Category: LGBTQ+ / Gay / Trans / Gender
Texas has banned more books than any other state, new report shows
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/19/texas-book-bans/
Across the country, more books have been challenged and removed as religious and conservative groups target LGBTQ and race issues.
BY BRIAN LOPEZBooks at Vandegrift High School’s library on March 2, 2022. Credit: Lauren Witte/The Texas TribuneTexas banned more books from school libraries this past year than any other state in the nation, targeting titles centering on race, racism, abortion and LGBTQ representation and issues, according to a new analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free speech.
The report released on Monday found that school administrators in Texas have banned 801 books across 22 school districts, and 174 titles were banned at least twice between July 2021 through June 2022. PEN America defines a ban as any action taken against a book based on its content after challenges from parents or lawmakers.
The most frequent books removed included “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which depicts Kobabe’s journey of gender identity and sexual orientation; “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison; “Roe v. Wade: A Woman’s Choice?” by Susan Dudley Gold; “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, which follows a love story between a Mexican American teenage girl and a Black teen boy in 1930s East Texas; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a personal account of growing up black and queer in Plainfield, New Jersey.
“This censorious movement is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, driving wedges within communities, forcing teachers and librarians from their jobs, and casting a chill over the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpin a flourishing democracy,” Suzanne Nossel, PEN America’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Across the country, PEN America found that 1,648 unique titles had been banned by schools. Of these titles, 41% address LGBTQ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ. Another 40% of these books contains protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color.
Summer Lopez, the chief program officer of free expression at PEN America, said what’s notable about these book bans is that most are on books that families and children can elect to read, not any required reading.
Florida and Pennsylvania followed Texas as the states with the most bans, respectively. Florida banned 566 books, and 457 titles were banned in Pennsylvania, where a majority of books were removed from one school district in York County, which is known as being more conservative.
Lopez said her organization could not recall a previous year with as many reported book bans.
“This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in more and more students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s free expression and education programs and the lead author of the report, said in a statement.
Texas’ book challenges can be traced to last October, when state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, sent a list of some 850 books about race and sexuality — including Kobabe’s — to school districts asking for information about how many of those are available on their campuses. This one move spurred parents to challenge and successfully remove books they believe are not appropriate and “pornographic.”
The Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County was one of the first to successfully remove “Gender Queer” from school libraries after a group of moms complained it was “pornographic.”
This recent series of book bans has unfolded against the backdrop of a national debate over critical race theory, a college-level academic discipline that examines how racism is embedded in the country’s legal and structural systems. It is not taught in Texas’ public schools. However, some conservative politicians and parents have assigned the term “CRT” to dismiss efforts in public schools to incorporate a more comprehensive and inclusive public school curriculum, something they equate to indoctrination.
Conservatives in some school districts have used the book bans and rancor over social studies teachings to help bring rally support and attracted unprecedented money to win school board seats campaigning under the promise to clear out “critical race theory” and “pornographic” materials from schools. In the midst of continuing Republican-led political fights over how issues related to race, gender and sex are allowed to be taught in public schools, Gov. Greg Abbott has put a promise to increase parental rights at the center of his reelection platform.
However, Texas parents already have the right to remove their child temporarily from a class or activity that conflicts with their religious beliefs. They have the right to review all instructional materials, and state law guarantees them access to their student’s records and to a school principal or administrator. Also, school boards must establish a way to consider complaints from parents.
PEN America’s analysis also found that these bans have been largely driven by organized groups formed over the last year to combat “pornographic” and “CRT” materials in school.
“The work of groups organizing and advocating to ban books in schools is especially harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who are forced to experience stories that validate their lives vanishing from classrooms and library shelves,” Friedman said.
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Coming Out To My Italian Parents
This is four years old. But it is how a lot of gay kids feel when they try to address their feelings with their parents. The drama on the parents / dads part may be a bit over done. But a lot of gay boys are terrified to tell their dads they are gay. And the way the boy in the video reacts to even the acceptance of his father was realistic.
A sad side note. In late 1986, when I came home from the US army, after already being in the US Navy, I took a job at one of the two local gay bars. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done so but I learned a lot about gay culture in our area at the time. Again how I met Ron the love of my life, and who with I am going on our 34th year as a couple. On the plus side at the other one I met Ron! At the time I was still living at the adoptive folk’s home from my childhood which was horrible for me. The point of this is when I had to admit to my adoptive father who had sexually abused me I was working at the gay bar he … asked me if I was … one of those … if I was gay?
Like every one of the letters of gay hurt him to say. When I told him I was, he asked me if I didn’t think I should see a doctor about it for help. He even told me how sick I was. This is a man who made me suck his dick when I was a kid, who raped me in … No, sorry not the place or time. Anyway the point is, I understand this boy in the video’s fear his father wouldn’t accept him. Even though as it seems he had a gay brother.
