As anyone who follows me on this blog might or should know I love the content Ethel produces. I followed this young woman from when they were a teen struggling with their sexuality and their finally blossoming out and accepting herself as they are. How she feels inside themselves, and how they deal with that in the world around them. It is a hard struggle. I know I had to do it as a gay teen constantly surrounded and barraged by anti-gay propaganda, and that is what Ethel went through as a trans girl. It was complicated by her being autistic, which there is nothing wrong with being autistic, but it did mean a lot of people did not understand her and were unable to appreciate how detailed she can be. I know it is hard for her to cover these haters talking about abusers as she was abused as a child. However she stands up and gives grand videos supporting trans people and she includes her own strengths to the issue. Hugs
There is no meaningful difference between the claims made by gender ‘critical’ fascists when targeting trans people and those made by the Nazis of Nazi Germany. Said monster has been empowered by the press for too long and now threatens us all.
Hi, welcome to Essence of Thought with me, Ethel Thurston, as your host.
I know this is old but I worked hard on it. Now that I got the issues between computers worked out and I am in the process of reinstalling all the programs I need to make the computer do what I want, checking to make sure the issue that came up a week ago from reappearing. The issues of full acceptance and equality for the full LGBTQ+ community. Hugs
Please notice that the entire campaign to erase LGBTQ+ from society started with the false premise that the LGBTQ+, especially children need to be protected from trans people and drag queens. But the same people claim to be grand Christians yet they never address sexual abuse of children in churches or other organizations like foster homes / orphanages. These same people support a man for president that was credibly accused of violently raping a 13, how many more did not report the abuse? They support a man who bragged about barging into the changing rooms of teen girls as they were in different states of being undressed some of them nude during the teen pageants claiming it was his right as the owner. He is a child sex predator by his own words claiming he would date / have sex with his own young not adult daughter. They supported a man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman with the commonly understood phrase raped her. But they claim the real problem is women being raped in bathrooms if trans women are in there also. They support Pete Hegseth for Sec. Of Def. He also has been accused of sexually assaulting / raping a woman and assaulting other women. It was reported that he was often drunk and enjoyed going to places where women take off their clothing and at least one occasion needed to be restrained from going on stage with the nude women. Tell me where is the effort to removed white men from the social media and from the military? Sorry but when they say woke it means anything they dislike just as CRT did. When they say DEI it is them saying the “N” word and that females are inferior to males. Well let me get to separating the posts. Hugs.
I wish I could still say it’s amazing that these bills even come up, while now instead, it’s amazing that they’re not brought into law. But here we are. Decent news from Montana!
Powerful Speeches From Trans Dems Flip 29 Republicans, Anti-Trans Bills Die In Montana by Erin Reed
Transgender Reps Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell delivered powerful speeches on the Montana House floor on Thursday. Republicans defected en masse to join them in voting against anti-trans bills. Read on Substack
Something remarkable happened in Montana today. As has become routine, anti-trans bills were up for debate—the state has spent more than half of its legislative days this session pushing such bills through committees and the House floor, with Republicans largely voting in lockstep. But something changed.
A week ago, transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr delivered a powerful speech against a bill that would create a separate indecent exposure law for transgender people. Since then, momentum on the House floor slowed. Today, two of the most extreme bills targeting the transgender community came up for a vote. Transgender Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell gave impassioned speeches—this time, they broke through. In a stunning turn, 29 Republicans defected, killing both bills. One Republican even took the floor to deliver a scathing rebuke of the bill’s sponsor.
The first bill to reach the House floor was HB 675, a measure that would ban drag performances and Pride parades in Montana. A previous drag ban had already been struck down by the courts after it was enforced against a transgender woman—who was not a drag artist—to prevent her from speaking about public history at a library. In response, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Caleb Hinkle, introduced HB 675 to circumvent that ruling.
