I have been waiting for the show to clip this interview. I watched it live when he was interviewed. I was blown away by Frost. He is the kind of Democratic elected members we need and the kind of candidates we should vote for. Please give the interview a watch. Hugs
Henry Stout runs the neo-Nazi Aryan Freedom Network with his partner. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
HOCHATOWN, Oklahoma – Wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops and a baseball cap shading his eyes from the sun, Dalton Henry Stout blends in easily in rural America.
Except for the insignia on his hat. It bears the skull and crossbones of the infamous “Death’s Head” SS units that oversaw Nazi Germany’s concentration camps – and the initials “AFN,” short for Aryan Freedom Network, the neo-Nazi group Stout leads with his partner.
From a modest ranch house in Texas, the couple oversee a network they say has been turbocharged by President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. They point to Trump’s rhetoric – his attacks on diversity initiatives, his hardline stance on immigration and his invocation of “Western values” – as driving a surge in interest and recruitment.
Trump “awakened a lot of people to the issues we’ve been raising for years,” Stout told Reuters. “He’s the best thing that’s happened to us.”
While the Aryan Freedom Network and other neo-Nazi groups remain on the outermost edges of American politics, broadly regarded as toxic by conservatives and mainstream America, they are increasingly at the center of far-right public demonstrations and acts of violence, according to interviews with a dozen members of extremist groups, nine experts on political extremism and a review of data on far-right violence.
Several trends have converged since Trump’s re-election, Reuters found. Trump’s rhetoric has galvanized a new wave of far-right activists, fueling growth in white supremacist ranks. Trump’s pardons of January 6 rioters and a shift in federal law enforcement’s focus toward immigration have also led many on the far right to believe that federal investigations into white nationalists are no longer a priority.
[Trump] awakened a lot of people to the issues we’ve been raising for years. He’s the best thing that’s happened to us.
Henry Stout, a leader of the white nationalist group Aryan Freedom Network
And the boundaries of the far right itself are shifting. Ideas once confined to fringe groups like the Proud Boys – who helped lead the January 6 siege – are now more visible in Republican politics, from election denialism to rhetoric portraying immigrants as “invaders.” Trump’s public support and pardons for far-right figures helped normalize those views, the researchers said. As the Make America Great Again movement has come to define the party’s identity, the line separating the far right from mainstream conservatism has grown increasingly difficult to draw, they added.
What was once extreme now blends more easily into the broader far-right, not because those extreme groups have changed, but because the terrain around them has, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and extremism. “A Proud Boy doesn’t even seem that scary anymore because of the normalization process,” she said.
That shift has coincided with a surge in white nationalist activity. White extremists are committing a growing proportion of U.S. political violence, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, a nonprofit research outfit that tracks global conflicts. In 2020, such groups were linked to 13% of all U.S. extremist-related demonstrations and acts of political violence, or 57 of the events ACLED tracked. By 2024, they accounted for nearly 80%, or 154 events.
Ideas once confined to fringe groups like the Proud Boys are now more visible in mainstream Republican politics. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
Trump has denied that he supports white extremism, and the White House rejects the notion that his rhetoric promotes racism.
“President Trump is a president for all Americans and hate has no place in our country,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in response to questions for this story. “President Trump is focused on uniting our country, improving our economy, securing our borders, and establishing peace across the globe.” Fields also pointed to a significant rise in support for Trump among Black voters. In last year’s election, his share of the Black vote nearly doubled from 2020 to about 15%.
Trump has batted away accusations of racism. At a campaign rally last year, he declared, “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.” A few months earlier, he told an interviewer that he can’t be racist because he has “so many Black friends.”
Even as he has made inroads with non-white voters, Trump has consistently drawn support from white nationalist and extremist groups while using racially divisive rhetoric. He promoted the false claim that Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was not born in the U.S. In his 2024 campaign, he suggested immigrants commit violent crimes because “it’s in their genes,” a remark condemned by many as racist.
