An the thing that hurts the worst is the haters / racists are proud of what they are doing, loving the attention, happy with the harm they are inflicting / inciting on others. They seem to feel that anyone different from them just shouldn’t be allowed in society, must be removed. The Russia model of life. Please take notice of the date. It was worthy read and important reporting then. Since then it has gotten much worse. Please help our LGBTQIA community members, especally the kids that in that group of people. They do know who they are, who they are attracked too, even if they have sexual or gender feelings at all. But they all know pain, hurt, fear, longing to belong, and need accpetance along with protection. Hugs. Scottie
The mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, which saw a 22-year-old man charged with hate crimes and murder on Monday, came after years of intensifying anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, acts of violence and intimidation, and discriminatory legislation from far-right individuals and groups, including powerful Republican politicians.
These actors have made LGBTQ Americans into targets: of hateful social media posts that direct harassment, threats, and attacks at schools, hospitals, and individuals; of abuse, intimidation, and violence from hate groups; of laws that limit their care or censor information about gender and sexuality.
ANTI-LGBTQ INFLUENCERS CHANNELING HATE
A cluster of online influencers have ramped up bigoted and conspiracy-laced messaging in the last two years, directing hostile attention at drag shows, businesses, Pride festivals, children’s hospitals, and other places where LGBTQ people come together or receive care.
Many such peddlers of fear and disinformation about LGBTQ people – including the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, his boss Ben Shapiro, and Candace Owens – took to Twitter in the wake of the shooting to attack “the left” and “Democrats” for drawing the obvious link between months of heightened anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and homophobic and transphobic murders. The attack, which killed five people and injured 25, took place on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, though it’s unknown if the shooter chose the date on purpose.
For her part, Chaya Raichik greeted news of the mass shooting in Colorado with a post on Twitter directing her followers’ attention to a youth-oriented LGBTQ nonprofit in that state and two state representatives who had expressed support for it.
Since early 2021, Raichik has posted a stream of transphobic and homophobic messages on platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Substack, and far-right favorite, Gab, under the pseudonym “Libs of TikTok.” Her typical operating procedure involves spotlighting LGBTQ users of the platform TikTok, especially trans people, and targeting them individually for mockery and abuse.
She helped popularize the anti-LGBTQ slur, “groomer,” which falsely equates non-heterosexual sexualities and non-cisgender gender identities with pedophilia. The “groomer” smear also plays into a conspiracy theory that underpins the propaganda of Raichik and other like-minded influencers: that LGBTQ people and their sympathizers have entered mainstream institutions to prey on children, recruit them to “transgenderism” and divide them from their families.
Joshua Thurman, center, gets comforted by friends at a makeshift memorial near Club Q on November 20, 2022 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Thurman was inside the club when the shooting began. An attacker opened fire in a gay nightclub late Saturday night killing five people and wounding at least 25, officials said. The club said the suspect was subdued by patrons and Colorado Springs police said he was taken into custody and hospitalized for treatment of his injuries. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)Raichik has also branched out into anti-Black racism, with tweets denying that George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, mocking the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, and taking pains to deny the existence of systemic racism. She has directed outrage towards schools offering racially inclusive curriculums.
Originally, Raichik used her platform to single out LGBTQ people and school teachers with inclusive approaches to education, many of whom would subsequently receive harassment and death threats. But her online schtick has evolved to encompass campaigns against school districts, libraries and hospitals.
Hospitals and medical workers across the country have been subject to harassment and even bomb threats after being targeted in posts from Raichik and others including Matt Walsh. In June, members of the Proud Boys hate group attacked a Drag Queen Story Hour event at a San Lorenzo, California public library after Raichik highlighted it. Alameda County Sheriff’s Office investigators reportedly said that Libs of TikTok had caused the attack.
Later that month, more Proud Boys tried to break into a bar that was scheduled to host a drag event after Raichik alerted her followers to the event.
Also in June, Hatewatch reported that Raichik had posted about a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, days before police thwarted an attempted disruption of the event by white nationalist hate group Patriot Front.
