Category: LGBTQ+ / Gay / Trans / Gender

Erasure

Randy sent me this.  This is what I have been talking about.  I hope you will take the time to watch the short one and the 3:31 minute video.  Not the most riveting I admit.  But it is designed for little kids.  Did you spot any mention of the sex of the penguins?  In all the book there is only one small hint and little kids won’t notice it.  I went looking for it because I wanted to know how so many people were sure the penguins were a same sex couple.  One word, one made up word not even in the writings or spoken in the video.  Hint it is on the cover of the book.  The name of their home and where they baked the cakes.  Pengrooms.  One other clue is the rainbow colored boards on the tree.  Yup for that the book must never be seen or read ever.  It is a sin, a horror for kids to see or hear.  It is a cute little kids book.  Randy informed me that enough people contacted Amazon about the fake negative comments that they were removed.  

See it is not about protecting kids, it is not about sexualizing kids, it is not about confusing kids that these people fear and hate.  It is about acceptance and tolerance of something different from them that they don’t agree with.  To them there is no live and let live.  There is no you do your thing and I will do me.  To them the world and all in it must be just as they are, do as they do, believe as they believe.  And most important worship who they worship.  They demand a bland world where only the things they celebrate are seen and heard, where their way is superior to all others.   

It is about removing all mention of LGBTQ+ from society.  It is about removing everything not straight cis from media of any type.  The misnamed one million moms who is one lady with a computer and a printer along with a few thousand followers on social media complains bitterly about any commercial that has even the hint of a same sex couple in it, even a hint.  It is hurting the children see.  The goal is making sure LGBTQ+ kids, and yes there are LGBTQ+ kids, don’t see or know anyone like themselves anywhere.  It is so they don’t feel accepted.  They feel they must hide who they are and tell no one.  They want those kids who are born different and feel that difference to be deep in the closet and stay there, never to come out and be happy as their true selves.  These groups pushing this hate want no anti-bullying programs as they want kids who are different to be picked on, harassed, and beat up.  They do not want them accepted by their peers, teachers and fellow students.  No they want them beaten up.  I know this because one of the co-authors of the Florida don’t say gay bill said it was why he helped write the bill.   That gay kids, that trans kids could be accepted by classmates and treated fairly drove him to tears.  Yes tears.  I saw him weep as he spoke of those kinds of kids finding acceptance in the classroom.

One guy using social media has already gotten a dozen big name companies to roll back and remove their DEI programs and support for the LGBTQ+ including pride merchandise and parades.  Because he and the others like him threaten these companies with the threat of accusing them of harming kids and trying to hurt their businesses they give in.  One guy is spearheading this but there are others.  They are driven to remove us from society, in this guy’s case so his god will love him and give him an afterlife.   We need to stand up against this guy and these haters.   We have to do that.  We must not let them drive the country back to 1950 not even to 1980.  We must remain visible and fight for the rights of all of us.  We don’t drop a letter here or there from our community to please the haters.  We have seen in history they never stop with just the one group, they work to get rid of them all.  We must get vocal, we must fight back.  Hugs

California Dem Derek Tran Flips US House Seat

California Dem Derek Tran Flips US House Seat

Again this shows that while the fundie Christians and republican right maga are trying hard to wipe out trans people to then start on the rest of the LGBTQ+, the voters do not support that.  Voters support trans people!  They keep showing it.  The Democrats must come out in force to support the trans population to remain relevant.  Look Harris was so very careful never to mention trans people, never voice support for DEI or the LGBTQ+ because they are afraid of the haters.   But the DEI and LGBTQ+ supporters are far greater than the haters or fundamentalist Christian theocracies.  Hugs

November 27, 2024 Democrats, Politics

 

The Los Angeles Times reports:

In a major victory for Democrats, first-time candidate Derek Tran defeated Republican Rep. Michelle Steel in a hotly contested Orange County congressional race that became one of the most expensive in the country.

Tran will be the first Vietnamese American to represent a district that is home to Little Saigon and the largest population of people of Vietnamese descent outside of Vietnam.

The race was the third-to-last to be called in the country. As Orange County and Los Angeles County counted mail ballots, Steel’s margin of victory shrank to 58 votes before Tran took the lead 11 days after the election. Tran was leading by 613 votes when Steel conceded Wednesday.

