Right-wing extremist Marjorie Green is back in the news and this time she’s saying that getting an abortion will only ruin a women’s relationship with her male partner and that having the baby will be the best for everyone involved. Guess freedom-loving MTG only wants true freedom when it comes to things she believes in. “Marge today: “If you accidentally get pregnant .. that abortion .. is not going to make that boyfriend of yours or that guy love you .. It’s not going to help you pursue a career .. Let me tell you what will help you out more .. when you have a baby.””
Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson asked Dr. Yashica Robinson during a House hearing on abortion rights whether or not she supported a women’s right to have an abortion if the baby is “halfway out of the birth canal”. Obviously in shock from the statement, Dr. Robinson threw cold water on the hypothetical even though Johnson interpreted it as her avoiding the question.
“Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) at abortion access hearing: “How about if a child is halfway out of the birth canal? Is an abortion permissible then?” Dr. Yashica Robinson: “I can’t even fathom that … just like you probably can’t imagine what you would do if your daughter was raped.””
A Trump-appointed federal judge has blocked portions of Alabama’s so-called “Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act,” a law that punishes adults who help transgender children access gender-affirming healthcare.
Last Friday, Judge Liles C. Burke of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama temporarily blocked parts of the law that made it a felony to prescribe hormones and puberty blockers to trans youth, saying that the law is likely to cause irreparable harm if it goes into effect while the lawsuits works their way through the court system.
Burke’s decision said parents have a fundamental right to provide their children with medically-accepted treatments. Hormones and puberty blockers are used to treat various medical conditions in non-trans youth. But since Alabama’s law only sought to punish the drugs’ use by transgender youth, the lawsuit alleged that this part of the law was driven by unconstitutional sex-based discrimination.
Burke allowed other parts of the law to stand, including one requiring school teachers and nurses to out trans students to their parents and another forbidding doctors from performing gender-affirming surgical procedures on trans youth.
“Doctors had testified that such operations were not being performed on children in Alabama before the law had been enacted,”The New York Times noted.
Alabama lawmakers said that the transphobic law is meant to protect kids from “irreversible” and “experimental” medical treatments “aggressively push[ed]” by doctors and “ideological interest groups,” state lawyers said in court documents. But Burke said Alabama failed to provide “credible evidence to show that transitioning medications are ‘experimental,’” adding that hormones and puberty blockers are “well-established, evidence-based treatments for gender dysphoria in minors.”
“Parents, pediatricians and psychologists — not the state or this court — are best qualified to determine whether transitioning medications are in a child’s best interest on a case-by-case basis,” Burke wrote in his decision.
When signing the bill into law, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said, “I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl. We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life.”
However, her religion-based opinion goes against the best practices of trans-related pediatrics outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association. The organizations find that gender-affirming medical care is medically necessary and reduces suicide and depression among trans youth.
Comedian John Oliver mentioned the state’s law on the Sunday night installment of his cable news program Last Week Tonight.
In the program, Oliver interviewed 15-year-old transgender girl Harleigh Walker, who said, “If I did stop my gender-affirming care, my physical outside wouldn’t reflect who I was inside, and that would, like, completely destroy me mentally and physically.”
Oliver said, “If you can look at Harleigh, or any child, and comfortably say, ‘Take away their care that gives them peace and a sense of self,’ you are a bad person.”
During a hearing in front of the Alabama legislature last year, Dr. Morissa Ladinsky explained that surgery and hormonal therapy for trans youth both involve “lengthy informed consent [and] lengthy mental health oversight.”
Oliver quipped, “Of course, doctors are going to be thoughtful and rigorous when caring for their patients because, unlike the Alabama Legislature, they actually care about kids’ well-being,”
“To trans children in Alabama right now… you are important,” Oliver added. “Your lives are important. I cannot imagine trying to build self-esteem in childhood as your own government attempts to undermine your very existence, but you should know: You are profoundly valuable and you are irreplaceable.”
As of May, 15 Republican-led states have either passed bans on medical care for trans youth or are considering similar laws. Some of the bans have equated gender-affirming care with child abuse and threatened to arrest parents of trans youth, de-transitioning their kids and placing them in state care. Others attack doctors and threaten them with jail time for providing gender-affirming care to trans youth.