Security experts have described Raichik’s output as “stochastic terrorism,” by which they mean that her hateful rhetoric is calculated to promote violence in some proportion of her followers.
Her posts frequently contain false information. Raichik has presented fake curriculum materials as if they were real and presented covert recordings of uninformed responses from non-medical hospital staff as if they represented treatment policies at the facility.
Her habit of spreading hate and disinformation has seen Raichik briefly suspended from the platforms she is active on, including Twitter. Since Elon Musk acquired the platform, however, Raichik has availed herself of the opportunity to purchase a “blue check,” and has even engaged in ableist banter with the new proprietor.
Raichik tried hard to maintain her anonymity as the author of the hate account, but the Washington Post unmasked her in April, noting that Raichik’s “content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers.”
Raichik has been a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, and her content has been promoted by far-right media figures and influencers including Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald, Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr.
Her tweets frequently form the basis of content pushed out by right-wing media – from items on Carlson’s Fox News show to dozens of articles in so-called ” pink slime” junk news sites.
More disturbingly, Raichik and other anti-LGBTQ influencers have shaped policy by encouraging divisive campaigning and mustering support for anti-LGBTQ laws.
DESANTIS DANCES TO RAICHIK’S TUNE
In March, Christine Pushaw, press secretary to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, defended the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill with anti-LGBTQ smears accusing people of “grooming” children.
The bill, which DeSantis signed into law later that month, would prevent teachers from discussing gender and sexuality in any way with children in kindergarten through third grade. Critics have pointed out that the rule would prevent children with LGBTQ parents from participating in age-appropriate activities like making family trees. The bill also allows state intervention on any discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools through high school.
Also in March, Pushaw credited Raichik’s account with having “opened her eyes” to conspiracy-minded views on schools’ approaches to gender and sexuality in the classroom.
This was evident in scores of interactions between Pushaw and Raichik on the platform stretching back to June 2021, at the beginning of Raichik’s focus on anti-LGBTQ campaigning.
Florida’s law is just one of many recent pieces of state-level legislation across the U.S. targeting LGBTQ people, and especially trans people. Five other states have passed laws that censor classroom discussion of gender and sexuality, and four more require parents to be notified ahead of such discussions.
Eighteen states, meanwhile, have passed laws banning trans women and girls from competing in K-12 girls and women’s sports. Some of these laws also ban their participation at the college level.
In Arizona and Arkansas, gender-affirming care for trans youth is banned, and in Alabama providing such care is a felony crime. Other states, including Texas, have attempted to pass similar laws. The American Academy of Pediatrics laid out their best practices for gender-affirming care in 2018, highlighting in particular that such care improves mental health outcomes for trans youth, especially in contrast to “conversion” models of intervention. Contrary to persistent disinformation from right-wing reactionaries, such care never includes surgical or chemical castration.
As far back as 2016, many states attempted to pass so-called “bathroom bills” mandating that public restrooms in state-owned buildings could only be used by people according to the sex assigned on their birth certificates. Three states – Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee – still have such laws on their books. Missouri and South Dakota, meanwhile, prohibit schools from adding LGBTQ-specific provisions to schools’ nondiscrimination policies.
ANTI-LGBTQ HATE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
In 2022, encouraged by political operatives like Christopher Rufo, many Republicans made “anti-woke” messages targeted at LGBTQ people the centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.
In practice, this meant an unprecedented volume of demonizing anti-trans ads, funded by well-heeled PACs like the American Principles Project, a creature of far-right billionaire Richard Uihlein.
Anti-trans political ads did not stop on Election Day. On Monday, Herschel Walker’s campaign released an ad whipping up fear about trans girls and women competing in sports according to their gender identity, which referred to them as “biological males.” Walker has been delivering regular anti-trans stump speeches during his effort to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia, where the candidates now face a runoff.
Some commentators suggested that the GOP has employed this strategy to mobilize white Evangelical Christian voters, so that they would turn out in sufficient numbers to neutralize the backlash against the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned 50 years of legal precedent safeguarding access to abortion.
