Lynchburg, Virginia USA – April 14, 2023 – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Liberty University on April 14, 2023.Photo: Shutterstock
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently sent a message to his followers comparing LGBTQ+-inclusive elementary school teachers to Hamas fighters who have gunned down and kidnapped Israeli civilians.
“I have seen the Left’s indoctrination dangerously worsen in the last couple of decades — from student organizations praising Hamas at Ivy Leagues to elementary school teachers pushing radical gender ideology down the throats of first graders,” DeSantis’ message said, according to Florida Politics.
Don’t Say Gay laws and “parents rights” groups are all part of a plan to completely defund public education.
On October 7, Hamas members gunned down Jewish settlers, worshippers, and attendees of an electronic music festival; launched rocket attacks; and took women and children hostage. Their attacks have ignited a long-simmering military conflict with Israel as the neighboring countries battle over control of the region.
DeSantis has claimed that some pro-Palestinian U.S. student groups, like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), are “pro-Hamas” and want a “second Holocaust.” While Hamas is an Islamist militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties, supporters of Palestine don’t automatically support Hamas or its actions. Nevertheless, DeSantis has ordered his state’s universities to disband SJP groups, threatening to persecute and cut government funding to them otherwise.
DeSantis is equating support for Hamas with elementary school teachers who support LGBTQ+-inclusive student policies (or “radical gender ideology,” as DeSantis calls it), such as allowing trans students to use names, pronouns, and bathrooms matching their gender identities.
Palestine Legal, a group that provides legal support for pro-Palestinian groups, says that DeSantis’ ban on SJP groups is part of his larger effort to restrict freedom of speech on campuses.
“Florida, particularly under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, has been actively undermining education, freedom of speech, and social justice movements, including by banning anti-racist courses and trying to criminalize protests. It is not surprising that this egregious move to silence the student movement for Palestinian rights is being pursued under DeSantis,” it said Wednesday in a statement, according to WJTV. “If it goes unchallenged, no one’s political beliefs will be safe from government suppression.”
The new definition will include single people and same-sex couples. It will consist of anyone needing medical interventions “in order to achieve a successful pregnancy either as an individual or with a partner.”
“We made it explicit that lack of access to the kind of gametes you need is a condition deserving of treatment,” Sean Tipton, ASRM’s chief advocacy and policy officer, told CNN.
“That is, the reason you may need medical assistance to build your family, it can be because your fallopian tubes don’t work, or it could be because your sperm don’t swim right. But it could also be because you’re single, or because you are in a relationship with a person who doesn’t have the kind of gametes you need. Those are legitimate causes of infertility, and they need to be treated accordingly.”
“It is our hope that this definition removes one of the excuses that insurance companies have attempted to use to deny patients coverage for the medical care they need to have children,” he added.
The previous definition only defined the term as failing to get pregnant after a year of having unprotected sex or undergoing therapeutic donor insemination in women younger than 35, or within six months for women over 35.
The updated definition will be published in about a week as a report in the group’s journal.
Justice Clarence Thomas borrowed more than a quarter of a million dollars from a wealthy friend to buy a 40-foot luxury RV, did not repay it, and had the loan forgiven.
Can’t wait for all the “students should pay their loans” conservatives to condemn him. https://t.co/jFx3rGspCt
Oh my dogs that love gravy, this post set me off. But before we get to that, I have been on and off on the computer today. Ron is still hobbling yet went out and put the new night pole light. So I have been doing the inside stuff, but yesterday our new outside solar pole lamp top arrived. Now, we had agreed he would paint the pole before attaching the new light. But today, after sitting in his chair as I was doing dishes, he disappeared for a while. Then informed me that the new lamp post light was on the pole. WTF!!!! I don’t know. But when I asked him about painting the pole, he said that could be done at any time. So I guess we have to see what happens next.
So now I am helping Ron make supper. But in the post below, the dad and the host seem to think that the daughter’s sexual awakening was a choice, which we know it is not, and that somehow it was forced on her. Notice that he says that the LGBTQ+ people want to “infest our children” WTF! Just how is such a belief possible? Hugs. Scottie
The Christian dad said that the “lesbian cult” took his daughter so he rejected her. But now some members of his family won’t talk to him.