Stout said his group opposes violence. Yet the Aryan Freedom Network openly advocates preparing for a “Racial Holy War.” It promotes white superiority ideology, seeks to unify elements of the broader white nationalist movement and actively recruits former members of other extremist groups.
The Trump administration has scaled back efforts to counter domestic extremism, redirecting resources toward immigration enforcement and citing the southern border as the top security threat. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reduced staffing in its Domestic Terrorism Operations Section. The Department of Homeland Security has cut personnel in its violence prevention office.
Some specialists in domestic terrorism say these moves could embolden extremists by weakening U.S. capacity to detect and disrupt threats. The DHS and FBI have defended the cuts, saying they remain committed to fighting domestic terrorism. The FBI said in a statement it allocates resources based on threat analysis and “the investigative needs of the Bureau,” and that it remains committed to investigating domestic terrorism.
“RACIST ROYALTY”
In his first interview with any news organization, Stout met Reuters journalists in April at a restaurant in Hochatown, Oklahoma, a quiet town known for its hiking and fishing about an hour’s drive north of their Texas home. He was joined by his partner, who goes by the name Daisy Barr.
Stout says AFN is focused on staying within the law. “We got to watch our Ps and Qs,” he said. Then his tone turned apocalyptic: “And when the day comes, that will be the day – that’s when violence will solve everything.” While he offered no timeline, researchers who study domestic extremism say the comment reflects a strategy among some far-right groups: operate within the law while openly predicting a moment of upheaval.
The Aryan Freedom Network first drew national attention in 2021 after organizing a “White Unity” conference in Longview, Texas. By the following year, it was distributing flyers in cities across the country. One in Texas featured racist caricatures of Black Americans – one swinging from a street lamp amid rubble and an overturned car – alongside the caption: “At the current rate of decline what will America’s major cities look like in ten years?”
An AFN flyer found in West Bend, Wisconsin, in a plastic bag. Photo via West Bend Police Department. Image was redacted by Reuters to remove group’s website address.
Another AFN flyer, targeting immigrants. The plastic bags were weighted with wood pellets to make them easier for canvassers to toss into people’s yards. Photo via West Bend Police Department.
AFN also began staging protests, often targeting drag events and LGBTQ+ gatherings. Stout says the demonstrations were designed to attract recruits. Its conferences and annual “Aryan Fests” have become networking hubs for the far right, drawing attendees from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalist organizations, according to two individuals affiliated with those movements. Reuters was unable to independently verify the claim.
The pseudoscientific notion of a superior white Aryan race – essentially Germanic – was a core tenet of Hitler’s Nazi regime. AFN gatherings brim with Nazi memes: Swastikas are ritually set ablaze and chants of “white power” echo through the woods. AFN’s website pays specific tribute to violent white supremacist groups of the past, including The Order, whose members killed a Jewish radio host in 1984. Two key members responsible for the killing were sentenced to lengthy prison terms and are now deceased.
Stout’s beliefs are rooted in the Christian Identity movement, which claims that white Europeans, not Jews, are the true Israelites of biblical scripture and therefore God’s chosen people. Stout and Barr also claim that Black Americans, under Jewish influence, are leading a Communist revolution – an ideology that fuses racial supremacy with far-right conspiracy theories.
Stout, 34, and Barr, 48, were born into self-avowed white supremacist families with deep ties to the Ku Klux Klan, infamous for its white robes, burning crosses and long history of racist violence, including decades of lynchings and terrorist campaigns against Black Americans.
As a child, Stout said he attended Klan ceremonies and white nationalist youth camps. He recalls reading translations of SS training manuals from Nazi-era Germany. And while other girls were playing video games, Barr said she was wrapping torches in burlap strips, for secret KKK cross-burning ceremonies.
Though they now identify as American Nazis, their ideology is anchored in the KKK and other white extremist groups. Their families are well known to historians of the movement. Stout’s father, George Stout, was a “grand dragon” in the White Knights of Texas, a KKK offshoot. He declined to comment for this story.
