Thug rule! This is how the right intends to have and keep power. These are legal events that are not in any way offensive to normal people. They are in public and well chaperoned. Yet the republicans have made such wild statements their cult base thinks that all drag shows are a sexual orgy and that children are the star participants. It is really just Halloween dress up. This event was by teenagers for mostly teenagers. But this really is like the brownshirts that Hillter used to enforce his ideas and push him into power. These are gang thugs, the mentality of the Taliban. Are we going to tolerate this in the US? Where is law enforcement to say they won’t tolerate this terrorism against the people? If this were a Muslim group threatening this stuff the authorities would be all over that group and would be protecting the library and insisting the events be held. But because this is a gang of white Christian thugs forcing everyone to live by their morality and church doctrine the authorities tolerate it. This has become the normal response by the right now to things they don’t like. It started with masks in schools and Covid precautions where these thugs took over school board meetings and threatened violence to those board members who tried to implement the best practices of the medical community. Trust me it will not stop at drag shows, trans people, the rest of the LGBTQ+. It will be anything and any event the right doesn’t like. It has already been tried at Democratic rallies, and it will get violent because the right believes they have the god given right to use force on others and that the republicans in charge will support them because they are working for republican goals. Will they come for the Jews next? Will they allow laws that they don’t like? Is the US a nation of laws and equality? Or are we a land of gang thugs that enforce a Taliban like vice patrol to enforce their views of what is acceptable that they will let the public do. Hugs
It was advertised as a “fun-filled afternoon” in a Bronx library with a “local celebrity/author who encourages you to embrace your own uniqueness.”
Instead, the free event planned at the Morrisania Library starring drag artist Desmond Napoles was canceled after the teenaged celebrity received hate-filled and violent threats — a trend that has led to many other family-oriented LGBTQ events being canceled across the nation.
Known by the stage name Desmond is Amazing, Desmond, 15, is an LGBTQ+ youth advocate, a published author and influencer with nearly 200,000 social media followers. The 15-year-old is also the owner of clothing line Be Amazing NYC.
Desmond was called “disgusting” and a range of slurs by a person using a recently created Instagram account who also threatened to use violence against Desmond and their family.
Desmond is Amazing wearing clothing from their clothing line, Be Amazing NYC. (Wendy Napoles)
“You need to be locked away in a dog kennel and thrown into the ocean,” read one of the 10 private messages sent to the teen, which were seen by the Daily News.
The nasty attacks on Desmond — a high school sophomore who likes to volunteer at the New York Public Library “because it’s really fun and it gives me something to do during the summer” — came after the Morrisania Library announced that Desmond would present two teen-focused sessions reading from their book, “Be Amazing: A History of Pride.”
The events were originally scheduled for Sept. 17 and 24. Late last week, however, both sessions had to be canceled following the threats, which were reported to NYPL officials and the NYPD.
“I’m going to that library, I’m going with a bucked of dog s–t and I’m pouring it on your parents and rubbing it into their eyes,” the hate-filled Instagram user wrote.
Desmond — who’s no stranger to threats, having performed as a drag artist for the past seven years — showed the messages to their mother, Wendy Napoles, who contacted the library.
Napoles, 45, figured they would be OK and that the person was “just another cyberbully” — something the family has encountered before. “But on Saturday, he called the library to find out if Desmond was still going to be there,” she told The News.
The person, a man with a phone number linked to a business in Louisiana, then went on an angry tirade, saying that such events should not be allowed at the library, calling Desmond “a little f—ot.” The library decided to cancel for the safety of everyone involved.
Amy Geduldig, an NYPL spokesperson, confirmed to The News that “the presenter of the programs has been experiencing harassment online and there were indications that the events would be disrupted by this harassment,” leading the branch to cancel the programs “out of an abundance of caution.”
Desmond was devastated and took the news as a “hit in the heart,” but the scrapping of the event is hardly an isolated incident.
