrict inclusion. During one board meeting when a transgender student was speaking, rather than listening, a group of parents whispered to each other. One adult audibly asked: “Is that a girl?”
One man told the school board transgender people posed a risk of violence in bathrooms. Leo expected another adult in the room to interrupt what felt to him like hate speech. No one did.
So at the next board meeting, Leo spoke up. “Attacking students based on who they are or who they love is wrong,” he said. Leo has spoken regularly at meetings since.
Leo worries about what school will be like for younger transgender students.
“I don’t want my friends to be misgendered and deadnamed every single day just because they don’t want to come out to their parents,” Leo said. “It really just breaks my heart to know that some of my friends, you know, might not want to go to school anymore.”
NEW FLORIDA LAWS ‘TOOK THE AIR OUT OF ME’
Jack Fitzgerald, a high school student in Broward County, Florida, came out to friends by accident at first.
At a book club meeting, he blurted out: “I don’t really like romance books unless they’re gay.” He hadn’t told anyone he was bisexual, but it came out easily in a place where he felt comfortable and safe.
Later, he would come out to his mother while watching television.
“So, I am bi,” he told her.
“And why are you telling me this?” she said. A lifelong conservative, his mother told him she had long known about his sexuality. It was not a problem.
The confidence and relief he felt led Jack to start his school’s gender and sexuality alliance club. Last year, as a junior, he led a school walkout to protest a new law that banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten to third grade. The law, part of the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation pushed by DeSantis, was dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics and recently expanded to encompass all grades.
Jack was surprised by two things. Most students initially knew little about the bill. And once they learned about it, support for the walkout was overwhelming.
Teachers have been more cautious.
Jack remembers talking to his debate teacher about covering some controversial topics. “You have to realize, … teachers have families,” he told Jack, who took it as a comment on teachers worried about losing their jobs.
In another class, Jack recalls an environmental teacher told the class she could not answer a question during a discussion on climate change or she would be seen as “too woke.”
There also was a school board member, Debra Hixon, who won Jack’s admiration when she spoke last year at a town hall event for teens. Hixon, who became widely known after her husband was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, expressed support for LGBTQ+ students.
“I think I even told my mom. I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to vote for her next time because she seems so impassioned, and she genuinely came across like she cared,’” he said.
When Jack asked her in April how the school district would react to the new laws, Hixon said they were going to comply with the law.
The response shocked Jack. He thought back to how the district had stood up to the DeSantis administration over COVID-19 policies like mask mandates. When it came to protecting LGBTQ+ students, it seemed, there was no appetite for defiance.
“They didn’t even try to act like they were going to try, you know?” he said. “And it was so disappointing. It really took the air out of me.”
Hixon said she felt badly that Jack had the impression she was not defending LGBTQ+ students.
“We have a lot of new laws to navigate, and I am still processing what they mean for our district, so I don’t want to overstep and say something that is incorrect or inappropriate,” she said. “I am more guarded with my responses, but I promise I will continue to defend our students to ensure they feel safe and welcome in our schools.”
AFTER SPEAKING UP, SOME STUDENTS FACE BACKLASH
In Harmony’s freshman-year English class, a boy started playing with his mask and joked, “I can’t breathe, just like George Floyd,” Harmony recalled.
“I was really upset. And I called him out on it. And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Someone died,’” she said.
She told her teacher, who said she was sorry it happened but there was not much she could do. Nothing happened to the boy, Harmony said.
To be a Black student in this environment, and to see efforts to minimize the teaching of Black history, Harmony said, is a reminder of why it’s important that a full version of history is taught. A law passed by Tennessee in 2021 banned schools from teaching several concepts on race and racism, leading many teachers to avoid discussions related to race.
“If people are taking this out of schools, it’s making the ignorance go on, because they’re not understanding the pain and agony we have to go through,” she said.
The incident led Harmony to join the Forward Club, which works to promote cultural and racial inclusion t her predominantly white high school. The club’s members come from a diverse array of backgrounds — including the children of some adults who have disparaged the group.
