Last time it was mentioned to her that her followers attack the people / places she goes after, she was very proud of that fact. She likes it. That is the point. She is a female thug, a Christian fundamentalist thug, who feels entitled to force everyone to live as she demands they do. She feels it is her god given right to take rights away from others. Hugs. Scottie
The FBI and local law enforcement said bomb threats across the country have tied up government resources even when they turn out to be hoaxes.
Chaya Raichik, creator of LibsofTikTok, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland last March.Michael Brochstein / Sipa USA via AP file
Last March, police in Coralville, Iowa, investigated a bomb threat targeting a junior high school. Authorities brought in specially trained dogs to sniff for explosives and started looking into why someone might try to target the community’s teachers and students.
Law enforcement quickly determined that the threat was a hoax. Detective Hanna Dvorak from the Coralville Police Department arrived at a theory.
“It appears this all stems from a post made earlier this week by Chaya Raichik and her ‘Libs of TikTok’ account,” Dvorak wrote in a report to her superiors.
Raichik, 29, is not accused of making any bomb threats in Iowa or anywhere else. But about a day and a half before authorities responded to the threat at Coralville’s Northwest Junior High, Raichik posted that the school offers a “pornographic” book in its library that “teaches kids about gay sex.”
“These are the books they’re giving your kids to read in school,” she wrote on the social media platform X. People have frequently targeted the book in question, “This Book Is Gay,” a coming-out guide for LGBTQ teens, with book bans going back years.
The Coralville detective wrote in her report that one of Raichik’s supporters could have had a role in the bomb threat.
Coralville was not alone. Officers and government officials in four other jurisdictions — Burbank, California; Minnetonka, Minnesota; Oklahoma City; and Tualatin, Oregon — told NBC News they believe Raichik sparked threats in their localities with her posts on social media that digitally heckle people such as drag performers, LGBTQ teachers and doctors who treat transgender patients. The name “Libs of TikTok” is a reference to the people Raichik mocks on social media — “Libs” being short for “liberal.”
While the direct inspirations for the threats are not known, the timing suggests that Libs of TikTok posts have been used to pick targets.
NBC News identified 33 instances, starting in November 2020, when people or institutions singled out by Libs of TikTok later reported bomb threats or other violent intimidation. The threats, which on average came several days after tweets from Libs of TikTok, targeted schools, libraries, hospitals, small businesses and elected officials in 16 states, Washington, D.C., and the Canadian province of Ontario. Twenty-one of the 33 threats were bomb threats, which most commonly targeted schools and were made via email.
NBC News emailed Raichik on Monday seeking comment on the threats. She did not respond directly, but said in a post on X that NBC News was working on a “hit piece.”
“They do it to try to paint me as an extremist to discredit me. This ‘b*mb threat’ narrative is really getting old,” she wrote, adding a yawning-face emoji.
NBC News identified the threats in a review of local news sources, social media posts and interviews with experts and victims.
The 33 threats drew both local and national resources. Law enforcement agencies in at least 13 jurisdictions reported receiving FBI assistance to find the responsible person or people. A police spokesperson in Burbank said he believed the FBI still has an open investigation into an incident there.
In an emailed statement, the bureau said it has, in general, observed an increase in threats of violence targeting institutions like hospitals and schools.
“As a country and organization, we have seen an increase in threats of violence targeting government officials and institutions, houses of worship, schools, and medical facilities, just to name a few. The FBI and our partners take all threats of violence seriously and responding to these threats ties up law enforcement resources,” the FBI press office said.
“When the threats are made as a hoax, it puts innocent people at risk, is a waste of law enforcement’s limited resources, and costs taxpayers. The FBI and our state and local partners will continue to aggressively pursue perpetrators of these threats — real or false — and hold them accountable,” the bureau said.
The FBI did not respond directly to questions about Raichik or the status of cases related to the 33 threats.
Prosecutors have pursued charges in only three of the 33 instances NBC News reviewed: At least three people have been charged with threatening Boston Children’s Hospital or Boston doctors, a juvenile was arrested after being accused of making a threat at an Oregon middle school, and five members of the white nationalist hate group Patriot Front were convicted of conspiring to riot at an Idaho Pride event.
The charging documents associated with those prosecutions did not mention either Libs of TikTok or Raichik.
A member of Patriot Front is searched after being arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on June 11, 2022.John Rudoff / Reuters file
Of the 33 instances, law enforcement or school officials in four jurisdictions said, there were indications — such as email addresses with a non-U.S. domain — that the threats could have come from people in foreign countries.
