Category: LGBTQ+ / Gay / Trans / Gender

High school Christian club that rejects LGBTQ students reinstated by court order

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/high-school-christian-club-rejects-lgbtq-students-reinstated-court-order/

Another way Christianity is getting permission to discriminate.   I remember about five years ago a LGBTQ+ group was forced by the court to allow anti-gay Christians to not only join the group but also seek leadership positions.   The LGBTQ+ gay support group was sued by the Christians who demanded that they be allowed not only to join but run for the top position of the club, with the idea of changing it to anti-gay.   The courts ruled that the gay club had to let the Christians join and a short time later the support group disbanded.    But my dogs that love gravy when the situation is reversed no way those gays deserve equal treatment.  Notice the judge called out the teachers who may have made fun of or insulted the students who were religious in the club, but totally ignored the insults and attacks by Christians students and teachers on the LGBTQ+ students.    Welcome to the US Taliban theocracy.   Hugs

When it came down to “two competing values that we cherish as a nation,” nondiscrimination lost to religious discrimination.
 
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High school Christian club that rejects LGBTQ students reinstated by court order
Fellowship of Christian Athletes Photo: Fellowship of Christian Athletes
 

In a major victory for religious freedom advocates and a defeat for LGBTQ rights, a three-judge panel in California reinstated a public school club in San Jose that denied membership to LGBTQ students based on a “Sexual Purity” pledge.

On Monday, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes was ordered reinstated for the current school year while litigation continued in a lower court.

Writing for the majority, Trump appointee Judge Kenneth Kiyul Lee of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the case represented “two competing values that we cherish as a nation: the principle of non-discrimination on the one hand, and the First Amendment’s protection of free exercise of religion and free speech on the other hand.”

Non-discrimination lost.

The case emerged from an all-school controversy in 2019, when a teacher at Pioneer High School in San Jose asked students what they thought about the Christian club’s “Sexual Purity” pledge, which according to court records states: “The Bible teaches that the appropriate place for sexual expression is in the context of a marriage relationship. The biblical description of marriage is one man and one woman in a lifelong commitment.”

Leaders of the group were required to sign.

Students weren’t having it.

Protests erupted outside the club’s meetings, and complaints were filed. Teachers and allies spoke out publicly.

The outcry prompted the San Jose Unified School District to rescind the club’s official status. The club sued, alleging religious discrimination.

In his opinion, Lee said the crux of the issue was how the school district applied its non-discrimination policy to all school clubs, not just the Christian Fellowship group.

“Under the First Amendment, our government must be scrupulously neutral when it comes to religion: It cannot treat religious groups worse than comparable secular ones,” he wrote. “But the School District did just that.”

The judge cited a “Senior Women Club” that excluded male students, and a “Big Sisters/Little Sisters” club that was “obviously intended” to serve female students, not male students.

While the court didn’t “minimize the ostracism that gay and lesbian students may endure,” Lee wrote, “in our pluralistic society in which people from diverse backgrounds must coexist despite having starkly different worldviews, the Free Exercise Clause requires the government to respect religious beliefs and conduct, even if many people may find such beliefs to not be ‘acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible.’”

Lee cited numerous recent precedents upholding religious freedom, from the Supreme Court down.

He also called out “animus” in the school’s treatment of the faith-based group.

According to the court’s findings, one teacher called the club’s beliefs “bulls—”, another described evangelical Christians “as ‘charlatans’ who perpetuate ‘darkness’ and ‘ignorance,’” and another “denigrated his own student as an ‘idiot’ for empathizing with FCA members who faced backlash from teachers and students.”

“This is not, to put it mildly, neutral treatment of religion,” Lee wrote. “More than a whiff, a stench of animus against the students’ religious beliefs pervades the Pioneer High School campus.”

The school district said it was “reviewing the court’s opinion, assessing options, and will determine next steps as soon as possible.”

 
 

 

LibsOfTikTok linked to Russian disinformation campaign to stir outrage over LGBTQ rights

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/libsoftiktok-linked-russian-disinformation-campaign-stir-outrage-lgbtq-rights/

Pure hate for hate’s sake.  Promising further harm when informed that your actions lead to death threats and threats of bombing of hospitals along with the violent attacks on drag queen events such as the drag queen story hours.   These people seem to forget that many comedians in the past often dressed up as women.   But the libsoftiktok are insidious in spreading their propaganda.   Just the name makes you think they are liberals when they are the most rabid of the maga cult.   Then the stuff they spout is the most vile and out right lies that have been frequently debunked but they push them out as fact to rile up their gang of thugs followers.   Like most of the rabid right and other LGBTQ+ haters they have to make up things like this fake pamphlet, they have to selectively edit the video to change the meaning, and they pretend that things are being done to kids that are not at all true.   Hugs

The account’s founder has pledged to do even more to threaten LGBTQ lives in the future.
 
