What happened to parent’s rights? Why can just one parent stop a field trip to see a play because they object to any children seeing an actor in a female role, yet a parent has no rights to help their child socially transition? The only parents who have rights are maga republican parents. This is the state that the king wannabe governor calls the “free state of Florida”? This is the enforcement of a Puritan religious belief and view of Christian morality. This is enforcing a dress code on the entire public to agree with church doctrine of how the bible says to dress. This is real child abuse to separate children from loving parents following the medical advice of doctors, following the approved accepted best practice from the major medical organizations including the AMA and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is the largest professional association of pediatricians in the US. But what do doctors know compared to religious conservatives who get their medical information from a book written 2,500 years ago before people even knew about germs. Think of what the republicans are doing and have managed to do in the last two years. They have set the country and civil rights back 100 years and have set child labor laws back 150 years. Every poll says what the republicans are doing is unpopular and unliked by the majority, the republicans don’t care. Why, because they want to rule the people, not serve the public. Hugs
The Florida legislature passed a bill Thursday that will let the state take transgender minors away from their families if they are receiving gender-affirming care.
The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 26–13, mainly along party lines, and the House shortly after by a vote of 83–28, again along party lines. The measure now goes to the desk of Governor Ron DeSantis, who has previously expressed support for it and will likely sign it into law.
If he signs it into law, the measure will allow the state to take custody of a child if they have been “subjected to or [are] threatened with being subjected to” gender-affirming care, which includes puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.
“Parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit, and government intervention should be a last resort,” Senate President Kathleen Passidomo [photo] said in a prepared statement Friday.
“Unfortunately, all too often we are hearing about treatments for gender dysphoria being administered to children, often very young children. That’s just wrong, and we need to step in and make sure it isn’t happening in our state.”
The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Clay Yarborough, appeared here in March for his bill banning minors from public drag shows.
He first appeared on JMG in 2010, when as a member of the Jacksonville City Council he declared that gays, Muslims, and atheists should not be permitted to hold public office, otherwise God will smite the fuck out of the country.
One of the many, many reasons I pleaded with the American public to care about family separation. It was just a matter of time before it came for all of us
The bill that would grant Florida the power to seize trans-identifying children receiving or likely to receive treatment for gender dysphoria is sponsored by Republican state senator Clay Yarborough, who is a follower of Christ. @Clay_Yarboroughhttps://t.co/rp83mxCzFNpic.twitter.com/7mWED7xNva
100% horseshit, its all made up to attack trans people. period. Its a start too, they’re not going to stop with trans kids. Next it will be taking children from gay couples and we need to know thats where its going.
Kids are being operated on. Approximately 1.5% of breast augmentation surgeries are preformed on girls under the age of 18. Thousands of cisgender girls receive “gender affirming” surgery every single year.
Funny how no Republicans are writing laws to take those girls away from their parents.
I’ve been tired of the Florida bashing but now I’m feeling the same way. Fuck this state. I want to get the fuck out of here ASAP. I just hope I can sell my home quickly. This place has become a quagmire of insanity. It’s horrible for all of the good LGBTQ+ people who choose to live here, including myself.
Parents, get your Trans kids out of the state now. I am sure they included provisions to detransition the children too. You know he’ll sign it. Anything to hurt someone.
You can bet Florida is going to eventually be setting up contracts with “ministries” to “counsel” the trans kids they steal from their parents to pray away the trans.
These people are mostly religiously driven, and they use fake or misleading information from debunked failed studies to push their hatred. They chose their name to confuse people who mistakenly think they are the highly-regarded American Academy of Pediatrics. They are behind a lot of the misinformation about abortion. One of their main targets right now is trans children. This includes pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder, one that’s capable of spontaneously causing others–à la the dancing plague–to adopt similar thoughts and behaviors. There is a lot more in the article. How ever since I reloaded my computers the classic editor is not working like it use to allowing me to color in the pages easily. I have to figure out if it is a setting on my security programs or if WordPress changed the editor. Hugs
A Google Drive left public on the American College of Pediatricians’ website exposed detailed financial records, sensitive member details, and more.
PHOTOGRAPH: ROHANEH/GETTY IMAGES
A DOCTORS’ ORGANIZATION at the center of the ongoing legal fight over the abortion drug mifepristone has suffered a significant data breach. A link to an unsecured Google Drive published on the group’s website pointed users last week to a large cache of sensitive documents, including financial and tax records, membership rolls, and email exchanges spanning over a decade. The more than 10,000 documents lay bare the outsize influence of a small conservative organization working to lend a veneer of medical science to evangelical beliefs on parenting, sex, procreation, and gender.
