Students and teachers in Florida can now discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, as long as it’s not part of formal instruction. It’s an important change after a new settlement between state education officials and civil rights attorneys who challenged the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. WMFE education reporter Danielle Prieur joins Stephanie Sy to discuss.
A lawsuit settlement in Florida over the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law will allow students and teachers to openly discuss gender identity and sexual orientation as long as it’s not part of classroom instruction. Jim DeFede from CBS News Miami has more.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has been outlining what he plans to do if elected in November. That includes rolling back the rights of millions of LGBTQ+ people. It’s part of a wider playbook to undo many modern civil rights advances for minority groups. White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López reports.
While a lot of the people that follow Mock Paper Sissors follow me, I still loved this post so much and the way TG wrote it, I am reposting it here. Hugs. Scottie
Marc’s talk discusses how life’s events may sometimes take us to unexpected places. Rosenberg Professor of Neuroscience at Michigan State University This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
“I hope to spread awareness on the struggles and difficulties that minority groups like the LGBTQ+ community face every day as a result of lack of education. As an educator, I feel it’s my duty to inform communities and be a voice to the voiceless”.
His speech will spark curiosity among people to ask more questions and to do more research before they come to a conclusion. “I want people to question the values and norms of society and understand why they are there and how these values and norms are used to uplift certain people but at the same time oppress others”. Ross Rossouw is a teacher in KCISLK. He is from South Africa and moved to Taiwan in 2015. As time flew by, he began to find the purpose of this trip was not only just to teach, but learn more. His profession as a teacher provides him with the opportunity to inspire young minds, and this also pushed him to constantly seek growth in both his professional and personal life. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Jill has some memes so grand I grabbed a few, we let each other do that. But the more I read the more I loved each one. I try, but Jill finds the best. She is grand. As for fireworks. We have cats that are traumatic sufferers and our inside / outside cat ran just as Ron went to get him because the first of the fireworks went off. Ron stayed up until nearly 1 AM when he was able to get the cat back inside. The poor thing lay on the bed shaking and struggling like every boom was at attack on him and his frail old body. Like Jill, we had 6 to 8 hours of bangs and booms. When Ron and I used to work 12-hour shifts in the hospital, the 4th of July was a horrible night to try to sleep when we had to be up at 4:30. No respect for working people. Our park even forbade people from doing it … but they still did their fireworks all night. Really the people wanting to take other’s rights, others equality from them wanted to show their idea of freedom by again by infringing on the rights of others. Hugs. Scottie
A tRump appointed judge in a case filed by maga republicans and anti-LGBTQ+ bigots / haters to try to strip the gay and trans kids of rights and protections. Notice some places I highlighted, these groups and the Judge used misinformation and republican talking points to make their case. It comes down to hate and bigotry, also the unwillingness to allow society to progress adding more equality. There are no proven cases of any trans person assaulting a straight person in a bathroom, in fact there are many cases that are just the opposite, where trans kids / people have been attacked and even died from assaults by cis people. These people claim that boys will just claim to be trans, that is not how it works. No boy is going to with stand the harassment to change his name, his hair, his mode of dress just to peek in the girl’s locker room or bathroom. What they hell would they see in a girl’s bathroom people, there are no urinals just stalls. Unless the girls like to undress in the sink area, WTF is the boys to see? Again simply hate and bigotry wanting to stop society from change, they want their 1950s society back, not the 2010s. Hugs. Scottie
Republicans have argued that the rule is a ruse by the Biden administration to allow transgender females to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
Kansas high school students, family members and advocates rally for transgender rights in Topeka on Jan. 31.John Hanna / AP file
TOPEKA, Kan. — Enforcement of a federal rule expanding anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ students has been blocked in four states and a patchwork of places elsewhere by a federal judge in Kansas.
U.S. District Judge John Broomes suggested in his ruling Tuesday that the Biden administration must now consider whether forcing compliance remains “worth the effort.”
Broomes’ decision was the third against the rule from a federal judge in less than three weeks but more sweeping than the others. It applies in Alaska, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming, which sued over the new rule. It also applies to a Stillwater, Oklahoma, middle school that has a student suing over the rule and to members of three groups backing Republican efforts nationwide to roll back LGBTQ rights. All of them are involved in one lawsuit.
Broomes, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, directed the three groups — Moms for Liberty, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United — to file a list of schools in which their members’ children are students so that their schools also do not comply with the rule. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican who argued the states’ case before Broomes last month, said that could be thousands of schools.
The Biden administration rule is set to take effect in August under the Title IX civil rights law passed in 1972, barring sex discrimination in education. Broomes’ order is to remain in effect through a trial of the lawsuit in Kansas, though the judge concluded that the states and three groups are likely to win.
Republicans have argued that the rule represents a ruse by the Biden administration to allow transgender females to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams, something banned or restricted in Kansas and at least 24 other states. The administration has said it does not apply to athletics. Opponents of the rule have also framed the issue as protecting women and girls’ privacy and safety in bathrooms and locker rooms.
“Gender ideology does not belong in public schools and we are glad the courts made the correct call to support parental rights,” Moms for Liberty co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice said in a statement.
