After a county library director in Tennessee was fired for refusing to take down a Gay Pride-themed book display, Columbia Tennessee resident Jessee Graham spoke at a Board Of Trustees meeting opposing the firing and laying out the hypocrisy of taking such action to supposedly prevent abuse. Graham told the meeting, “I’ve never been assaulted at a drag show but i have been at church…twice!”
Republican Bo Hines wants victims of rape and incest to go through “a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government” to determine if they can get an abortion.
Hines advocated for this “death panel”-esque review process for women seeking an abortion in an interview with local TV station WRAL.
Hines has long advocated for extreme restrictions on abortion – he told the Raleigh News & Observer that “Abortion should be made illegal throughout the United States. No exceptions.”
In April, Hines called abortion the “greatest moral atrocity” and said it was a “mass genocide that occurred in our country.”
“Bo Hines would make women and girls who have already experienced horrific trauma beg for their right to get an abortion from a panel of complete strangers,” said DCCC spokesperson Monica Robinson.
“Bo Hines has demonstrated a disgusting lack of empathy for women this entire campaign. He doesn’t deserve the power to make health care decisions for us in Congress.”
How about a new public doctrine regarding abortions and all matters to do with sex, health and reproductive functions and decisions: New Rule: Mind your own fucking business.
Let’s have men appear before a community board and explain why they need Viagra. And they must show up with their wife and inquire as to if she is still fertile or not, because only married men should be having sex, and only for procreative purposes. They should also have to do a demonstration that they actually can’t get it up, to ensure that the medicine is for them and not for someone else.
Imagine a rape/incest victim having to tell total strangers what happened, and them questioning her. I wonder if this guy has a daughter and would present her before a committee where they question her about her rape and sexual history. No, he would send her off to her ‘aunt’s house” in NY or CA.
“I stand before this committee, requesting community approval of boner pills because….my wife got my massively jacked up pickup truck in the divorce & due to some unfortunate private discourse, I’m not eligible to own guns. So, with no other available penis extenders, I really need my boner pills. I need ’em right away, we got us a big family reunion coming up, if ya know what I mean.”
This man help push a police of separating children from their parents at the Southern border. He belongs to a party that has cut funding for child healthcare, food assistance programs, school meals, and any assistance program that helps kids. Now suddenly the focus on trans kids. They love the culture wars and worrying about the sexual organs / gender expression of other people. Hugs
A deluge of radio spots and mailers targeting transgender children is hitting swing-state voters as part of a broad ad campaign directed by prominent Trump administration alums. Polling rarely registers transgender-related issues as a top priority for voters, with other topics like the economy and public safety taking the lead in this midterm cycle.
But America First Legal, launched by longtime Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller, has plastered airwaves and mailboxes with the issue ahead of the election — all without mentioning candidates currently running for office, as both groups are registered nonprofits.
Ads targeting transgender children have spread in at least 25 states across the political spectrum — from Texas to Illinois to Michigan — in the last month.
Radio ads and mailers — which fly under the radar more than TV spots — targeting transgender kids are flooding swing states, @mar1ssamart1nez and I report: https://t.co/QThf55KgZB
What the fuck. I simply cannot imagine having the time, energy, or other resources to be so vehemently opposed and oppressive toward a demographic that poses absolutely zero threat to oneself. Good grief, dude. Take up knitting or ceramics or something.
I wonder if those who tried to use the movement she helped build and the other haters will continue to use her and her prior comments without mentioning she has recanted what she was preaching. Hugs
She tried to “do everything to make these feelings go away,” but the only thing that worked “was accepting them.”
Like the ex-gay movement that rose to prominence in the early 2000s and then came crashing down as leaders recanted their “conversions,” the detransition movement is showing similar signs of a crack-up.
Ky Schevers is just one of the prominent voices of the detransition movement to reconsider her choice to reject her gender evolution and publicly denounce transition. She began her transition in college but ended it after coming to the belief that gender dysphoria was a false idea caused by misogyny and trauma, a theory she shared widely in interviews and online.
Now Schevers – who is transmasculine and uses she/her pronouns – has regrets about her place in the detrans movement. From 2013 to 2020, she regularly wrote and made videos about her detransition. She was featured in several major publications – even interviewed by anti-trans journalist Katie Herzog – to promote the idea that transgender identity isn’t legitimate and that gender dysphoria was a mix of internalized sexism and trauma response for her.
But now she’s speaking out against the movement she once supported.
“Trans people deserve access to support, and it makes no sense to shut down people’s access to medical transition just because some people end up detransitioning,” she told Slate.