Rather than relying on state enforcement, this bill would grant individuals the private right to sue if a public drag performance took place, making it more difficult to challenge in court. During committee hearings, Hinkle went even further, calling being transgender “a fetish” and arguing that the law was necessary to prevent trans people from dancing in public.
And that’s when transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr took to the floor.
“Here I am again to rise on another bill targeting the LGBTQ+ community,” she said, exasperated. “At its very core, drag is art. It is very beautiful art. It has a deep history in this country, and it is important to my community. You know, if you are a woman in this body wearing a suit today, you are in some way challenging gender norms that existed long ago… There were three-article-of-clothing laws 50 years ago that said if you wore three articles of clothing that were indicative of the opposite gender, they could stop you, arrest you… it was those laws that led to the police raiding an LGBTQ+ bar that led to the Stonewall riots, one of the most important civil rights moments in my community’s history,” she began.
“When the sponsor closed on this bill, he said, this bill is needed… and I quote his words… ‘because transgenderism is a fetish based on crossdressing.’ And I am here to stand before the body and say that my life is not a fetish. My existence is not a fetish. I was proud within a month ago to have my son up in the gallery here. Many of you on the other side met him. When I go to walk him to school, that’s not a lascivious display. That is not a fetish. That is my family. This is what these bills are trying to come after… not obscene shows in front of children, we have the Miller test for that, we have laws for that. This is a way to target the trans community, and that is in my opinion, and in the speaker’s own words.”
Then something even more remarkable happened: A Republican, Representative Sherry Essman, rose to defend Rep. Zephyr and chastised the bill’s sponsor. “I’m speaking as a parent and a grandmother. And I’m very emotional because I know the representative in seat 20 is also a parent. No matter what you think of that, she is doing her best to raise a child. I did my best to raise my children as I saw fit, and I’m taking it for granted that my children are going to raise my grandchildren as they see fit,” she began.
“Everybody in here talks about how important parental rights are. I want to tell you, in addition to parental rights, parental responsibility is also important. And if you can’t trust a decent parent to decide where and when their kids should see what, then we have a bigger problem,” she turned to parental rights and spoke about how people who claim those rights should vote against the bill.
And then, she closed by chastising the bill’s sponsor for bringing the bill, “Trust the parents to do what’s right, and stop these crazy bills that are a waste of time. They’re a waste of energy. We should be working on property tax relief and not doing this sort of business on the floor of this house and having to even talk about this.”
Following the speeches, 13 Republicans, the most of any anti-trans bill this cycle, flipped and voted against the bill. See it as it happened here:
Were this all that happened, it would have been remarkable enough—such aisle-crossing has become rare in modern politics, and on transgender issues, it is almost unheard of. But Representative Zephyr is not the only transgender lawmaker in Montana. Representative SJ Howell, a powerhouse in their own right, took the floor when an even more extreme bill followed immediately afterwards—HB754, a measure that would remove transgender children from their parents. They had a powerful speech to deliver as well.
Representative Howell opened, “I stand to oppose this bill… When a state intervenes to remove a child from their family, that is one of the most serious and weighty responsibilities that the state has. That is not something to be taken lightly. Every time a child is removed from their family, it’s a tragedy. Sometimes a necessary tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless. This bill does not come close to the seriousness with which those decisions should be contemplated.”
They pointed directly to the bill’s language: “On page 1, line 19, any child protective service specialist, peace officer, or county attorney who has reason to believe any child is in immediate danger or harm may immediately remove the child. What we are adding… a child transitioning gender with the support of a parent or guardian is considered in immediate or apparent danger or harm.”
Howell then turned to the bill’s vagueness and the dangers it posed to transgender children as well as any child who defies gender norms. “Transitioning gender is not defined in this bill… so what does that mean? Maybe it means, as the sponsor said, surgery or medical treatment. Maybe it means therapy, mental healthcare. Maybe it means a kid who gets a haircut and a new set of clothes. Maybe a name change… a legal name change, or someone who wants to try out a different name… a strict reading of this bill could include all of that.”