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pedophile pamphlet, LibsOfTikTok, Russian propaganda
An image of the fake pro-pedophile pamphlet Photo: Twitter screenshot
 

A video posted this month by the far-right anti-LGBTQ Libs of TikTok Twitter account has since spread among anti-LGBTQ Russian and European disinformation networks, effectively furthering the anti-queer agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The account’s founder has pledged to do even more to threaten LGBTQ lives in the future.

On August 10, Chaya Raichik, who goes by LibsofTikTok on social media, posted a video of a therapist who works with jailed sex offenders. In the video, the therapist announces their pronouns and advises people to use the term “minor-attracted persons” (MAPs) rather than “pedophiles.” They said the latter term has “moved from being a diagnostic label to being a judgmental, hurtful insult that we hurl at people in order to harm them or slander them.”

Indeed, the Libs of TikTok account itself has regularly accused pro-LGBTQ teachers of being “groomers” and has called the youth anti-suicide organization The Trevor Project a “grooming organization.” Grooming is a term for gaining the trust of a child so you can rape them. The term has since become a common anti-LGBTQ slur. Gay men were frequently accused of being pedophiles by the religious right although that accusation had faded over the years.

The therapist also said that MAPs are among the most vilified people in society, and added that most of them don’t choose their attraction to underage people. The therapist said that MAPs shouldn’t be solely defined by that one aspect of themselves.

Raichik only posted the first two minutes of the therapist’s presentation, which made it seem like they were advocating for people to be nicer to child sex abusers. However, Vice News reported that, in the full archived version of the video, the therapist unmistakably condemns such crimes. The therapist has since gone into hiding after Raichik posted the video.

After Raichik posted it, “major Russian disinformation networks on Telegram, some with hundreds of thousands of followers, began sharing it” alongside images of a fake leaflet that had gone viral on Russia’s social network Vkontakte.

The fake leaflet, which local St. Petersburg news organizations claimed had been found in the U.K. by a Russian tourist, was entitled, “What to do if a stranger comes up to you on the street.” It advised children to stay silent if a stranger approached them in public, not to call them a “pedophile,” and to invite the strangers back to their homes.

Polish fact-checkers questioned the leaflet’s authenticity, noting that its original social media sharer neither disclosed any details about where the leaflet was found nor of the Russian tourist who allegedly found it. The leaflet uses the American-English spelling of “pedophile” (not the British-English “paedophile”), it contains no logos or credits atrributing its creator, and only four photos of the brochure exist with no other copies being found.

On August 15, the Russian Tsargrad TV channel published an article titled “British Children Learn to Invite Pedophiles Home.” The channel’s editor-in-chief was the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, Alexander Dugin, who helped promote Putin’s infamous law against “gay propaganda” as a way to “protect children.”

Tsargrad TV’s article said the leaflet was evidence of Western culture’s “moral decay,” and added, “It is worth noting that the promotion of the legalization of pedophilia in the West is not an isolated incident, but a deliberate vector of the hard work of perverted lobbyists. We in Russia do not need such ‘values’ — violence against our children is categorically unacceptable.”

Russian and European social media users combined mentions of Raichik’s video along with news of the leaflet to create an emotional argument against LGBTQ-inclusive “groomers.” One message, shared on a Telegram channel with 180,000 followers posted the video and leaflet images and declared, “This is definitely not a fake.”

Similar posts also surfaced on a Russian Telegram channel with 400,000 subscribers.

Libs of Tik Tok received a seven-day no-posting suspension from Twitter after falsely claiming that the Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. was performing hysterectomies on transgender children — her claim led to harassment, bombing and death threats against hospital workers. Libs of TikTok has also been suspended multiple times on multiple platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, Media Matters reported.

Despite the slap on the wrists, Raichik recently pledged on her Substack newsletter to do even more to endanger hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth.

“Any sane person realizes that mutilating children for gender affirmation is barbaric,” she wrote, pushing the lie that gender-affirming surgeries are performed on children. They are not.

“Any doctor performing these surgeries should have their license revoked. They belong in prison,” she continued. “But alas, they are celebrated while Twitter and the media are running cover for them. Getting suspended by Twitter has only made me realize my biggest mistake. I only called one hospital I should have called dozens because I promise you Children’s National is not the only one. I promise to learn from my mistake and uncover more of what our Big Tech overlords don’t want us to know. I will do better in the future.”

 

Substack, a digital newsletter platform, has made millions from anti-vaccine movement influencers and anti-LGBTQ figures, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The platform has become popular for “hate actors,” according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed. Ahmed says the platform’s leaders regularly fail to enforce its own safety rules and guidelines under the guise of “not censoring writers.”

There’s proof that Libs of TikTok’s posts result in real-life threats against queer people and their allies. Raichik’s posts on all-ages drag shows have compelled Proud Boys and other forces to angrily confront LGBTQ parents, their children, allies, and drag performers in public, taking their pictures, and sharing their identities on social media.