Over the past few months, events involving drag performers in several U.S. states, including Illinois, California, Texas, Idaho and North Carolina, had to be canceled due to “increased threats of violence,” according to local authorities.
Earlier this week, a library in Chicago was forced to cancel a drag queen bingo “due to the severity of the threats made against the library,” while the Cool Beans Bar and Grill in Denton, Texas, pulled the plug on an all-age Disney-themed drag brunch after the host of a conservative program on Blaze TV urged her nearly 250,000 followers to help “shut it down.”
Desmond is Amazing (Wendy Napoles)
The owner of a bakery in suburban Chicago in July was forced to cancel a drag-hosted “Brunch at Night” event after the building “sustained significant damage” as the result of anti-LGBTQ vandalism. Earlier in the month, a drag performer at a Palm Springs bar faced “escalating threats” after right-wing outlets picked up a video she had shared on TikTok featuring a young girl joining her on stage and dancing to Donna Summer’s classic disco hit “Last Dance.”
In early June, a group of five members of the Proud Boys stormed into a library in San Lorenzo, Calif., to protest a Drag Queen Story Hour event. A few weeks later another protest took place in Woodland, near Sacramento, when police had to use pepper spray to control the situation.
Such cancellations and threats of violence are alarming for Napoles.
“These people are feeling more emboldened. You see them bragging that they’ve had a victory when they close down these events,” she said. Linking “this whole anti-LGBTQ rhetoric” to the 1950s, “where people believe now that gays were pedophiles,” she added, “This is bad.”
This is sickening. The state of Texas is terrorizing kids and their families. This has to be stopped. The mother says this is clearly political because the state leading politicians are in tough election fights. Hugs
Amber and Adam Briggle, parents of a transgender child in Texas, joins Yasmin Vossoughian to discuss the hardship their family has endured under the policies of Greg Abbott, including being investigated by the DFPS, and their message to parents and the public about how to support transgender children.
The left can’t be scared of loudly supporting rights for trans folks. A caller asks if progressives should focus their message on working-class issues, rather than something that could turn off blue-collar voters. Sam and Emma argue that leftists must lean into trans rights even more.
These were rules that were working and were not causing problems that the governor is rolling back for ideological / political reasons. He is causing problems for trans and all the LGBTQ+ kids simply to appeal to the republican hateful maga base. I keep reading these red state governors talk about how they are empowering parents, and that the affirmative accepting polices disregarded the rights of parents. But what the right really is saying is a small regressive group wants to revert the society back to the 1950s and undo all the gains of a progressive tolerant society. These parents and religiously driven people want to deny science, advances in medical knowledge, and deny the increased understanding of biology. They want to undo the civil rights protections gained since the 1950s and end anti-discrimination polices. The rules claim it is not up to the state or schools to impose an ideology on students but that is exactly what the maga red state republicans are doing, imposing a regressive republican exclusionary ideology to replace the progressive acceptance of diversity and inclusion. And in red states they are effectively dumbing down the education of kids while undoing the teaching of tolerance and decreasing acceptance of diversity. The last paragraph claims that this will let all kids attend schools without bullying, all kids that are traditional cis gender straight white kids maybe. The rest of the kids, the LGBTQ+ and non-white kids will face increased harassment and bullying from the kids from racist maga hater families and the teachers will be helpless to stop it, and some teachers will feel free to assist the bullies. This is regressing the country 50 years. Don’t forget they also are targeting children of color and racial acceptance, stoking the flames of discrimination by trying to whitewash history and calling the teaching of the truth of slavery as CRT. Hugs
The administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) is rewriting state rules to block transgender students from accommodations they would have received during the previous Democratic administration. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
In a major rollback of LGBTQ rights, the administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) will require that transgender students in Virginia access school facilities and programs that match the sex they were assigned at birth and is making it more difficult for students to change their names and genders at school.