Anyway it is about how hard it is for gay kids to come out to family and to simply be themselves, even in a country that doesn’t have republicans trying to make their lives a living hell. We really need to let these kids be and give them a place to be themselves openly. Before it drives them to depression and possible suicide like in the video, which thankfully the boy did not do. Hugs. Scottie
SCOTUS Rejects Challenge To WA Ex-Gay Torture Ban
According to Brian Tingley’s resume, he’s led seminars on “authentic manhood” and “true masculinity.”
Before that, he wrote and produced commercials for car dealerships, bingo halls, and county fairs.
As I’ve reported many times over the years, ex-gay torture therapists often end up rejecting their work and coming out as gay themselves. And sometimes, they are arrested for sexually assaulting their clients.
Then there are the ones that are busted trolling online for gay sex, such as the nationally prominent therapist caught cruising Manhunt in 2018 as HotNHairy72.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, whose lead attorney was once House Speaker Mike Johnson, has advocated for criminalizing homosexuality in the United States and has provided free legal support to foreign groups seeking the same in their own countries.
My sexuality is not a “debate.” It’s a fact of life, just as a straight person’s sexuality is a fact of life. Just because these religious whack jobs are too stupid to understand that should not be my problem.
They understand…the cruelty is the point.
Maybe they should debate the weather, or gravity, or something. All as changeable as sexuality, and just as unnatural. /s
Ladybird Bachmann is surely sobbing into the sleeve of his caftan.
He’ll do what he always does…finding ways to fill his emptiness & sorrow.
Never get a blowjob from a Ferengi. They sharpen their teeth.
Peoples rights in Texas
Bomb Threat Shuts Down Maryland Drag Brunch
So the haters again got what they wanted. This is terrorism. They got something they hate / dislike shut down even though it was not harming anyone. Plus tell me how it is “protecting the children” to threaten to blow them up? I think we need to stop giving in to the threats. The bomb threats always turn out false, no bomb, and yet the events get cancelled. I am an atheist, a few weekends ago a church sent squads of believers in to our park without permission and they went door to door bothering people. Does that give me the right to threaten their church or them? This attempt to control what other people can do, see, hear, places they can attend, and how they dress is Taliban shit. It is horrible. Why? So a group of regressive people can be happy by forcing the world to be just like them? Hugs. Scottie
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Washington DC’s NBC affiliate reports:
A popular restaurant and bar in Takoma Park, Maryland, received bomb threats on Saturday morning over a drag brunch and story time event. The restaurant, Motorkat, bills itself as “a safe space for people of all orientations and backgrounds.
Motorkat was forced to cancel the drag brunch to keep its patrons safe, the restaurant said in the release. Those with tickets will get a full refund.
Police were emailed a bomb threat toward attendees at the restaurant’s drag event, and the police department and a bomb squad “swiftly responded to the threat, ensuring the safety of both patrons and staff,” Motorkat said.
Read the full article.
School Days Florida Style – A Ron Desantis Parody | Freedom Toast & Cinebot Video
Mike Johnson thought the cameras were off. They weren’t.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/house-speaker-mike-johnson-moses-speech-rcna128126
At the NACL, Johnson knew he had a receptive audience. The group’s founder and president, Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator, recently fretted to a reporter that “with all the troubles facing our country, with Democrats and leftists that are advocating cutting penises off of little boys and breasts off of little girls, we have reached a level of debauchery and immorality that is at biblical proportions.” He has called LGBTQ people a “cult” that promotes “unholiness, unrighteousness and immorality in our nation.” He has expressed hope that in 2024, Americans “will re-elect Jesus to be on the throne here again in our country.” Rapert believes fetuses have constitutional rights, and that abortion is worse than slavery and the Holocaust. As a state senator, he sought to amend the U.S. Constitution to obliterate the rights of LGBTQ people through a statement that marriage “is between a man and a woman.”
Not everything in Johnson’s speech was a divine revelation. “What we’re engaged in right now is a battle between worldviews,” he declared in a short clip an attendee posted on Facebook. “It’s a great struggle for the future of the Republic.” That’s standard Christian nationalist fare, and yet another sign that Johnson believes himself to be at war with the majority of Americans.
By elevating yet another relatively obscure Christian nationalist group, Johnson can also notch a victory for himself. He’s taken another step in normalizing an extremist organization whose member pledge reads, in part, that “atheists and anti-Christian groups have recently been more strategic in pursing their godless worldview through the courts and legislation than Christians” and that these groups “are becoming more aggressive and are trampling on the Christian liberty we have enjoyed in this country for centuries.”
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‘Cry more!’ Florida SAT scores sink again while education leaders act like online trolls | Commentary
Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. (left) likes to troll journalists on Twitter and stage feisty debates over preferred pronouns. Meanwhile, Florida’s SAT scores have dropped once again. The state ranks 45th in America. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)
New rankings show Florida students are posting some of the lowest SAT scores in America.