The leaked records, first reported by WIRED, offer an unprecedented look at the groups and personnel central to that campaign. They also describe an organization that has benefited greatly by exaggerating its own power, even as it has struggled quietly for two decades to grow in size and gain respect. The records show how the College, which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes as a hate group, managed to introduce fringe beliefs into the mainstream simply by being, as the founder of Fox News once put it, “the loudest voice in the room.”
The Leak
A WIRED review of the exposed data found that the unsecured Google Drive stored nearly 10,000 files, some of which are compressed zip files containing additional documents. These records detail highly sensitive internal information about the College’s donors and taxes, social security numbers of board members, staff resignation letters, budgetary and fundraising concerns, and the usernames and passwords of more than 100 online accounts. The files include Powerpoint presentations, Quickbooks accounting documents, and at least 388 spreadsheets.
One spreadsheet appears to be an export of an internal database containing information on 1,200 past and current members. It contains intimate personal information about each member, including various contact details, as well as where they were educated, how they heard of the group, and when membership dues were paid. The records show past and current members are mostly male and, on average, over 50 years old. As of spring 2022, the College counted slightly more than 700 members, according to another document reviewed by WIRED.
Data visualization: DataWrapper
The breach exposes some material dating back to the group’s origin. It includes mailing lists gathered by the group of thousands of “conservative physicians” across the country. (One document outlining recruitment efforts states in bold, red letters: “TARGET CHRISTIAN MDs.”) The ongoing recruitment of doctors and medical school students seen as holding Christian views has long been its top priority. The leaked records indicate that more than 10,000 mailers were sent to physicians between 2013 and 2017 alone.
While the group’s membership rolls are not public, the leak has outed most if not all of its members. A cursory review of the member lists surfaced one name of note: a recent commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, who after joining in 2019 asked that his membership with the group remain a secret. (WIRED was unable to reach the official for comment in time for publication.)
The SPLC’s “hate group” designation, which the College forcefully disputes, haunted its fundraising efforts, records reveal. A barrage of emails in 2014 show that the label cost the group the chance to benefit from an Amazon program that would eventually distribute $450 million to charities across the globe. Amazon would deny the College’s application, stating that it relied on the SPLC to determine which charities fall into certain ineligible categories.
A strategy document would later refer to a “unified plan” among the College and its allies to “continue discrediting the SPLC,” which included a campaign aimed at lowering its rating at Charity Navigator, one of the web’s most influential nonprofit evaluators. One of the group’s admins noted that despite SPLC’s label, another charity monitor, GuideStar, listed the College as being in “good standing.”
The College’s GuideStar page no longer says this and appears to have been defaced. It now reads, “AMERICAN COLLEGE OF doodoo fartheads,” with a mission statement saying: “we are evil and hate gays :(((”
The Google Drive containing the documents was taken offline soon after WIRED contacted the American College of Pediatricians. The College did not respond to a request for comment.
The Talk
Leaked communications between members of the group and minutes taken at board meetings over the course of several years speak loudly about the challenges the group faced in pursuing its deeply unpopular agenda: returning America to a time when the laws and social mores around family squared neatly with evangelical Christian beliefs.
Many of the College’s most radical views target transgender people, and in particular, transgender youth. The leak, which had been indexed by Google, includes volumes of literature crafted specifically to influence relationships between practicing pediatricians, parents, and their children. It includes reams of marketing material the College aims to distribute widely among public school officials. This includes pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder, one that’s capable of spontaneously causing others–à la the dancing plague–to adopt similar thoughts and behaviors.
This is one of the group’s most dubious claims. While unsupported by medical science, it is routinely and incuriously propagated through literature targeted at schools and medical offices around the US. The primary source for this claim is a research paper drafted in 2017 by Lisa Littman, a Brown University scholar who, while a medical doctor, was not specialized in mental health. The goal of the paper was to introduce, conceptually, “rapid onset gender dysphoria”—a hypothetical disorder, as was later clarified by the journal that published it. Littman would also clarify personally that her research “does not validate the phenomenon” she’d hypothesized, since no clinicians, nor individuals identifying as trans, had participated in the study.