Under new “model policies” for schools’ treatment of transgender students released Friday evening, the Department of Education is requiring that families submit legal documentation to earn their children the right to change names and genders at school. The guidelines also say teachers cannot be compelled to refer to transgender students by their names and genders if it goes against “their constitutionally protected” free speech rights.
And the guidelines say schools cannot “encourage or instruct teachers to conceal material information about a student from the student’s parent, including information related to gender” — raising the prospect that teachers could be forced to out transgender students to their parents.
School districts must adopt the new state guidelines or “policies that are more comprehensive,” after a 30-day comment period that will begin on Sept. 26, the Education Department said. The Board of Education will not have to vote to adopt the policies.
“These 2022 Model Policies reflect the Department’s confidence in parents to prudently exercise their fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Virginia Constitution to direct the upbringing, education, and control of their children,” the guidelines state. “This primary role of parents is well established and beyond debate. Empowering parents is essential to improving outcomes for children.”
The model policies reverse guidelines published in 2021 by the administration of Gov. Ralph Northam (D). Those guidelines mandated that transgender students be allowed to access restrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities that match their gender identities, stipulated that schools let students participate in sports and programs matching their gender identities and required that school districts and teachers accept and use students’ gender pronouns and identities without question.
In their own guidelines, Youngkin administration officials wrote that Northam’s guidance sought “cultural and social transformation in schools” and “disregarded the rights of parents.” The Youngkin guidelines state the Northam-era policies are dead: they “have no further force and effect.”
The Northam guidelines were developed in accordance with a 2020 law, proposed by Democratic legislators, that required the Virginia Education Department to develop model policies — and later required all school districts to adopt them — for the protection of transgender students. The law does not define the specific nature of these policies but says they should “address common issues regarding transgender students in accordance with evidence-based best practices” and says they should be designed to prevent bullying and harassment of transgender students.
But — in a move that is likely to draw legal challenges — the Youngkin administration has used that same law to issue its own version of the Education Department guidelines. The 20-page document released Friday states it is being issued “as required under” the 2020 legislation.
The Youngkin administration is also attempting to repurpose the period of public scrutiny the Northam-era rules were subjected to. Those guidelines, as is typical, were posted for weeks online so the public could share their reactions.
The Friday document states that Youngkin’s guidelines were developed by “taking into account the over 9,000 comments received during the public comment period” for the Northam-era policies.
“The 2022 model policy posted today delivers on the governor’s commitment to preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in a written statement. “It is not under a school’s or the government’s purview to impose a set of particular ideological beliefs on all students.”
The reaction from Democratic lawmakers was swift.
“These new policies are cruel and not at all evidence based,” tweeted Del. Marcus Simon, who was a co-sponsor of the Northam-era law. “If enacted these policies will harm Virginia children. Stop bullying kids to score political points.”
Allies of the governor praised the proposal. “Thank you @GovernorVA for fixing one of the most overreaching and abusive uses of a ‘model policy’ that I’ve seen,” tweeted GOP Del. Glenn Davis. “This new standard ensures all students have the right to attend school in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, and bullying.
Brownshirt gang of thugs’ enforcement arm of the republican party. Enforcing their will on people by threats and intimidation with the goal of having only their views in society. They are pushing a religious theocracy. They are the vice patrol that will enforce modesty requirements on women. They will be the US Christian Taliban! They are going after the LGBTQ+ now, but next they will go after black, Jewish people, Muslims, and anyone not a Christian straight cis male. Hugs
The teacher voluntarily removed the flag, but local conservatives said it was proof that educators want to sexually abuse kids.
A member of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys showed up on Monday to a Missouri school board meeting after local conservatives complained about a seventh-grade teacher who hung a small four-by-four-inch Pride flag in her classroom.
Complaints about the flag began after Daniel Ousley, the conservative alderman of Camdenton County, made a Facebook post alleging that an unnamed teacher hung the rainbow and transgender Pride flags in her classrooms.