The number of people reporting detransition is small. According to a study this year from UCLA’s Williams Institute, 1.3 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, or 0.05 % of the population. Another 300,000 youth, ages 13-17, do so, as well.
Of those who transition, about eight percent report detransitioning, according to a 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, and most – 62 percent – of that eight percent said detransition was temporary. A 50-year survey in Sweden revealed about two percent of the trans population regretted undergoing gender-affirming surgery.
Schevers said the detransition movement she helped spark became overtly transphobic and repressive and left no room for doubt or questioning individuals.
While she came to believe her own gender dysphoria was in check, it came roaring back over time. “My sense of being a woman unraveled, and I was feeling more like a dude or a gender weirdo,” Schevers said. “But I was fighting against these feelings because I’d built a life in the detransition community, and I knew a lot of the other women in the community wouldn’t be happy with it if I came out as trans.”
The detrans movement assigns a variety of reasons to what they consider the false concept of gender dysphoria and provides attendant solutions to the non-existent problem.
Detrans promoters liken the urge to transition to drug or alcohol addiction, encouraging sufferers to avoid triggers and commit to abstinence, concepts adopted from 12-step programs. They characterize dysphoria as internalized misogyny stemming from a lack of self-love. One theory, known as “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” describes being transgender as a social contagion spread among adolescent girls online, like accusations of witchcraft among young women at the Salem witch trials.
Schevers says of her own dysphoria, “I tried to explain it in a radical feminist framework, and find the root causes, and do everything to make these feelings go away, and that didn’t really work. The only thing that did work to make them go away was accepting them. I had to make a move to accept them.”
Again politics and hate over accepted medical science. Gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other professional groups as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals. One doctor wrote ““By proposing an alternative standard of care, Florida is ignoring the broad consensus among the medical community and the weight of peer-reviewed medical literature,” AAP president Dr. Moira Szilaygi said in written testimony. ” Plus to try to get unacceptable hateful ban on real medical care these people had to lie, repeatedly. Vice News reported in August that 10 researchers whose work was cited in Florida’s guidance say that their research was misrepresented or distorted to justify denying gender-affirming care. Proponents of the ban were reportedly allowed to speak first, some making misleading and false claims. One doctor who testified in favor of the ban falsely claimed that 90% of trans youth de-transition. These are the same people who claim that the covid vaccine causes death and that ivermectin is a treatment for Covid instead of real medications designed for Covid. They don’t believe in science or even medical care, they want profit and power. Hugs
The committee cut public comment short, leading some to call the hearing a “sham.”
A joint committee of the Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine met last week. Photo: Screenshot
A joint committee of the Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine has voted in favor of new proposed guidelines that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, which would effectively force transgender minors in the state to de-transition.
The new rules proposed by Florida’s Health Department in April and backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) would prohibit gender-affirming surgical procedures which experts say are almost never performed on young people, medications like puberty blockers and hormone therapy, and “any other procedure that alters primary or secondary sexual characteristics for the treatment of gender dysphoria” for patients under 18. They would also institute a mandatory 24-hour waiting period for adults seeking gender-affirming care.
Gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other professional groups as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals. Vice News reported in August that 10 researchers whose work was cited in Florida’s guidance say that their research was misrepresented or distorted to justify denying gender-affirming care.
Last week’s vote occurred after five hours of heated testimony, which Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic’s Alejandra Caraballo characterized as “stacked against trans youth.” Proponents of the ban were reportedly allowed to speak first, some making misleading and false claims. One doctor who testified in favor of the ban falsely claimed that 90% of trans youth de-transition.
The hearing was stacked against trans youth from the start. Despite local families and activists getting there first, 9 anti-trans folks testified first. After selectively filtering to give a 50/50 split after, the board closed the hearing early leaving many to not speak.
According to Common Dreams, public commentary was overwhelmingly against the ban.
“By proposing an alternative standard of care, Florida is ignoring the broad consensus among the medical community and the weight of peer-reviewed medical literature,” AAP president Dr. Moira Szilaygi said in written testimony. “We call on the Florida Board of Medicine to reject the call for the development of new standards of care and ensure that the existing evidence-based standards of care are allowed to be used to care for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. Only by doing so will the health and well-being of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria in Florida be preserved.”
“Going on testosterone is the single best decision I have ever made in my life and that is not an exaggeration,” 15-year-old Yuri Tversky said in written testimony. “I am no longer suicidal. I can finally acknowledge and embrace the fact that I have a future, and a family that loves and accepts me for who I am. I don’t have to pretend to be someone else anymore. Until now. Until you.”