These laws are part of a larger nationwide push by Republicans to pass laws targeting LGBTQ youth. Other such laws have attempted to ban trans youth from playing sports or to ban any LGBTQ content from classrooms. These bills’ supporters have said that anyone who opposes the laws are pedophilic “groomers”, language which encourages violence against LGBTQ people and allies.
Ivey also recently signed a transphobic “bathroom bill” requiring students to use changing and restroom facilities matching the gender listed on their original birth certificates, as well as a “Don’t Say Gay” bill limiting discussion of LGBTQ topics in state classrooms.
A white supremacist teenager recently shot and killed 10 people, almost all of them Black, in a Buffalo, New York supermarket. The gunman provides insights into his motivations from a self-published manifesto that was posted online days before he committed the shooting.
“A teenage gunman entranced by a white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday, methodically shooting and killing 10 people and injuring three more, almost all of them Black, in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history.”
The white supremacist gunman who just killed 10 people, almost all of them Black, provides insights into his motivations from a self-published manifesto that was posted online just before he committed the shooting. He cited 4Chan and the Internet for his rapid white nationalist radicalization, the infamous ‘white replacement theory’, as well as anti-semitic and racist propaganda as reasons for why he wanted to commit the shooting.
“Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo. The baseless conspiracy theory claims that politicians are attempting to wipe out White Americans and their influence by replacing them with non-White immigrants. The theory was cited repeatedly by 18-year-old shooting suspect Payton Gendron in an online document that appeared to have outlined his intention to carry out his planned attack in Buffalo because of its significant population of Black people. Eleven of the 13 people shot at a Tops Friendly Markets store on Saturday were Black, according to police.”
After the Buffalo, New York mass shooting left 10 dead at the hands of the white supremacist shooter, right-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald tried to distract from the event and provide cover for his hate-mongering buddies like Tucker Carlson. Greenwald wrote an entire Substack rant defending how Tucker has made the “white replacement theory” mainstream and more digestible for regular TV viewers by completely ignoring it.
In his speech against abortion, Montana Senator Steve Daines compares human fetuses to the eggs of sea turtles and eagles. Sandee Lovas breaks it down.
For the first time ever, Sinn Féin is projected to become the biggest party at Stormont, meaning the DUP could lose the first minister post.
If those projections come to pass, it would be a history-making moment in Northern Ireland. If Sinn Féin emerges as the country’s biggest party, it will be the first time in a century that a nationalist party has had majority support.
In simple terms, that means Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill will take the first minister post for the first time. Notably, it would also mean that Northern Ireland would have its first ever pro-LGBTQ+ first minister.
The DUP’s decline probably doesn’t have much to do with the party’s staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights – it’s likely more to do with the Northern Irish protocol and Brexit – but the result could still have a positive impact on queer people.
The DUP has blocked progress on LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland
Ever since it was founded by Ian Paisley in 1971, the DUP has been fiercely opposed to any advancement in LGBTQ+ rights. That started with Paisley’s “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign in the 1970s, which argued that homosexuality should continue to be criminalized because the Bible said it was a sin.
In the decades since, the DUP has done little to win support from the LGBTQ+ community. Numerous MLAs and MPs have come under fire for making barbed comments about queer people – Ian Paisley Jr said in 2005 that he was “repulsed” by homosexuality, while Sammy Wilson said people with AIDS were sick because of their “lifestyle choices”.
In Stormont, the DUP has done everything in its power to stop LGBTQ+ people from winning equality. The party repeatedly blocked same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland using a mechanism agreed upon under the Good Friday Agreement known as the “petition of concern”. Same-sex marriage eventually came to Northern Ireland when power sharing collapsed, paving the way for Westminster to vote in its favor instead – but that victory still didn’t lead to the DUP abandoning its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.
There was a small glimmer of hope that the DUP could be open to change in 2021 when Paula Bradley, the DUP’s deputy leader, apologized for past remarks made by her party colleagues about LGBTQ+ people.