Read the full article.

https://twitter.com/PollTracker2024/status/1861880628699951195
https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1861869245694345245
https://twitter.com/derektranCA45/status/1861216498003448312
https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1861867350259118212
TrollopeReadera day ago

Nancy Mace is going to go on another tear!!

Two Tran’s in the House !!

Swamp Yankeea day ago

Republicans are gonna flip their shit when they find out there’s another Trans person in the house!

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs transgender bathroom ban bill into law

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs transgender bathroom ban bill into law

I am sorry but how does this protect any student or adult … it also includes higher education.  Notice this part … About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  That is in a country of 337 million people. 

This is only a hate bill based on the absurd idea that trans women want to assault girls.  Notice it is always trans girls / women they talk about never trans boys or trans men.  It is a made up problem that never happened so they have to destroy a small minority of people’s lives to prove a point of their bigotry.  I am so sick of this posturing on the part of republicans trying to do to trans what they couldn’t do to the gays 30 years ago.  It is the same tactics and hate they promote.  If you want to know the real cost listen to the trans students who quit school because they had nowhere to go to the bathroom, or the trans students who were given approved bathrooms so far from their classes that they missed some and got bad marks for simply needing to pee before the class started.  These bills have real world consequences for young people in every state.  It is not just the bathroom issue but it makes a trans person a target even if there is a “trans bathroom” assigned.  It means any student using it is outing themselves to the ones that want to target them for abuse.   

Again this solves no problem but does promote hate and bigotry … and it is driven by religious bigotry because of the fundamentalist belief that their god created them male and female only.  They are demanding we run our society, or 2024 understands on the book written by religious leaders 2,500 years ago.  Think about it, these people had no idea of everything we take for granted today, yet the fundamentalist who demand we ;deny rights to trans people do it based on that book of people who did not even understand germs!  These bills are designed to promote a religion and a religious view of life / morality in the public life.   I am an old gay man, this still affects me.  Because bigotry against one group’s rights is bigotry against all people’s rights!  If these people get the right to exclude trans people from bathrooms what is next?  Gay people on the same idea that we are a threat?  Or hell watch about the old segregation idea that blacks are a threat to whites in bathrooms?  See this is the same playbook.  This is not different from black people shouldn’t be in white people’s bathrooms.   Hugs

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law banning transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match up with their gender identity.

The law requires people at Ohio K-12 schools and universities use the restroom that aligns with their gender assigned at birth. It also bans students from sharing overnight accommodations with people of the opposite sex from their assigned sex at birth at K-12 schools.  

This does not prevent a school from having single-occupancy facilities and does not apply to someone helping a person with a disability or a child younger than 10 years old being assisted by a parent, guardian or family member. 

The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.

A lawsuit is expected to be filed against this. The Ohio Capital Journal interviewed a Cleveland attorney over the summer about potential legal challenges with the bill, such as who would police such a policy? 

Several transgender Ohioans, allies and educators called on DeWine to veto the bill. The Ohio Capital Journal recently talked to a family who plans on moving out of Ohio because of anti-transgender legislation at the Statehouse. 

The bathroom ban (House Bill 183) was added to a bill that revises College Credit Plus (Senate Bill 104) in the eleventh hour of a House Session at the end of June before the lawmakers went on an extended break.

The Ohio Senate concurred with the changes made to S.B. 104 during their first session back from break. 

State Reps. Beth Lear, R-Galena, and Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, introduced H.B. 183. State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced S.B. 104. 

About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The American Medical Association officially opposes policies preventing transgender individuals from accessing basic human services and public facilities consistent with gender identity.

Slightly more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in Ohio considered suicide in 2022, according to the Trevor Project. 

About a third of LGBTQ+ students were prevented from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender and slightly more than a quarter were stopped from using the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to Ohio’s 2021 state snapshot by GLSEN, which examines the school experiences of LGBTQ middle and high school students.

 Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives his 2024 State of the State address in the Ohio House chambers at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday afternoon. (Pool photo by Barbara J. Perenic, Columbus Dispatch.)

 

Forty-two percent of transgender and nonbinary students were unable to use the bathroom that aligned with their gender and 36% couldn’t use the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to the Ohio GLSEN report. 