Rufo, a Gig Harbor, Washington based far-right propagandist and a fellow at the hard-right Manhattan Institute, was initially prominently involved with the conservative campaign to demonize critical race theory (CRT), which the right used as a proxy for all forms of inclusive education.
In August, Rufo explained to the New York Times that he had advocated for Republicans to pivot from anti-CRT campaigning to attacking LGBTQ-inclusive curriculums. He told the newspaper,”The reservoir of sentiment on the sexuality issue is deeper and more explosive than the sentiment on the race issues.”
Days before that profile was published, Rufo appeared alongside DeSantis at the signing of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which bans workplaces and schools from teaching that any person is privileged due to their race or sex and was the culmination of DeSantis’s multi-faceted public fight with the Disney corporation.
Many commentators – including some Republicans – have attributed the GOP’s failure to generate a “red wave” election to the malicious anti-LGBTQ messaging Rufo recommended. Based on the lukewarm outcome, such rhetoric either did not resonate with, or repelled voters around the country.
That rhetoric did pay off for DeSantis, however, who won almost 60% of the gubernatorial vote, led his party to large majorities in both houses in the legislature, and helped elect a slate of hand-picked school board candidates who were also running on platforms that opposed inclusive curriculums.
His successes have seen DeSantis touted as a possible 2024 election candidate, raising the prospect that the use of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policy as political tactics will continue on the national stage.
ANTI-LGBTQ HATE IN COLORADO
In Colorado, meanwhile, far-right figures – including Republican politicians – also actively spread smears, conspiracy theories, and falsehoods about LGBTQ people in the months leading up to Saturday’s mass shooting.
Not long after she was first elected to the House of Representatives, Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican congresswoman for Colorado’s 3 rd District, responded to the passage of the federal Equality Act with transphobic remarks claiming trans people would spy on “young girls” in school locker rooms.
Boebert – who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, hurled Islamophobic slurs at a fellow congresswoman, and amplified Donald Trump’s false claims about a stolen 2020 election – narrowly won re-election this month.
Colorado Springs, where the shooting took place, has itself has long been a hub for the Christian Right, which for decades has pumped out anti-LGBTQ propaganda in the name of a narrow and exclusionary definition of family.
In the 1990s, Colorado Springs’s Focus on the Family led the fundamentalist charge in support of Amendment 2, a Colorado ballot measure that banned municipalities from including LGBTQ people in their anti-discrimination policies. Though the initiative passed in 1992, in 1995 the Supreme Court found that it violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
More recently, evangelical churches have reportedly advocated for fundamentalist candidates in school board elections, but still manage to retain their nonprofit status despite prohibitions on electioneering.
The SPLC’s hate map lists four anti-LGBTQ hate groups in the state, with two – the Family Research Institute and the Pray in Jesus Name Project – headquartered in Colorado Springs. The state also plays host to active chapters of other hate groups who have taken violent or disruptive actions against LGBTQ people, like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front.
Since the nadir of Amendment 2, Colorado has evolved to boast one of the most progressive policy slates for LGBTQ rights in the country.
But more liberal laws have not made the state immune from the right-wing moral panic sweeping the country.
Proud Boys attempted to disrupt Denver drag shows as early as 2019. Denver-based drag performers told reporters this year of a new atmosphere of confrontation and hostility at child-friendly performances around the state.
Now five are dead, at least 25 are injured, and an unknown number are traumatized for life by an act of violence primed by conspiracy thinking and hateful propaganda.
Photo by Helen H. Richardson/Media News Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
For more resources, visit ONEColorado. If you were affected by the attack and need to access mental health resources, community support or you’d like to get in touch with law enforcement as a victim or witness, visit coloradosprings.gov/clubq. Finally, if you would like to donate to help the victims of the tragedy, visit Colorado Healing Fund.