Barr’s late father was a KKK “grand wizard” from Indiana who was sentenced to seven years in prison for holding two journalists at gunpoint. AFN requires members to use aliases; she chose “Daisy Barr” after the name of a female Klan leader of the 1920s who sold Klan robes and died in a car crash.
AFN leaders have links to the Ku Klux Klan. Here, a KKK member attends a gathering marking the 160th anniversary of the of the Klan’s founding, outside Maysville, Kentucky, in May. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
One person familiar with the couple described their 2020 marriage as a union of “racist royalty.”
They filed for divorce two years later, but Stout said the split was in name only – a legal move to shield their assets in case they faced civil rights lawsuits like those that once bankrupted the Klan and Aryan Nations, a neo-Nazi group held liable in a 1999 civil suit for inciting violence.
Stout and Barr declined to share membership numbers but said AFN now has nearly twice as many chapters as the 23 it claimed in early 2023.
The Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, a private research group that monitors extremist movements, estimates AFN’s members have grown to between 1,000 and 1,500. “We collect and record every event of theirs,” said TRAC researcher Muskan Sangwan. Some of the earliest chapters, including those in Texas, likely began with around 100 members each, Sangwan said, suggesting the group may have had roughly 200 members in its initial stages.
Chris Magyarics, a senior researcher at the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization that monitors antisemitic harassment, said he was skeptical AFN was so big but said he had no independent data on its size. “The previous largest neo-Nazi group only had a couple of hundred,” he said, referring to the National Socialist Movement, which has been in steady decline.
Reuters was unable to independently establish the extent of AFN’s membership.
Despite the uncertainty over its numbers, AFN is on the radar screens of independent researchers. Jon Lewis, a research fellow specializing in domestic extremism at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said the group has been “really popular” among far-right “accelerationists,” a term used by white supremacists who advocate violence to hasten a race war.
Stout said his group has benefited from the decline of the Proud Boys following the Capitol attack. Once prominent for street clashes during the Trump administration, the Proud Boys have faced legal setbacks and public scrutiny since many of its members were convicted – and later pardoned by Trump – for their roles in the January 6 Capitol riots. The group describes its ideology as “Western chauvinism.” Critics say the group uses the term “Western” rather than “white” to veil its racism, a charge the Proud Boys’ defenders deny.
Stout described groups like the Proud Boys as “civic nationalists” – movements that draw in followers with patriotic rhetoric, then serve as stepping stones toward more overtly racist organizations like AFN or the Klan.
“A lot of newbies, new people to the movement, join that type of movement before they join us,” Stout said.
Reuters was unable to reach a Proud Boy representative for comment.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan take part in a cross-burning to mark the group’s 160th anniversary, outside Maysville, Kentucky, in May. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
WEAPONS AND RACE WAR
Although Stout said the Aryan Freedom Network rejects violence, firearms and tactical training remain central to its identity and feature prominently in its gatherings and recruitment efforts, according to a review of federal court records.
One former member, Andrew Munsinger, built and traded semi-automatic AR-15 rifles and other weapons, using a machine shop to fabricate untraceable parts, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. He boasted to other AFN members of stockpiling ammunition and constructing explosive devices, and claimed to have pointed a shotgun at a sleeping prosecutor, the affidavit said.
Munsinger, who went by the alias “Thor,” was arrested last year in Minneapolis on federal charges of illegally possessing firearms. As a convicted felon, he was barred under federal law from owning weapons. He attended at least five AFN events in one year, the FBI said. Agents described him as an adherent of accelerationism, which seeks to provoke a race war through violence.
An excerpt from the federal arrest affidavit for Andrew Munsinger.
AFN is “an umbrella organization for other white-supremacist organizations,” the affidavit said. Documents relating to Munsinger’s case, including testimony from an FBI informant who infiltrated the group, offer a glimpse inside its operations: firearms training across several states, encrypted communications focused on weapons, a recruitment event at a lakeside bar in Ohio, and new members building timber swastikas in a ritualistic initiation.