Transgender youth who can’t use the bathroom that aligns with their gender are at a greater risk of sexual violence, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Pediatrics.  

Other states with transgender bathroom bans

Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Florida, and Utah have laws that ban transgender people from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity in schools. 

Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Tennessee’s laws have all been challenged. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocked Idaho’s law last year.  

North Carolina made history in 2016 by becoming the first state to ban bathroom access to transgender people. The law was quickly appealed in 2017 and settled in federal court in 2019, but the state ended up losing hundreds of millions of dollars as the NBA All-Star Game and NCAA events were moved out of state. 

Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on X.

 

Say it loud and proud again please!

EYup: Exactly Right …

Ten Bears has made me Jealous.  I wish I had found this first.   But to give credit I think he can do more with it.   If you don’t know ask him his work out regiment.  If anyone who claims to be male thinks their bigotry can out male his actual being … I hope they never tell that to him face to face.  I was in the military and even in my best fitness I don’t think I could have kept up with his regimen.   Hugs

Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies

https://apnews.com/article/walmart-dei-inclusion-diversity-34b06922e60e5116fe198696201ce4d9

Again this crusade is marketed as protecting the children from sexualized content.  What do they call sexualized content?  Chest binders for teenage girls and drag queens!  Neither are sexualizing for children.  Drag queens can run the gambit from guys dressed as grandmothers to guys dressed as sexy sex workers.  It depends on the venue, and minors are not allowed in adult entertainment events.  That is already the laws.  But to the fundamentalist any guy dressed in anything thought of as women’s attire is sexualizing and a threat to children.  Why?  Kids don’t care if a man wears pants or a dress.  And chest binders are not sexualizing nor confusing.   They are a medical assistance tool.  If a girl identifies as a boy and hates her body, he needs to hide or remove the sign or his boob development.  Would these people be so outraged at binders if it was a boy with gynecomastia, which is when boys grow breasts, uses a bind to feel better about themselves?  No it is because the person transitioning is trans that outrages them.  We are losing the discussion on this topic because we are let the vocal outraged right set the narrative such as all drag is sexual and confusing kids, and anything trans is forced on kids sexualizing them so it also confuses them.  Remember when they said gays recruit boys by molesting them so they would turn gay?  That was easily shown to be ridiculous.  We went on the offense then and won.  We need to go back on the offense and show the haters are repressively backwards in their thinking who don’t understand the changing evolving society.  Hugs

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FILE – A Walmart logo is displayed outside of a Walmart store, in Walpole, Mass., Sept. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

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By  ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
Updated 11:10 PM EST, November 25, 2024
 

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists.

The changes, confirmed by Walmart on Monday, are sweeping and include everything from not renewing a five-year commitment for an equity racial center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent gay rights index. And when it comes to race or gender, Walmart won’t be giving priority treatment to suppliers.

Walmart’s moves underscore the increasing pressure faced by corporate America as it continues to navigate the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions. Emboldened by that decision, conservative groups have filed lawsuits making similar arguments about corporations, targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programs and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups.

Separately, conservative political commentator and activist Robby Starbuck has been going after corporate DEI policies, calling out individual companies on the social media platform X. Several of those companies have subsequently announced that they are pulling back their initiatives, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply.

But Walmart, which employs 1.6 million workers in the U.S., is the largest one to do so.

“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X, adding that he had been in conversation with Walmart.

Walmart confirmed to The Associated Press that it will better monitor its third-party marketplace items to make sure they don’t feature sexual and transgender products aimed at minors. That would include chest binders intended for youth who are going through a gender change, the company said.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer will also be reviewing grants to Pride events to make sure it is not financially supporting sexualized content that may be unsuitable for kids. For example, the company wants to makes sure a family pavilion is not next to a drag show at a Pride event, the company said.

Additionally, Walmart will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts. The company said it didn’t have quotas and will not do so going forward. It won’t be gathering demographic data when determining financing eligibility for those grants.

Walmart also said it wouldn’t renew a racial equity center that was established through a five-year, $100 million philanthropic commitment from the company with a mandate to, according to its website, “address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African American people in education, health, finance and criminal justice systems.”

And it would stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual benchmark index that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.