Social Workers QUIT to Protest Greg Abbott’s Anti-Trans Policy

Social Workers are protesting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-trans polices by quitting their jobs. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.

Read more HERE: https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/t…

“Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) order to investigate the parents of transgender youth for child abuse caused behind-the-scenes tumult at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services caused by, according to internal emails.

In February, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R) issued a non-binding opinion stating that gender affirming health care for transgender youth is a form of child abuse. A week later, the governor directed DFPS to investigate parents who support their transgender children and allow them access to gender affirming medical care prescribed by their doctors in a letter sent to the agency.

Gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and other major medical/mental health organizations as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals. Gender affirming care for minors does not involve surgical procedures.”

Now rightwing Christians don’t want girls to play sports at all

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/now-rightwing-christians-dont-want-girls-play-sports/

The Christian Taliban moves forward with their effort to control women.   The republican warn on abortion was about control of women’s bodies and their reproductive systems.    Think about it, women are the only people required by law to let another to organism use the resources of their body to keep alive.   Even babies that are fully delivered and breathing on their own don’t have that right.   No man can even be forced to give blood for their own child, nor any other part of their body.  Not even a sample of their bone marrow, nothing.  Yet woman must provide a zygote full use and priority of her body, at least until it is born, possibly causing her lifelong injury or even death.  It is about control, or the anti-abortion laws would have these provisions for every child applying to both sexes involved with creating it.    So what was the issue with trans women?  Control over the trans woman and their body?   Well let’s take it one step further and ask what girls really should be doing to get ready to be incubators of a man’s offspring?  Hugs

“Are they out there wearing dresses and skirts while they’re playing sports? Are they learning to be a feminine woman?”
 
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Valley Christian Academy, Coast Union High School, female football player, girl on the boys team, Title IX lawsuit
Photo: Shutterstock
 

It turns out that some far-right Christians aren’t just opposed to transgender girls playing on sports teams, they’re opposed to any girls playing sports at all… and that opposition may have landed one Christian school in legal trouble.

Valley Christian Academy (VCA) in Santa Maria, California recently forfeited its scheduled October 29 football game against nearby Coast Union High School (CUHS) after discovering that CUHS had two girls on its team.

While it might seem strange that females should be allowed to play on sports teams that are predominantly male, it’s actually required under Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in sports within any schools that receive federal government funding. Title IX states that, in sports where a girls’ team is not available, girls must be allowed to try out for the boys’ team and participate on the same basis as boys.

VCA hasn’t issued a public comment about its forfeit against CUHS. However, the school explained its similar decision to forfeit a football game last year against Cuyama Valley High School (CVHS) because it had a girl on its team.

At the time, VCA lead pastor and school superintendent Joel Mikkelson told The Santa Maria Times, “Football is a violent game and we understand the value of such in training our young men within the boundaries of an organized sport.”

CUHS’ Head Coach Andrew Crosby told The Tribune that he’s upset that VCA singled out the two girls on his team just because of their gender. The girls’ names are Emily Reed and Andrea Aguilar.

Crosby said that he would never force Reed or Aguilar to stay off the field to accommodate VCA, nor does he want the girls to feel like the cancellation of the game is their fault.

“It’s not fair,” he said, “and I hope that because of the support of their families, the team, and community, that they can have confidence that we support them…. They are part of our team and will suit up for every game.”

The forfeited game will count as a victory for CUHS. However, VCA’s decision to forfeit its games could’ve violated federal law and state rules for student-athletes.

When VCA canceled its game against CVHS last year, it sent a letter to the school stating that its female athlete wouldn’t be allowed to compete on the VCA campus. That letter may have violated Title IX. The letter may have also violated the California Interscholastic Federation’s (CIF) rules requiring schools to comply with Title IX.

The parent of the female CVHS player has since filed a lawsuit against VCA seeking a jury trial and “unspecified damages over loss of education and career opportunities, reputation, well-being, and attorney’s fees.” The suit seeks to stop VCA from committing such sex-based discrimination in the future.

Unsurprisingly, VCA isn’t the only group of Christians who are against girls playing sports, whether or not it’s with other boys.

Tanner Furrh of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas — a man who has said that lesbians deserve violent deaths — recently said that he is against girls playing any organized sports because sports cause girls to be “more masculine.”

“Are they out there wearing dresses and skirts while they’re playing sports? Are they learning to be a feminine woman?” Furrh asked in a recent sermon. “No, that’s not what sports do for women…. . My daughters are not going to be in any organized sports team.”

For the record, female field hockey players do actually wear skirts, but that doesn’t matter because — as with Christian misogyny in general — fundamentalist opposition to female athletes isn’t really about preserving “femininity.” It’s about controlling girls’ bodies, freedoms, and life choices.