This is what the Mom’s of Liberty, Libs of TikTok, fundamentalist Christian republican groups pushing don’t say gay bills along with anti-trans bills, right wing media that call anyone supportive of the LGBTQIA kids groomers, and those groups constantly claiming falsely that drag queen story hours sexualize kids all want. More gay kids gone, tormented either into hiding or removing themselves from society. This is what happens when you take away the rainbow stick safe rooms for LGBTQIA kids. This is what happens when you take away anti-bullying programs and prevent teachers from stopping the harassment of gay / trans kids because they can not tell the bullies that they are wrong because if they sound like they are supporting the LGBTQIA then they could be punished or fired. This is the result of pushing for a regressive hard return to the ideas of the past, such as the society of the 1950s. We outgrew this bullshit once, now we must fight it all again. If you go to YouTube to play the video on the right-hand side will be a seemingly never ending list of gay kids bullied into suicide. I did not want to post them all, it was hard enough to watch a few. Kids dying because some adults are back to pushing hate and intolerance for their god and political reasons, at the cost of kids lives. These people don’t want to accept that non-straight non-cis people exist, so they want them gone, removed. The religious claim that god doesn’t like them or make them. The bigots just claim they shouldn’t be, so make them go away.
Thankfully enough people are starting to push back that the tide of hateful regression and change is slowing. But the right is desperately pushing more legislation, hoping to cement their feelings of hate and disgust at those different from them into law before lowing the power to do so. They are understanding they are not popular, they are a minority. But they are a very dangerous minority in charge in a lot of places. For the sake of the children they must be stopped. There is nothing wrong or shameful in being gay, being trans, or any other member of the LGBTQIA. Being born straight and cis is not the only normal way to be. Being born LGBTQIA is not some medical mistake or disease needing to be hidden or cured. It also is normal. It is documented in almost all animal species in nature.
I was feeling so rested, awake, and ready to go this morning. I was charging through stuff. Until I hit this in my few saved videos on the video computer. It had not lost its open tabs, I caught the problem first. A few of the videos on this subject and I am tired, worn, old, and just want to go back to bed. The people behind the hate put me back to my childhood with all its pain and fears. What happened to the modern age that the majority let the minority haters / bigots / racists get control of so many levelers of power to hurt those who are not like them?
Any way, find your safe space before watching the short video and maybe a few more of them, of kids from 9 to adults ending their own lives because the people around them won’t let them be who they are or are forcing them to change, or just demanding they die because their parents tell them god hates those who are different. Because they are hurting too much and too scared to live. Saddest hugs. Scottie
Notice they let only the anti-trans bigots speak, to back up the unpopular and unneeded laws. They then abruptly ended the debate, preventing the dozens of attendees opposed to the bill from speaking. Please notice the large number of people apposed to the bill that the republicans not only did not allow to speak but ignored. In the minds of the republicans their hate is the only thing that matters. These are the last gasps of desperate fundamentalist bigot haters to attack tolerance and acceptance. I laugh at the idea that these republicans are claiming it is the trans people only they hate, but as we have seen in other states they started with trying to stop trans kids in schools, and moved to trying to stop all the LGBTQIA people everywhere in public. Also these bills are always directed at public schools, the religious ones tend to be more conservative and the more wealthy secular ones the wealthy people don’t want their schools messed with by bigots. Hugs. Scottie
The Georgia Recorder reports:
A controversial bill dubbed Georgia’s version of “Don’t Say Gay” moved forward in a Senate committee Tuesday after three years of work and multiple failures to move, largely over Republican opposition to the inclusion of private schools. The bill passed committee on a 6-3 party line vote during a committee meeting in which proponents were given 15 minutes to speak but opponents did not receive time to talk. Dozens of people attended the meeting.
Jeff Cleghorn, an attorney who called himself a gay rights advocate opposed to gender ideology, said LGBTQ+ acceptance has increased because of the hard work of gay, lesbian and bisexual activists, but he said transgender people have attempted to “piggyback” off that struggle. “SB 88 is necessary because the former gay rights movement has been hijacked by those pushing this dishonest gender ideology on children,” he said.