They urged lawmakers to consider the real consequences. “Put yourself in the shoes of a CPS worker who is confronted with a young person, 15 years old maybe, who is happy… healthy… living in a stable home with loving parents, who is supported and has their needs met? And they are supposed to remove that child from their home and put them in the care of the state? We should absolutely not be doing that.”
Then, the bill went to a vote. This time, the Montana Republican Party fully fractured—29 Republicans crossed the aisle to defeat it.
Watch it as it happened here:
Following the vote, Representative Zephyr took to social media to discuss the implications. “These kind of votes are born out of transgender representation in government,” she posted on her bluesky account. “Howell & I have built solid relationships with Republicans and those relationships change hearts, minds, and (eventually) votes. It is painful, grueling work. But it makes a difference.”
At a time when anti-trans bills are sailing through red-state legislatures, many are left wondering how they can be stopped. Some Democrats, like Gavin Newsom, have chosen appeasement—standing alongside anti-trans hate leaders like Charlie Kirk instead of standing up for transgender people. But Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell offer a different path. As transgender lawmakers in a Republican-dominated government, they have shown that representation, relationships, and the power of speaking truth in hostile spaces can move hearts and minds. Their success is a reminder that even in the most challenging environments, refusing to back down can make a difference.
Editor’s Note: The writer of this article is happily married to Representative Zooey Zephyr. While I am mindful of disclosing personal relationships in my reporting as a transgender journalist, I also recognize the importance of covering major moments like today’s events in Montana, and so I chose to report on this story with this disclosure. My goal remains delivering critical LGBTQ+ news to my readers with the integrity and urgency it deserves.
This writer, Crip Dyke, feels about Dems the way many here do; that they’re worthless doing anything except being polite. But when Dems do what they should, this writer publishes it so that people know. It’s what we should all do until someone with money forms a new party if that’s what people really want. (To me, it’d be easier to jump in and participate in the Dem party, and fix it from within. With numbers, it’d be easy and relatively quick to make the desired improvements. Anyway, here is good news about an issue on which we’ve all been writing and calling.)
Democrats Strike At Heart Of GOP Darkness, Kill Anti-Trans Sports Bill by Rebecca Schoenkopf
In the moment Death stepped on the Senate floor to claim S9, Tuberville reportedly whispered, ‘The horror. The horror.’Read on Substack
Let trans kids play. Image by Phil Roeder. Used under CCA 2.0.
In the 19 long, bitter decades since Trump issued Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports,” generations have been born, come of age, and died buried away from the sun, divided by uncrossable rivers. Few could conceive of the darkness of the soul in those times who have not lived them.
And so our forgotten years of hope reflecting off the waters of that most colonial of rivers, the Potomac, produced the most unexpected flicker yesterday: a filibuster victory in the Senate, blocking the codification of 14201 into law and ban trans participation in girls’ and women’s school sports. To quote Erin Reed:
Republicans called it the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.” Democrats dubbed it “The GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act”. The Senate clerk said it didn’t have the votes.
To misquote Joseph Conrad, the Democratic Party is a droll thing, a mysterious arrangement of spineless yes-men for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some acknowledgement of yourself that comes too late, leaving a crop of inextinguishable regrets. But not March 3, 2025!
And not today, Satan!
The vote was not quite so positive as The Hill would have you believe: They reported that “all Democrats voted against” the bill, recorded as S. 9. While zero Democrats voted for it, two Dems known to waffle in the face of anti-trans attacks did abstain. The Senate’s two independents (both of whom caucus with Democrats), Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both voted against. The final margin of 51-45 included two abstentions from Republicans as well, Shelley Capito (R-WV) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). Though Trump hasn’t ruled on the prior state of these Senators as blastocysts, both do appear to be women, curiously enough.