Conservative BlazeTV host Steve Deace recently applauded a viewer for refusing to accept his lesbian daughter, saying that LGBTQ+ people want to “infest our children” and it’s important for parents to “maintain their conviction.”
Deace’s reaction came in response to a letter from a viewer named David Biddle, who said he is a fundamentalist Southern Baptist and a “culture warrior.”
He said his daughter “loved the Lord” and was his “world” and “sidekick” until her sophomore year of college, when she “got grabbed by the lesbian cult.”
“We naturally had the emotions of anger and heartbrokenness,” Biddle said, adding that he tried to convince her to change for the next year but that “she kept insisting it was her choice to do this and she just likes this better.”
He continued, “Within a year of her conversion, she was ‘engaged’ [to a girl]” and “she became militant towards us for not embracing her choices.” He explained that she said if they didn’t accept her, she would cut them out of her life.
“She basically demanded we deny our faith,” Biddle said. “That was demonic words coming from her mouth.” He asserted his belief that “affirmation is not love; it is condemnation” and said, “The most unloving thing I could do as a father was to pave her path to eternal damnation.”
He said he hasn’t spoken to his daughter in two years and that some of his extended family won’t speak to him and his wife for what they have done.
Biddle ended by praising Deace’s show for continuing to spread anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. “Keep sounding the alarm of the evil demonic forces that are capturing our kids and all of society,” he said.
Deace’s response was to encourage parents like Biddle to “maintain their conviction.”
“This is not as uncommon of a story as we would wish, unfortunately,” he said, adding that “a lot of our institutions have a lot of conviction to infest our children,” as if LGBTQ+ people are insects or rodents that need to be exterminated.
“If they have come to the point that they can penetrate the bubble of families, even like the one that David articulated here, understand that this thing has metastasized deeply into our culture, and the only way out is through,” Deace said. “I’d urge everybody in our audience to pray for David and families like him, to maintain their conviction, and that the lord would reward that in this life or the next.”
Wow, really pushing the religious idea a woman’s place is to obey the men in her life, she is owned by her husband, and along with the misogyny of strict 1950s gender role there is the long debunked idea of what makes kids gay, only now just pushed on to trans kids also. These people simply refuse to accept modern science which has shown that kids are born with their sexual orientation and their view of their gender identity. Regardless of how often, how forceful, how authoritarian the person telling them they are not gay, gay kids know they are. Same with trans kids, despite the same people telling them they are the gender they were assigned at birth, they KNOW who they really are inside. But this is what we face with the religious Nationalist right wing take over and push to return to the 1950s. These are the same people that deny other science because their bibles / really their preachers / priest / pastors tell them that science is wrong because the bible is right. These same people claim there was a worldwide flood and that an ark built by a 600-year-old man held every creature on earth, and also the world is only 6000 years old so that same family had a lot of fucking / child birthing to do to get to the number of humans alive today. None of it makes sense if you try to take it literally. But they don’t care, their feelings / beliefs are more important than reality or facts. They feel the same on sexual / gender issues. Yet in at least 26 US states these people have the majority in government. Can the US afford this? Hugs. Scottie.
It also tells dads to go on “man time” dates with their sons and make them do manly things like hunt animals and mow the lawn.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) — a Christian anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that uses its professional-sounding name to push transphobic and anti-abortion propaganda — has unveiled a new website encouraging parents to send their trans kids to conversion therapy. The website tells mothers not to be “dominant” and not to be “critical” of nor “display hurt or angry emotions” towards their husbands.
The website, called the “Biological Integrity Initiative,” offers outdated and non-clinically backed “resources” for parents, teens, physicians, schools, and policymakers, all geared towards denying the identities of trans youth, particularly those of trans girls. It introduces gender-questioning teens to the tale of right-wing de-transitioner Chloe Cole, tells teachers to oppose trans-inclusive school policies (referred to as “gender interventions”), and tells policymakers that they must pass bans on gender-affirming healthcare to “protect civilization” and “human dignity.”
It tells mothers not to be critical of their husbands or “overly sensitive” to their sons. Mothers are advised to frequently “compliment the father” and to refrain from showing their children any “angry emotions” towards their husbands. It also tells mothers to “set a good example of womanhood” for their daughters because, if they don’t, their daughters may “develop a wrong perception… and may resist embracing a female identity.”