“As citizens and tax payers of this fine county, we all need to ask ourselves why it’s not ok to fly a Christian flag at our public schools yet these flags are flowing,” Ousley wrote in a now-deleted September 7 post published in a Facebook group entitled Citizens for a Better Camden County.
Ousley also claimed that a teacher had “books with mature content” in their classroom that the teacher hadn’t read in full. It’s unclear if the teacher he referred to exists and, if so, whether they were the same teacher as the one who flew the rainbow flag.
“Stop indoctrinating and grooming our kids!” Ousley’s post concluded.
Some commenters in the same Facebook group also accused educators of “grooming” children, essentially accusing LGBTQ-allies of trying to sexually abuse kids. Others in the same group said that the flag could help make scared, ashamed, and lonely LGBTQ kids feel accepted in their own school.
In a follow-up post published in the same Facebook group, Ousley said that the local school district should ban Pride flags from all classrooms, The Daily Dot reported.
On September 9, the president and superintendent of Camdenton R-III School District both signed a letter that said that district officials had “recently been made aware of certain items being displayed on campus that may contradict Board Policy.”
“For the time being, the items in question have been voluntarily removed from the learning environment until the Camdenton Board of Education can further review,” the letter said.
The district’s board of education met on Monday night to discuss the issue.
Twitter user Laura Burkhardt noted that at least one Proud Boy showed up to the meeting “with the intent to intimidate a teacher over a small pride flag in her classroom.”
“What could this educator possibly have done to deserve so much hate, harassment, and intimidation?” Burkhardt asked in a follow-up tweet. “They had the audacity to have a 4 inch pride flag in their classroom in hopes of letting ALL students know that this classroom is a safe classroom. Oh the horror.”
Another Facebook user name Pat Nicklaus shared an old image that seemed to show Ousley posing next to at least three other Proud Boys and people holding flags touting their support for now-former President Donald Trump.
Haircuts. This hater is accusing a hospital system of being groomers of sexual abuse of children for helping kids with hair styling tips. This shows it is not about the kids, it is not about saving kids from abuse, it is about forcing kids to fit into a traditional stereotype gender role established by religion. Somehow this is fits with her accusation that children in the US are getting sexual reassignment surgery, which is not true at all. Hugs
“This panic is about punishing ALL gender nonconformity, period.”
Anti-LGBTQ activist Chaya Raichik – who goes by “LibsofTikTok” on social media – is upset that transgender kids are getting access to haircuts.
On her Substack that she has been promoting since her social media accounts started getting suspended, Raichik shared an invitation to a gender-affirming workshop being run by Kaiser that says several times that it’s for “kids and their parents or guardians.”
“Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest health care organizations, is promoting gender-affirming programming to minor patients without the knowledge or consent of parents, a mother told Libs of TikTok in an exclusive interview,” Raichik wrote, describing the workshop as a “series of courses on social gender transitions.”
While Raichik has been spreading the false notion for the past couple months that children’s hospitals are performing gender-affirming surgery on trans minors – even though gender-affirming surgery isn’t performed on minors – the Kaiser workshops are mostly focused on mental health topics, like self-expression, dealing with fear, and validating emotions.
The few that deal with transitioning don’t mention surgery at all; one is about vocal exploration, another about clothing, and one is about “gender congruent hair styling.”
Raichik said that she was forwarded the message by a mother who isn’t supportive of her child’s identity and who “feels like her child is ‘becoming a guinea pig’ at the hands of medical organizations” because of the possibility of Zoom workshops about haircuts.
In the comments on Raichik’s Substack, people referred to Kaiser as “groomers,” a term used to describe child sex abusers and that Raichik popularized using to refer to any discussion of LGBTQ people in the presence of teens and children.
“Libs of TikTok’s Substack is now going after the Kaiser hospital system for such unspeakable acts as… holding a workshop on haircuts,” wrote Media Matters LGBTQ Program Director Ari Drennen on Twitter. “This panic is about punishing ALL gender nonconformity, period.”