The defeat of S9 marks a rare moment in the 119th Congress in which Democrats hung together. On other votes including prominent Senate confirmations and measures in both the Senate and the House, there have been significant defections. HR 28, the House version of this bill, snagged two Democratic votes (both Texas centrists and both men). In a time when Democratic voters and other lefties have been crying out for principled obstructionism to be waged against Trump and the MAGA agenda, blocking S9 was a largely unexpected win. Calling out trans participation in girls’ and women’s sports has been a particularly effective form of attack by the GOP, even when lying their asses off, as Tommy Tuberville did on FOX:
“We’re getting to a point now where women and girls’ sports and getting ready to be extinct. Because already in states across this country, we have high school teams that are made up of totally boys participating against girls. […And wank, wank, wank.]”
Of course no one other than GOP primary voters have taken Tuberville seriously since his Auburn Tigers lost to 14 transsexual squirrels in Commodore drag. But if you need to hear it from someone who knows better than yr Wonkette, Kate Starbird, former NCAA basketball standout, former professional baller in the ABL and WNBA, and current University of Washington professor, had this to say about Tuberville’s demented lie:
“As a former athlete & current researcher of online rumors & disinfo, today’s atrocious example of the ‘right wing bullshit machine’ in action — anchored on a truly idiotic claim from a football coach turned GOP senator about trans girls making girls sports ‘extinct’ — enrages along both dimensions.”
(Wonkette was so impressed with this quote we are currently reviewing her inventory of dick jokes in preparation for the possible extension of an offer of employment.)
To be clear, under the filibuster rules, which could change if the GOP thinks abandoning this Senate tradition is important enough, the bill needed 60 votes to clear a procedural step — cloture — that would then allow an up-or-down vote on enactment. That final vote would have needed only the barest majority, and a tie can be split by the Vice President. But Republicans are not currently talking about eliminating cloture votes, and as long as the filibuster survives, the Protection of Women & Girls in Sports Act is dead.
Despite this victory depending on the GOP maintaining the filibuster and the fact that Republicans are constantly launching other attacks on immigrants, people of color, teachers, and many others, there’s good reason to celebrate the Dems acting like they know how to win. And many people are celebrating, including another former professional athlete and generally decent person, Chris Kluwe:
“I support and am happy the party came together to stop this.”
Of course the party pooper had to add:
“However, this is what they should be doing on EVERYTHING. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it – we are in an existential crisis as a country. We’re either going to emerge as Americans, or as something else.”
And that is, indeed, where we are. Like a flash of lightning in the clouds, we are glimpsing an ephemeral brightening of hope. We live in the flicker, may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. The GOP has lost only the first of the ebb.
I have strong feelings about women’s restrooms, too, as we all know; so many thoughts about so many women’s bathroom issues. I’m in agreement with this essay. Stick with it, you’ll see. You might want a tissue.
A Trans Girl Approached Me in the Ladies’ Bathroom and It Bothered Me. Here’s Why. by Natalie S. Ohio
Why the girls’ bathroom is a sacred space for women and how we must seek to keep it that way.Read on Substack
Ugh, no hand soap. Again.
If there’s one thing living in Spain will teach you, it’s that hand washing isn’t priority número uno in public spaces.
Luckily, as someone who grew up here, this is no surprise to me. As Gang Starr once said, “I’m not new to this, I’m true to this.”
In other words, I carry soap sheets wherever I go.
As I was washing my hands in the shopping mall bathroom last week, the door cracked open and a head peeked around.
Big brown eyes appeared from under a blunt-cut fringe. A smattering of adolescent acne decorated soft, rounded cheeks and a set of metallic braces twinkled between glossy pink lips.
Either retro makeup is back in style or rubbing my hands together had sent me ricocheting back to the mid-80s…
We regarded each other for a moment.
“¿Puedo pasar?” May I come in?
Her delicate, childlike voice softly penetrated the silence of the empty bathroom.
“Sí, claro.” Of course.
I smiled and gestured to the vacant stalls and the rows of mirrored sinks behind me.
I wondered if she mistakenly believed from the outside that this was a single-person bathroom. Or maybe she thought I was a cleaner. It wouldn’t be the first time a Spaniard had seen my complexion and automatically assumed I was the help.