Raichik, the founder of the Libs of TikTok social media brand, has become an internet celebrity among some conservatives for her willingness to criticize teachers, doctors and other professionals who are LGBTQ or who are accepting of LGBTQ people. Raichik often posts their names and photographs alongside accusations of wrongdoing to X, where she has 2.8 million followers.
Konstantine Anthony, a City Council member in Burbank, said he received violent threats by email less than an hour after Libs of TikTok posted a video of him. The video showed Anthony, who at the time was Burbank’s mayor, getting spanked by a drag queen at a political fundraiser, and Libs of TikTok’s post said it happened “in front of children.” Anthony said no children were present. He was clothed and laughing in the video.
Anthony told NBC News that based on the timing, he believes he and his City Hall staff received at least two bomb threats “as a direct result of Libs of TikTok.”
A spokesperson for the Burbank Police Department said the police had referred the threats to the FBI, which was investigating them.
Konstantine Anthony in Burbank, Calif., on March 15. Tommaso Boddi / Getty Images file
Anthony, a Democrat running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, blamed Raichik for turning him and others into targets. He said he received harassing messages and threats by email, voicemail, social media and even handwritten letters.
He said he saw increases in the number of threats after subsequent tweets by Raichik.
Libs of TikTok has now taken on a large and growing role in the nation’s culture wars. It provides ammunition to conservatives by collecting and posting examples of what it considers far-left ideology, such as TikTok videos of teachers discussing race or screenshots from gender clinic websites. Elon Musk, who restored Libs of TikTok on X after it was suspended under previous ownership, frequently shares the account’s posts on his own X profile, and the account’s followers on X include a number of politicians such as Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Former President Donald Trump hosted Raichik for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in January 2023. Tucker Carlson, then a Fox News host, featured her on his show in December 2022. Raichik claimed to be at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot outside the U.S. Capitol, though not in the building, according to The Washington Post.
On Jan. 23, Raichik was appointed to the Oklahoma Department of Education’s Library Media Advisory Committee by Superintendent Ryan Walters. At least one lawmaker has referred to the bomb threats when contesting Raichik’s appointment to the committee.
Oklahoma Public Instruction Superintendent Ryan Walters during inauguration ceremonies in Oklahoma City on Jan. 9, 2023.Sue Ogrocki / AP file
The threats have been taking up government resources and been highly distracting.
In response to the threats, some schools canceled classes for days, while others stayed open following quick sweeps from law enforcement.
Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith dealt with two separate bomb threats in October after Libs of TikTok tagged Oregon’s Tigard-Tualatin School District. The account shared a video showing a school fight involving a person who some people said appeared to be a trans student.
The school district determined, with assistance from the FBI, that the threat was not credible, said district spokesperson Traci Rose.
Rieke-Smith said that social media accounts cross a line when they criticize kids or inspire threats.
“I think there should be consequences when social media is used inappropriately and a community is harmed,” she added. She said she had even raised her concerns with Oregon’s governor in a recent conversation.
Chief Greg Pickering of the Tualatin Police Department said he assigned a small team to investigate the threats.
“It takes time to vet those threats,” he said in a phone interview. “There’s a ton of due diligence.”
His department arrested a juvenile for making one of the threats on Snapchat. No one has been charged with the other bomb threat, made via email. Pickering said he believed that Libs of TikTok inspired the threat.
Raichik has said that she doesn’t support threatening the subjects of her posts, and that she is not responsible for how people respond to her content. She’s said that she has faced threats herself. When USA Today wrote about the threats, she posed with a copy of the article, smiling, and made it her profile photo on X.
Chaya Raichik at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on March 2. Zach Roberts / NurPhoto via AP
She continues to post the identifying details and images of her subjects. She has rarely criticized the threat-makers or urged them to stop. She told The Washington Post in September 2022, when the newspaper was reporting on threats against children’s hospitals: “We 100 % condemn any acts/threats of violence.”
Raichik has at times mocked the idea that she could influence people making threats, once joking that maybe she was also responsible for natural disasters.
But some of her followers take her posts as an invitation. People have replied with the phone numbers of schools, the names of teachers and school board members and requests for Raichik to provide more details so that users can take action.
“Need to post the school name so calls can be made,” one user replied to a recent Libs of TikTok post on X. Raichik did not respond.
Vice News reported Oct. 4 that at least 11 schools or school districts that were targeted by Libs of TikTok in the prior month received bomb threats days later.
Libs of TikTok is part of a right-wing ecosystem on social media that has targeted transgender people, drag performers, LGBTQ advocates and others in recent years.
“There are forces at work in our country that have fostered this sort of behavior, and that just needs to stop,” said John Sasaki, a spokesperson for the Oakland Unified School District in California.