“Gender-affirming care saved my life at 16,” said Aaron Demlow. “Please do not take this vital care away from other young people like me.”
Retired social worker Susan Nasrani who counseled a transgender youth testified that “Having access to gender-affirming medical care kept this young person from deep depression and suicide.”
Despite this, the committee ended public comment early, telling opponents of the ban to email them. Queer activist Erin Reed called the proceedings “a sham hearing with fake experts.”
A dark day for trans youth.
Florida Board of Medicine has just voted to ban gender affirming care for all trans teenagers.
They cut the hearing early and told activists to "email them."
(l to r) Rome Pride, Sabastion Mikel and son Jaxen, and Justin Deal. Photos by Ivan Felipe and Lee Jones.
There’s Atlanta, and then there’s Georgia.
My photographer and I, firmly in the former category, were clear about this as we loaded his camera equipment onto my backseat before pulling out of his driveway on an unusually cool October morning en route to Rome, Georgia.
We were two Black gay men leaving behind the safety and inclusiveness — both actual and perceived — that we sometimes take for granted living in Georgia’s most populated city. And unlike many other cities in Georgia, Rome’s national reputation had already been shaped in our consciousness before we entered the city’s downtown area.
Before the 2020 election of Marjorie Taylor Greene to the U.S. House of Representatives, the city of Rome, a small, picturesque southern town an hour north of Atlanta, flew under the national political radar.
Rome, Georgia, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
Today, it’s nearly impossible for the 14th Congressional District, home to over 700,000, predominately white (73%) Georgia citizens, and ranking as the 28th most Republican district nationally, to avoid the national spotlight.
Largely because of Greene, Rome reaches beyond its seven hills and three rivers onto the national stage. With every tweet, election denial lie, and QAnon conspiracy theory amplified, Greene simultaneously energizes her supporters and humiliates a minority of the district’s residents in favor of her political agenda.
In February 2021, Greene drew applause from supporters for her opposition to The Equality Act — a long-stalled bill first that would extend civil rights protections to the queer community. But it was Rep. Marie Newman’s (D-IL) decision to erect a trans flag in support of her trans daughter outside her congressional office that provoked Greene to erect an opposing sign declaring “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS: MALE & FEMALE,” thereby erasing non-binary and trans people while inspiring supporters to echo her anti-trans rhetoric on Twitter.
A sign hangs on the wall outside the office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as a Transgender Pride flag hangs outside the office of Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) (R) in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill, on February 25, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images.
While Greene and other Republican leaders deploy fear tactics to rile up their base, her actions continue to have real-life consequences for her constituents in Rome, especially for the parents of trans children who believe Greene’s anti-trans rhetoric creates an environment in Rome where their children are less safe.
Rome resident Lynn Green is president of Rome, Georgia’s PFLAG chapter and mother of 15-year-old trans son Ashby. After living a quiet, mostly apolitical life for nearly two decades, she founded a local PFLAG chapter after her son came out as trans three years ago and discovered that she was not the only mother of a trans or gay child in Rome.
“A lot of straight cisgendered families don’t talk about it, so it’s not well known,” she says. “But I guarantee that the family sitting next to you in church or the guy at the restaurant at the next table either has a queer immediate family member, cousin, or friend. But we don’t talk about it. And so, nobody knows here.”
Green tells Queerty that living in the district can be scary. More than 73% of residents voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, and families like hers are constantly on the receiving end of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rhetorical blows.
Our society is sick. Mothers are mutilating and murdering their babies through transgenderism and abortion. Meanwhile, society sits back and allows men to destroy women’s sports.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 8, 2022
Twitter says this tweet violated rules about hateful conduct.
I can’t imagine anything more hateful than promoting “gender reassignment” surgeries for children. https://t.co/65LHtYXbGw
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 18, 2022
Only one day each year, we honor military members who died serving our country for ALL of us to be free.
An entire #PrideMonth and millions in spending through corporations & our government on LGBTQ sexual identity needs to end.
The movements goals were achieved, were they not?
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 1, 2022
And with the Republican stronghold on the district and Marjorie Taylor Greene campaign signs on almost every block, it’s a constant reminder that queer people in Rome are not only in the minority but the fodder for political attacks that only threaten to get worse in a Republican Congressional majority. In addition, residents across the state face the continued advancement of anti-LGBTQ legislation, including Georgia House Bill 1084, which created an athletic committee with the power to ban transgender youth from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law this April and remains ahead in the polls in his reelection campaign again LGBTQ stalwart Stacy Abrams.
The fight for trans equality
Sabastion Mikel, 29, is a trans father and birth parent of two boys, Jaxen, 6, and Colin, 3.