Libs of TikTok's substack is now going after the Kaiser hospital system for such unspeakable acts as … holding a workshop on haircuts.
Harvard Law School instructor Alejandra Caraballo said that it was a “straight up lie” that Kaiser was going behind the backs of parents since the workshops include parents.
It's such a lazy and obvious lie – what 12-17 year old is in touch with a health insurance company without their parents' knowledge?
Last month Raichik made headlines when she falsely claimed online that a 16-year-old transgender boy would be able to get a hysterectomy at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Her story was picked up by other conservative media even though the hospital said that they wouldn’t perform such surgery and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) only recommends gender affirming surgery for people who are of the age of consent and after a 12-month period where they live as their real gender.
While her accusations were incorrect, the hospital received bomb and death threats from her followers.
The fact-checking site PolitiFact later debunked the claims, but physicians at the hospitals received so many death threats, harassing calls, and emails that the hospital had to hire extra security and give doctors new guidance on responding to threats.
The hospital’s website says that surgery recipients must be at least 18 years old and have a “persistent, well-documented gender dysphoria.”
When she’s not claiming that children’s hospitals are performing gender-affirming surgery on transgender toddlers, Raichik mostly shares videos of LGBTQ teachers and makes negative comments about them, even if it’s not clear that the teachers are doing anything wrong. In the responses, her followers call the teachers “groomers” and claim that they’re harming children with their LGBTQ identities.
A Montana judge has decided that the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) cannot prevent trans people from updating their birth certificates.
District Court Judge Michael Moses struck down a new rule instituted by DPHHS that said a person’s sex listed on a birth certificate can now only be changed if it was incorrectly entered by a “data entry error” or if “the sex of the individual was misidentified on the original certificate and the department receives a correction affidavit and supporting documents, … including a copy of the results of chromosomal, molecular, karyotypic, DNA, or genetic testing that identify the sex of the individual.”
According to Moses, this restrictive rule was in direct violation of his April order that blocked a state law requiring state residents to undergo a non-specified “surgical procedure” before they could change the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Montana’s Republican-led legislature passed this law, S.B. 280, in April 2021. Prior to the law, DPHHS said in 2017 that transgender residents could change the gender marker on their birth certificates if they were intersex, had undergone “a gender transition,” or had a certified court order indicating that their gender had been changed.
In April, Moses said the law’s requirement of an unspecified surgical procedure made it impossible for anyone to follow. The judge then issued a temporary injunction against S.B. 280, blocking it from going into effect.
And now, with Moses blocking the health department’s latest attempt at anti-trans policies, the 2017 rule making it easier to update one’s birth certificate is now in effect, reports the Associated Press.
Moses was not happy that DPHHS officials tried to get around his original ruling blocking S.B. 280, saying he had been “clear as a bell.”
Montana Defies Court Order On Trans Birth Certificates
Just hours after a Montana judge blocked health officials from enforcing a state rule that would prevent transgender people from changing the gender on their birth certificate, the Republican-run state on Thursday said it would defy the order. District Court Judge Michael Moses chided attorneys for the state during a hearing in Billings for circumventing his April order that temporarily blocked a 2021 Montana law that made it harder to change birth certificates.
The Montana law said people had to have a “surgical procedure” before they could change the sex listed on their birth certificate, something Moses found to be unconstitutional because it did not specify what type of procedure was required. Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration then created a new rule that blocked changes to birth certificates entirely, unless there was a clerical error.
The Montana state health department said Thursday it will not abide a district court judge’s order to temporarily reinstate a 2017 rule allowing transgender Montanans to update the sex listed on their birth certificates. #mtnewshttps://t.co/WArXONlFuD
A California man was arrested on Tuesday, April 20, 2022 and charged in federal court in Springfield, Mass. in connection with making threats against Merriam-Webster.