The Los Angeles Blade reports:
Immediately after the bill’s sponsor spoke about the bill, he ceded the floor to Jeff Cleghorn, a gay anti-trans activist who calls transgender people “mentally ill sex fetishists” and regularly shares content from groups like Gays Against Groomers and Libs of TikTok.
Following an incendiary speech in which he advocated for separating transgender individuals from the LGBTQ+ community, Republicans allowed four people to speak.
These included a former president of the Young Republicans, a representative from Gays Against Groomers, and a representative from the Georgia Log Cabin Republican. They then abruptly ended the debate, preventing the dozens of attendees opposed to the bill from speaking.
Jeff Cleghorn, an attorney who called himself a gay rights advocate opposed to gender ideology,
Don’t make me post it again.
*sigh*
I’m going to have to post it again, aren’t I.
Any member of our community that doesn’t support trans rights doesn’t deserve to be part of the community at all.
Any member of the human community that doesn’t support everyone’s rights doesn’t deserve to be part of the community at all.
Piggy back my ass. Trans persons have been standing alongside of us since day one. That queen needs a little snap out of it action. I could handle that.
The fact is that drag queens and trans have been with us gay men since the beginning. They were there in the stonewall bar when the cops raided it.
Here is the PROOF! Marsha P. Johnson at the First Christopher Street Liberation Day March, 1970. Leonard Fink / LGBT Community Center Archive.
It is always shocking to discover trans-phobic gays among us. I stopped reading Americablog long ago when it’s owner, John Aravosis, was increasingly saying why should “we” help “them” as if we are not them.
No one is free until we are all free!
Fuck off. Do you think they’ll stop at Trans folks?
Gays, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Mormons, Catholics, they’ll keep narrowing the scope of acceptable people because Authoritarianism only thrives when there’s an Other to villainize.
My niece is now my nephew and is much happier that way. I’ll say no more.
Mine as well
Ashley to Oliver.
Oliver is so much happier than Ashley ever was.
living your authentic life is always best.
They are desperate to slam through as much hate bills as possible before they get their asses handed to them in November
” in which proponents were given 15 minutes to speak but opponents did not receive time to talk.”
WTF?
“SB 88 is necessary because the former gay rights movement has been hijacked by those pushing this dishonest gender ideology on children,” he said.”
What the ever loving fuck?
That “former gay rights movement” was lead by transexuals and drag queens…
Once places of higher learning were about gaining knowledge, acceptance, and tolerance, learning to live with other young adults. Widening one’s horizons. But that was before red state legislators tried to force hate into the schools at all levels, including higher education. White fundamental Christian white supremacists are pushing for more open intense deeper racism and no tolerance for anyone not straight cis and regressive right wing. Hugs. Scottie
Columbus police are looking into the incident as a hate crime, in which one of the men can be seen urinating on an LGBTQ+ pride flag in front of a home.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus police are looking into a hate crime that happened last week near The Ohio State University’s campus last Thursday. Two men were caught on camera saying homophobic slurs and vandalizing a pride flag in front of a home in the Weinland Park area of Columbus.
“It was shocking but not surprising,” Sarah, who lives at the home, said.
Surveillance video from the home’s front porch showed the two men approaching the front door. One of them pulled down his pants and started urinating on the LGBTQ+ pride flag on display on the porch. The other man appears to be taking a video of his friend with his phone. 10TV blurred the faces of the men in the video because they have not been criminally charged.
“There’s honestly been a whole range of emotions, there’s been some fear, some anger,” Raven, who also lives at the home, said.
The man wearing blue can then be heard yelling homophobic slurs as his friend laughs.
He then banged on the doors before taking off running.
“I decided to post something online and the police found us,” Zoe, who lives at the home, said.Columbus police officers arrived at their home within a couple of hours of posting the video online on Sunday. An LGBTQ+ liaison who specifically handles hate crimes joined the officers,
Zoe, a mother of two, said she shared the video to set an example for her kids, who are both trans.