“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said in a statement.

The changes come soon after an election win by former President Donald Trump, who has criticized DEI initiatives and surrounded himself with conservatives who hold similar views, including his former adviser Stephen Miller, who leads a group called America First Legal that has challenged corporate DEI policies. Trump named Miller to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration.

A Walmart spokesperson said some of its policy changes have been in progress for a while. For example, it has been moving away from using the word DEI in job titles and communications and started to use the word “belonging.” It also started making changes to its supplier program in the aftermath of the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling.

 

Some have been urging companies to stick with their DEI policies. Last month, a group of Democrats in Congress appealed to the leaders of the Fortune 1000, saying that DEI efforts give everyone a fair chance at achieving the American dream.

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ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
D’Innocenzio writes about retail, trends, the consumer economy and hourly workers for The Associated Press.

Republicans being assholes and the damaging effects on people it has

Incoming FCC Chair: I’ll Punish CBS On Trump’s Behalf
Walmart And Lowe’s: Trump Tariffs Will Raise Our Prices
AutoZone CEO: “We’ll Pass Tariffs Back To Consumers”

Texas Board Approves Bible Lessons In Public Schools

The bible lessons were pushed by Jonathan Covey [photo], head of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Texas Values, which has appeared here multiple times in the past. In February 2015, on the tenth anniversary of the Texas state ban on same-sex marriage, Texas Values held a “banniversary” celebration complete with a cake-cutting ceremony. The actual tenth “banniversary” wasn’t until November 2015, but Texas Values held their little party months early because they rightly feared what the Supreme Court would ultimately rule in June of that year.

 
https://twitter.com/TFN/status/1858571686955614544
https://twitter.com/technolibrary/status/1858578424874582183
Nancy Mace Has Vile Anti-Trans Melt Down [VIDEO]
Johnson Bans Trans Women From Capitol Restrooms
danolgb5 days ago

I had a classmate tell me that Dems would do better if we dropped the “whole bathroom thing.” I educated him that this was not a fight we chose and that trans people have been around for decades using the bathrooms they fit in best. It was Republicans that made it a “thing.”

Ščŏŧŧ Ċ – Vive la résistance  danolgb5 days ago

All of the “hot button social issues” are issues created and kept alive by Republicans.
People are just trying to live their lives, and the GQP decides they’re doing it wrong.

Elagabalus  danolgb5 days ago

Exactly, because Rethugs always know what triggers their fragile, fearful, deeply insecure base the most.

Gigi5 days ago

American People: We don’t have enough money to buy gas, groceries, healthcare or pay rent. We need help!

Republicans: We’re banning trans women from Capitol restrooms.

MTG Threatens To Assault Transgender Rep-Elect

Update In Case Of Just-Elected MAGA Republican Convicted Of Sexual Assault: Victim Was His Daughter

A Trump supporting, anti-trans, anti-gay Republican was elected commissioner of the county where I grew up. He won despite being in jail on election night for a sexual assault in Vegas. It’s now come out that the woman he assaulted was his daughter. fox59.com/news/indycri…

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko.bsky.social) 2024-11-20T01:22:20.078Z
Graphic Details In Alleged Hegseth Assault Incident
Hegseth Plans Christianist “Educational Insurgency”

Three wives, adultery with an employee, and an alleged sexual assault is what Jesus would want.

NC House Votes To Strip Power From Dem Gov And AG
Felon-Elect Calls On GOP To “Kill” Press Freedom Bill
Laura Ingraham Admits Trump Will Wreck Economy
Former Marine Charged With Pride Flag Hate Crime

A reblogged reblog from our good friend Suze!

Always safe here

McBride To House Dems: Ignore Anti-Trans Attacks

McBride To House Dems: Ignore Anti-Trans Attacks

November 20, 2024 News, Politics

 

NOTUS reports:

House Democrats are brushing off Republican attacks on Rep.-elect Sarah McBride after some GOP members made clear they would attempt to keep McBride from using the women’s restrooms in the Capitol. That’s because McBride told them to.

By Tuesday morning, Democrats had a clear message: Republican attacks on trans people were a distraction from other issues. Sources told NOTUS that McBride had made obvious in meetings that she wanted her colleagues to talk about policy — and what Republicans weren’t doing — instead.