“A mother who is not emotionally connected to her daughter may leave her daughter craving motherly love. Likewise, a father who is not closely connected to his son may leave a son craving fatherly love,” the site’s handout on “Affirming Your Daughter’s and Son’s Sexual Identity” states.
“Mothers should not favor a son over his father, even if the son is more responsive and compassionate than the husband,” the handout continues. “If mothers make this mistake, the son may identify with the mother and fail to bond with the father.”
This concept — that emotionally distant and physically unaffectionate parents create gay or “gender-confused” children — is a popular but widely debunked concept from 19th-century Freudian psychology. While psychologists have observed that neglected and abused children may risk their personal safety to find support and affection from other sources, there’s zero proof that parental distance causes homosexuality or trans identity.
Similarly, the handout says that molestation, sexual abuse, and graphic pornography can cause trans identity. The same has been said of homosexuality, and there is no proof to back up either claim.
The group tells fathers to be “physically active” and “wrestle on the floor” with their sons, “play tackle and praise him for being tough when he is knocked down,” and also to go on “man time” dates with the boy. It also tells dads to have their sons help mow the lawn, fix the toilet, shovel snow, build model cars and benches, go hunting to kill animals, and “throw, kick and dribble a ball… even if he chooses not to play sports.”
Under the website’s “Teen FAQ,” it states, “There is no evidence that opposite-sex hormones make you feel better,” even though a large-scale 2023 study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that hormone therapy improves mental health for trans youth. The FAQ also claims that “opposite sex hormones can increase thoughts of hurting yourself,” “increase unhealthiness,” “may cause permanent infertility,” and “will make teens ‘a medical patient for life.’”
The site backs up some of its claims by referring to a 12-year-old Swedish study of data on 324 trans people collected from 1973 to 2003. The study found higher rates of suicide and criminal convictions among trans individuals, but such actions may be explained by transphobia and the fewer economic opportunities and social support resources for trans people.
As for “infertility,” trans journalist Erin Reed noted that fertility counseling is a regular part of any medical care for trans youth. Reed said that the ACPeds site pushes gender exploratory therapy, “a new type of conversion therapy which seeks to persuade transgender individuals that their gender identity stems from anything but authentic transness.” The ACPeds website’s “Find a Therapist” section links to numerous Christian and Catholic conversion therapy groups.
In her newsletter, Reed wrote, “The Gender Exploratory Therapy Association frequently denies that it engages in conversion therapy. They assert that their therapeutic approach is ‘neutral in nature’ and ‘does not prejudge outcomes.’ Yet, this association opposes bans on conversion therapy, submits public comments in favor of blocking Title IX protections against gender discrimination for trans students, and its official account has been observed endorsing tweets like ‘trans healthcare is the latest in a long line of medical fads.’ Such actions hardly mirror the claims of a ‘neutral, non-prejudiced’ entity.”
The republicans don’t care they keep losing. This is a holy war for them. They are doing god’s work of wiping the LGBTQIA from society and returning women to their submissive roles. But their goal is to roll back and undo any progress in the US for equality and allowing others to enjoy civil rights. They want a theocracy instead of a democracy. Hugs. Scottie
Murfeesboro tried to ban drag queens from a local Pride festival. A federal judge put a halt to it.
While Tennessee Republicans have done their best to vilify drag queens and ban drag shows, they keep getting knocked back by judges who rule that the bans are unconstitutional.
The city of Murfreesboro became the latest municipality to find out the hard way when a federal judge blocked their attempt to interfere with a local Pride festival.
‘Drag Race’ alums and local performers joined the Grammy-winner onstage in Knoxville.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Tennessee sued over the city’s efforts to silence a local LGBTQ+ organization, including a city-wide policy denying the group permits to host events and a local ordinance banning drag performances.
The lawsuit accused the city of Murfreesboro of “flagrant and ongoing violations of TEP’s constitutional rights to free speech and expression, due process, and equal protection under the law.”
“Since at least October 2022, the City has engaged in a targeted campaign to silence TEP’s speech in support of the Murfreesboro LGBTQ+ community,” the suit claimed. “First, the City put in place a discriminatory policy, prohibiting TEP from obtaining permits to host its annual BoroPride Festival and any other events on City property. Then, it enacted a discriminatory ordinance meant to drive TEP and the City’s LGBTQ+ community—and, in particular, its drag performers—out of the City’s public spaces. These actions, which were driven by animus against the LGBTQ+ community, are blatantly unconstitutional.”