“I’ve got a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old and we’ve had the gamut of school experiences… This isn’t something that they should expect as normalized in their life,” Zoe said.This incident is also taking a toll on their family.
“Honestly, I’ve been a little more anxious, I’ve been checking the camera feeds, I’ve been looking outside more I’ve been more cautious,” Raven said.
“We all fear that this might just be the start of things and it could get worse,” Sarah said.They hope that sharing their story spreads awareness about the threats they often face from the people in the community.
“None of us are looking to ruin these kids’ lives,” Sarah said.This family said they simply hope it can become a lesson learned.
“Not just that what they did was wrong but why it was wrong and how much it genuinely hurts people,” Sarah said.They added this incident won’t stop them from keeping their pride on full display, for themselves, their kids, and their community.
“We’re not looking for trouble, we’re not looking for a fight, but we are looking to uplift our community and be a safe space for our community,” Kieve, who lives at the home, added.Police have not said if they have identified the people in the video, but they said they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
In the video interview, the homeowners say the police came to them after they posted the video themselves on social media. Maybe one of our sleuths can find that original UNBLURRED video?
The news report said they posted it to Reddit I checked the post is easy to find. The videos are blurred only on the crotch. This photo was posted of the two men.
Another attempt to exempt “Christians” or anyone who wants to discriminate against the gays from laws requiring equal treat of everyone. It says that if you don’t like the gays or the trans, you can just not do your job, regardless of the fact that is what your job is. Think about how horrible these laws are, think of what they are trying to accomplish. They send the message that Christians are the most privileged highest level of person in society, automatically. It also sends the messaged that the LGBTQIA, especially the gays and trans, are the lowest of the low in society. The goal, to drive the society / public back to the 1950s, erasing all the equality and advancements in tolerance / acceptance. The goal is removing the gays / trans from public view and this is done by denying them equal treatment under the law. If you think these laws sound OK try rewording them. It is OK not to serve or do your job is you believe it is wrong for black people to be married, or mixed races marriage. You can refuse to do your job and not take pictures of a wedding because it has a Jewish person and a Catholic. You can refuse to cater a weeding if the people getting married were once married before and now are divorced. If you think the examples are wrong then it is wrong to do this to gay or trans people. If you think the examples are correct then you are saying everyone gets to know and judge everyone else and screw the people you dislike or hate. This is simply hate made in to law driven by religion. Laws in a secular country are by definition not religious edicts, they are civil. If you want religion to rule you need to move to a theocracy. Notice a theocracy is not a democracy. Hugs. Scottie
The Tennessean reports:
Hours after a bill allowing marriage officiants to decline to solemnize weddings if they have moral objections received final passage from lawmakers, a vibrant crowd rallied on Capitol Hill advocating against a slate of bills aimed at placing new restrictions on Tennessee’s LGBTQ community.
Senate Bill 596, which would allow officiants to decline to perform weddings, passed the Tennessee Senate without debate along party lines on Monday evening. The bill passed the House last year, and will head to Gov. Bill Lee for his signature.
Sen. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, who sponsored the bill, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee this month that the goal of his bill is to provide clarity on whether officiants are required to perform marriages.
Truthout reports:
The bill wouldn’t just apply to wedding officiants and religious leaders — it also amends Tennessee Code Section 36-3-301, which applies to public government officials, including county clerks who handle marriage licenses. The legislation would allow those individuals, too, to refuse to “solemnize” a marriage based on their own religious convictions.
It’s unclear whether Republican Gov. Bill Lee will sign the bill into law. Lee has signed a slew of anti-LGBTQ bills since becoming governor, including one allowing state-funded foster care agencies to legally deny LGBTQ people the ability to serve as foster parents. Since 2015, more than a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills have become law in Tennessee.
Pody has appeared here many times for his attacks on same-sex marriage. In 2016, he sought to “nullify” the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling.
In 2017, he sponsored a bill calling for Tennessee to defy Obergefell entirely, and literally fled protesters at his press conference.
In 2019, he filed the “Tennessee Natural Marriage Bill” that would void same-sex marriages, something he says God told him to do.