Stout said he disavowed Munsinger, who was convicted by a federal jury in April of illegally possessing firearms and ammunition, as well as trafficking marijuana. He is awaiting sentencing. Munsinger and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Stout said his network has links to the Klan, which has splintered and shrunk dramatically since its peak a century ago.
In May, Reuters attended a modern-day Klan ceremony held in a clearing deep within the woods on private land in northeastern Kentucky. William Bader, leader of the Trinity Knights, a small Klan faction, donned a purple silk robe and conical hood as he presided over the swearing in of about half a dozen heavily tattooed new members.
Item 1 of 5 New initiates are blindfolded and walked along a trail as part of an induction ceremony during a gathering and cross-burning marking the Klan’s anniversary outside Maysville, Kentucky, in May. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
[1/5]New initiates are blindfolded and walked along a trail as part of an induction ceremony during a gathering and cross-burning marking the Klan’s anniversary outside Maysville, Kentucky, in May. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
In an interview, Bader said Trump has energized the white nationalist movement. “White people,” he said, “are finally seeing something going their way for once.” Bader said he had previously attended an AFN event without elaborating.
Steve Bowers, another Klan official at the ceremony, which didn’t involve AFN, said he isn’t a fan of Trump because of his administration’s close ties with Israel. But he said many white nationalists are fully behind the president. “People think he’s going to save the white race in America,” said Bowers, dressed in a white KKK robe and hood, decorated with two blood crosses on the chest.
The Klan once claimed as many as six million members in the 1920s. It had dwindled to an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 members across 72 chapters by 2015, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks extremist groups. More recent figures are unavailable, a research analyst at the center said.
AFN has adopted certain tactics and rituals of the Klan, including widespread distribution of racist flyers.
AFN’s flyers have appeared in multiple cities and towns, from Florida to Washington state, according to police reports. Stout and Barr said they view them as a recruitment tool. Police in West Bend, Wisconsin, said hundreds of flyers targeting immigrants were distributed in May. One flyer found in the Wisconsin village of Mukwonago read, “Tired of being discriminated against because you’re white? Join.”
Stout said members are instructed to distribute flyers at night – what he calls “night rides,” echoing the Klan’s term for its historic terrorism campaigns against Black people.
In another echo of the Klan, its signature cross burnings, swastikas are set alight at AFN gatherings. In an AFN video posted online, Stout stands on the bed of a pickup truck, masked and flanked by armed guards, arm raised in a Nazi salute.
Still image from AFN video shows Stout on the bed of a pickup truck, arm raised in a Nazi salute. AFN website.
Still image from AFN video found on their website
“White power!” he shouts in a hoarse Texas drawl, wearing a chest rig for rifle magazines. His audience returns the Nazi salute. “White Power!” they call out.
At the restaurant in Oklahoma, asked why he believes his group is gaining momentum, Stout offered a simple explanation.
This is more of the rights push to erase the LGBTQ+ from society. They are trying to return to the past when people could be fired simply for being gay. These people really carve the society of the 1950s when the LGBTQ+ were not in public society and the normal was considered straight and cis with any divergence considered an illness. I think it is because they can’t imagine something if they don’t feel it or understand it. They are straight so straight should be what everyone feels, to feel differently is weird and yucky to them. They view same sex acts as yucky because it doesn’t appeal to them, but they don’t stop to think that is how gay people feel about mixed sex relationships. Hugs
The 2-term School Board member just took over as Executive Director of Project Pride SRQ.
Sarasota County School Board member Tom Edwards just joined a nonprofit promoting diversity programs. Now, local Republicans say he should resign his public office, but the incumbent brushed that off as a desperate attempt to distract from other bad news for the GOP.
Project Pride SRQ last week announced that Edwards, a second-term School Board member, had taken over as Executive Director of the Sarasota organization.
“Project Pride envisions a silo-free community that is proud, resilient, and unified by shared values, not tribal policies,” Edwards said last week. “I am so excited that Project Pride has given me this platform to do this important work.”