One of the district’s elementary schools was targeted by Libs of TikTok for hosting an event to bring together Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, and other families of color. In August, Libs of TikTok called the event racist against white people.
The next day, Aug. 29, someone emailed a bomb threat to the school’s principal, Sasaki said. The school canceled classes for the day and sent home its 570 students as police responded.
Sasaki said the district deployed counselors and other school staff to the elementary school the next day.
For other school districts, the threats that followed a Libs of TikTok post have meant more than a one-day evacuation. Oklahoma’s Union Public Schools was the target of bomb threats for six days in August — a series that began one day after an Aug. 21 Libs of TikTok post criticizing an elementary school librarian. The librarian had said online that she emphasized social justice in her teaching.
Chris Payne, a spokesperson for the district, said the local police, with assistance from the FBI, investigated, but he wasn’t aware of any charges. He said he was told by law enforcement that many of the messages appeared to have come from outside the country.
In September, police in Salem, Massachusetts, said they responded to three hoax bomb threats in seven days against the city’s elementary school. Three days before the first threat, Libs of TikTok posted about the school.
“The frequency of school threats which turn out to be hoaxes has dramatically increased in the last two years and presents a quandary for school personnel and public safety alike,” Salem Police Chief Lucas Miller said in a statement.
He added that his department had to balance competing factors: taking all threats seriously while also considering the “mental trauma inflicted upon school children who are exposed to repeated police emergencies.”
Hate costs. These people wanted to limit other people, the LGBTQIA and their supporters, from public participation. But they tried to do it based on a lie they created. They tried to claim that drag was obscene and sexualized kids. I find it strange it only does it to kids in their minds, yet they want to ban porn from adults also? But there are already laws on obscenity if they think someone was showing a body part that should always be hidden to save the world. They did not want that, because it would still let the parade happen. So they passed a law outlawing one group … for public good. Just like in Russia, and just like that they were able to deny the pride parade permits, stopping “those people” from a public event. The law is illegal. Just because you don’t like a group, don’t like someone’s views or that they are different doesn’t give you the right to deny their human rights, their civil rights, and full equal participation in society publically. I wonder if it will pause some of the other laws pushed by fundamentalist religious right-wingers. Hugs. Scottie
A Tennessee city must pay $500,000 as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups over an ordinance designed to ban drag performances from taking place on public property, attorneys announced Wednesday.
Last year, the Tennessee Equality Project — a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights — filed a federal lawsuit after Murfreesboro leaders announced they would no longer be approving any event permit requests submitted by the organization.
At the time, the city alleged that the drag performances that took place during TEP’s 2022 Pride event resulted in the “illegal sexualization of kids.”
Read the full article. My October 2023 posts on the Murfreesboro ban are here and here.
STATEMENT from @tnequality on winning the settlement against Murfreesboro: "We celebrate the resolution of this case… Now we can turn our attention to preparing for the 2024 BoroPride and defending rights at the state legislature.” https://t.co/JlYvTFF4mdpic.twitter.com/j2ffhXjgBu
The thing about Murfreesboro is it’s a small town with a large university and campus population exceeding 20k. A lot of partying happens there and the student body is very diverse. The fact that the city council was trying to tamp down Pride activities tells me their Pride must really be a popular event. Murfreesboro, TN, Rutherford Co, is adjacent to Franklin, TN, Williamson Co. It also tried to ban Pride only to lose that effort when the LGBTQ community fought back. My friends in Franklin ( the home of Marsha Blackburn) tell me it’s Pride event was well attended with many Het families bringing their children to the festivities. FYI: In my childhood Murfreesboro TN was a sundown town. That might give you an idea about it’s deep and obviously still politically active Confederate roots.
Illegal sexualization of kids? Drag queens are only sexual if you find drag queen sexual. but if you really want to talk about the LEGAL sexualization of children, Let’s talk about this:
When I lived in PA in the 90s (“Pennsyltucky”), there was a country station which the entire frickin’ region listened to (“Froggy 98”).
They had a TV commercial w/ two little girls dancing to a country song. The younger of the two girls had obviously been (though I didn’t know this term then) GROOMED to “dance sexy”. It was beyond disturbing even then, but I regret not being aware enough to protest it.
These small towns and medium sized cities seem to be unable to consult with their attorneys, or they decide that they don’t like the answer and forge ahead. Inevitably they lose at least some of the lawsuits, and their taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Maybe the city fathers have swallowed the ALEC-like model legislation without considering that the model legislation is not viable when challenged.
Fiscally, won’t dent their budget much. According to their 2022-’23 budget docs, their budget was $573 million.