The paper explains that its subjects were instead all parents who had been recruited from a handful of websites known for opposing gender-affirmative care and “telling parents not to believe their child is transgender.” A review of one of the sites from the period shows parents congregating to foster paranoia about whether there’s a “conspiracy of silence” around “anime culture” brainwashing boys into behaving like girls; insights plucked in some cases straight from another, more insidious forum (widely known for reveling in the suicides of the people it has bullied).
A 2021 prospectus describing the group’s focus, ideology, and lobbying efforts encapsulates a wide range of “educational resources” destined for the inboxes of physicians and medical school students. The materials include links to a website instructing doctors on how to speak to children in a variety of scenarios about a multitude of topics surrounding sex, including in the absence of their parents. Practice scripts of conversations between doctors and patients advise, among other things, ways to elicit a child’s thoughts on sex with the help of an imaginative metaphor.
While the material is not expressly religious, it is clearly aimed at painting same-sex marriage as aberrant and immoral behavior. Physicians lobbied by the group are also told to urge patients to purchase Christian-based parenting guides, including one designed to help parents broach the topic of sex with their 11- and 12-year-old kids. The College suggests telling parents to plan a “special overnight trip,” a pretext for instilling in their children sexual norms in line with evangelical practice. The group suggests telling parents to buy a tool called a “getaway kit,” a series of workbooks that run around $54 online. The workbooks methodically walk the parents through the process of springing the topic, but only after a day-long charade of impromptu gift-giving and play.
These books are full of games and puzzles for the parent and child to cooperatively take on. Throughout the process, the child slowly digests a concept of “sexual purity,” lessons aided by oversimplified scripture and well-trodden Bible school parables.
Another document the group shared with its members contains a script for appointments with pregnant minors. Its purpose is made evidently clear: The advice is engineered specifically to reduce the odds of minors coming into contact with medical professionals not strictly opposed to abortion. A practice script recommends the doctor inform the minor that they “strongly recommend against” abortion, adding “the procedure not only kills the infant you carry, but is also a danger to you.” (Medically, the term “fetus” and “infant” are not interchangeable, the latter referring to a newborn baby less than one year old.)
The doctors are urged to recommend that the minor visit a website that, like others shared with patients, is not expressly religious but will only direct visitors to Catholic-run “crisis pregnancy centers,” which strictly reject abortion. The same site is widely promoted by anti-abortion groups such as National Right to Life, which last year held that it should be illegal to terminate the pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape victim.
The Professionals
The effort to ban mifepristone, which the Supreme Court paused last month pending further review, faces significant legal hurdles but could ultimately benefit from the appellate court’s disproportionately conservative makeup. Most of the legal power in the fight was supplied by a much older and better funded group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has established ties to some of the country’s most politically elite—former vice president Mike Pence and Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett among them.
A contract in the leaked documents dated April 2021 shows the ADF agreeing to legally represent the College free of charge. It stipulates that ADF’s ability to subsidize expenses incurred during lawsuits would be limited by ethical guidelines; however, it could still forgive any lingering costs simply by declaring the College “indigent.”
In contrast to the College’s some 700 members, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)–the organization from which the College’s founders split 20 years ago–has roughly 67,000. The rupture between the two groups was a direct result of a statement issued by the AAP in 2002. Modern research, the AAP said, had conclusively shown that the sexual orientation of parents had an imperceptible impact on the well-being of children, so long as they were raised in caring, supportive families.
Data visualization: DataWrapper
The College would gain notoriety early on by assailing the positions of the AAP. In 2005, a Boston Globe reporter noted how common it had become for the American College of Pediatricians “to be quoted as a counterpoint” to anything the AAP said. The institution had a rather “august-sounding name,” he wrote, for being run by a “single employee.”
Internal documents show that the group’s directors quickly encountered hurdles operating on the fringe of accepted science. Some claimed to be oppressed. Most of the College’s research had been “written by one person,” according to minutes from a 2006 meeting, which were included in the leak. The College was failing to make a splash. In the future, one director suggested, papers rejected by medical journals “should be published on the web.” The vote to do so was unanimous (though the board decided the term “not published” was nicer than “rejected”).
A second director put forth a motion to create a separate “scientific section” on the group’s website, strictly for linking to articles published in medical journals. The motion was quashed after it dawned on the board that they didn’t “have enough articles” to make the page “look professional.”