“We are relieved that the court has taken action to ensure that Murfreesboro’s discriminatory ordinance will not be enforced during the BoroPride festival. We look forward to a safe, joyful celebration of Murfreesboro’s LGBTQ+ community,” Tennessee Equality Project Executive Director Chris Sanders said in a statement.
Several other cities have made efforts to discriminate against LGBTQ+ groups and Pride festivals, but the efforts have consistently failed.
A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump ruled against Tennessee’s ban on drag performances, saying that the law is both “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad,” that it will encourage “discriminatory enforcement,” and that it violates the First Amendment’s free speech protections.
“There is no question that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. But there is a difference between material that is ‘obscene’ in the vernacular, and material that is ‘obscene’ under the law,” Judge Thomas Parker ruled in June. “Simply put, no majority of the Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit — but not obscene — speech receives less protection than political, artistic, or scientific speech.”
I love this substack and the effort the author goes to in presenting the facts. I wanted to share the titles of a few posts to show you what is going on. Hugs. Scottie
A paper about “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” retracted in March, was republished in a journal with a shady record. Major anti-trans accounts celebrated this as a “victory.”
The website leans heavily on religious therapy and “gender exploratory therapy” a misleadingly named type of therapy meant to convince trans people they are not truly transgender.
Republican Attorneys General representing 18 states have filed a brief in Dekker v. Weida, a case in which trans people in Florida have been denied Medicaid coverage for gender affirming care.
It has been a difficult year for transgender people in the US. Looking ahead, the battle lines are becoming clearer, as 2024 promises to be a decision point for the future of trans people in America.
Explosive allegations have emerged about Jamie Reed’s allegations against a gender affirming care clinic in Missouri. One family alleges Reed lied about the cause of their child’s liver damage.
In a major ruling released Wednesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States ruled that Florida’s ban on drag will continue to be blocked from enforcement statewide.
Recently on Jill’s blog we were talking about people who claim they speak for the majority when in fact they only speak for their bigoted hateful group. In the article Rowling claims that almost everyone agrees with her, even as famous people that she has worked withcondemned her words. Here is another quote from the article. Here Rowling used the common TERF argument that granting trans people rights somehow puts cis women in danger. In reality, trans folks are the ones in danger due to dangerous rhetoric like Rowling’s. The Williams Institute found that trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime. I find it ironic that people who actively stir up hate and anger at trans women claim to be victims, and that it is unfair when people push back on their message. Hugs. Scottie
Poor people can’t be expected to lead her movement.
Anti-trans author JK Rowling made a surprise appearance this week at the anti-trans FiLia Women’s Conference. It is thought to be the Harry Potter author’s first public appearance discussing her anti-trans views.
Rowling spoke alongside known TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) Julie Bindel on a panel about sexism and bullying. She said she felt her wealth gave her a duty to speak out against trans folks in the name of protecting women and girls.
School board candidate Derrick Wilburn has a plan for Colorado Springs, and it’s apparently very anti-LGBTQ+.
“I will always be able to feed my family,” Rowling reportedly stated.”I’ve looked around and realized that it has to be someone who can take the hit. And it has to be me. I can afford it.”
Rowling also claimed that “This has never been about trans rights.”
“This is about women’s rights and activists’ demands to dismantle those rights,” she said. “I have nothing but profound sympathy for trans women who have experienced male violence. I want trans people to be safe. I just don’t want women and girls to be any less safe.”
Here Rowling used the common TERF argument that granting trans people rights somehow puts cis women in danger. In reality, trans folks are the ones in danger due to dangerous rhetoric like Rowlings. The Williams Institute found that trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime.
FiLia reportedly left Rowling out of the program to avoid a trans rights protest outside the venue. The conference had already been temporarily canceled after trans activists, led by the group Glasgow Trans Rally, pressured the venue to do so, arguing in a statement that “dangerously transphobic” conferences like FiLia “legitimize debates around trans lives as an area of concern for women and pit trans rights against women’s rights,” as reported byThe Herald.
While the venue initially sided with the trans rights protestors, it reinstated the conference after FiLia threatened legal action. Nevertheless, about 70 protestors demonstrated outside the venue, chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, trans people are welcome here,” according toThe Scottish Sun.