DUP deputy leader Paula Bradley apologised for comments made by her party colleagues about the LGBT+ community. (PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty)
Speaking at a PinkNews reception, Bradley admitted that some of the comments made by DUP representatives had been “absolutely atrocious” and that they had “fed into the hatred” endured by LGBTQ+ people.
The apology was warmly welcomed by LGBTQ+ campaigners, but the community has little reason to believe that the DUP has any intention of seriously reckoning with its past and changing the course of its future. Many of the party’s representatives continue to speak out against advancements in LGBTQ+ rights, with conversion therapy becoming a sticking point for some MLAs and MPs.
Sinn Féin has adapted – and its leaders are strong supporters of LGBTQ+ rights
While the DUP continues to linger in the past, Sinn Féin has been quick to adapt when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. The party, which has been in operation for more than a century, has gradually moved towards strong support for the LGBTQ+ community.
In 2012, Sinn Féin formally supported same-sex marriage and, in 2015, it was the only party in Northern Ireland to support for trans people in its party manifesto.
In 2021, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald told the PinkNews Belfast Summer Reception that trans people deserve proper healthcare all across the island of Ireland. She also used her platform to criticise the UK’s Gender Recognition Act (GRA), saying it “others people in a way that is cruel”.
That’s not to say Sinn Féin is totally in the clear when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights – in 2020, there was some controversy in the Republic of Ireland when it emerged that elected representative Brian Stanley had tweeted “insensitive” remarks about Leo Varadkar, who is gay.
One Sinn Féin member, Iósaf Ó Muirí, told the Belfast Telegraph at the time that he had left the party because it had “failed to take robust action on racism, homophobia and bigotry”.
Still, the prospect of a Sinn Féin first minister is a much better one for LGBTQ+ people. Sinn Féin is much more likely to support the community and to aid and assist in championing advancements in LGBTQ+ rights.
That’s important because there is still a great deal of work to be done in Northern Ireland to make life better for LGBTQ+ people. Trans healthcare is in a state of disarray in the region, and conversion therapy is still being practiced legally – although the Stormont government has promised to outlaw the practice and legislation is currently being drafted.
It’s not yet entirely clear just how significant a Sinn Féin victory would be for Northern Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community, but at the very least, it would show queer people that they have a leader who supports their right to equality.
President warns of new attacks by Trump-dominated political party after supreme court ruling draft leak on abortion
Joe Biden delivered remarks on economic growth, jobs, and deficit reduction at the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Joe Biden has warned of new attacks on civil rights as the supreme court prepares to strike down the right to abortion, telling reporters at the White House that LGBTQ+ children could be the next targets of a Trump-dominated Republican party he called “this Maga crowd” and “the most extreme political organization … in recent American history”.
Contraception could come under fire next if Roe v Wade is overturned
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“What happens,” the president asked, if “a state changes the law saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that legit under the way the decision is written?”
Biden’s remarks, at the end of a brief session on deficit reduction, referred to a leaked draft of a ruling by Justice Samuel Alito. One of six conservatives on the supreme court, Alito was writing on a Mississippi case which aims to overturn both Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which guaranteed the right to abortion, and Casey v Planned Parenthood from 1992, which buttressed it.
The Mississippi case is expected to be resolved in June. The leak of the draft ruling to Politico, which reported that four other conservatives on the nine-justice court supported it, caused a storm of controversy and anger.
In a statement and remarks on Tuesday, Biden condemned Alito’s reasoning and intentions and called for legislation to codify Roe into law.
But the president has faced criticism within his own party for seeming reluctant to contemplate reform such legislation would require, namely abolishing the Senate filibuster, the rule that requires 60 votes for most bills to pass.
A lifelong Catholic who nonetheless supports a woman’s right to choose, Biden has been eclipsed as a strong voice against the attack on abortion rights by high-profile Democratic women including the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who spoke angrily outside the court on Tuesday, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris.
Harris’s struggles as vice-president have been widely reported but on Tuesday night, speaking to the Emily’s List advocacy group in Washington, she seemed to hit her stride.
The former prosecutor and California senator said: “Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women. Well, we say, ‘How dare they?’
“How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?’”