 

Children’s hospital gets death & bomb threats after Libs Of TikTok claims kids are sterilized there

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/childrens-hospital-gets-death-bomb-threats-libs-tiktok-claims-kids-sterilized/

This is the damage that the rabid right wing rhetoric causes.   Attacks on hospitals caring for kids.   The right wing is working overtime to spread lies and misinformation about trans and other LGBTQ+ children getting the maga thug base so worked up they attack / abuse the LGBTQ+ over things that are not happening.   This rhetoric gets repeated by people using the right wing sources yet claim not to be right wing?  But you don’t see the misinformation posted in mainstream media, just in the rabid right media arm of the republican party.  These toxic bomb throwers do not care about the truth which is the major medical group in the US promote and support with affirmative care for trans kids.  Here is a short list from https://transhealthproject.org/resources/medical-organization-statements/  

Medical Organization Statements

Leading medical groups recognize the medical necessity of treatments for gender dysphoria and endorse such treatments. Most of these groups have also explicitly rejected insurance exclusions for transgender-related care.

Here are some more links that cover this topic as well.    https://www.glaad.org/blog/medical-association-statements-supporting-trans-youth-healthcare-and-against-discriminatory   or  https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/doctors-agree-gender-affirming-care-is-life-saving-care or  https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/19021/AAP-continues-to-support-care-of-transgender?autologincheck=redirected?nfToken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

As you can see, I am tired of the lies that are now increasing the threats and abuse of the LGBTQ+ and their supporters by maga thugs using these lies as a reason to attack.   Just like these same thugs went after school boards and Dr Fauci along with any organization promoting medically approved safe practices for Covid.   The right wing media kept promoting / pushing fringe doctors that were making lies, misinformation, and using misdirection to achieve their goal of making a political issue out of a medical one.  The right wing media is the media arm of the republican party and they do not care how much what they lie about hurts people, as they say it is OK as long as they win.  I am done with it.   Learn the facts.   don’t let the fringe groups lie to you.   Hugs

The hospital’s own phone operators and website made the situation much much worse.
 
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Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C., transgender youth healthcare, gender-affirming surgery, Libs of TikTok, death threats, bomb threats
Photo: Shutterstock
 

Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. has been targeted with bomb and death threats after the far-right anti-LGBTQ Twitter account Libs of TikTok falsely claimed that the hospital was performing hysterectomies (the removal of the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, and sometimes ovaries) on transgender children.

The post may have caused the Twitter access for Libs of TikTok to be suspended, The Daily Dot reported, as it hasn’t tweeted since last Friday.

Last Friday, Libs of TikTok’s founder Chaya Raichik posted an audio recording of her discussion with hospital telephone operators who said that “a 16-year-old trans boy would be eligible for a hysterectomy at the hospital’s gender development clinic,” The Washington Post reported.

One operator told Raichik that a 16-year-old child would be “in the clear” to receive the operation. A second operator told her that “all different type[s] of age groups” come in for the operation and that “kids” younger than 16 have come in for the procedure.

Right-wing media outlets like Fox News and The Daily Caller shared articles about the recording.

The hospital has since said that the telephone operators provided incorrect information. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has said that hysterectomies shouldn’t be performed on minors.

“None of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients,” hospital spokeswoman Ariana Ahmadi Perez said. “We do not and have never performed gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18.”

However, the Twitter account’s claim was bolstered by the hospital’s website which stated, before Thursday, that gender-affirming hysterectomy was available to patients “between the ages of 0-21.” The erroneous statement has since been corrected, Perez told The Post.

This isn’t the first time that Libs of TikTok has directed ire against a hospital’s trans youth clinic.

On August 11, Raichik reposted about 13 tweets and a right-wing “expose” claiming that the Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts was conducting gender-affirming surgery on children as young as two or three years old.

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.”

Anti-LGBTQ politicians and activists have falsely claimed that medical providers are giving “irreversible” treatments to trans “children.” However, in reality, young children are only encouraged by medical professionals to continue exploring their gender. Pubescent children are given “puberty blockers” to give them time to stave off further biological changes while they decide on their future course of treatment.

Numerous states have introduced bills seeking to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth even though major U.S. medical associations have said such treatment is essential for the youths’ well-being.

Alabama and Arizona have both passed laws banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. Similar bills remain in committee in the Ohio and New Hampshire legislatures. Similar bills failed to become law in 12 other states.

Progressive parent found a creative way to stand up to Texas’s “In God we trust” poster law

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/progressive-parent-found-creative-way-stand-texass-god-trust-poster-law/

Make no mistake this is about spreading Christianity and that religions doctrines into schools on everyone including those that have other religions or no religion at all.    The writer of the bill said that.   

“The national motto, In God We Trust, asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God,” Hughes said about the latest bill.

They have no care that the motto was introduced in the 1950’s in response to the red scare of the cold war.   That motto is drastically against what the founding fathers wanted for the motto and the way the nation handled religion.  The original motto of the country was this phrase that first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864.:

The original motto of the United States was “E Pluribus Unum” (Latin for “one from many” or “one from many parts”), referring to the welding of a single federal state from a group of individual political units (the original colonies, now states). “E Pluribus Unum” remains on the great seal of the United States.