In 2020, he filed a fourth attempt to make the bible the official book of Tennessee. In 2021, he filed a bill that would allow fathers to block abortions by their partners.
Then can’t all business owners then refuse service to anyone with different beliefs than themselves?
The bill wouldn’t just apply to wedding officiants and religious leaders — it also amends Tennessee Code Section 36-3-301, which applies to public government officials, including county clerks who handle marriage licenses.
Cool, I hope these do refuse to handle homo marriage licenses, they can get sued to high hell and the gays will get a nice little payout.
Sounds good to me, keep it up religious bigots, its taxpayer money you’re handing right to the gays.
Yeah. Drag them to federal court. Fuck Tennessee.
Its the only way to win against them.
How do you intend to collect this nice little payout?
There’s only one way to get a Republican to honor the Constitution. A lawsuit ain’t it.
Oh, we’ve already got Kim Davis, this will just go the same way.
These states, repeatedly, pass unConstitutional laws and they lose in court. I guess its time for TN to give it a try.
They’ll lose at every court this is tried in, the fed law is clear on this. Its why this jackasses other legislation has failed.
Beer guy and the Handmaid say hold my beer.
Another good Christian, shitty human
In his circles, there’s little difference.
I posted about this but missed the part of a teen girl needed police protection, had to go into hiding because some woman thought she was not pretty and small enough to be a girl. Think of what that means. Beau says it better than I can. I really hope the point gets through. Hugs. Scottie
I like how he shows the lies and misinformation tweets that the right uses as an excuse to pass these laws. He shows how she mentions trans women don’t belong on women’s teams because a clearly bigger and stronger trans woman picks up an opposing player and body slams her. But here is the thing. There was no trans woman. The person in question was born female. Not male, born female. Assigned female at birth. Hey some people are bigger than others. That is because sexual mix in the body shows that it is rare to be completely male / completely female. Sex is a spectrum no matter what your reproductive organs are. He also points out that only 23 people under the age of 18 had breast surgery and it is not known if they were because of medical issues or pain. Many girls have breast augmentation or reduction before 18. Plus a lot of girls have cancer of the breast or other such issue requiring removal. And remember in Canada like in the US a minor requires a parent or guardian to approve of medical treatments. He also points out the newest study find 94% of trans people happier after transitioning. Also I love his calm collected delivery. Lance of the serfs points out knee surgery regrets are as 30%, yet no one is protesting outside those doctors offices. Hugs. Scottie
He was reminded that that is not a legal requirement, only an anti-trans anti-LGBTQIA desperate wish that teachers and schools would do. Why? If a child doesn’t feel comfortable being themselves with / around, there is maybe a good reason. They live their parents, not school officials. But the republicans want to use the child’s fear of their parent’s response to keep them hidden at school so they are not outed. Plus it gives the parent time to try to force the kid to be straight and cis while they have control. That is the goal, to force the LGBTQIA out of the public view. To remove acceptance and tolerance for non-straight non-cis people. To pretend the entire country is straight and cis, that anything else is abnormal and wrong. These republicans can not accept the modern age or that everyone else is not living by their idea of god’s will. What happened to the idea of live and let live? Later in the article a judge claims that parents have the right to control what their minor children are called. Yet when kids are taunted and harassed, the teachers don’t rush to interfere or send notes home to the parents. Seems a very one-sided policy. Hugs. Scottie
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and nonbinary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is nonbinary.
Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools that they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home
ByJOHN HANNA Associated Press and GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated PressFebruary 9, 2024, 12:18 AMTOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they’re not out at home, though Kansas is not among the states with a law that explicitly says to do that.
Republican Kris Kobach’s action was his latest move to restrict transgender rights, following his successful efforts last year to temporarily block Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration from changing the listings for sex on transgender people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. It’s also part of a trend of GOP attorneys general asserting their authority in culture war issues without a specific state law.