The College struggled to identify the root cause of its runtedness. “To get enough clout,” one director said, “it would take substantial numbers, maybe 10,000.” (The College’s recruitment efforts would yield fewer than 7 percent of this goal in the following 17 years.) Yet another said the marketing department advised that “the College needs to pick a fight with the AAP and get on Larry King Live.” Another board member, the notes say, felt the organization was too busy trying to “walk the fence” by neglecting to acknowledge that “we are conservative and religious.”
The discussion between Sam, Emma, and the crew as they break down what this woman is really saying here is the important part of the video. Notice the woman says she spent all her time on the floor praying but it seems she neglected to talk to the very doctors who could have given her daughter the help she really needed. Yes a book written 2,500 years ago has the updated medical knowledge to treat gender issues of teenagers today. This woman wanted a religious womanly future for her daughter, she did not care what the daughter felt or what was going on in the daughter’s body. The only things she was worried about was her god and her daughters continuing to be in her god’s good graces. As she says at one point, she wanted her daughter to have a shining womanly future. It seems the daughter was rejecting the woman’s religious views, and that couldn’t be allowed. Hugs
Montana Republican State Representative Kerri Seekins-Crowe made controversial remarks during a floor debate on a bill that would ban transgender youth from participating in school sports.
Seekins-Crowe said that she would rather her child died than be transgender. Seekins-Crowe’s remarks were met with widespread condemnation. Many people called her remarks hateful and transphobic. Some people also called for her to resign from her position.
Seekins-Crowe’s remarks are a reflection of the deep-seated transphobia that exists in Montana and across the country and that transgender people are still facing discrimination and violence. They are also a reminder that there is still much work to be done to achieve equality for all people, regardless of their gender identity.
let’s be clear, the higher court said the lower court does not cite any statute, case, or other source of law as a foundation allowing for its issuance. They basically just used their political belief that pushed Ivermectin with no credible evidence it works on a virus. Notice I wrote credible evidence, a half-assed non-peer reviewed anecdotal study proves anything, just like the edits required by the Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo demanding the real medical evidence that disagrees with his position be removed from a report that he then claimed proved him correct. Hugs
FILE – A syringe of of ivermectin — a drug used to kill worms and other parasites — intended for use in horses only, rests on its box in Olympia, Wash., on Sept. 10, 2021. Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, May 2, 2023, that a hospital could not be forced to give the deworming drug to a patient with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a Wisconsin hospital cannot be forced to give ivermectin to a COVID-19 patient.
The 6-1 ruling overturned a lower court order that required Aurora Health Care to administer ivermectin to John Zingsheim, a patient who was placed on a ventilator due to COVID-19 complications.
Zingsheim’s nephew, Allen Gahl, was authorized to make his medical decisions and requested the hospital treat his uncle with ivermectin.
However, Aurora determined “the use of ivermectin in the treatment of John Zingsheim’s COVID-19 symptoms does not meet the standard of care for treatment.”
A Waukesha County Circuit Court initially ordered Aurora to administer the ivermectin before altering its order to require Gahl to find an outside physician for Aurora to credential and provide the ivermectin.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court found the circuit court erroneously exercised its discretion because it cited “no law in either its written order or its oral ruling.”
“The circuit court’s written order granting Gahl relief does not cite any statute, case, or other source of law as a foundation allowing for its issuance,” the court said in Tuesday’s filing, later adding, “Absent any citation to law establishing a legal basis for the order, we cannot determine that the circuit court employed the reasoning process our precedent demands.”
Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication typically used on livestock, grew in popularity among conservatives after it was hailed by some as a miracle cure for COVID-19.
However, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, and a National Institutes of Health panel found trials failed to show a clinical benefit from treating COVID-19 with ivermectin.
A gay teen who was driven to attempt suicide after his mother came under the sway of the group Moms for Liberty is telling his story publicly.
A Vice exposé details how Moms for Liberty went from a local campaign to harass one Florida school board member to a national organization driving the politicization of education in the U.S. in just a few years. The piece also includes the heartbreaking story of one of those LGBTQ+ students, Tony, and his mother, Carolyn, whose last names are withheld to protect their privacy.
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As writer David Gilbert reports, after being outed by his boyfriend’s parents in early 2022, Tony was berated by his Southern Baptist mother, who told him he was going to hell and forced him into counseling with their pastor, who told him that being gay was evil.