$500K is nothing for them. But the humiliation of spending taxpayer money to try to keep their homophobic and transphobic ordinance active, only to publicly retract it, will deservedly embarrass the local government there.
The rabid fundamental Christian right is trying to do in other places what they accomplished in Florida, a government take over so they can force everyone to live by their regressive rules. In a lot of red state areas that they did this, the majority has risen up to try to take back the government from the haters / fundies. But in sleep small towns in blue states, the people are not aware of the danger the anti-LGBTQIA fundamentalist right present. Anytime someone uses the word abomination to describe gay people, you know their stance is being directed by religious church doctrine, not science or reality. LGBTQIA are not abominations, but people who support hate, taking away equality from people, and oppression are. Hugs. Scottie
The quaint town of Littleton, New Hampshire, is seeing more tourists, drawn to a main street of shops and restaurants where rainbow colors and gay pride symbols can be seen alongside American flags. Its population of 6,000 is growing younger and more diverse, supporting LGBTQ-themed art and a local theater’s gay-themed musical.
The culture change doesn’t sit well with town selectboard member Carrie Gendreau, who also serves as a Republican state senator. Last year, she said that “homosexuality is an abomination” and spoke of regulating art on public property, prompting a backlash and now the resignation of the town manager, whose late son was gay.
“My son is not an abomination,” Jim Gleason told the selectboard in January, to a standing ovation, when he announced his last day was Friday. He accused Gendreau of creating a toxic work environment by repeatedly making derogatory comments about gay people. Friday also was Gendreau’s deadline to file for reelection to the board, but she didn’t, so her three-year term ends in March.
A former mill town in the White Mountains, Littleton reversed a long decline in part through art. Tourists come now for antiques, galleries, boutiques and “the world’s longest candy counter.” They also look at the bronze statue of Pollyanna, erected outside the public library to honor the 1913 book by local author Eleanor H. Porter, whose main character came to define relentless optimism.
Pollyanna’s motto “Be Glad!” — which hangs from banners up and down Main Street — has been tested as townspeople found themselves debating over inclusion, tolerance and equality.
The controversy began in August, after three small murals funded by a diversity, equity and inclusion grant appeared on the side of a building that houses a restaurant and clothing store. Covering boarded-up windows, the murals show a white iris against a color wheel, two birch trees bending under a night sky, and a dandelion reaching skyward from an open book.
“What went up was not good,” said Gendreau, urging the selectboard’s audience to research what such symbols really mean. “I don’t want that to be in our town. I don’t want it to be here.”
The board then sought an attorney’s advice on what they could do to regulate artistic expression on town property and Gendreau gave several interviews, telling The Boston Globe that the iris painting carried “demonic hidden messages.”
The artist, Meg Reinhold, said her “We Are Joy” painting was inspired by Iris, the Greek goddess of rainbows. She told The Associated Press in an email that she hoped to “evoke feelings of joy and empowerment,” add beauty to Littleton, and celebrate people living with pride in the LGBTQ+ community.
“If a viewer looks at these works and sees demons and darkness, what does that tell us about how they view the world?” Reinhold said.
Gleason, who answered to the board as town manager, said he tried to resolve matters. When a woman approached him demanding to stop the November production of “La Cage aux Folles” — depicted on screen as “The Birdcage” — he said she was free to protest outside the theater or not buy a ticket.
She responded by invoking his son, saying “He’s in hell with the devil where he belongs,” recalled Gleason, and he said Gendreau tried to justify the the comments. The woman later admitted sending Gleason a photo of him clipped from a newspaper with derogatory language written across his face. A judge granted Gleason a restraining order against her.
As fears of a public art ban spread, selectboard meetings drew large crowds.
Ronnie Sandler, 75, an out lesbian all her adult life, said she spoke up at a selectboard meeting last fall because some of her friends told her they were scared.
“I have never felt any hatred or anything targeted at me in all of those years,” she told the AP. “Back in the late ‘70s, my girlfriend and I used to walk around in Littleton holding hands.”
A group of local business owners led by auto dealership manager Duane Coute submitted a letter signed by more than 1,000 people from Littleton and across the country urging the board to abandon “a path so detrimental to business.”
“Our community is so much stronger because of this situation,” Coute said.
New Hampshire’s Democratic-led congressional delegation stressed “how integral public art and cultural expression are to the economic wellbeing and competitiveness of towns like Littleton and similar communities throughout New Hampshire.” Surrounding towns adopted inclusivity-equality resolutions.
Some people backed Gendreau.
“She speaks for those stakeholders who are afraid to speak out due to personal retribution. She speaks out for those who are afraid for their own personal safety,” Nick De Mayo of nearby Sugar Hill, in Gendreau’s Senate district, wrote in a letter to the editor.