LGBTQ youth, their parents, health care providers and others say restrictions on transgender youth harms their mental health and makes an often marginalized group even more vulnerable. The Department of Education has previously stood by its rule and President Joe Biden has promised to protect LGBTQ rights.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Besides Broomes, two other federal judges issued rulings in mid-June blocking the new rule in 10 other states. The rule would protect LGBTQ students by expanding the definition of sexual harassment at schools and colleges and adding safeguards for victims.
Like the other judges, Broomes called the rule arbitrary and concluded that the Department of Education and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, exceeded the authority granted by Title IX. He also concluded that the rule violated the free speech and religious freedom rights of parents and students who reject transgender students’ gender identities and want to espouse those views at school or elsewhere in public.
Broomes said his 47-page order leaves it to the Biden administration “to determine in the first instance whether continued enforcement in compliance with this decision is worth the effort.”
Broomes also said nontransgender students’ privacy and safety could be harmed by the rule. He cited the statement of the Oklahoma middle school student that “on some occasions” cisgender boys used a girls’ bathroom “because they knew they could get away with it.”
“It is not hard to imagine that, under the Final Rule, an industrious older teenage boy may simply claim to identify as female to gain access to the girls’ showers, dressing rooms, or locker rooms, so that he can observe female peers disrobe and shower,” Broomes wrote, echoing a common but largely false narrative from anti-trans activists about gender identity and how schools accommodate transgender students.
U.S. District Judge John Broomes’ decision was the third against the rule from a federal judge in less than three weeks but more sweeping than the others.James L. Greenlee2 days ago
They really seem to believe that LGBTQ kids don’t exist, unless they’ve been convinced by someone to “turn.” It’s so ludicrous.
WTF is wrong with these people? Nobody, never in the history of everything, never has someone decided to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Trans. It’s how a person is born. Not protecting the rights of LGBT human beings is like denying rights to a person because of the color of their eyes, or their skin. Yeah, we used to do the skin thing and that was a gigantic mistake that these motherfuckers want to make a reality again.
Also, why do this? How someone lives their life has exactly zero impact on your life. You’re just being a dick.
Like I keep saying, I am dead. This is purgatory. I need to find the light to pass on.
They continue to believe the lie that sexual orientation is freely chosen and that if you choose to be gay you’re sinning, because Jesus said so – only he didn’t.
Christians think people “choosing” to be gay presents an existential threat to humanity that must be eradicated, as though LGBT people haven’t existed throughout time.
Well, they lost all the arguments to that effect so they’re legislating and ruling as if the arguments never took place and as if their lies are facts.
There is too much on the line in our next election to let the main stream media dictate the terms of who should be POTUS. All of us with skin in the game should put our nose to the grindstone and reelect Biden/Harris 2024!
Notice the lack of positive response by school staff and teachers. This is what red states want also. They do not want teachers to defend or stick up for students. Force all kids to be straight cis little John and Jane, who harass and harm the LGBTQ+ kids forcing them to hide who they are. Horrible. But hey, they call themselves good Christians. Hugs. Scottie
While Gen Z contains the highest percentage of out-LGBTQ+ people, life is far from a progressive paradise for this age group. Nearly half of LGBTQ+ Gen Z students in the UK are still experiencing queerphobic bullying in schools, some of which comes from teachers and administrators, a new survey reports.
The survey comes from Theirworld, an international children’s education charity, and global research firm YouGov, which polled 545 LGBTQ+ youth ages 16 to 24 in the UK. 47% of respondents said they have experienced bullying from their peers over their sexual orientation, 25% for their gender identity.
Trigger warning: sensitive content
47% of LGBTQ+ youth in the UK have been bullied and/or discriminated against in education because of their sexual orientation, according to our survey 📋
This bullying included verbal abuse (73%), harassment (53%), online abuse (31%), threats of violence (24%), purposeful misgendering (19%), physical abuse (16%) and sexual abuse (15%).
“When I came out as a lesbian in 2013, I had a brick thrown at my face and screamed at that I was a fagg*t,” one survey respondent said. “I was ostracized by my female peers and refused to get changed for PE with them as they would all hide. I am not publicly out as nonbinary.”
“I was added to a group chat of students where I was outed to the full year group and subsequently bullied, called slurs and names daily,” recalled another respondent. “Most teachers ignored the bullying especially if it was in their classroom. They would mock my gender and discuss my identity with other students in a negative way.”
Such negative responses from school staff represented a sobering trend in the data. Of those students who experienced anti-LGBTQ+ bullying, nearly half never reported it at all. 18% reported it once and 30% reported it multiple times. Of those who reported their experiences, 72% said that school staff responded badly.
In the end, more than 1 in 4 LGBTQ+ respondents said they do not view schools as safe for them. “All young people deserve a safe place to learn, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation,” said Theirworld president Justin van Fleet. “However, LGBTQ+ youth face higher rates of bullying and discrimination than their peers in schools around the world.”
Coming in 2024: our LGBTQ+ and Education Task Team! 🌈 This team will stand alongside our climate, health, gender and disability inclusion teams and is open to all #GlobalYouthAmbassadors. Apply to the programme for your chance to champion these issues: https://t.co/9k9433JxWLpic.twitter.com/EAP4YwIUPR
In response to the growing rate of bullying among LGBTQ+ youth, Theirworld has launched a global taskforce to provide increased advocacy. Van Fleet explained, “The task force will focus on issues of safe campaigning in challenging contexts and allow LGBTQ+ youth leaders and their allies to have a powerful platform and network to advocate for more inclusive education policies in communities around the world.”
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