After Tony’s mental health began a precipitous decline—he reportedly stopped playing baseball, locked himself in his bedroom, and engaged in self-harm—Carolyn briefly consented to allowing him to undergo counseling with the local chapter of LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Rainbow Youth Project.
At the same time, however, Carolyn contacted Moms for Liberty after learning about the anti-LGBTQ+ group on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. For months, the group reportedly bombarded Carolyn with anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation, convincing her that Rainbow Youth Project would “convince Tony to have his private parts removed and changed.”
When Carolyn pulled her son out of counseling with the group, Tony told her, “Mom, you just killed me.” He attempted suicide that same day.
Carolyn continued to engage with Moms for Liberty, receiving a visit from a member of the group’s Austin, Texas chapter who suggested that she sue Rainbow Youth Project for “damaging” her son. Tony’s mental health continued to decline, and a second suicide attempt followed.
“They were trying to indoctrinate me to be a foot soldier for their cause,” Carolyn now says of Moms for Liberty. “Looking back, it was never about Tony. It was about them.”
Crushingly, Tony says that his experience is not unique. He says he knows of at least four other young people who participated in a Rainbow Youth Project virtual peer group “that have been through exactly what I have been, where Moms for Liberty and Fox News have totally pulled their parents into this same trap my mom went through.”
Carolyn now holds Moms for Liberty partially responsible for what the now 19-year-old Tony went through after she found him unconscious on his bedroom floor, overdosing. “I’m responsible because I was literally putting him second to all of this, for lack of a better term, bulls**t, that they were giving to me, and I will never do that again. Ever,” she says.
“They are preying on people and when you have a question and you’re trying to save your kid, they took advantage of me and I honestly believe they do that with other parents.”
Tony said that he and his mother are working on their relationship.
“A lot of people hold her responsible for what happened and she is partially responsible. We’ve had that discussion and she knows how I feel about that,” he said. “But she’s really trying. Our relationship is getting stronger. We’re not there yet, but it’s getting stronger.”
As one California school board member told Vice, the group is “inciting people with conspiracy theories and inflammatory accusations about grooming that put trustees, teachers, and LGBTQ students in real danger.”
Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgment-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
I want to thank Ali for noticing the post I tried to do on this did not include the link or the article. Thankfully because she added the links so I could find it again. I don’t know why it did not post correctly. I wanted to make sure to post the photos so people can see that these are real kids going through a real gender issues that these laws would prevent, forcing them to go through a puberty of the gender they won’t want to live as or feel is them. That makes it much harder to live as the gender they are, including using the bathroom of the gender that they are and looking so different they need to spend what money they have on cosmetic surgeries to fit what some people say the look for their gender should be. Remember this fact, less than 2.4% of kids who transition regret it for many different reasons, they mostly do it for peer / family pressure often related to religion. Also a fact most should understand kids don’t turn gay or trans from reading or watching which includes seeing gay / trans / or drag queen people. It is not a choice, it is who you are. Hugs
CORRECTS IDENTIFICATION TO ELLE PALMER FROM ASHER WILCOX-BROEKEMEIER – Elle Palmer, 13, speaks during an interview, Monday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Salt Lake City. Republican lawmakers across the country are banning gender-affirming care for minors. The new laws have parents scrambling to secure the care their kids need. They worry what will happen if they can’t get the medications they’ve been prescribed, especially as their kids start puberty and their bodies change in ways that can’t be reversed. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, practices guitar in his bedroom, Monday, March 27, 2023, in Sioux Falls, S.D. When Asher began menstruating, he felt a terrifying disconnect between how his body was changing on the outside and how he felt inside. His mom began researching online to understand what was going on with her son, while Asher’s father, Brian, looked to doctors for expertise. With referrals from his longtime pediatrician, Asher met with therapists and doctors who helped explore his history, personality and feelings over his whole life. (AP Photo/Erin
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Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier sits for a portrait in his bedroom, Monday, March 27, 2023, in Sioux Falls, S.D. More than a year and a half ago, doctors prescribed puberty blockers and birth control to slow breast development, regulate menstruation and lower the pressure of his disconnect with his body. He’s 13 now, and finds solace in music to ground him in a world of occasional bullying and constant pronoun mistakes. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, poses for a portrait with his sticker-adorned skateboard, Monday, March 27, 2023, in Sioux Falls, S.D. Asher still struggles with moments of gender dysphoria. Friendships that were once strong fizzled after Asher came out as transgender. Parents have disinvited him from their houses out of fears he’s a “bad influence.” (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
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Elle Palmer, 13, poses for a photograph, Monday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Salt Lake City. Elle came out as a transgender girl in fifth grade. Now in seventh, she planned to start hormone treatment this summer so potential side effects wouldn’t interfere with her life during the school year, especially her team’s extracurricular math competitions. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, practices with his skateboard at an elementary school playground after school hours on Monday, March 27, 2023, in Sioux Falls, S.D. Asher’s parents have noticed his emotions stabilize through his treatment. “From a parent’s view, I see him as being able to be himself authentically, which is wonderful for him,” Elizabeth said. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — As a third grader in Utah, mandolin-playing math whiz Elle Palmer said aloud what she had only before sensed, telling a friend she planned to transfer schools the following year and hoped her new classmates would see her as a girl.