At times, students who speak out against new policies have been targeted for harassment. In Williamson County, Tennessee, where Harmony goes to school, a political action committee accused another high school’s Black student union of promoting segregation. The PAC posted the time and place of the student group’s meeting on social media. Elsewhere, trans and nonbinary students who have spoken up about bullying have faced only more insults on social media.
For some, the hostility can be exhausting. Milana Kumar, a rising senior in Collierville, Tennessee, who is genderqueer, is comfortable with their identity among friends. But it’s not a conversation they bring up at school, where they said teachers and other students often do not respect chosen pronouns.
“I’ve never tried to navigate that, I think just as a response to save myself from a lot of hurt that would happen,” Milana said.
Recently, Tennessee passed a bill that would protect teachers from discipline or other consequences if they misgender their students. At the time, Milana was at the Capitol testifying on other legislation. She thought about how routine a day it was.
“Taking away a whole group of people’s right to be who they are, that’s just like, this is a typical day. I think I was more scared that that was a reality than I was sad about the bill itself.”
Attending predominantly white schools means Harmony has had to go out of her way to learn about Black culture and history — often outside of school. That has shaped where she wants to go next. She’d like to attend a historically Black college and pledge a Black sorority.
What Harmony wants, ultimately, is to be able to go to school like any other teenager and focus on learning. To go to a football game without hearing racial slurs. To stand up for herself without being seen as an aggressor.
Meantime, it’s something she’ll continue to speak up for.
“My sister is going to be an incoming freshman this year, and I want her to have a safe learning environment where she doesn’t have to really deal with all the ignorance and things,” she said. “I want her to be able to enjoy high school.”
___
The Associated Press’ reporting around issues of race and ethnicity is supported in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A shorter version of my last post on this subject, it has less of the information but a quicker read. I know some of my viewers don’t like long articles and I agree with that most times, but occasionally there are times when it is important to read all the information to understand everything being discussed. Hugs
Notice in the second paragraph they misuse and twist words. The job of the lawer sending the letters threatening schools is to now vice president of corporate engagement, responsible for “efforts to combat corporate cancel culture.” but the one doing the canceling is these very people. They want to cancel any support of the LGBTQ+, pride, trans people, or anything not fundmentlist religous views of gender and sex. They want to cancel the advances in civil rights and social acceptance trying to regress the country back to 1950s. Notice that the person they use to testify has been told repeatedly he doesn’t quailfy as an expert. This is entirely a religously driven orginaztion claiming to be a medical group using a simular name to the real child medicat group to cause confusion. Notice the group was started due to bigotry over gay people adopting. The report below exposes how religous views of sex, bigology, gender, and the desire to regress or prevent socail progress enlisted other religous bigots to make fake medical reports, fake medical claims based on their beleifs rather than medical science. In some cases they lied about what real medical studies data showed to make the very opposite claim to harm the LGBTQ+ / trans kids. There is much more in this longish story. This has take two days to color and accent. Sorry for the delay but wordpress has made it a lot harder to use the Classic editor as I use to use to post. Hugs
Documents left public on a Google Drive by anti-LGBTQ+ hate group American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), first reported by WIRED, reveal nearly a decade of coordination between ACPeds and another hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), to shore up anti-trans policy efforts and legal arguments with bespoke research.
Between Sept. 30 and Dec. 1, 2014, ADF sent letters to school boards in Minnesota, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin warning that they could be open to litigation for policies allowing transgender students to use appropriate facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms. On Dec. 5, 2014, ADF sent an email with a similar message to school superintendents across the U.S. The letters and emails were signed by Jeremy D. Tedesco, then senior counsel at ADF, now vice president of corporate engagement, responsible for “efforts to combat corporate cancel culture.”
Alan Sears at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 9, 2016. (Photo by Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire/Alamy Live News)
In a November 2014 blog post decrying a transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance in Houston, Texas, then-ADF president Alan Sears highlighted the letters and ADF’s campaign against LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections. Sears also repeated an anti-LGBTQ+ trope claiming that nondiscrimination protections put children at risk and the “safety implications” of LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws “are so obvious as to hardly need elaboration.”