Others called the whole experience disappointing and disgraceful.
“It’s coming from a very small group of people. Unfortunately, that small group of people hold elected office and have some degree of power within the town,” said Kevin Silva, a physician who has lived in Littleton for about 20 years.
The board ultimately announced that they never sought an art ban. Selectboard member Linda MacNeil drew a standing ovation when she said “Whether we agree with the content or not, art is part of the fabric of history and should not be censored.” Roger Emerson, chairperson of the three-member board, did not take a position on the subject.
Gleason, 65, expressed amazement during his resignation speech at an outpouring of support for his defense of the arts, and urged his fellow townspeople to keep working “for civil rights and equality for all.”
“Keep up the fight,” he told the audience in a quavering voice. ‘You’ve got a beautiful town.”
Gleason, who was hired in 2021 following a similar job in Florida, told the AP he’s been thinking of his son Patrick, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2016.
“I believe he’d be proud of his dad for standing up, not just for him, but for everybody in the LGBTQIA-plus community, and anyone who has been marginalized or discriminated against in terms of that process,” Gleason said. “This is one of those moments. We don’t always get them in life.”
Gendreau didn’t answer directly when asked for comment on the controversy, but she suggested she wasn’t done trying to change her community. “There’s a lot of undertones that need to get corrected,” she said.
OK I couldn’t resist, if you watch the video you will understand. I do sometimes state the truth that those on the receiving end will not like being called. I call racist, racist. I call bigots and haters, well, what they are bigots and haters. I do question the mental abilities of those that can not reason well or who support conspiracies over facts. I call people who get their medical information from politicians and preachers rather than doctors and medical professional / medical scientist stupid. Yup, and I don’t care it offends them. Because I will start out trying to help someone, but as the lady said, “When they show you who they are, believe them the first time”. So I do agree with the good Reverend some, maybe half way. But sometimes you have to just lay the cards on the table, no matter what they show. That said, if you have elderly parents or a spouse that is … highly opinionated about something, maybe then you do have to hold your tongue. I would have to care a real lot to stay quiet though. Hugs. Scottie
Remember it started with protecting children, first by stopping trans girls from playing on female teams so they wouldn’t take trophies from daughters that don’t earn them. Then they moved on to protecting kids from having mutilation surgery at 9 years old, as they are convinced is happening. Then to protect kids they had to remove any mention of trans kids from schools and libraries. But now it is not enough hate yet. These people never stop, give them an inch and they will take a mile while still wanting more. So now red states are forcing trans adults to detransition, forcing younger adults to delay their needed treatment until 25 or 26 years old, forcing insurance companies to pay for conversion therapy which is well known to be a fraud and sham. It can not work, it will not work, it causes more medical problems, and the major medical organizations are totally against it. But fundamentalist religious politicians know far more about medical issues than the very doctors who went to medical school and study those same issues. When the doctors say puberty blockers are safe and reversible, the right wing politicians say only for cis kids, but for trans kids they are deadly dangerous. WTF? I would suggest you read the linked article, the plan the republicans are pushing to remove trans people from society is more than Joe quoted.
This is simple, wipe out trans people, remove them from society. Then go after the rest of the LGBTQIA and wipe them out, remove them from society. It is about returning the country to the same public society of the 1950s. It is about rejecting the modern age, the modern society. It is about wanting a return to a time when their prejudices were acceptable, their hates tolerated. We must not only reject them, we must fight back against what they are doing. We may not win in all red states, and I fear that Florida is going to remain a maga paradise for some time, the rest of the country is savable.
These are people that refused to issue mask or vaccine mandates for public safety because it was against people’s freedom, yet these people feel free to regulate every aspect of other people sexual / gender lives even though that doesn’t affect anyone else. Freedom for them to hate and control, freedom for you is to obey them, doing as they tell you. Hugs. Scottie
A Florida House panel has backed a measure that would require state-issued identification cards to reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth and impose requirements for insurers who cover gender-affirming care.
The Republican-controlled House Select Committee on Health Innovation approved the bill (HB 1639) along party lines, despite opposition from transgender people and their allies.
Under the bill, insurance companies and health plans that cover such treatments as hormone-replacement therapy and surgeries for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria would additionally be required to cover the cost of “de-transitioning,”
Read the full article. My first report on the bill is here.
Florida House panel backs measure to require ID cards to show sex assigned at birth https://t.co/REUGshGNoR
Republican supermajority in Tallahassee heard their constituents wanted solutions to the insurance crisis in this state and this is what they’re proposing.