I was otherwise a little perplexed as to why she would ask.
She hesitated slightly as she stepped around the door.
“Bueno, es que… soy trans.”
Well, it’s just that… I’m trans.
What I’m about to say may sound strange to some, but here goes:
The ladies’ bathroom plays a surprisingly significant role in girlhood.
I’m not talking about the one at Grandma’s house with its peach-coloured wall tiles, nor the ones in fancy restaurants where you go to check your appearance on a date.
I’m talking about the public toilets that double as makeshift community hubs for women — grubby little social sinkholes you find in nightclubs, bars, and airports that offer a brief moment of tranquillity as the commotion fades behind the closing door.
Restrooms with precarious toilet seats, broken flushes, and “love urself babe ur perfect” scribbled in eyeliner on the inside of the stall.
I’m willing to bet that anybody who has used a public ladies’ room has had at least one memorably positive encounter with someone they’ve met inside.
What’s so special about it? I hear you cry. Men have bathrooms too and nobody bats an eyelid. If anything, the less said about those, the better.
On a functional level, nothing at all.
In fact, the ladies’ very often sucks in comparison to the men’s. A victim of long queues, scarce toilet paper, and the most unflattering lighting known to man.
However, we’re not talking about serviceability. If we were, we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
What I’m referencing is much deeper than that. Much more visceral.
I once undid a drunken stranger’s bodysuit in a nightclub bathroom so she could relieve herself before going back out to tear up the dancefloor. If you’ve any idea what a bodysuit is and where its fastening is located, you’ll understand why that’s a tall order.
I’ve witnessed countless girls take their drinks inside and leave them unattended by the sink without any concerns over getting roofied.
There’s nearly always someone giving an empowering pep talk to a broken-hearted friend who needs a boost of confidence.
Blister plasters, boob tape, and tampons are handed out like Werther’s Originals at a Women’s Institute meeting. Pleasant conversation dapples the air. Strangers become new best friends.
Outfits are readjusted, hair is coiffed, perfume is shared, and doors with faulty locks are guarded to prevent accidental walk-ins. Those who are desperate are permitted to jump the line.
It’s where the power of sorority is comfortably displayed.
The girls’ bathroom is one of the few places where female vulnerability isn’t preyed upon.
Conversely, it’s often bolstered and allowed to exist without any need for justification.
Sure, it’s where you go when nature calls. But it also acts as a cocoon-like environment — somewhere you can retreat to when you want to feel… safe.
Nat, why are you waxing lyrical about the loo?
Well, because this recent encounter brought about a bracing realisation for me — a conventional woman with an uncomplicated identity who fits comfortably within the margins of the archetype.
I realised that the person peeking her head around the door wasn’t merely asking for permission to enter the room.
She was asking for permission to belong.
She was giving me the power to accept or reject her appeal to exist freely in a space that—for people like me—is a place of comfort, and for people like her, is commonly associated with hostility and consternation.
The alignment of my biological sex and gender identity affords me the confidence to take up space in social settings where others, with less streamlined identities, may feel reluctant.
Of course, uncertainty is a perfectly natural phenomenon in adolescence — kids are constantly trying to make sense of themselves and explore how and where they best fit in a world governed by grown-ups. And this kid, who looked to be some 14 or 15 years old, is no different.
However, this situation was unique because it didn’t focus on the implicit social hierarchy that comes with a significant age gap.
Instead, our respective positions on the spectrum of womanhood forced us to weigh up the other’s existence.
It was as though she believed that within a shared space her identity would encroach on mine; so announcing that she was trans and verbally acknowledging our differences would help me to legitimise her humanity some.
She asked me if she could come in because there may have been a chance that I wouldn’t have wanted her to.
And that is devastating to me.
“Bueno, hija, ¿qué más da? Pasa, pasa.” So what, kiddo? Come on in.
I headed over to the hand dryer.
“Ay, muchas gracias!”