She asked: “Which party wants to expand our rights? And which party wants to restrict them? It has never been more clear. Which party wants to lead us forward? And which party wants to push us back? You know, some Republican leaders, they want to take us back to a time before Roe v Wade.”
At the White House on Wednesday, Biden took brief questions. He was asked about sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine and about “the next step on abortion once this case gets settled”.
“As I said when this hit, as I was getting on the plane to go down to Alabama, this is about a lot more than abortion,” he said. “I hadn’t read the whole opinion at that time.”
The 79-year-old president then gave a lengthy, somewhat rambling answer about “the debate with Robert Bork”. Bork was nominated to the supreme court by Ronald Reagan in 1987. Biden was then chair of the Senate judiciary committee. The nomination failed.
US supreme court justices on abortion – what they’ve said and how they’ve voted
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At the White House, Biden said Bork “believed the only reason you had any inherent rights was because the government gave them to you”, a stance with which Biden said he disagreed.
Biden also said Bork had opposed Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 case which established the right to contraception – a right many on the left fear may be left open to rightwing attack once Roe, another case concerning privacy, has been overturned.
In her speech the previous night, Harris said: “At its core, Roe recognizes the fundamental right to privacy. Think about that for a minute. When the right to privacy is attacked, anyone in our country may face a future where the government can interfere in their personal decisions. Not just women. Anyone.”
The vice-president also said: “Let us fight for our country and for the principles upon which it was founded, and let us fight with everything we have got.”
A new Alabama law that targets trans youth went into effect on May 8 and is causing concern for LGBTQ+ people, their families, and allies. Signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey on April 8, the “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act” makes it a felony for doctors to prescribe hormones and puberty blockers for those under age 19, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The law is part of a wider swath of anti-trans youth legislation cropping up across Republican-controlled states, but this bill is uniquely extreme in targeting health care providers with potential felony charges. Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, an Alabama pediatrician who treats gender dysphoria in children, testified during the bill’s federal court hearing: “This will force us into a place of risking a felony conviction for providing evidence-based care.”
As of this writing, the law is in effect, meaning that providing gender-affirming medical care for trans youth in Alabama is a felony. According to AL.com, the law is being challenged by a lawsuit filed by parents of four transgender youth who argue the law will “deprive their children of access to established medical care that is safe, effective, and necessary.” Also party to the suit are a child psychologist who works with trans youth, a pediatrician, and a pastor. In the meantime, plaintiffs are asking for a temporary hold on the law.
Trans advocates and experts are sounding the alarm. As Chase Strangio, deputy director for trans justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman during a May 9 appearance on the program, this “[creates] an absolutely terrifying sea change in the reality on the ground for trans people, their families, and their doctors in Alabama — and not just in Alabama, but across the Southeast.”
I have been working in trans legal advocacy for 18 years and today is probably the most upsetting day with a felony ban on health care going into effect in Alabama. Not much noise nationally from our “allies” either.
“The University of Alabama has a gender clinic that is serving trans adolescents and their families, not just in Alabama, but in Georgia and Florida and Tennessee and Mississippi,” Strangio continued. “And in a matter of hours, all of that care is becoming a felony, which means families are uprooting their lives. They’re trying to figure out what, when, and whether they can get life-saving care for their adolescent children.”
In other states, legislators are pushing to adopt “trans refuge” policies that would welcome trans people and their families from hostile states. California senator Scott Wiener, who sponsored a bill in his home state as part of this effort, publicly criticized Alabama’s law. “At midnight, Alabama’s vile law criminalizing trans youth accessing gender-affirming care — threatening parents & doctors with 10 years in prison — went into effect. We’re working in coalition w/19 other states to pass laws granting refuge to impacted families. We have your backs,” Wiener wrote on Twitter.
According to Bay City News, the proposed California bill would stop other states from subpoenaing medical records from California in order to separate trans children from their parents or to penalize families for seeking gender-affirming care, and would bar law enforcement from, as reported by the outlet, “making or intentionally participating in the arrest of an individual with an out-of-state warrant for allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care.”
Twenty-one LGBTQ lawmakers in 16 states have committed to introducing similar legislation, according to the Victory Institute, an organization that promotes LGBTQ politicians.
Photo: Shutterstock
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