Hugs

State law now requires schools to display donated “In God we trust” posters. So one parent tried donating rainbow and Arabic posters.
 
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Sravan Krishna tried to donate his posters to Carroll ISD
Sravan Krishna tried to donate his posters to Carroll ISDPhoto: Screenshot
 

After his school district started displaying posters that say “In God we trust” because a new Texas law requires schools to display those posters if they are donated, a Texas parent tried to donate more inclusive posters with rainbow colors. The school board rejected his donation, instead displaying posters from a conservative Christian organization.

Last week, Texas S.B. 797 drew attention as it went into effect, forcing schools across the state to display signs that say “In God we trust” in a “conspicuous place” as long as those signs are donated to the schools. Many criticized the law as bringing religious power dynamics into schools.

The Carroll ISD in Southlake, Texas was at the center of the controversy, as the anti-LGBTQ Christian conservative phone company Patriot Mobile donated such signs to the district last week and district trustees posed for photos with the signs during a board meeting. Patriot Mobile has donated a lot of money to get conservatives who agree with their political positions elected to school boards in Texas.

That’s when parent Sravan Krishna decided to push back in a creative way: he had posters made that said “In God we trust”… one in Arabic, and another with the word “God” in rainbow colors.

He presented the signs at a board meeting last night.

“We will have to look at what remedies we have so we don’t get excluded from our public schools,” Krishna said as he presented the posters to the board. “We deserve to be included in these efforts as well.”

Board president Cameron Bryan rejected them though, saying that Carroll ISD already had enough “In God we trust” signs. He claimed that the district didn’t have to display more than one poster per school, even though the new law doesn’t actually say anything about a limit.

According to journalist Steven Monacelli, Krishna tried to get on the agenda for last week’s meeting but couldn’t, so he came to the public comment this week to donate them.

“The state law was done by opportunists with a political agenda, however it is state law,” Krishna said after the meeting, explaining that people he knew were “concerned” about the involvement of Patriot Mobile in the district. “We wanted to celebrate this in a different way by including the other people as well.”

Monacelli noted on Twitter that another group – the Texas Bipartisan Alliance – is going to donate other “In God we trust” posters that have rainbow colors and trans pride flag colors.

The new law was co-authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), the same lawmaker behind Texas’s six-week abortion ban that allows people to collect a $10,000 bounty if they sue anyone who helps someone get an illegal abortion and the state’s “Save Chick-fil-A” bill that was a response to a city not giving the anti-LGBTQ fast food chain Chick-fil-A a contract with its airport.

“The national motto, In God We Trust, asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God,” Hughes said about the latest bill.

 

Armed guards protect all-ages drag event in Texas from far-right protesters

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/armed-guards-protect-ages-drag-event-texas-far-right-protesters/

This is what it is coming to.   Where LGBTQ+ groups doing a legal event have to have their own armed people to defend against the violent maga brownshirts who are armed and violent.   The LGBTQ+ have faced these bullies before and refuse to give in to them now.   It will escalate because the maga gang thugs don’t care about the law and feel most police back them up.   There is going to be a fire fight, a gun shooting where many people are hurt.   Is that going to be what it takes to wake up the people to the dangers of the maga brownshirt enforcer gang thugs!   These vigilantes feel it is their right and entitlement to shut down anything they don’t like.   They are egged on and riled up by republican politicians that are openly calling the LGBTQ+ groomers, pedophiles, and claiming we are forcing / talking kids into changing sexual orientation and gender.   This is why the rhetoric used by the right is so problematic, it gives their more violent member thugs permission to attack the LGBTQ+.    Also notice how fast the two tough alpha Porud Boy thugs run to the police claiming to be spit on thinking the police will move against the LGBTQ+ protectors for them.   The police lady was having none of that.   She told them they were trying to start trouble and shouldn’t have been there.   That causes the big tough Proud Boys to whine.   Hugs

The anti-LGBTQ protesters held signs that said, “Drag the queens out of town” and “Stop sexualizing children.”
 
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A counterprotestor wears a rainbow while carrying a rifle.
A counter protestor wears a rainbow while carrying a rifle. Photo: Screenshot
 

Anti-LGBTQ demonstrators protesting a Sunday drag brunch at Anderson Distillery and Grill in Roanoke, Texas were met by armed counterprotesters carrying rifles. The incident illustrates the growing culture war as rightwingers baselessly accuse drag performers and the queer community of “sexualizing children,” leading to threats of violence and mounting tensions.

The restaurant held a “Barrel Babes Drag Brunch” on August 28. Its advertisement said, “All Ages Welcome!” The brunch was hosted by drag performer Trisha Delish.

News of the event quickly spread on right-wing social media with groups like Texas Family Project and Protect Texas kids both alerting their followers to the event. Both groups regularly post messages against transgender youth and LGBTQ civil rights.