The only problem for Sears and Tedesco was a lack of evidence to support their claims; and, to make the claims stick, someone needed to elaborate. A new trove of internal documents from the American College of Pediatricians suggests ADF turned to the group known to traffic in anti-LGBTQ+ “junk science” to “substantiate” many of its anti-LGBTQ+ talking points and provide medical justification for interpreting Title IX to exclude gender-identity protections. Together, the documents offer insight into how the groups manufactured legislative, legal and public relations challenges to medical science and public policy throughout the 2010s that have resulted in a rollback of abortion rights and nearly unprecedented restrictions on bodily autonomy in the U.S.
ACPeds did not respond to a emailed request for comment on Hatewatch’s findings.
Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. Restricting the interpretation of “sex-based discrimination” to apply only to straight, cisgender students has been one of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement’s longstanding goals. As trans visibility has increased, hate groups have argued, without evidence, that trans people pose a threat to women and girls, and that trans-inclusive nondiscrimination protections under Title IX jeopardize the safety of cisgender girls in particular.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jeremy Tedesco announces the group’s intent to file a lawsuit against the federal government over its agreement on locker room access for a transgender student on May 4, 2016. (Photo by Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Alamy Live News)
Before he sent the letters, Tedesco seemed to recognize the lack of scientific evidence supporting ADF’s arguments against LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws, according to documents Hatewatch reviewed. Metadata associated with one document, a copy of an email titled “Transgender Research Requests,” suggests the file originated with “JTEDESCO” at “ADF” on Aug. 11, 2014.
The message is addressed to Dr. Michelle Cretella, ACPeds’ executive director until 2021, and two others. It appears to be a follow-up to a previous call between Tedesco and the email recipients. The email asks for ACPeds to provide ADF with “white papers” on five topics related to LGBTQ+ children and healthcare. White papers are research reports that convey subject matter expertise, but are also used as marketing tools by corporations. The document from ADF to ACPeds even instructs the junk science organization on specifics, citing a 2013 Heritage Foundation article by Ryan Anderson arguing against same-sex marriage as an example of the “type of paper we have in mind.”
ACPeds has a reputation within the anti-LGBTQ+ movement as an organization that attempts to obscure its anti-LGBTQ+ ideology and its connection to the religious right using medical pseudoscience. ACPeds was founded in 2002 after about 60 members broke away from the 60,000+ member medical association the American Academy of Pediatrics over its support for adoption by same-sex couples. ACPeds is now led by Jill Simons and reports more than 600 members, although the group allows members who are not physicians.
The group claims to be above the influence of “the politically driven pronouncements of the day,” but the circumstances of ACPeds’ founding and its entrenchment within anti-LGBTQ+ policy networks make clear its primary purpose – to restrict LGBTQ+ rights. For example, an earlier document leak in 2023 that exposed emails between South Dakota, Idaho and Florida lawmakers and a network of anti-LGBTQ+ activists showed the influence of the group’s former president Dr. Quentin Van Meter, Cretella and the co-chair of ACPeds’ Committee on Adolescent Sexuality, Dr. Andre Van Mol, on the development and adoption of legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare across the country between 2018 and 2020.
A recent report by Kit O’Connell and Steven Monacelli at the Texas Observer details ACPeds’ admiration for conservative megadonor Monty Bennett’s successful campaign to shut down the Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program at Children’s Medical Center Dallas in late 2021 because the hospital provides gender-affirming care.
The new documents seem to confirm the national reach of ACPeds and its focus on restricting LGBTQ+ rights. In a Jan. 21, 2020, board conference call, the group discussed so-called “Vulnerable Child Protection Acts” that ban gender-affirming healthcare for young people, noting the laws were “drafted by ADF [Alliance Defending Freedom]/LC [Liberty Counsel] & ACPeds” and “are being introduced around the country.” The minutes indicate that to that point, “ACPeds members have been recruited to testify on behalf of these bills in GA, AL, KY and OH.”
Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, speaks at the 2018 Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 22, 2018. (Photo by Susan Walsh/AP)
The trove of internal documents also shows the group’s leadership has, for years, disregarded questions about its credibility, and even Cretella’s own qualifications for treating transgender people, in favor of anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy. In an email from Cretella dated Aug. 28, 2017, the former executive director says, “In the past I’ve been told by lawyers on our side that I do not qualify as an expert witness because I am not an academic and do not have experience caring for children with gender identity disorder.” The same year, Cretella authored dozens of letters to elected officials opposing gender-affirming healthcare and LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination policies.
In 2020, then-ACPeds president Quentin Van Meter was “discredited as an expert” on hormone treatment in a Texas court, but regularly appears before state lawmakers advocating against gender-affirming healthcare. ACPeds also regularly issues policy statements, amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs, domestically and internationally, and promotes appearances by its leadership in conservative media, disguising itself as a medical authority while spreading anti-LGBTQ+ “junk science.”
In 2017, Hatewatch reported on ADF’s “stable” of purported “expert” witnesses, including Dr. Paul Hruz and Dr. Allan Josephson, who were called to help defend discrimination against transgender students. Although both hold medical degrees, Hruz and Josephson were at odds with their professional organizations’ official positions on gender-affirming care and, like Cretella, reported never treating patients with gender dysphoria. What the witnesses held in common were anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs and a relationship to ADF, who sponsored a conference where the two met.
The new documents suggest that ADF’s recruitment of dubious “experts” began earlier than previously reported and, to an extent, anticipated the fight to interpret Title IX to include protections for transgender students. The documents also show that ACPeds appears to have recognized the request and eventually responded with a public statement and letter-writing campaign of its own, following ADF’s lead on messaging. Importantly, ACPeds purportedly offered a medical justification for an exclusionary interpretation of Title IX in accordance with ADF’s request.
In the 2014 “Transgender Research Request” message, ADF asks ACPeds for several policy statements that “substantiate” the claim that “psychological harm” especially “befall[s] girls/women” when their “privacy” is “invaded by males,” and “substantiate” the idea that being transgender is a “phase” and that “interpreting this common stage as gender identity confusion warrants treating a child as the opposite sex … and pursuing more drastic measures like … genital change surgery.”
The request is consistent with both ADF’s anti-trans political messaging at the time and its legal needs. In addition to leading a case brought by some conservative ministers campaigning against a trans-inclusive nondiscrimination law in Houston, Texas, ADF was leading the charge against gender-inclusive school nondiscrimination policies, helping challenge one as early as 2013. ADF attorneys would go on to testify and file amicus briefs, and ADF would file its own cases against LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws in public school districts throughout 2015-17. ADF would also author model legislation banning trans students from school sports in dozens of states.
Reflecting this context and ADF’s impending letters to school districts warning of potential litigation, the research requests asks if there is “any way to get the papers completed … by mid-November” [2014], but it would be “even better” if they could be done earlier.
The request also foreshadowed the direction of ADF’s legislative and legal strategy when it asked for policy statements to “substantiate” the claim that it is “inappropriate” and “could have harms” to treat gender dysphoria in children with affirmation, and caregivers should instead ignore it as “a phase.” A document from a professional organization that reaches these conclusions, the request suggests, would help ADF “make the point that interpreting Title IX to include protections for ‘gender identity’ [sic] will harm girls.”
Throughout 2015 and 2016, ADF continued to send letters to and testify before local school districts warning “no court” had interpreted Title IX to include gender identity, and that school districts with nondiscrimination policies that included gender identity could open themselves to litigation. The group also took on clients to challenge local school districts’ adoption of trans-inclusive policies and challenged the Obama administration’s guidance for schools that included gender-identity protections under Title IX after it was announced in May 2016.
A review of ACPeds executive committee meeting minutes shows that at the fall 2014 board meeting, held Oct. 3-4 in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Cretella was assigned an “action item” to “cooperate with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on joint statement concerning transgender use of restrooms in schools.” A statement titled “Sex-Segregated Bathroom and Locker Room Access is Best for Children” eventually appeared on ACPeds’ website in the spring of 2016.
In the short statement, however, ACPeds offered no medical evidence for why transgender people should be barred from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.
At the February 2016 board meeting in Houston, Texas, the minutes note the organization sent letters and a fact sheet about gender dysphoria to state legislatures, school districts and “several grassroots organizations” in Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia.