Several states northeast, Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier listened to punk rock in his room, longing to join the shirtless boys from the neighborhood playing beneath the South Dakota sunshine. It wasn’t until menstruation started, and the disconnect with his body grew, that he knew he was one of them.
Both kids’ realizations started their families on a yearslong path of doctors, therapists and other experts in transgender medicine.
Now teenagers, their journeys have hit a roadblock.
Elle Palmer, 13, plays her mandolin, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Republican lawmakers across the country are banning gender-affirming care for minors. Restrictions have gone into effect in eight states this year — including conservative Utah and South Dakota — and are slated to in at least nine more by next year.
Those who oppose gender-affirming care raise fears about the long-term effects treatments have on teens, argue research is limited and focus particularly on irreversible procedures such as genital surgery or mastectomies.
Yet those are rare. Doctors typically guide kids toward therapy or voice coaching long before medical intervention. At that point, puberty blockers, anti-androgens that block the effects of testosterone, and hormone treatments are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the United States for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors’ organizations including the American Medical Association.
The new laws have parents scrambling to secure the care their kids need. They worry what will happen if they can’t get the medications they’ve been prescribed, especially as their kids start puberty and their bodies change in ways that can’t be reversed.
“My body’s basically this ticking time bomb, just sitting there waiting for it to go off,” said Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, now 13.
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, practices guitar in his bedroom in Sioux Falls, S.D. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
___
Elle remembers her first day at the school after she transferred. Before leaving, she came downstairs in rainbow sparkle-embroidered cowboy boots her mother worried would only spur bullies. Taunts from kids at Elle’s prior school drove her into depression so deep she had suicidal thoughts.
But on that first day, a boy told Elle he loved her boots. Some kids bullied her, but classmates and teachers were far more supportive than at her prior school. Elle discovered new passions in hip hop and drama class, and she settled into a new school and a truer version of herself. She started to see a therapist as her uncertainty about how she fit in the gender spectrum grew more pressing.
Elle came out as a transgender girl in fifth grade. Now in seventh, she planned to start hormone treatment this summer so potential side effects wouldn’t interfere with her life during the school year, especially her team’s extracurricular math competitions.
Elle Palmer, 13, poses for a photograph in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
But then Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a gender-affirming care ban in January. In a compromise, the law let kids keep taking medications if they were already on them. So Elle’s mom rushed to get her treatment months earlier than planned, as did other parents.
The waitlist at one Utah clinic swelled to six months. Doctors were confronted with difficult decisions about who to get in for appointments.
Elle’s medication arrived in the mail just before Utah’s law went into effect. A small stick implanted in Elle’s forearm is slow-releasing hormone blockers to prevent the effects of male puberty from taking hold. Eventually she may be prescribed estrogen, and she and her parents will have to navigate the next steps, and whether they’ll find doctors to continue her care.
At least for now, they have a reprieve.
“It feels like we can breathe again now,” Cat Palmer said.
Elle Palmer, 13, speaks during an interview, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
___
There’s no relief for Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier’s family — not yet.
When Asher began menstruating, he felt a terrifying disconnect between how his body was changing on the outside and how he felt inside.
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier sits for a portrait in his bedroom. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
Elizabeth began researching online to understand what was going on with her son, while Asher’s father, Brian, looked to doctors for expertise. With referrals from his longtime pediatrician, Asher met with therapists and doctors who helped explore his history, personality and feelings over his whole life.