Vote these fucking idiots out already….oh wait it is Florida…so many residents are FUCKED in the head
Most of the legislation you are seeing pop up all over the country is a product of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. The create boilerplate legislation like this and push it to the ultra conservatives in various state legislatures. No lack of any of that in Floriduh or here in Utah. Those that sponsor the bills are normally looking for that unique “LOOK AT MEEEEE!” media moment so they can get some air time and remind everyone of who to hate and what to hate about them. They are admittedly devout christians and that should surprise absolutely nobody.
You got that right. Since trump was prez all the qanaon and maga followers have flooded into the state. Its a cess pool and will not be blue or purple ever for generations and generations to come.
Floridians appear to be perfectly fine with Republican bs. I barely even hear about protests or pushback. It’s amazing to see a state move from semi-purple to dark red so quickly.
But are they? Or is the media not reporting on the public pushing back. Notice. We don’t hear a lot of people complaining about the skyrocketing insurance cost in the media either. That’s not impossible with the conservative takeover of most of the media in the United States.
I’d swear this sounds like one of those super evil “regulations” that the GOP is always complaining about… what ever happened to the “invisible hand of the free market” that they praise?
If you want to know what republicans are doing, listen to their accusations against liberals. Projection is a republican thing. They do it but don’t seem to know it.
Sad thing is it wont stop here. And it seems like we have no recourse. Our federal gubment is shocked and awed and seems to not know how to respond. Now that TX has blatantly said they will defy the FEDS and the SCOTUS red states know they are free to do what they want.
The other point is that these GOP goobers ain’t got nuttin’ else but sex, gender, and pregnancies on their minds. International diplomacy? Bah! National debt? Pfff! National infrastructure? Nah! Equality for all per the Constitution? Nuh-uh, spurshally not for women, ick! Improving First Nations people’s well-being? Fuck that!
These cruel mutherfuckers…what happened to having politicians between your and your doctor? For that matter, what happened to the liberty these fuckers are always talking about?
GOP won’t OK mandates for vaccine.. but “re-de-sexualize” you against your will is Just OK with GOP ?! Whaaaaot?!? – well kids, this is it.. this IS the GOP on parade rain or shine.. FL IS the GOP End Goal “town with the parade” on parade.. sad it is that GOP patterns get set in like this, as if rehearsal.. GOP Kock Bro. plays in WI for rehearsing Dark Money influence, GOP Abbot in/with TX as rehearsal in Cruelty, GOP states follow in with Trigger Laws and stair steps to the GOP 6-3 supreme court (no, I don’t capitalize that anymore).. and GOP base so Warped and manipulated and trained to distraction the GOP base cannot see the ways this plays out against them down the road.. Gads, Work for DEM WINS Ahead !
So Lance is a video YouTuber I enjoy listening to. But the thing about his well researched true science rebuttal to the new trans hate battle in Canada I wanted to respond to is he missed an important aspect of the hate drive on the right.
During the video the political leader says that they are requiring all teens to wait until 16 before using puberty blockers, and she says this is because no harm is done. But this is the propaganda of the anti-trans people. First the truth is puberty blockers are safe, long time used for at least 60 years, and the only time the right has an issue is when used for trans kids.
But more importantly these people have to ask themselves why do they want trans kids to go through the assigned gender at birth puberty? Because after the puberty changes happen, it is so much harder to reconcile the internal gender ID with the outside look.
Think of it, a 12 year old boy who knows they are a girl is about to have his face change, hair grow on parts that women don’t, his shoulders broaden, his bones and muscles change, his chest and hips change. Her entire body is about to become what she is not, a male. Her testis will grow and produce even more of the hormone they want stopped. They will turn more into what they know they are not. Hating their own bodies even more. Again requiring that surgery that the right hates and calls mutilation.
Now think about a female who knows they are a male. They are about to develop breasts that they hate and will have to have cut off, they will develop softer face features, they will turn more into what they know they are not. They will have smaller shoulders and wider hips. Hating their own bodies even more.
The problem is not that these physical changes can not be changed, but that a person’s looks don’t change easy. Plus it creates the very thing the right claims to hate, confusion over gender identity and trans kids having surgery to change their breasts. But worse so very worse it sets them up with face, hair, and so many other body images they have to deal with that they know deep inside them are wrong for them. The thing is it could all be avoided by listening to the child, and administering the proper medical treatment which is totally safe puberty blockers.
In both the male and female trans kids by forcing them to go through the WRONG puberty their body develops the very things they will hate all their lives about themselves. Those body changes they will have to have surgeries, and forever try to hide, or worse always be accused of noting being pretty enough or not being masculine enough to be who in their mind they know they are.