The congresswoman-elect, one lawmaker said, reiterated that Republicans’ messaging was a “distraction” and that this isn’t “her first rodeo” dealing with anti-trans rhetoric. Another House Democrat said they’ve personally talked “extensively” with McBride and “she doesn’t want to be seen as a victim.”

Read the full article.

SkokieDaddy5 days ago

McBride shows us what courage is.

Our incoming president elect remains butthurt over a Vanity Fair article (small hands) from over 30 years ago.

McBride brushes off direct personal attacks and wants us to focus on policy. Our incoming president wants SNL taken off the air because they told jokes.

Ron the Juan5 days ago

We just need to elect more trans people to office.

stuckinthewoods  Ron the Juan5 days ago

In 2018 Virginia’s Danica Roem was the first out trans person elected to any state legislature, as a Delegate. Last year she was elected as a state Senator, and when that happened she became the second in the US to be elected to a state Senate, after Sarah McBride’s election in 2020. Interesting both mid-Atlantic, soon everywhere hopefully.

DmR 5 days ago

Most people have more important things to be concerned about than what is or may have been between another’s legs!

CB5 days ago

Greene and her ilk are beyond pathetic. As it happens, I’ve worked with and written about more than a usual share of trans people.

Their journeys and, in some cases, what they’ve endured to live their lives authentically and with joy are far greater than this.

McBride can let them spin in the sewer of their ignorance, immaturity, and hatred while McBride focuses on being a grownup. I applaud her response, and I have to say I’m not the least bit surprised.

Todd20036 5 days ago

Democrats always play the mature opponent

Usually very noble, but that won’t help in a fascist government

Houndentenor 5 days ago

The problem is that Democrats can’t avoid talking about trans people because Republicans won’t let us. We aren’t bringing it up. I don’t think it’s a big issue. Yes, it affects trans people but no one else is harmed by a small percentage of our population being treated fairly and decently.

Texas is a good example. Ted Cruz made trans girls playing sports a core issue in the campaign. Allred tried to avoid that topic but had to address it. And it didn’t matter. Never mind that Cruz used images of cis-gendered girls from Oregon in his ad because this is just not a problem in Texas. Nope. That’s not scary enough for the knuckle-dragging redneck assholes that show up to vote in Texas.

I agree we shouldn’t bring it up, but it’s naive to think that it’s an issue we can just ignore because Republicans are not going to shut up about it because they think it helped them in this year. Look for several more rounds of this shit. Trans girls in sports is the new gay marriage.

What AOC had to say about the House bathroom ban

Please listen to the audio as the written part doesn’t fully capture what she said and why she said it.   This is also in a post Ali made from friend Janet at her blog which I will link below.  Janet is an amazing woman and I enjoy reading her blog.  But AOC mentioned what this is about is targeting people who do not fit the people on the right view of who looks like a man to them or who looks like a woman to them.   

Also Johnson said this was not a hardship for McBride as she could use all the public bathrooms or I guess they have private bathrooms in their offices?  Well why couldn’t Mace also do the same or use her own bathroom rather than making the spectacle and forcing all trans people to be targeted with suspicion from people.   She was the only one complaining?   Well if he told her that they couldn’t make a big deal of it, Johnson wouldn’t be able to push his Christian cred and Mace wouldn’t be able to carry on for a week on a crusade against someone not harming her in any way.  Hard to fund raise off a threat that doesn’t exist unless they can make it seem like one.    Hugs.

Stand with Sarah McBride: Join the Bathroom Ban Protest

AOC comes out swinging against a Nancy Mace for targeting Sarah McBride."They're doing this so that Nancy Mace can … fundraise off an email. They're not doing this to protect people. They're endangering women, they're endangering girls of all kinds. And everybody should reject it. It's gross."

— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) 2024-11-21T02:48:10.270Z

Reducing A Child Of God To “It”…

Another great video from Rev. Trevors supporting trans rights.  He tells the story of a family in a waiting room talking about someone who transitioned.  The mother says she is doing well and the daughter says “Don’t you mean it”?  The Reverend explains which one in his opinion by the teaching of the bible stepped out of being human.  Spoilers … It was not the trans person.  Hugs.