Steven Monacelli, a journalist with Rolling Stone and Texas Observer magazines, posted a tweet with pictures of the protest. Monacelli’s tweet read, “Anti-trans activists are protesting a drag brunch in Roanoke, Texas, but are outnumbered by supporters of the event. I’ve only been here for about five minutes and I’ve already seen quite a few heated exchanges.”

The images he shared showed anti-LGBTQ protesters holding signs that said, “Christ is KING,” “Drag the queens out of town,” “Children cannot consent,” “Stop sexualizing children,” and “Caution: Monkeypox hotspot approx. 50 ft away. Stay back.”

A Reddit user butcher_of_the_world posted an image of a Proud Boy allegedly taken from the protest. In the image, the Proud Boy wears a yellow bandana over his face and sunglasses while holding a baseball bat covered in barbed wire. The Proud Boys have repeatedly harassed and attacked family queer events over the past year.

r/MarchAgainstNazis - Proud Boy outside of a Drag Brunch in Roanoke, TX today
Proud Boy outside of a Drag Brunch in Roanoke, TX today

 

A Reddit user named werdmouf posted a nearly two-minute video of the incident which showed the armed counter-protesters standing outside of the venue. One of them carries a queer Pride flag while a bearded man claims that another one of the guards spit on him.

When approached by an interviewer, the man admits that he called the armed guards “F**king pu****s,” and says, “I’m here to support people who don’t indoctrinate and groom little eight-year-old kids.” Republicans have repeatedly claimed that anyone who lets children know that LGBTQ individuals exist is trying to “groom” them for rape.

When a female police officer tries to get the man to stand away from the armed guards, another man wearing an Infowars T-shirt comes over and tells the man that he doesn’t have to listen to the officer. Infowars is a far-right program that peddles conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, which accused a gay-owned Washington D.C. pizza shop of running a child sex trafficking ring in its non-existent basement.

Another man in the video expresses anger that the armed guards have covered their faces in bandanas and sunglasses. Some Antifa and Proud Boys members hide their faces to avoid having their images taken and identified by police or web users.

Armed Antifa protects drag brunch in Texas from PublicFreakout

Kris Cruz, a producer on the far-right media outlet Blaze TV, wrote via Twitter, “Armed #Antifa showed up in Roanoke, TX to protect the ‘kid friendly’ drag show at this bar. Armed #Antifa escorted attendees to the vehicles. I counted about 9 AR-15s.”

At other drag events, anti-LGBTQ protesters have followed, harassed, and doxed the performers and parents who bring their children to the events.

In response to news of the incident, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) wrote “A drag show is no place for a child. I’m working to ban these entirely next session. I look forward to working with @FamilyProjectTX to make this happen.”

Slaton has previously said that he would like to sponsor such legislation. He characterizes kids attending drag shows as tantamount to sexual abuse. “The events of this past weekend were horrifying and show a disturbing trend in which perverted adults are obsessed with sexualizing young children,” he said.

However, Slaton hasn’t yet specified exactly what he means by “drag shows,” how they’d be defined in a bill, or how his bill would avoid violating the Constitution’s protections for free speech.

Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses Joe Biden of wanting to castrate boys

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/marjorie-taylor-greene-accuses-joe-biden-wanting-castrate-boys/

For those that think sexual reassignment surgery is happening frequently and done on a whim, the article corrects those misconceptions.  

Greene’s tweet was far from honest; Biden has never said that he supports “castrating boys.” Surgery is not even a part of gender affirming care for minors, and Biden has never said that the standard of care for transgender youth should be changed. His position on the issue has been that medical care is a decision to be made by trans youth, their families, and their doctors.

In June, Biden signed an executive order telling the Department of Health and Human Services to counter state efforts to limit gender affirming care for minors by releasing sample policies for states to expand health care access. Gender affirming care for trans youth can include talk therapy, social transition, reversible puberty blockers, and hormone therapy in some cases.

Gender affirming care for trans youth doesn’t include surgery, that is a misleading right wing talking point.   If you think that is happening you are being fooled into agreeing with Marge Green and the right wing hate media.   Hugs

She also falsely accused Joe Biden of “sick & perverse child abuse.”
 
By      
President Joe Biden/Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
President Joe Biden/Rep. Marjorie Taylor GreenePhoto: Shutterstock/Screenshot

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is now accusing President Joe Biden of supporting “castrating boys” who aren’t “even old enough to vote.”

Greene has hated Biden ever since his term started – she tried to impeach him on his second day in office – but her anger heightened last week when the White House called her out on her hypocrisy for getting over $180,000 in COVID-19-related PPP loans canceled while she complained about student debt relief.

Biden tweeted yesterday about how the extremism of the right will inspire more women to vote in the midterms this year.

“These MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women in America,” Biden wrote. “They are about to find out.”