But the Republican Party of Sarasota (RPOS) immediately called out Edwards’ new job as a conflict.
“In his new role, Tom Edwards will have overt conflicts of interest. The press release announcing this new job said Edwards will work to establish multiple programs in the schools and after school to further this radical ideology rejected by the vast majority of Americans,” reads a statement from the party.
“Tom Edwards can do whatever that he wants in his private life. But this position leverages him as a School Board member to push programs in the public, taxpayer-funded schools of which he has enormous influence. He cannot hold this position and look out for the well-being of all students. He clearly is incentivized to prioritize a small minority.”
Edwards made clear he has no intention of stepping away from his new work.
“Mr. Brill, is this a political ploy created as another distraction from the (Jeffrey) Epstein files? Or perhaps, with the upcoming School Board elections, you are concerned about two of your previously-endorsed School Board members’ reputations spoiling the chances of election for their replacements? If that’s the case, is it the one who was embroiled in the ‘Throuplegate’ scandal along with her husband, who was terminated as the State Republican Party chair because of rape allegations? Or is it the one who behaved like a spoiled child, refusing to return to her post and complete her term after losing her election? I must have missed it when you called for their resignations,” Edwards said in a statement.
“Only you can answer what keeps you up at night. In the meantime, I will continue to do the good School Board work that the community – from both sides of the aisle – overwhelmingly reelected me to do. Additionally, I will use my new position at Project Pride SRQ to build a stronger, kinder, more resilient community that can respond to the bullying tactics frequently deployed on members of the LGTBQ+ community. I remain steadfast in building coalitions that foster inclusivity and stand against the elimination of human rights for any element of the population.”
Edwards, who is openly gay, has faced criticism since his election to the School Board in 2020, when he defeated incumbent School Board member Eric Robinson. Gov. Ron DeSantis listed the School Board member as a top target in the last election cycle, but Edwards won re-election regardless.
Edwards walked out of a School Board meeting in 2023 after members of the public hurled homophobic slurs at him. A few months later, he was among those members calling for fellow School Board member Bridget Ziegler to resign amid her own sex scandal; she remains on the board.
Now, Republicans want Edwards to step down, and labeled his agenda as extreme.
“School Board Member Tom Edwards is a supporter of radical LGBTQ beliefs and has pushed them as a School Board member — completely out of touch with what the Sarasota County community of parents want,” reads a statement sent out by RPOS Chair Jack Brill. “But now he has been named Executive Director of Project Pride SRQ, which consistently pushes ideas far outside the mainstream.”
Project Pride SRQ leaders had a different take on Edwards’ record.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Tom as our new executive director,” said Justyn Hunter-Ceruti, Project Pride SRQ Board President. “His leadership, experience, and deep ties to the community will be invaluable as we step into this next chapter. I look forward to working with Tom to advance our mission and ensure that Project Pride continues to be a powerful force for inclusion, connection, and resilience in Sarasota and beyond.”
Added Harry Cicchetti, Vice President of the organization’s board: “Tom brings a passion for our mission, a wealth of experience, and a dedication to advancing equity, justice and inclusion not only for LGBTQ+ people but for all who face barriers, which our organization is committed to addressing at this pivotal time in our culture. The board looks forward to working with Tom as he leads our organization into our next chapter of growth and impact.”
Regardless, the fact that the organization also said Edwards will work on issues like a peer-to-peer Support Squad of students to identify bullying and mobilize around victims has GOP leaders concerned.
“We call on Tom Edwards to resign his School Board seat if he wants to be Executive Director of this organization,” reads the RPOS statement. “Holding both positions is antithetical to ethical behavior and harmful to public school students.”
Jacob Ogles
Jacob Ogles has covered politics in Florida since 2000 for regional outlets including SRQ Magazine in Sarasota, The News-Press in Fort Myers and The Daily Commercial in Leesburg. His work has appeared nationally in The Advocate, Wired and other publications. Events like SRQ’s Where The Votes Are workshops made Ogles one of Southwest Florida’s most respected political analysts, and outlets like WWSB ABC 7 and WSRQ Sarasota have featured his insights. He can be reached at jacobogles@hotmail.com.