A Locust Grove, Georgia native, Mikel is approaching his second year as a Rome resident. He began transitioning at 18 after a tumultuous coming out that led him to escape during his senior year to a now-closed safe house for trans people in Arizona. While he prefers small-town life, Mikel says living in the conservative area as a trans person comes at a price.
Sabastion Mikel with son Jaxen, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
“Being an out queer person is kind of scary here. I have concerns about going to the doctor sometimes. I have been turned down in the past for medical care because I am trans,” he says.
In August, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, a bill that would make providing gender-affirming care to a minor a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison with a maximum fine of $25,000.
Access to affirming trans healthcare is also a concern for Green and her trans son, who have witnessed trans adults in Rome drive as far as 200 miles to Augusta, Georgia, to receive appropriate medical care.
“One of the good things to come out of the pandemic is we’re able to see a doctor in Decatur [Georgia], virtually,” Green says. “My child won’t go to the doctor here. My child wouldn’t go to immediate care even when he had COVID because all his charts say F for female.”
In Georgia, trans individuals must undergo sex reassignment surgery (SRS) before legally amending the gender marker on their birth certificate. Some jurisdictions, however, permit a gender marker change if the individual is undergoing hormone therapy. Green says her son’s legal name change now appears on his birth and medical records. And at 15, he has also begun hormone therapy, a medical decision Green says was necessary for his mental health.
“I know my child, and they were not okay,” she says. “This is not a decision that me and his dad made on a whim. Through conversations with therapists and the doctor, we learned that we could try very small increments of things. And if it’s working, then we know we’re on the right track. And if it’s not working, then we stop. No harm, no foul. No permanent changes,” she says.
Rome resident Lynn Green, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
The American Medical Association (AMA) supports Green’s claims and issued a formal recommendation to the National Governors Association in April 2021, urging member governors to oppose state legislation prohibiting medically necessary gender transition-related care to minors.
AMA chief executive officer Dr. James L. Madara wrote that “mental health counseling, non-medical social transition, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and/or gender-affirming surgeries” were medically accepted standards of care, concluding that “it is imperative that transgender minors be given the opportunity to explore their gender identity under the safe and supportive care of a physician.”
In Rome, Green has become a surrogate mother, and her home a safe place for other trans kids who have experienced rejection or been denied medical care — scenarios that Green struggles to accept.
“Why would you not accept your child? I can’t imagine acting any other way or making any other decisions,” she says. “I wish that more people would be open to at least considering [hormone therapy] and having the conversation. It might not be right for every child, but if it’s right for yours, it’ll save their life.”
Green says her entire family is prepared with passports if the proposed bill prohibiting gender-affirming care ever becomes law.
“Who would’ve ever thought I’d have a conversation with my 15-year-old child about what country would you want to live in if we had to leave?” she says. “I never in my life would have predicted those conversations.”
Pride comes in all shapes and sizes
Like Green, Justin Deal, 36, is a Rome activist out of necessity. Deal identifies as pansexual and is the driving force behind the city’s inaugural Rome Pride. The event drew hundreds of people to Heritage Park in June. A few weeks prior, Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly called for an end to Pride Month while citing the “possible extinction of straight people within 150 years.”
Rome Pride celebration in Heritage Park, June 25, 2022. Photo by Ivan Felipe Photography.
“When I think about her [Greene], she’s the epitome and kind of a microcosm of the problems in this area,” Deal says. “And she’s exacerbated those and made them worse.”
According to Deal, Greene’s rhetoric has trickled down into the community, saying it’s not uncommon for Rome Pride to receive emails with profanity and anti-gay slurs. But the unwanted coverage on Greene’s weekly Facebook live show featuring drag performer Benjamin Gentry’s (aka Courtney Chanel Stratton) scheduled appearance during drag queen story time spurred death threats. Gentry subsequently withdrew from the event out of safety concerns.
Gentry accuses Greene of attempting to dox him.
“You can hear her say during the live stream, ‘Do we know where — does he live in Rome?’ She was trying to find my home address to give it out,” he says.
Rome Pride, June 25, 2022. Photo by Ivan Felipe Photography.
Gentry and Pride organizers secretly relocated drag queen story time and notified registered attendees of the new location.
“All these people who were supposedly going to stop drag queen story time showed up to the gazebo to nothing,” Gentry says through laughter. “We had even more people come to see it because of her free advertising.”
“She was poking the bear,” Deal explains. “And at that point, we were just a small-town Pride. We weren’t looking for that kind of coverage.”