It’s a fairly innocuous message from a political leader – “Our party will win the next election” – but Greene responded by accusing him of “perverse child abuse.”

“This is coming from a man that supports castrating boys with so called ‘gender affirming care’ before they are even old enough to vote,” Greene wrote. “We know you’re slipping Joe, but those aren’t women.”

“Yes there is an awakening coming. We will STOP your sick & perverse child abuse.”

Greene’s tweet was far from honest; Biden has never said that he supports “castrating boys.” Surgery is not even a part of gender affirming care for minors, and Biden has never said that the standard of care for transgender youth should be changed. His position on the issue has been that medical care is a decision to be made by trans youth, their families, and their doctors.

In June, Biden signed an executive order telling the Department of Health and Human Services to counter state efforts to limit gender affirming care for minors by releasing sample policies for states to expand health care access. Gender affirming care for trans youth can include talk therapy, social transition, reversible puberty blockers, and hormone therapy in some cases.

“My message to all the young people: Just be you,” Biden said when announcing the measure. “You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. You do belong.”

Greene introduced a bill last week to ban gender affirming care for young transgender people and to make it harder for transgender adults to access such care. While gender affirming care for trans youth doesn’t include surgery, Greene’s bill includes a list of surgical procedures that she would ban for transgender minors.

The online right has been spreading false stories about how certain children’s hospitals are performing surgery on young trans people, leading to death threats against children’s hospitals and pediatricians. Right before she introduced her bill Greene was on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show claiming that her bill would stop “horrific ‘sex change’ genital surgeries” on minors.

 
 

 

Trump Bragged He Had ‘Intelligence’ on Macron’s Sex Life

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-emmanuel-macron-maralago-fbi-raid-1234582465/

The FBI seized a document with “info” on the French president during the Mar-a-Lago raid, and that has officials in both countries hunting for answers
 
BY 
ADAM RAWNSLEY, ASAWIN SUEBSAENG
The former U.S. president, sources say, was fixed about what his French counterpart’s private life. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOE RODRIGUEZ. IMAGES USED IN ILLUSTRATION: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES, 2; LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; DAZELEY/GETTY IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES

ON THE FBI’S list of documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, item 1a is listed solely as “info re: President of France.” For Trump, that has been a subject of intense — and tawdry — interest for years.

Specifically, Trump has bragged to some of his closest associates — both during and after his time in the White House — that he knew illicit details about the love life of French President Emmanuel Macron, two people with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone. And the former president even claimed that he learned about some of this dirt through “intelligence” he had seen or been briefed on, these sources say.  

It’s not clear whether the Macron-related document the FBI seized during the raid had anything at all to do with the French president’s personal life. Nor is it clear whether the information on Macron seized from Mar-a-Lago is derived from U.S. intelligence collection or even classified. 

But the mere revelation of its existence triggered a trans-Atlantic freakout, according to two other sources familiar with the situation. And Trump’s prior talk about Macron’s allegedly “naughty” ways that “[not] very many people know” only intensified those concerns. Both French and U.S. officials worked to figure out precisely what Trump had on Macron and France’s government, and if any of it was sensitive in nature, the sources said. The officials in both nations wanted to know if this discovery signified some kind of national-security breach — or if it amounted to a frivolous, but stolen, keepsake.

A spokesperson for the French embassy told Rolling Stone that their inquiry had not included asking the Biden administration for information on the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago. 

In his musing on Macron’s alleged indiscretions, Trump was light on details and specifics, according to the sources. And as a notorious gossip peddler for decades, it’s difficult to know if any of what he says is grounded in reality. “It is often,” one of the sources says, “hard to tell if he’s bullshitting or not.”

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to questions from Rolling Stone.

Trump’s relationship with Macron has often been volatile, with the U.S. president once labeling his French counterpart “my guy” before the two fell out during Trump’s time in the White House.

Trump initially signaled his support for Macron’s 2017 presidential rival, inviting far-right nationalist Marine LePan to Trump Tower and praising her in interviews. But Macron shrugged off the flirtation with his rival and invited Trump as the guest of honor to a Bastille Day parade in 2017. Trump was so taken with the elaborate military pageantry on display that it inspired him to ask for a military parade of his own. 

By 2019, tensions between the two men and their worldviews burst into the open. After disputes between the two leaders over Iran, Syria, and NATO, Trump could be heard blasting Macron as a “pain in the ass” to a White House gathering of international ambassadors to the United Nations. Trump’s former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham also wrote in a memoir that Trump had privately called Macron a “a wuss guy” and “a hundred twenty pounds of fury.”

And the latest incident isn’t the first time Trump has fixated on salacious gossip about the private lives of foreign leaders, associates, and hangers-on. 

 

As Republican rivals J.D. Vance and Josh Mandel vied for his endorsement in the Ohio GOP Senate primary, Trump personally spread rumors he’d heard about Mandel’s sex life and described the candidate as “fucking weird.” And Trump’s decision to endorse Vance was nudged along by a rumor Trump heard from Fox News star Tucker Carlson about a prominent Mandel supporter’s allegedly “chronic” sexual habit. 