This is the critical point, and why the right hates puberty blocker, desperate to force trans kids to go through the wrong puberty. So later they can look at these adults and shout at them … You are not a woman, or you are not a man. So they can identify them when they go to the bathroom, or in public, so they can call them out. It is sick.
The right is so desperate to keep the clearest division between what is recognizable as a male or female. That is why the right hates fem gay boys and twinks. Shit, they are too easy to be attracted too. The very thing the right is horrified about, they might be attracted to a trans person. If you have questions you don’t feel you can google for yourself, comment for me to explain it to you. If you are one of the normal people / viewers here, please comment and add your voice to correct the right wings insanity. Hugs. Scottie
What the fuck!!! This culture war against the LGBTQIA and the attempt to drive the country hard back to the 1950s has got to stop. We have had these fights, these arguments, and society has progressed into acceptance. They found one exposed nipple? Have any of you been to a redneck bar in the deep south? I went to a bar in Georgia when I was 19 and in the US Army. Man what I saw there made what I saw working in a gay bar in the 1990s look like a church picnic. One booth was reserved for giving blow jobs by the local bar sluts. I had to be very worried because they loved to get them some young army boys fresh from boot camp in training schools. They about do you on the bar stool. But that is OK to the haters because it is cis straight sex in the open, not an exposed nipple in a gay bar. Wait, I am confused, I thought only female boobs were sexy and to be hidden. Men boobs are fine to see everywhere. There are different kinds of bars for different likes. I bet you some of the high-end places are offering sex also, but those are upper society, so the police won’t bother them. The republican Christian Taliban won’t be happy until everyone is as repressed and unhappy as they are. Hugs. Scottie
Marching into a gay bar to issue citations feels a bit vintage in 2024. Nevertheless, over the weekend, the Joint Enforcement Team (JET), which is a coalition of Seattle Police, Fire, the state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB), and others, entered two gay bars, The Cuff Complex and The Seattle Eagle, and started looking around.
And what did they find? A bartender’s exposed nipple and a few people wearing jockstraps, offenses that law enforcement can cite you for in Washington if you’re also selling alcohol.
At 12:30 on Saturday morning, a 10-member JET crew filed into Cuff, according to owner Joey Burgess. They came in with flashlights, scaring some patrons who left in a hurry. Inside, they saw the offending nipple, a violation of state law the JET may penalize in some way.
A group of Capitol Hill gay bars and clubs are teaming up with neighborhood queer community leaders Dan Savage and Terry Miller in calling for the state’s liquor control board and Seattle Police officials to explain what they say was a weekend crackdown reminiscent of historical harassment of Seattle’s LGBTQ friendly venues.
Ownership at the bars including The Cuff, Queer/Bar, Massive, and The Eagle along with Savage and Miller say that citations issued over weekend over clothing and decency violations at a handful of clubs recorded by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board and so-called Joint Enforcement Team inspectors were targeted.
The group is asking for the community to demand the liquor control board explain its actions.
A coalition of law enforcement officials raided two Seattle gay bars and found nipples and jockstraps in close proximity to booze. Bar owners at Cuff and the Eagle say they may face citations.
I used to have a lot of respect for the police. In the past 12-15 years, that has really eroded away. When I see the times they have shot people because they felt threatened by somebody sitting in a car or reading that the person was shot 56 times, I question them. It’s become worse when they show up dressed like tactical assault troops for simple things. They are getting away with murder. I am not sure how much that I trust them anymore.
And if Trump assumes his dictatorship, cops will have his blessing to be non-compliant with laws and free of any accountability. That’s exactly what he said.
For me, watching the old man get shoved down nonchalantly in Buffalo was the tipping point. First time I used a porcine term to describe them, just after an expletive.
I’ve distrusted cops ever since I shared a house for a while with, among others, a police cadet. The stories I heard about what cops allow other cops to get away with!
And this was just run-of-the-mill police dishonesty and corruption. At the time, I wasn’t aware of how aggressively violent many of them are, as well.
Dude, you and I have a very similar take on this shit and I applaud you for the spot on comment. Being SWM I sometimes have to edit what I say but can always count on you to “send it”.
Even if there is a god/gods (I’m agnostic), I doubt that He/She/It/They would care about people seeing each other’s nipples and various body parts. He/She/It/They made them that way, after all, even if through evolution.
Being that this was open knowledge for many years. I mean, it’s the cuff and the Eagle and all they found was an open nipple and jock strap. Lol I too am wondering who’s behind this. At the liquor board. You know damn well that there’s some religious nut or right-wing POS behind it.
This follows closely upon the attempt to shut down one of the city’s two traditionally gay nude beaches (by building a children’s playground next door). Thankfully, that was nipped in the bud by an overwhelmingly oppositional public protest. Hopefully this will be too.