Rowling posted a video on X of one of the protestors singing Lily Allen’s F**k You (Very Much), calling him a pr**k.
“Inside the venue: women from 35 different countries discuss their sex-based issues and concerns, including the harassment and intimidation they face from men,” Rowling said. “Outside the venue, this prick.”
Inside the venue: women from 35 different countries discuss their sex-based issues and concerns, including the harassment and intimidation they face from men.
She then criticized the protestor again in a follow-up post, writing, “To prove his point that the female fear of male harassment is groundless, he got up early to bellow ‘fuck you’ at a group of peacefully assembling women. Is he genuinely that thick? Or are we talking #TERFblackops?”
To the heartbreak of many of her fans, Rowling has long positioned herself as an enemy of the trans community.
Riley Gaines rose to fame not from her own athletic ability which was lacking but by claiming she was cheated out of a win by tieing for fifth place with a trans woman. Both of them got beaten for the first through fourth spots by other women. She owes her fame and living to being a virulent anti-trans activist, spreading hate and misinformation everywhere she can. She is held up as the wronged party because she tied with a trans woman for fifth place. The anti-trans activists use her to claim that trans women have an unfair advantage and harm women’s sports. But the facts show the opposite. Hugs. Scottie
Longtime fencer Liz Kocab said her continued participation in competitions is her “way of saying thanks to USA Fencing.”
Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines took a swipe at a 71-year-old trans athlete who just became an eight-time world fencing champion.
Liz Kocab recently won the women’s 70+ division in the Veteran Fencing World Championships and now claims victories in the 50s, 60s, and 70+ age categories. In a post-victory interview with USA Fencing, Kocab said her continued participation in competitions is her “way of saying thanks to USA Fencing.” With tears in her eyes, she said winning “never gets old” and is “always special.”
She is trying to make October 10 “Real Women’s Day” because transphobia is her whole personality now.
But Gaines decided to rain on the parade by insulting and misgendering Kocab on X, writing that “winning a title as a male in the women’s category doesn’t make you a champion. It makes you an entitled cheat.”
Gaines’s followers joined in the heckling in the responses, calling Gaines a hero and referring to Kocab as an “old conman,” a “weirdo cheat,” and a “coward,” among other insults.
Liz Kocab (male) wins his 8th Fencing World Championship title…in the women's category
Winning a title as a male in the women's category doesn't make you a champion. It makes you an entitled cheat. pic.twitter.com/9dRNRydtUE
USA Fencing adopted a trans-inclusive policy in 2022, allowing athletes to compete as their gender, with varied participation requirements depending on the age level.
At the time, USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews declared unwavering support for trans fencers: “It is critical that we protect the rights of nonbinary and transgender athletes in fencing. Even as we plan to conduct more scientific research into the physiological effects of gender transition as they pertain specifically to the sport of fencing, we remain unanimously and steadfastly supportive of transgender athletes having their place in fencing. To be clear, even as this issue evolves, our support of transgender athletes will not waver.”
Gaines, on the other hand, has been crusading against the rights of trans athletes since she tied for fifth place with trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas in the women’s 200m freestyle final at the National Collegiate Athletics Association swimming and diving championships. She has claimed she was robbed of some sort of victory by having to share fifth place with a trans woman.
Most recently, Gaines celebrated her own created holiday, “Real Women’s Day,” which she established on October 10th since the Roman numerals for 10/10 are XX, symbolizing for Gaines that “real” women have XX chromosomes.
Speaking at Penn State that day, Gaines yelled to trans rights protestors: “What are you so scared of? The truth? Science? Common sense? Logic? Reasoning? I’d love to hear your argument here because what I’m here to talk about is men are men, women are women, and you cannot change your sex. It’s that simple.”
Joseph Viso Jr. is a Republican candidate for New Jersey’s State Assembly, and some shocking details about his past came to light recently. He’s running on “family values” and protecting children from LGBTQ people he claims are “coming for our children,” but he poses a danger to children as well. We’ll break down this bizarre story in this video.
Lynchburg, Virginia USA – April 14, 2023 – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at Liberty University on April 14, 2023.Photo: Shutterstock
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JK Rowling in 2011Photo: Shutterstock
Riley GainesPhoto: Screenshot