Kobach maintains that failing to disclose when a child is socially transitioning or identifying as nonbinary at school violates parents’ rights. He sent letters in December to six school districts and the state association for local school board members, then followed up with a public statement Thursday after four districts, all in northeast Kansas, didn’t rewrite their policies.
The Kansas attorney general’s letters to superintendents of three Kansas City-area districts, Topeka’s superintendent and the Kansas Association of School Boards accused them of having “surrendered to woke gender ideology.” His letters didn’t say what he would do if they didn’t specifically require teachers and administrators to out transgender and nonbinary students.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and nonbinary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is nonbinary.
Five states have laws requiring schools to inform parents if their children use different pronouns, socially transition to a gender different than the one assigned at birth or present as nonbinary, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which supports transgender rights. Another six have laws that encourage it, the project says.
Kansas is on neither list. A bill introduced last year would bar schools from using the preferred pronouns for a student under 18 without a parent or guardian’s written permission, but it did not clear a Senate committee.
GOP lawmakers did enact a law over Kelly’s veto that ended the state’s legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities by defining male and female for legal purposes based on a person’s “reproductive anatomy” identified at birth. But Republican state Sen. Renee Erickson of Wichita, a vocal supporter and a former middle school principal, said it does not cover issues about whether schools must inform parents about a child’s gender identity at school.
Erickson said she now favors taking a look at the bill before a Senate committee, saying it addresses a “policy gap.”
“The parents have a right to know what is affecting their child,” she said.
In 2022 a federal judge hearing a northeast Kansas teacher’s lawsuit concluded that her school district’s policy of not informing parents of a child’s gender identity at school without their consent violated a parent’s constitutional right to raise children as they see fit. The district settled the case, paid the teacher $95,000 and revoked the policy.
The judge said parents’ constitutional rights include a say “in what a minor child is called and by what pronouns they are referred.”
But Kobach cited neither that case nor Kansas law in his letters to the state school boards association, the Topeka school district and the Kansas City, Shawnee Mission and Olathe districts in the Kansas City area. Instead he cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions going back as far as 1923 that he said affirmed parents’ rights. His office released copies Thursday.
He told each district that its policies on transgender students violated parents’ rights and said two other districts in the Wichita area quickly rewrote their policies after his letter arrived. In his letter to the school boards group, he noted it provides legal help to local districts.
In each letter he said withholding such information from parents would be “arrogant beyond belief.”
State attorneys general serve as the lead lawyers for state governments, and most also oversee at least some criminal prosecutions. But they also look outward, and Kobach’s letters weren’t the first to issue warnings not grounded in a specific state law.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launched an online form Tuesday to gather complaints about “objectionable curricula, policies, or programs affecting children” in education. His office said it will follow up on submissions that may violate Indiana law but added that materials don’t have to meet that criteria to be posted for people to review.
Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent requests to at least two medical providers that don’t operate in his state for information about providing gender-affirming care as part of an investigation, though it’s not clear what Texas law would cover them. Washington state’s attorney general invoked a law there to block Seattle Children’s Hospital from complying, and QueerMed, a Georgia-based telehealth provider, said on its website that it will not comply.
As for Kobach, Tom Alonzo, a Kansas City LGBTQ+ rights advocate, argued that the attorney general is bent on “intentional marginalization” of transgender people. Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said Kobach is ignoring students’ right to privacy and called the attorney general’s stance “cruel” and “dangerous.”
While the Kansas City district declined comment, the other three districts said they deal with transgender and nonbinary students case by case and seek to work with parents. The Topeka district expressed confidence that its practices are legal. The four districts are among the largest in Kansas and together have more than 88,000 students or 18% of the total for the state’s public schools.
The strongest response came from Michelle Hubbard, the Shawnee Mission superintendent, in her district’s response in December. She chided Kobach for not citing actual cases in the district of parents’ rights being violated and suggested that he was relying on “misinformation” from “partisan sources.”
“We are not caricatures from the polarized media, but rather real people who work very hard in the face of intense pressure on public schools,” Hubbard wrote.
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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Isabella Volmert in Indianapolis contributed.
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