In a publicly available version of a letter titled “A Medical Response to DOE & DOJ Guidance for Schools” and dated after the Obama administration issued Title IX guidance, Cretella cites ACPeds founder Dr. Kenneth Zucker and controversial sexologist J. Michael Bailey to argue that neither gender-affirming care nor claiming “gender identity is the equivalent of sex as codified in Title IX” have any “basis in science.” “Human sexuality is binary by design,” the letter claims, while “all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm … are rightly recognized as disorders of human design.” Gender identity, ACPeds insists, does not “comprise a third sex” and is, therefore, not protected under Title IX.
One case, known as Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, illustrates how ADF’s request for research and ACPeds’ production of that research are packaged as part of ADF’s legal campaign against LGBTQ+ rights. The Boyertown case began in August 2016, when ‘Joel Doe’ started high school in the Boyertown, Pennsylvania, school district. Because the district previously adopted a “narrow” policy – consistent with recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics – to allow trans students to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, ADF and the Independence Law Center filed suit on behalf of Doe to block the policy.
Among other claims, ADF’s suit argued that Title IX “explicitly emphasizes the binary view of sex, not ‘gender identity,’ [sic] which is nonbinary” to support its assertion that Title IX should not be interpreted to protect trans students. ADF lost the case, although the group appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review a lower court ruling, leaving the policy in place.
As the case made its way to the Supreme Court, ACPeds leaders including Van Meter and Van Mol filed an amicus brief in support of Doe and ADF’s legal theory. The brief cites other ACPeds leaders including Cretella and Zucker and claims “gender affirming policies generally harm, rather than help, gender dysphoric children.” The brief repeats characterizations from ADF’s 2014 request by equating transgender identity to “a bit of play-acting,” claiming that transgender people are “impersonating” the opposite sex, and insinuating that nondiscrimination policies will result in a rash of transgender kids pursuing “drastic medical courses” like “surgical interventions.”
Van Meter and Van Mol’s 2018 amicus brief was filed by attorney Parker Douglas, who worked with ADF in 2018 on the R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes case, which sought to end employment discrimination protections for transgender people. Other court records show Douglas was later employed directly by ADF. Minutes from the ACPeds April 2019 board meeting confirm the brief, and a separate brief in the case of Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County (Florida), were filed as part of ADF’s and ACPeds’ campaign “against pro-transgender bathroom, locker room, and sports policy.”
Not long after ACPeds issued its public affirmation of “sex-segregated bathrooms,” in August 2016, the group issued a policy statement titled “Gender Dysphoria in Children” and an accompanying blog post claiming that “gender ideology harms children.” Neither the policy statement nor the blog post mention Title IX. However, they use language about binary gender identity and threats of surgical escalation that is similar to ACPeds’ previous school board letter.
Policy statements and amicus briefs are major tools used by ACPeds in their campaign to co-op the language of science to promote anti-LGBTQ+ ideology. On its website, ACPeds currently lists 66 policy statements and nearly three dozen amicus curiae briefs it filed, some with the help of the anti-LGBTQ+ groups Liberty Counsel and ADF, in cases opposing same-sex adoption and marriage, a case brought by ADF that argues professors have a constitutional right to misgender students, and other cases opposing abortion and nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students in public schools.
ACPeds compares its practice of producing policy statements to the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying both groups “employ similar first steps in producing a policy.” Although the American Academy of Pediatrics notes their policy statements are rigorously reviewed, including an evidentiary review and submission to multiple groups of peer reviewers before being weighed by the group’s board,
ACPeds’ process includes only evaluation by a “small committee” known internally as the Scientific Policy Committee. Then, provided three-quarters of the ACPeds “executive committee” supports a statement, it is “passed and published.”
Whereas the group’s policy statements receive at least a nominal committee review, journalists Madison Pauly and Emma Rindlisbacher previously reported that amicus briefs were typically the sole purview of the former executive director, Michelle Cretella. Others have reported that under scientific scrutiny,
ACPeds’ amicus briefs have been called into question for mischaracterizing scientific findings and cherry-picking data to fit conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion narratives.