Nearly two years ago, doctors prescribed puberty blockers and birth control to slow breast development, regulate menstruation and lower the pressure of his disconnect with his body.
He’s 13 now, and finds solace in music to ground him in a world of occasional bullying and constant mistaken pronouns. He practices Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” on guitar, plays trumpet in the school band and is rehearsing various singing roles for the Cinderella school musical. When he’s not thinking about testosterone to lower his voice or eventually getting top surgery, he looks forward to playing in the high school marching band next year.
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, pulls an a album by The Offspring from his cassette tape collection. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
Asher still struggles with moments of gender dysphoria. Friendships that were once strong fizzled after Asher came out as transgender. Parents have disinvited him from their houses out of fears he’s a “bad influence.”
But his parents have noticed his emotions stabilize through his treatment.
“From a parent’s view, I see him as being able to be himself authentically, which is wonderful for him,” Elizabeth said.
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, poses for a portrait with his sticker-adorned skateboard. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
Now he and his parents worry they’ll have to start over.
In February, South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem signed a law banning the medications and procedures that doctors have increasingly prescribed for transgender teens.
Asher’s current doctors in South Dakota won’t be able to prescribe his medications, so the family is looking for a new doctor in neighboring Minnesota, where the Democratic governor has signed an executive order explicitly protecting gender-affirming care for minors. They’re hoping to find a clinic close enough they can drive to appointments and don’t have to pay for hotel stays.
The planning has been time-consuming. Logistical questions to their current South Dakota doctors for referrals have gone unanswered. They want to beat whatever onslaught of patients from other states enacting similar bans will bring to providers in Minnesota, but also want to maintain as much normalcy for Asher as they can.
The sudden twists in Asher’s trajectory makes him question why his health care is of concern to politicians.
“Even though trans people don’t make up a big percent of the population doesn’t mean that we’re not part of it still,” Asher said.
Asher Wilcox-Broekemeier, 13, practices with his skateboard at an elementary school playground after school hours. (AP Photo/Erin Woodiel)
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The full consequences of the bans on care for minors aren’t yet clear.
Dr. Nikki Mihalopoulos, an adolescent medicine doctor in a Salt Lake City specialty clinic with transgender teens, worries the new laws will make families too scared to seek help and doctors too scared of losing their licenses to provide care.
In the middle are kids like Elle and Asher.
Multiple studies have shown that transgender youth are more likely to consider or attempt suicide and less at risk for depression and suicidal behaviors when able to access gender-affirming care.
Both sets of parents are trying to shelter their kids from the stress and anxiety caused by the recent changes in the laws.
After years of worrying about their kids’ safety and mental health, they still fear what could happen if they can’t find the drugs their kids have been prescribed.
“My kid being OK is my number one priority. I know what the suicide rate is. I do not want my child to be a statistic,” Cat Palmer said of Elle.
How dare anyone question the king wannabe? How dare anyone say something different from the authoritarian thin-skinned guy who runs the state like a mob boss. Just like the trump who first made him governor DeathSantis thinks he is smarter than anyone else and knows more than any other. He attacks those who even dare ask him a question he doesn’t like, and tries to destroy those who dare to disagree with him. One of DeathSantis claims is his standards teach students civic, but I guess it is only credit worth if it is republican ideology being supported, not time to go to the capital and protest the hateful republicans. Hugs
The administration is coming after the Leon superintendent’s teaching certificate as well.
Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis, accusing the educator of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.
Such a revocation by the state Department of Education could allow DeSantis to remove Leon County Superintendent Rocky Hanna from his elected office. The Republican Governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and medical care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.
Disney also sued DeSantis this week,saying he targeted its Orlando theme parks for retribution after it criticized the governor’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that then banned the discussion of sexuality and gender in early grades, but has since been expanded.
Hanna has publicly opposed that law, once defied the governor’s order that barred any mandate that students wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and criticized a DeSantis-backed bill that recently passed that will pay for students to attend private school. The Leon County district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.
“It’s a sad day for democracy in Florida, and the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, when a state agency with unlimited power and resources, can target a local elected official in such a biased fashion,” Hanna said in a statement sent to The Associated Press and other media Thursday. A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for reelection next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.
“This investigation has nothing to do with these spurious allegations, but rather everything to do with attempting to silence myself and anyone else who speaks up for teachers and our public schools in a way that does not fit the political narrative of those in power,” Hanna said.
He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group, requesting his removal.