She smiled sweetly and walked past me in her fishnet tights and patent Dr. Martens.
Transphobia is not an alien concept in countries that operate under organised religion or have a traditional set of social values, such as Spain.
Vox—a prominent far-right political party—has been consistently vocal about its disdain towards transgender people and its desire to prevent their access to base-level human rights. Transgender people are persecuted by conservative political parties and their followers all across the nation.
Adults berating other adults is one thing, but what happens when this toxic, nefarious behaviour falls upon the shoulders of children?
Children are sacred
“Los niños son sagrados” (children are sacred) is a phrase you see and hear typically in response to the mistreatment of children in any form.
Children are revered in Hispanic culture, so why was this particular child so acutely aware of the controversy surrounding her identity? Shouldn’t the innocence we try so hard to preserve in children include transgender children too?
Shouldn’t she be able to exist as comfortably as her peers do?
Had I voiced an issue with her coming into the bathroom, there is no doubt in my mind that she would’ve turned away and left. And that’s what bothered the hell out of me. It upset me that she felt the need to even mention it.
Because who am I? I’m not important. I have no authority over public spaces or gender identity whatsoever.
I don’t care what people do in the privacy of a bathroom stall. I don’t stop to intimidate them or pass judgement.
I’m just a stranger washing her hands at the sink. But luckily for this girl, I’m a kind stranger. Someone whose cup of compassion and understanding runneth over.
The fact that she felt the need to ask stirred up feelings of pity and rage in equal measure.
It disgusts me that this harmless individual possibly has and probably will suffer at the hands of narrow-minded losers who mind other people’s business more than their own.
As if growing up isn’t already fraught with insecurity and a heightened awareness of your differences from others. Being a teenager in today’s world is like wandering into the seventh circle of hell with gasoline shorts on.
Sure, the world is a big, scary place. But the girls’ bathroom is something else entirely, and it should stay that way.
I felt a wave of protectiveness wash over me as I thought about how she must feel on a regular basis. Physically, she was long-limbed and lofty, yet she seemed so small and defenceless.
A kid.
Just figuring herself out, one day at a time.
When she came into the sink area, she told me she liked my outfit — I told her that I have my own clothing line and was wearing one of my newest designs. I offered her a soap sheet and asked her about her makeup — her parents had bought her an eyeshadow palette for her birthday recently. I’ve never been any good with eyeshadow. She doesn’t go a day without it.
So there we were.
Just two gals chopping it up in the girls’ bathroom, enjoying pleasant conversation with someone we’ll probably recall warmly once or twice before returning to the monotony of our everyday affairs.
I suppose that these are the situations we need more of. Just witnessing humans being humans and doing human things.
So often bigots behave as though those they’re prejudiced towards are a subhuman entity that needs to be exterminated to restore a sense of harmony and order to the world.
In reality, we’re all just people. Trying to get by and get on with things before we shuffle off this mortal coil once our number is up.
Coexisting peacefully really isn’t as complicated as it’s made out to be. Being kind to others is far from difficult.
We’re all different, and that’s fine — it doesn’t need to be fire and brimstone and bloodbaths and battalions.
So when you meet someone different from you, just share the soap.
Jenny Blake Isabella is proof that it is never too late to embrace being your true authentic self.
A former writer for both Marvel and DC comics Isabella is most well-known for creating the characters Black Lightning, Misty Knight and Tigra.
Over the weekend Isabella came out as transgender with a post on her social media with the meme “Keep Calm and Yes I’m Transgender”. She elaborated further in the caption writing, “This is real. I’ll have more to say soon. In the meantime, I ask you respect my privacy and especially that of my wife and our children. Thank you.”
Isabella is married to Barbara Isabella and the two share two children. While Isabella is now personally using the name Jenny Blacke, she shares that she will continue to write under both that name and her professional name Tony Isabella, and will be presenting as Tony Isabella at upcoming conventions this year. (snipn-MORE)
Scottie's Playtime 