Brattleboro, Vermont built West River Park next to the traditionally nude (optional) beach on West River for that exact reason. No nudity within 500 feet of a park.
Remember when some liquor control guy took a snap shot of the Eagle balcony and caught some penises in the picture? They said they were going to close it until Dan Savage went around town taking pictures of himself in City Hall, etc with his dick out (public nudity is NOT illegal in Seattle) asking if they were going to close them down too and they backed off.
I know that they can only show ‘beefcake’ pictures on the monitors in bars, a bit amazing down in CA where they have full on porn movies going in some of the bars…
Ya, the last time I was in an Eagle there was someone locked in a cage in the center of the room performing oral sex and being urinated on by strangers. A nipple and jockstrap seem almost wholesome in comparison.
Seattle has a reputation for being a liberal haven, but in fact the SPD is virulently bigoted. Remember that they were under a consent decree for 11 years, effectively under federal supervision until they changed a racist culture that had led to the murder of a First Nations man. Parts of that decree are STILL in effect.
Nipples, jockstraps and alcohol? You can see more flesh, alcohol, and lewd conduct on a public beach in any Summer. Yeah, the originators of that raid on gay bars has some ‘splainin’ to do, and an apology to make. Seattle, you’re better than this!
2016, Americans elected a rapist to the White House. 2024 that rapist is running for the Republican nomination. Rapists gonna rape.
If you think that your liberties are protected by case law, – the Supreme Court, let me introduce you to the strict constructionists, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Any Barrett, Kavanaugh. Raids on gay bars, – you ain’t seen nuttin yet
Are we worried yet about marriage equality, about gay health clinics, about PDAs, about flags or drags, about our freedoms of association in or out of gay bars……….. Are we worried yet about camps, about quarantines, about being ostracised ? Are we worried yet about what the Evangelicals want to do to us?
It is one thing for a person who commits a crime to be off the ballot, like starting an insurrection against the US. But this is the real weaponizing of the laws to harm political opponents. What are these republicans scared of? They can not fight idea to idea. They can not promote their own ideas because they unpopular, the people don’t want what the republicans are pushing. So republicans resort to dirty tricks. Even the governor said, let her on the ballot. Hugs. Scottie
Vanessa Joy was booted off the ballot because she did not include her deadname on official documents.
The county elections board that disqualified a transgender candidate for Ohio state office because she did not include her deadname on petitions circulated to potential voters is refusing to reverse its decision, even after pressure from the state’s governor and other trans candidates being to run for office without disclosing their deadnames in Ohio.
Despite collecting enough signatures to run as a Democrat for Ohio’s firmly Republican House District 50, real estate photographer Vanessa Joy learned earlier this month that she had been disqualified from the race by the Stark County Board of Elections due to an obscure state law requiring candidates to disclose any name changes that have taken place within the last five years.
People who get married don’t have to disclose their previous names to run for office in Ohio, but apparently trans people do.
Notably, the 1995 law was not mentioned in the Ohio secretary of state’s 2024 candidate guide and has not been included in previous candidate guides in recent years. Nor did the candidacy petition form Joy filled out include any mention of the law or space to list any name changes.
Joy requested a reconsideration of the decision, according to a January 19 statement from the Stark County Board of Elections. The board denied her request, citing an Ohio Supreme Court case that found that the law is “unambiguous,” that the “intent behind the candidate’s use of a different name is not relevant,” and that it could not “add an exception that does not appear in the statutory language.”
“The Stark County Board of Elections is sympathetic to Vanessa Joy’s argument that the campaign election guide put out by the Ohio Secretary of State was not specific enough,” the statement read.
The board added that its “decision must be based on the law and cannot be arbitrarily applied.” However, Joy was one of four transgender candidates running for Ohio office this year. Two others, Bobbie Arnold and Arienne Childrey, had their candidacies for Ohio state House seats challenged under the law. Both have since been cleared to have their names appear on the November ballot. Still, according to the Associated Press, both Arnold and Childrey could technically be removed from office if Joy does not succeed in challenging the law.
A fourth trans candidate, Ari Faber, has not had his candidacy for Ohio’s state Senate challenged. Faber has not legally changed his name and is running with his birth name on the ballot, NBC News reports.
While Joy told the AP that, for now, her campaign is over, she is working with an attorney to get the law changed. “I’m out of the race, but I’m not out of the fight,” she said.
Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that trans candidates should not be disqualified for not listing their deadnames and argued for changes to ensure that future candidates will be aware of the little-known law.
According to the AP, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that his team will include the law in future candidate guides but opposed changing the law itself.
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