The documents reviewed by Hatewatch also suggest that ACPeds understood that ADF was willing to subsidize its anti-LGBTQ+ policy advocacy, giving ACPeds a potential financial motive for complying with ADF’s anti-trans research requests. Minutes from the spring 2019 board meeting and executive committee conference calls show Cretella met with a senior attorney at ADF to solicit a $15,000 grant for a “white paper” that “refutes” the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care 7 – a document that provides best practices for treating trans and gender non-conforming patients. The minutes suggest that ACPeds knew the white paper could be used in future ADF litigation and that ADF was “willing to fund” the project.
ADF continues its efforts to challenge inclusive education practices as well as trans-inclusive school sports, gender-affirming healthcare, and abortion rights. ACPeds continues to help. In June 2019, the ACPeds executive board entertained a request for an amicus brief from ADF supporting the claim that “sex is innate and immutable.” The minutes show the request would overlap with a position paper, authored by Cretella and ACPeds’ current president Michael Artigues, titled “Sex is a Biological Trait of Medical Significance.” In 2020, Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley filed an amicus brief for ACPeds in an ADF case called Meriwether v. Trustees of Shawnee State University , which discusses the importance of “sex” to medical science.
Both Artigues’ position paper and the brief use language directly from ADF’s request, as recounted in the 2019 conference call, to argue that unlike sex, gender identity is not “innate” and “immutable.” In its brief, ACPeds argues a pseudoscientific case in support of ADF’s client by claiming gender identity is an ideological “flight from reality” that “threaten[s] the integrity of science and medicine.” ADF subsequently won the case.
Similarly, in 2021, ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of ACPeds against Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, using the same incendiary clams that gender affirmation will lead to “drastic” escalations in medical care that ADF first requested of ACPeds in 2014. Namely, the suit claims the department’s interpretation of nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act “require gender transition … surgeries and drugs on demand, even for children, no matter a doctor’s medical judgment.” A federal district court in Tennessee dismissed the case in November 2022. ADF filed a notice of appeal in January.
Photo illustration by SPLC (L-R Alan Sears, Jeremy Tedesco and Michelle Cretella)
Please notice, the person pushing this bill is a fundamentalist religious bigot who has tried to force their religion into the laws while trying to ban any representation of the LGBTQ+ in society. Their religious views are built on hate, not loving those on the outside of accepted society. It is a self-serving view that pushes not the religion of the Christ mentioned in the bible, but the intense desire to maintain the society that they enjoyed and want to return too or force into being, while showing their bigotry by remaining superior to any others. I did not get the feeling in my time in the SDA church that superiority was the goal Jesus preached. I wouldn’t have needed to wash a few people’s feet, causing such a problem in my abused teen mind. Hugs
** Federal judge blocked parts of DeathSantis anti-trans healthcare ban. He claimed it was clear that gender identity was real. He made the statement several times. I have not read the entire article as I am trying to do many things here at home. Let’s hope all these treatment bans get blocked. Despite the fringe haters groups claims, medical science data over decades of use has shown puberty blockers are safe and reversible and their use prescribed as best care by the major credible organizations. **
The Texas Tribune reports:
Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Friday a bill that bars transgender kids from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, though the new law could face legal challenges before it takes effect on Sept. 1.
Senate Bill 14’s passage brings to the finish line a legislative priority for the Republican Party of Texas, which opposes any efforts to validate transgender identities. Trans kids, their parents and LGBTQ advocacy groups fiercely oppose the law, and some have vowed to stop it from going into effect.
Texas — home to one of the largest trans communities in the U.S. — is now one of 18 states that restrict transition-related care for trans minors. “Cruelty has always been the point,” said Emmett Schelling, executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas.
Read the full article.
The bill’s author, state Sen. Donna Campbell, first appeared here in 2014 when she introduced a bill to legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination by businesses on the basis of “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
In February 2015, she appeared here when she joined a hate group in eating wedding cake to celebrate the 10th “banniversary” of Texas putting a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution.
They held that celebration nine months early because the US Supreme Court was about to rule on Obergefell.
My boss is right, The GOP is now run by the Klan.