We’re talking 46th place. Down another 17 points overall to 966, according to the combined reading and math scores shared by the College Board.
Florida trails other Southern states like South Carolina and Georgia. We trail states where more students take the test, like Illinois and Indiana.
We somehow now even slightly trail Washington, D.C. — a district long maligned as one of the supposedly worst in America, where all students take the test.
This should be an all-hands-on-deck crisis. Yet what are Florida education officials obsessing over?
Pronouns. And censoring books.
While other states focus on algebra and reading comprehension, Florida’s top education officials are waging wars with teachers about what kind of pronouns they can use and defending policies that have led to books by Ernest Hemingway and Zora Neale Hurston being removed from library shelves. We are reaping what they sow.
Tolstoy, Sendak picture book among hundreds banned from Florida schoolsBut perhaps the most disturbing thing about Florida’s current crop of top education officials isn’t just the misguided policies they’re pushing, it’s the way they behave. Like it’s all a joke. Like Twitter trolls.
They’re calling names, mocking those trying to have serious conversations about education and generally reveling in owning the libs.
A few months ago, Orlando Sentinel education reporter Leslie Postal spent weeks trying to get public records about a newly hired state education employee. Postal just wanted to explain to taxpayers how their money was being spent. But state officials refused to answer questions.
So Postal wrote up the piece, and Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz shared the piece on Twitter (now X) with a two-word comment: “Cry more!”
For those of you who don’t speak troll, “Cry more” is a response used by some social-media users — usually those juvenile in age or intellect — to mock someone who is unhappy. The folks at Urban Dictionary, who revel in all things trolly, define “Cry More” as a “phrase used in online games when someone is getting owned, and they b*tch about it.”
The game in question here, mind you, was the Sentinel’s two-month quest to get answers about how the state was spending tax dollars. And the response from the state’s top education official was: “Cry more!” What a role model for students.
That’s just one example. Last week, after I wrote a column about rampant book-censorship in the state — with one district shelving 300 titles — State Board of Education Member Ryan Petty responded (at quarter ’til 1 in the morning): “Just dumb. This passes as journalism.” Followed by a clown emoji.
This holiday season, give the gift of books banned in Florida | CommentaryOK, for argument’s sake, let’s say I’m the dumbest clod to ever set foot in the Sunshine State. Petty still wouldn’t answer any of the direct questions posed in both the column and on Twitter. Specifically, if the goal isn’t widespread book-banning, why won’t his education department provide a definitive list of what books it believes students shouldn’t have access to in school?
Petty opted for emojis over answers, because that’s what trolls do.
The responses on Twitter to Diaz and Petty — both appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis — were about what you’d expect. One user told Petty: “My ninth grader could have crafted a more articulate response.” Several users responded similarly to Diaz’s “Cry More!” post, questioning his ability to maturely discuss policy and referring back to a Miami Herald investigation into student claims of “inappropriate behavior” by Diaz back when he was a teacher; claims Diaz said were bogus smears.
None of this did a thing to address this state’s education issues. Yet that’s where we are in Florida these days, mired in culture wars and trolling each other.
We also saw something similar last week when Diaz refused to directly answer questions from Orange County Public Schools about whether teachers were allowed to honor the requests of transgender students who wanted to be addressed with different pronouns — if the teachers wanted to and if those students also had their parents’ written permission. (Think about how bizarre it is that schools must even ask that question … in the so-called “parental rights” state.)
In his response to the district, Diaz offered a theatrical and condescending response that referred to “false” pronouns but which school officials concluded didn’t actually answer the question in a straightforward manner. Just more troll games … involving a population of teens more prone to self-harm and suicide, no less.
Orange teachers can use students’ preferred pronouns with parental OK, supt. saysAs far as the SAT goes, the test certainly has its share of legitimate critics. But it’s still one of the best apples-to-apples metrics we have for student learning.
Yet hardly any Florida media organizations even covered the October release of the new SAT scores that showed Florida’s poor showing. Why? Because we’ve been trained to follow the bouncing-ball, culture-war debate of the day.
So we see plenty of coverage about Florida supposedly ranking No. 1 in “educational freedom” by partisan political groups and scant addition to real education issues.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like hard numbers more than political posturing or magazine rankings. So do others who actually care about and study education.
Paul Cottle, a physics professor who authors a blog that focuses on STEM education, noted Florida’s increasingly cruddy SAT scores back in October when they were released — when everyone else was focused on the debate-of-the-day.
Cottle noted that Florida’s math scores for 4th graders were solid but that the SAT scores for graduating seniors were so bad, they suggested something was going awry for students before Florida schools sent them into the real world.
Cottle called the showing “a sad state of affairs.”
He’s right. Yet we’re getting precisely the educational environment and results that our culture-warring politicians are cultivating — an environment where trolls thrive, even if students don’t.
smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com