During the 2016 presidential contest, Trump briefly ducked into his campaign “war room” and teased mid-level staffers with some alleged intel —  on a pair of MSNBC hosts who weren’t yet public about their romance. “You know, nobody else knows about it, but I know about Joe and Mika’s little apartment in the Upper East Side,” he gossiped, referencing Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, whose long-running relationship would soon become public. “One day, I’ll tell you all about it.” Trump didn’t even know these campaign staffers’ names, but felt comfortable dishing this to them.

Trump’s fixations extended to foreign leader’s families, as well. Grisham wrote in her memoir that, after seeing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on TV aboard Air Force One, Trump once pulled her aside and made a crass assertion about the sex life of the Canadian prime minister’s mother — an assertion that left Grishham baffled.

In his conversations with his associates, Trump didn’t offer an explanation of how American spies acquired the supposed Macron dirt he claims to have seen. But the U.S. intelligence community has become much more cautious about spying on close allies over the past decade. 

Revelations about American eavesdropping on former German Chancellor Angela Merkel prompted the Obama administration to severely restrict intelligence collection on allied heads of state. Under a 2014 directive known as PPD-28, the Obama administration forbade eavesdropping on the leadership of “close friends and allies” absent “a compelling national security purpose.” After reviewing the order in 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would continue to abide by the Obama-era orders.

 

Nonetheless, intelligence about foreign allies can still be swept up in the intelligence community’s broad collection of secrets through more incidental routes.

“While PPD-28 certainly constrained the degree to which the US would intentionally and directly collect on certain allied heads of state, there are plausible scenarios by which insights about them might be indirectly gleaned via collection against adversaries and their networks, human or technical,” one former Trump White House official tells Rolling Stone.

 

Cops shoot at LGBTQ protestors during “Straight Pride” after Proud Boys start violence

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/08/cops-shoot-lgbtq-protestors-straight-pride-proud-boys-start-violence/

As some of the police are white supremacist thugs belong to or agreeing with the groups like the Proud Boys it is not surprising the police joined with the haters and attacked the LGBTQ+ group.   The reason for pride is the discrimination and hate the LGBTQ+ are subjected to.   When white people face that same level of discrimination, abuse, attacks , and have states pass don’t say white bills against mentioning white people exist in schools then I will support white pride.   Note that the Proud Boys, the favorite of tRump, has become the brownshirts of the maga crowd.  The enforcers tasked with assaulting people at LGBTQ+ events and and making people too scared to attend them.     Hugs

Police officers nationwide have been linked to the far-right violent militia group.
By      
Officers move in on LGBTQ protesters in Modesto, California
Officers move in on LGBTQ protesters in Modesto, CaliforniaPhoto: Screenshot
 

The annual “straight pride” gathering in Modesto, California turned violent for the second year in a row, and instead of arresting the Proud Boys who started the fray, police shot into the crowd of protestors with pepper balls and beanbags.

The event was held outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic and the group of far-right militia members and hate preachers was vastly outnumbered by counter protestors. This is the fourth time the group has held the event; the group uses the opportunity to hurl racist and anti-LGBTQ slurs at passersby and protestors while soaking up the local media and police attention.

Two counter protestors were arrested by the end of the scuffle. One Proud Boy was arrested. All three were charged with “failure to disperse.”

After one of the militia members tried to push through the police line, a tussle ensued and LGBTQ defenders started throwing water bottles. Someone tossed a firework into the fray; it was unclear what group the culprit was associated with.

Two LGBTQ protesters were injured in the assault. As the police moved on the crowd with support from SWAT tactical units, the straight pride supporters hid behind the police line.

“They came at us with batons, they jabbed us, they hit the crap out of out us,” one of the injured told a reporter. He was hit with a pepper spray bullet.

“We have two armies to go up against when we stand for our rights,” Odette Zapata, who wore a bulletproof vest to the protest, told the Modesto Bee. “We have to deal with the cops attacking us and we’re about to get a second wave of right-wing extremists. We’re fearful of them attacking us as well.”

Last year’s “straight pride” provocation ended in fistfights and bear spray. Reports say the militia group provoked the protestors, kicking off the brawl that closed down the street and ended in two arrests.

The group has become the far-right’s “enforcers,” starting fights and attacking progressive activists across the nation. They stage fake Pride events across the country.

Boston organizers Mark Sahady and Suzanne Ianni were arrested by the FBI earlier this year in connection to the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol after they were outed by the group behind Straight Pride.

The FBI found out about the pair through social media posts from the organization “Super Happy Fun America,” which organized Straight Pride in Boston in 2019 and whose motto is “It’s Great to be Straight.” Sahady is the group’s vice president.

https://www.modbee.com/news/local/article264999719.html