Forget “100 points to Gryffindor,” 100% of profits going to trans charities sounds even better.
Czech Games Edition, the publisher behind the new board game Codenames: Back to Hogwarts, has announced that the total sum of profits made by the game will go to trans charities following consumer backlash against the Harry Potter tie-in product.
The gaming publisher announced the decision in a social media post issued on Friday. “We are all devastated that the project we were so excited to share with you caused harm instead of joy,” the August 8 statement reads. “Over time, the harmful views of the story’s creator have escalated into harmful actions. We apologize unreservedly for not doing more to consider that possibility, and for subsequently announcing the game without taking preemptive actions to mitigate the pain it would cause.”
Codenames is an award-winning word-based board game that has sold over 15 million units since its launch in 2015, per The Guardian. Czech Games Edition announced its first Harry Potter board game tie-in, Codenames: Harry Potter, in 2019, months before Rowling started making public anti-trans proclamations.
The company went on to say in its August 8 statement that it was “not prepared for the volume of the response” to Back to Hogwarts and that, aside from donating profits, it will ensure that “an amount equal to or greater than the fee paid to license this product” will go toward organizations that support the trans community. The company will determine which organizations receive the money based on community feedback, per the apology statement, prioritizing “those that offer direct, practical help to people in need.”
Czech Games Edition first announced Back to Hogwarts on July 23, per board game news website Wargamer. After two days of consumers pointing out the issues with licensing the J.K. Rowling-owned property, the company issued a statement saying that “we fully respect and understand those who do not wish to engage with this game,” and requesting an “ongoing conversation” characterized by “care, empathy and respect — both online and in person.”
On July 30, after continuing backlash, the company issued a follow-up statement saying that “our aim was never to cause harm,” and that it was working toward a “concrete solution” at the time.
Rowling’s anti-trans politics are well-known by now, as are her own monetary contributions to the movement, including her legal fund, which is hoping to push trans people out of public life. As Rowling’s views have grown louder and more vitriolic, actors attached to projects in the still-growing Harry Potter universe have made several statements condemning her views. One San Francisco bookstore has even announced that it would stop selling books about the Boy Wizard on its shelves, encouraging people who want to read them to seek out used copies instead.
Wednesday star Hunter Doohan is opening up about the pressure he once felt to hide his sexuality in Hollywood.
During a recent appearance on the Zach Sang Show, the 31-year-old actor — who’s best-known for playing barista Tyler on the hit Netflix series — recounted the process of auditioning for the Showtime series Your Honor in 2019. Although Doohan was openly gay and already in a relationship with his now-husband, Fielder Jewett, he noted that the audition marked “the first time I’d done a network test and they were really scrutinizing.”
“I really was trying to hide it,” he said. “I went and hid pictures of us on Instagram, archived them.”
After Doohan booked the role, he found himself coming out once again to his co-star Bryan Cranston at 26.
“I was at lunch one time with Bryan and I said, ‘Grace called again,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, she’s my friend Grace,’” the actor recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Oh, just a friend?’ And I thought, ‘Oh God… I’ve been out for eight years and I have to come out of the closet again.’ It was so unsettling and awful. I was like, ‘I’m never going to do that for a role again.’”
Sang asked Doohan why he felt the need to hide his sexuality, he replied, “[My partner] was like, ‘Oh yeah, are you worried about this?’ But yeah, I don’t know.”
“I’ve never played a gay role and I’ve auditioned for them,” Doohan added. “But all the characters I’ve played have been straight.”
The Wednesday star pointed to openly gay star Jonathan Bailey as an example. “I read this Jonathan Bailey interview the other day that was so inspiring, like, the way he talks about [his sexuality] and just how he’s totally released all perceived limitations around it,” Doohan said. “We’re lucky to be living in a different time where we can [play non-gay roles] and people can watch it and suspend their disbelief like that.”