Jeremy David Hanson, 34, of Rossmoor, Calif., was charged by criminal complaint with one count of interstate communication of threats to commit violence. Hanson was released on conditions following an initial appearance in federal court in the Central District of California.
Hanson will appear before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Katherine A. Robertson in federal court in Springfield on April 29, 2022.
According to the criminal complaint, between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8, 2021, Springfield-based Merriam-Webster, Inc. received various threatening messages and comments demonstrating bias against specific gender identities submitted through its website’s “Contact Us” page and in the comments section on its webpages that corresponded to the word entries for “Girl” and “Woman.”
Authorities later identified the user as Hanson. As a result of the threats, Merriam-Webster closed its offices in Springfield and New York City for approximately five business days.
Specifically, it is alleged that on Oct. 2, 2021, Hanson used the handle “@anonYmous” to post the following comment on the dictionary’s website definition of “female”: “It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”
Hanson also allegedly sent the following threatening message via the website’s “Contact Us” page: “You [sic] headquarters should be shot up and bombed. It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive.”
The investigation identified numerous related threats, including to the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Land O’ Lakes, Hasbro, Inc., IGN Entertainment, the President of the University of North Texas, two professors at Loyola Marymount University and a New York City rabbi.
The charge of interstate transmission of communications to injure the person of another provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.
Hanson, a Trump supporter who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Los Alamitos, has been carrying out his threat spree for several years, prosecutors say. That April, an unnamed Land O’ Lakes employee reported a threat Hanson allegedly posted on Instagram using the handle @quinserath1: “Land O Lakes headquarters deserve to be shot up and bombed for turning into a cultural Marxist company that panders to political correctness.”
Prosecutors say Hanson followed up with an email to “several” DC Comics employees, under the subject line: “I am going to shoot up and bomb your offices for ruining Superman.” “First, you turn him into a faggot,” the body of the email read. “Now, you make him anti-American. You fucking Marxist pieces of shit. I will make you pay,” the message read, threatening to kill the publisher of DC and “rape and murder his wife.”
The same man, Jeremy David Hanson, was just charged with making death threats towards the Eau Claire, Wisconsin school board.
Hanson "leans very far right politically," according to sources close to him. https://t.co/gxrqGgJIea
A California man has pleaded guilty to threatening a dictionary company and a university president. Though Jeremy David Hanson, 34, only pleaded to charges regarding Merriam-Webster and the University of North Texas, his plea agreement details an extensive history of making politically infused — and usually transphobic or homophobic — threats against people and companies.
I am going to fucking kill you,” he wrote one DC Comics writer after the company announced that Superman — Clark’s son Jonathan Kent — was bisexual. “I am going to rape your wife and decapitate her then blow up DC Comics headquarters.” “We are going to have a civil war and EXTERMINATE you cultural Marxists destroying America,” he wrote the author. “TRUMP 2024.” Court documents indicate that his threats against Merriam-Webster fit the same pattern.
Hanson also sent the following threatening message via the website’s “Contact Us” page: “You [sic] headquarters should be shot up and bombed. It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive.”
On Oct. 8, 2021, Hanson posted another threatening comment on the dictionary’s website and a threatening message via the “Contact Us” page that read: “I am going to shoot up and bomb your offices for lying and creating fake definitions in order to pander to the tranny mafia. Boys aren’t girls, and girls aren’t boys. The only good Marxist is a dead Marxist. I will assassinate your top editor. You sickening, vile tranny freaks.”
As a result of the threats, Merriam-Webster closed its offices in Springfield, Mass. and New York City for approximately five business days. The charge of interstate transmission of threatening communications provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
My first report on Hanson’s arrest is here. Federal investigators had reportedly interviewed Hanson about similar threats multiples times since 2015. Sentencing is scheduled for January 5th.
California Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening Dictionary Publisher over Gender Identity Entries for ‘Female’ and ‘Girl’https://t.co/auToT6YINq