“We are fighting tirelessly with our local school board to no avail,” Brandi Andrews wrote DeSantis, citing Hanna’s mask mandate, his opposition to the state’s new education laws and directives and his public criticism of the governor. She noted that she had appeared in a DeSantis reelection TV commercial.
Her letter was stamped “Let’s Go Brandon,” a code used by some conservatives to replace a vulgar chant made against President Joe Biden. DeSantis is expected to soon announce he will seek the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in next year’s election. Andrews issued a statement saying her complaint against Hanna was one of many.
Education department spokesman Alex Lanfranconi said in a statement that while officials would not discuss the Hanna investigation in detail, “nothing about this case is special.”
“Any teacher with an extensive history of repeated violations of Florida law would be subject to consequences up to and including losing their educator certificate,” he said. The threatened revocation was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.
Before any punishment is meted out, Hanna can have a hearing before an administrative judge, attempt to negotiate a settlement or surrender his license. He said in his statement he has not decided what he will do.
Hanna received a letter from Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. earlier this month saying an investigation found probable cause that he violated a 2021 DeSantis directive barring districts from mandating that students wear COVID-19 masks. Hanna required students to wear masks after a Leon third grader died of the disease early that school year. The fight went on for several months until Leon and several other districts had their legal challenge rejected by the courts.
Diaz also cited a memo Hanna issued before this school year telling teachers, “You do You!” and to teach the way they always had, allegedly giving instructors approval to ignore new laws enacted by DeSantis and the Legislature. That includes the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, which supporters call the “Parental Rights in Education Act.”
His letter also cites the district’s failure for one month in 2020 to have an armed guard or police officer at every school as required after the 2018 Parkland high school massacre. Hanna said then that there weren’t enough available officers to meet that requirement and the education department cleared him of wrongdoing.
Diaz also complains that parents were told that their children could get an excused absence if they chose to attend a February student protest at the state capitol opposing DeSantis’ education policies.
Offering students a “free day off of school” to attend the rally “is another example of (Hanna) failing to distinguish his political views from the standards taught in Florida schools,” Diaz wrote.
“If God is for us, who can be against us? Certainly not some mentally ill tranny freak show of a four star admiral in Biden’s cabinet. Why don’t the bishops at this Catholic Church say that? That’s why they hate me, because I do and they don’t and they know it!
“If God is for us who can be against us? Certainly not the mentally ill—and they are mentally ill!—not the mentally ill tranny freak show man in Biden’s Department of Energy, who stole women’s luggage at the airport.
“Do not take offense when I call out the freaks in their freak show. It’s not my opinion. Almighty God said it, ‘A woman shall not wear a man’s garment nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing, for anyone who does such a thing is an abomination to the Lord your God.’
“So, we should crush like the vermin that they are—and they are—every filthy school board member or teacher who tries to shove their mentally ill tranny freak show down the throats of our precious children.” – Father James Altman.
As you can see below, we’ve heard from Altman before.
Right-wing activist Zoe Warren repented on behalf of "government" at the "re-covenanting ceremony," declaring that this nation has become so wicked that "we deserve for our women to be raped and our children to be ripped apart.” https://t.co/BjHHnSQShShttps://t.co/ELOfq7L0HFpic.twitter.com/QZdfDArZQO
I had May 10, 1933 as the date the Nazi’s took the records from Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute, and began rounding up the trans and gay patients for extermination.
BOTH dates are correct – the book burning was on May 6th, and the records were taken on the 10th
I notice he has no beard. I also suspect he’s eaten shrimp and bacon at one time or other. Just one more sick, angry bastard with deep-seated issues, raging against any convenient target.
Notice it is his god, not a generic god or an inclusive what ever your deity may be god. Nope he wants to marry the nation to his Christian god and screw anyone with a different religious view. Hugs
Right-wing priest James Altman ranted that "we should crush like the vermin that they are—and they are—every filthy school board member or teacher who tries to shove their mentally ill tranny freak show down the throats of our precious children." https://t.co/BjHHnSQShShttps://t.co/ELOfq7L0HFpic.twitter.com/9ziVTimPBJ
FILE – A syringe of of ivermectin — a drug used to kill worms and other parasites — intended for use in horses only, rests on its box in Olympia, Wash., on Sept. 10, 2021. Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, May 2, 2023, that a hospital could not be forced to give the deworming drug to a patient with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Scottie's Playtime 