These days, the actor has other concerns — namely, the fact that he missed out on meeting Wednesday guest star Lady Gaga on set.
“I’m the one gay guy on the show, and I didn’t get to meet Gaga,” Doohan joked during a recent appearance on the Just for Variety podcast with Marc Malkin. “It might be a hate crime.”
As I keep repeating these bathroom bills hurt cis women because it is based solely on how someone looks to some other people. If as in this case a cis woman did not look feminine enough for the server and so this woman was forced to show her breasts. How is that feminism work going TERF people. These bathroom bills and the hype of fake false stories of danger to women only make all women less safe. See now people that look like men legally might have to use a female’s bathroom, so all a cis man has to say is he is trans and they can legally be in the woman’s bathroom. Same for any female that wants to go into the men’s room only needs to claim to be a trams women. All due to hate and bigotry making a problem where none existed. Think of it, the only assaults I have heard about in female restrooms is from cis people attacking cis females because they think they are trans. Hugs
The 18-year-old high school student said she unzipped her hoodie to show she had breasts after a Buffalo Wild Wings server didn’t believe she is a woman.
A Minnesota teenager filed a charge of discrimination against a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant Tuesday, alleging a server followed her into the women’s restroom and demanded she “prove” she was a girl.
Gerika Mudra, 18, went to dinner in April with a friend in Owatonna, about an hour south of Minneapolis. When she went to the restroom, a server followed her inside and banged on the stall door while saying: “This is a women’s restroom. The man needs to get out of here,” according to Gender Justice, a Minnesota gender-equality organization that filed the charge on Mudra’s behalf.
Gerika Mudra, 18, says she was harassed by a server who accused her of being a boy in the girls’ bathroom.Gender Justice
Mudra, a biracial lesbian who isn’t transgender, said that she has been in similar situations before, when people have suggested she’s in the wrong restroom, but that when she tells them she’s a woman they leave her alone. However, when she came out of the stall at Buffalo Wild Wings and told the server, “I am a lady,” she said, the server responded, “You have to get out now,” Gender Justice said in a statement.
Mudra said she felt she had to prove to the server that she is a woman, so she unzipped her hoodie to show she has breasts. The server didn’t say anything in response but left the restroom, Mudra said.
“She made me feel very uncomfortable,” Mudra said. “After that, I just don’t like going in public bathrooms. I just hold it in. … I want to be able to use the bathroom in peace.”
Inspire Brands, which represents Buffalo Wild Wings, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Buffalo Wild Wings in Owatonna, Minn.Google Maps
Gender Justice filed the charge of discrimination with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, arguing that what happened to Mudra violates the state’s Human Rights Act, which protects people from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, among other protected statuses.
Sara Jane Baldwin, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, said at a news conference Tuesday that even though Mudra isn’t trans, the server’s actions “were based on assumptions that she made about” Mudra, and that Minnesota’s law protects against discrimination based on stereotypes or assumptions about protected characteristics like gender identity.
“Businesses have a legal obligation not to just have antidiscrimination policies on paper, but to train staff and ensure that those policies are followed in real time,” Baldwin said. “When that doesn’t happen, the business is liable for the harm caused.”
Gender Justice said Mudra’s experience “reflects a broader climate of fear and suspicion aimed at anyone who doesn’t conform to narrow expectations of what girls and women ‘should’ look like.” That suspicion has been driven largely by the wave of state legislation targeting trans people, particularly their access to school sports and bathrooms that align with their gender identities, though Minnesota hasn’t enacted any such legislation.
Nineteen states have laws that prohibit trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities in K-12 schools, and in many of those states the restrictions apply to other government-owned buildings, as well, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Twenty-seven states prohibit trans people from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities.
“This kind of gender policing is, unfortunately, nothing new,” Megan Peterson, executive director at Gender Justice, said in a statement. “And yet, in our current climate we have to ask: What if Gerika had been a trans person? Would this story have ended differently? That’s the terrifying reality too many trans people live with every day.”