Then like clockwork, Greene published a tweet in June threatening to introduce legislation to make it illegal for children to be exposed to drag performances.
I’m introducing a bill to make it illegal for children to be exposed to Drag Queen performances.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 15, 2022
The uphill battle to unseat Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marcus Flowers, an army veteran and former official for the Department of Defense, is Greene’s Democratic opponent in the 14th Congressional District seat race.
His surprise appearance donning his signature Black cowboy hat in the Rome Pride Parade and his willingness to listen to their concerns amid Greene’s chaos has endeared him to the local queer community.
Marcus Flowers, running against U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), is seen outside of an America First Rally on May 27, 2021, in Dalton, Georgia. Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images.
“As a member of Congress, you represent all of the constituents of your district, no matter race, creed, religion, or sexual preference,” Flowers tells Queerty. “And that’s what members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene are forgetting.”
It was was a pleasure marching alongside my fellow Georgians in today’s Pride parade in Rome!🏳️🌈 pic.twitter.com/sRpDsoPezF
Wendy Davis, who lost the Democratic primary election to Flowers but served two terms as Rome’s city commissioner, says that while Greene’s conspiracy theories have gotten most of the attention, she’s actually remained focused on the bread-and-butter of the GOP base.
“How we get here wasn’t because everybody around here went QAnon cuckoo,” Davis told The Guardian. “We got here because she loved Trump, she loved guns, she hated socialism, she hated abortion and that won that primary and it’s a Republican district.”
Will slow and steady win the race?
Justin Deal, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
For Deal, Greene’s actions are the fuel that ignites their activism in Rome and keeps Deal from fleeing to a more progressive city. Deal tells Queerty that many residents react positively to the growing visibility of the LGBTQ community in the conservative town. And despite the lack of gay bars or businesses, unexpected allies are creating space.
“There’s never really been an establishment. We have a few spots that’ll do an LGBTQ night. We now have drag shows at least once a month at Peaches,” Deal says, referencing the nightclub venue in Rome that has provided space for local drag queens to perform.
Peaches, Rome, Georgia, October 10, 2022. Photo by Lee Jones Photography for Queerty.
Surprisingly, many local businesses jumped at the opportunity to sponsor Rome Pride.
“We were blown away,” Green says. “Come to find out, they all have a connection, a child, a brother, or a sister that’s part of the community. And so it was important for them to support. But you wouldn’t know that by walking down the street.”
Because of Deal and Green’s organizing, the city of Rome has officially recognized June as LGBTQ Pride Month, a process that only requires approval from the city clerk’s office after citizen request, according to Kristi Kent, communications director for the City of Rome.
Rome Pride, June 25, 2022. Photo by Ivan Felipe Photography.
The proclamation request received little pushback.
That’s not to say the district will become more accepting any time soon. Flowers faces an uphill battle unseating Greene in November, given Greene’s commanding lead in the polls.
But for Gentry, who references one of Greene’s most widely derided conspiracy theories with the wit of his drag persona, the choice is clear.
“The b*tch believes in space lasers,” he says of Greene’s rant about the cause of California’s 2018 wildfires. “How can you vote for someone that thinks Jewish space lasers are turning people gay and liberal?”
Despite her antics and the inhospitality of some residents, the LGBTQ community in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District isn’t going anywhere.
Pfizer is planning on raising the cost of a single COVID vaccine dose by 100 times what it costs to manufacture the drug. Brett Erlich and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
“Vaccine equity campaigners on Friday condemned Pfizer for announcing that it will soon raise the price of its publicly funded Covid-19 shot to between $110 and $130 per dose in the U.S., a move that comes as the Biden administration is preparing to end the nation’s free coronavirus vaccine program as pandemic response funding runs dry.
Reuters reported late Thursday that Angela Lukin, an executive at Pfizer, said the New York-based pharmaceutical giant “expects” that the vaccine “will be made available at no cost to people who have private insurance or government-paid insurance.
” The outlet noted that Lukin did not say whether the company will make any accommodations for the tens of millions of people in the U.S. without any health insurance.”
Law enforcement officials Texas are saying a new law that allows people to carry handguns without a permit has led to more spontaneous shootings. John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur and Jessica Burbank discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
These are just some of the ways critics are describing Texas’ new law allowing people to carry handguns in public without a permit—a Republican achievement that many local officials say has already led to a spike in spontaneous shootings in highly populated parts of the state.
“It seems like now there’s been a tipping point where just everybody is armed.”
In one high-profile case earlier this year, Tony Earls “pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.
“Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.” A grand jury declined to indict Earls, agreeing with his lawyer that “everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” *