Uh- “The GOP is now OPENLY run by the Klan“
What was once an honorable American political party was hijacked by theofascists.
The theofascists gained a major hold of the Republican Party when Ronald Reagan occupied the White House.
It’s been downhill for America — an increasing American takeover by the theofascists — since then.
probably the john birchers too
Always worth mentioning that one of the JBS’s founders was Fred Koch (father or Charles and David). Throughout 1963, the JBS put up signs in Dallas calling Kennedy a traitor.
I had a deep discussion with my 18yo granddaughter about her feeling on various LGBTQ issues. She’s cis hetero and absolutely loves the freedom her generation has to be whatever they want to be. She’s had gay friends, trans friends and non-binary friends. They exchange clothing with each other and love experimenting without rules.
My 17yo grandson…the same. He’s cis hetero also and his best friend is gay. He says they laugh at how stupid some people are in getting bent out of shape over gender expression and homosexuality. They just don’t care and accept people for what they say they are and are happy for them when they find love or new friends.
We live in Northern Colorado in a rather Republican area even though the state runs true blue. Our city is about 100,000 people surrounded by farming.
This is what keeps my hopes up when I hear the distressing news. This generation also likes the idea of contributing their voices in voting. My granddaughter and grandson will both be voting age in the next election. While they both said some of their friends are wishy washy on voting, most are excited to be able to finally vote. I don’t think we can compare the last generation to this one. Their experiences were very different and their political savvy amazes me. We have hope for the future!
I just retired from teaching high school after 38 years. I noticed around the late 1990’s that the students in general became kinder and more considerate of others. But if someone was bullied or mistreated, most of the students would be irate at the aggressor. They insisted that everyone be treated fairly.
These young people grew up in a time when our visibility, struggles, and victories as gay people became daily news. Almost everyone found out that they had LGBTQ family, friends, and acquaintances.
Now that Gen Z has reached voting age and tuned out well in the 2022 election, I am encouraged.
The kids are all right.
They’re on the right side but in the right sort of area for that. Kids growing up in corn country are brainwashed to hate and praise gun-toting jeebus, and there are far, far too many twentysomething men who are adherents to Andrew Tate and that brand of toxic masculinity.
We don’t know who will win yet.
Many of these open minded kids are from these farm and ranch families. Will some become their fearful parents, yes. But, not all of them. They go to school in the cities. They aren’t growing up in the cocoon their parents did. They refuse to hate who their parents say to hate. I refuse to give up hope. The pandemic had more of an influence on them than their parental upbringing.
kids brainwashed the same way in the trailer trash states of NC,and esp. SC,but its alll ok ’cause jaysus….
Sadly, that demo is irrelevant to current events because of two reasons: they don’t vote and they don’t donate Dark Money. Those who do both know precisely what’s coming up to vote in larger numbers over time… and they’re pre-empting their power. Right. This. Second.
And yesterday was National Donut Day!
I have a doctor’s appointment this morning, and after that I plan to ignore news and reply to comments. Plus if I can I will give a health update. So until we meet again, best wishes and hugs.
This is the terrifying person the maga right conservatives want to erase and claim is a threat to society. This is a really informative video by a young man who describes the steps it took to get what he needed to be the person he really was. This person’s lived experience put to lie all the myths the anti-trans people claim are happening, like mass pushing kids to be trans, no medical checks, and just rushing kids to sex changes. It amazes me that in 2023 we still have throwbacks to dark ages in understandings of biology and social development. Notice this boy knew his gender was wrong most of his early childhood and even at 9 years old he knew he was not a girl but should grow up to be a guy, but it became a serious issue for him at 12 years old. Puberty time. This is the same period of time the maga religious right wants to claim kids don’t know anything about gender or sexual attraction. And even though this boy did not have teachers telling him about pronouns or gender expression, he still realized he was not his assigned sex / gender. He talks about gender conversion, gender dysphoria, and the misinformation about trans kids / people. His story is interesting. It also is very informative and destroys a lot of the trans haters talking points, even to the point of no harm and many benefits of letting kids socially transition. Well worth watching. Hugs
Seriously informative on the bullshit of the republicans. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 