Even if Mudra had been trans, she would be able to file a discrimination complaint under state law in Minnesota, which is one of 21 states and Washington, D.C., that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public accommodations, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Two states explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation only, and six additional states interpret existing measures against discrimination based on sex to also include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Twenty-one states don’t have explicit protections from discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations.
I saw this clip and it reminded me about this weekend. Here’s the clip:
Have you ever noticed that people are quite happy with what they have right up until they see someone else have something they deem greater than their lot? Give one kid a cookie and they dance, give their sibling a larger cookie and tears run like desperate rivers – and far too many of us seem to hold on to that right through “adulthood”.
I was visiting with my parents this weekend and Dad had to tell me about a great comedian he heard. This great comedian made such a great point: Why is it that Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed the slaves, only gets one day of recognition. Worse, he asks, is that he has to share it with George Washington! How unfair, he says. I don’t really see him honoring Lincoln and Washington, but perhaps he does it quietly. But, in keeping with this comedian’s bit, if only they’d sucked off each-other, they would get a full month! Why isn’t that just humorous?
Some days I really don’t know what to think about people. Isn’t it bad enough that people who say they love us vote for those who’d choose to outlaw us, to kill us, to disenfranchise us, to relegate us to obscurity back into the closet? These same people hate, denigrate, despise… and I guess in Rob Schneider’s case, make jokes. He’s funny, don’t you know. I was rolling. Anyway … and those who say they love us vote for them, patronize them, clap for them, and tell their gay son just how that comedian is so very funny and wise.
Again I keep saying this, it is a fundamentalist Christian attempt to remove all media featuring or talking about the LGBTQ+. They do not want LGBTQ+ children seeing themselves in media, in library books, but more important they do not want straight cis kids to read or see kids who are different who are accepted. They want kids to grow up thinking those LGBTQ+ kids are bad and need to be ostracized or harassed / threatened to be cis straight. They want to return to the society / schools of the 1950s. These people can not accept that other people and other cultures exist that are different from the way they feel or live. They want what Russia and Hungary did, outlaw being gay in public. Hugs
The Florida Department of Education has identified more than 50 books it says are no longer permitted in public schools across the state, citing inappropriate and pornographic content.
But some parents and advocacy groups are questioning whether the state should have the final say over what books are allowed in schools — including in Broward County.
A parent who spoke with Local 10’s Roy Ramos on Thursday with believes families should have input, and that local reviews should take place before books are removed.
“You will remove these 55 books,” said Stephana Ferrell, a parent and director of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, responding to the state’s recent directive.
The Department of Education’s list bans 55 titles from public school libraries statewide. Ferrell said the move overrides local input.
“Every district basically got that message that those 55 books violate the law according to the state. It doesn’t matter if local community standards say no, these books are okay for certain grades and we believe them to fit our community standards,” she said.
Local 10 obtained a copy of the banned list. Some of the titles were described by the state as pornographic and unsuitable for children.
Among them: Choke, This Book Is Gay, Forever, and Breathless.
Portions of these books contain graphic content, including descriptions of male genitalia, sexual acts and intercourse — some of which were too explicit to air on television.
“They are saying we can remove these books based on experts alone and it doesn’t matter what the literary value is,” Ferrell said. “They are making the argument that our school library are government speech and they can decide what is appropriate or not.”
Under current Florida law, parents may challenge books in their school district. Those challenges are then reviewed by a committee to determine whether the content is inappropriate.
Ferrell argues the state is bypassing that process entirely.
“I believe that you have to review these books in their entirety to determine whether or not the intent of the work is to sexually excite the reader,” she added. “There is no opportunity for local parents to get involved. “None of it matters. The state has decided for us.”
Broward County schools were given until Tuesday to comply with the directive and remove the books.
The list currently includes 55 titles, but critics believe more will be added.
Local 10 has reached out to Broward County Public Schools for comment on the state’s order.
Jacob OglesAugust 13, 20258min
Scottie's Playtime 