A new Alabama law that targets trans youth went into effect on May 8 and is causing concern for LGBTQ+ people, their families, and allies. Signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey on April 8, the “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act” makes it a felony for doctors to prescribe hormones and puberty blockers for those under age 19, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The law is part of a wider swath of anti-trans youth legislation cropping up across Republican-controlled states, but this bill is uniquely extreme in targeting health care providers with potential felony charges. Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, an Alabama pediatrician who treats gender dysphoria in children, testified during the bill’s federal court hearing: “This will force us into a place of risking a felony conviction for providing evidence-based care.”
As of this writing, the law is in effect, meaning that providing gender-affirming medical care for trans youth in Alabama is a felony. According to AL.com, the law is being challenged by a lawsuit filed by parents of four transgender youth who argue the law will “deprive their children of access to established medical care that is safe, effective, and necessary.” Also party to the suit are a child psychologist who works with trans youth, a pediatrician, and a pastor. In the meantime, plaintiffs are asking for a temporary hold on the law.
Trans advocates and experts are sounding the alarm. As Chase Strangio, deputy director for trans justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman during a May 9 appearance on the program, this “[creates] an absolutely terrifying sea change in the reality on the ground for trans people, their families, and their doctors in Alabama — and not just in Alabama, but across the Southeast.”
I have been working in trans legal advocacy for 18 years and today is probably the most upsetting day with a felony ban on health care going into effect in Alabama. Not much noise nationally from our “allies” either.
“The University of Alabama has a gender clinic that is serving trans adolescents and their families, not just in Alabama, but in Georgia and Florida and Tennessee and Mississippi,” Strangio continued. “And in a matter of hours, all of that care is becoming a felony, which means families are uprooting their lives. They’re trying to figure out what, when, and whether they can get life-saving care for their adolescent children.”
In other states, legislators are pushing to adopt “trans refuge” policies that would welcome trans people and their families from hostile states. California senator Scott Wiener, who sponsored a bill in his home state as part of this effort, publicly criticized Alabama’s law. “At midnight, Alabama’s vile law criminalizing trans youth accessing gender-affirming care — threatening parents & doctors with 10 years in prison — went into effect. We’re working in coalition w/19 other states to pass laws granting refuge to impacted families. We have your backs,” Wiener wrote on Twitter.
According to Bay City News, the proposed California bill would stop other states from subpoenaing medical records from California in order to separate trans children from their parents or to penalize families for seeking gender-affirming care, and would bar law enforcement from, as reported by the outlet, “making or intentionally participating in the arrest of an individual with an out-of-state warrant for allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care.”
Twenty-one LGBTQ lawmakers in 16 states have committed to introducing similar legislation, according to the Victory Institute, an organization that promotes LGBTQ politicians.
Any implication or attempt to blame the heinous shooting in Buffalo on the Congresswoman is a new disgusting low for the Left, their Never Trump allies, and the sycophant stenographers in the media. The shooting was an act of evil and the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Despite sickening and false reporting, the Congresswoman has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo.
A series of Facebook ads published in September 2021 by Stefanik’s campaign committee that charged that Democrats were allowing undocumented immigrants into the United States as a ploy to outnumber, and eventually silence, Republican voters.
“Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” reads one of the ads, which shows a reflection of migrants in sunglasses Biden is wearing. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”
Did you know: @EliseStefanik pushes white replacement theory? The #3 in the house GOP. @Liz_Cheney got removed for demanding truth. @GOPLeader should be asked about this.
Stefanik Blasted for 'Despicable' Facebook Ads Pushing 'Replacement Theory' https://t.co/RcuzJ37BiE
— Adam Kinzinger #fella (@AdamKinzinger) May 14, 2022
In case anyone thought @RepStefanik wasn't intentional about employing this rhetoric, here she is today on the House floor reading from prepared remarks invoking the white nationalist conspiracy theory about an "invasion" pic.twitter.com/aiHss5bO5l
Let’s be clear. #EliseStarvefanik is mad. But she is really mad because she wanted to live in 2worlds. She wanted the benefit of the MAGA/QANON crowd and the respect of the @HarvardIOP cocktail crowd. This last week made her realize she has only the MAGA/Qanon weirdos. 🥴 https://t.co/fR9nTozr4Q
Great Replacement Theory is a vile, racist and false conspiracy theory that the Buffalo murderer relied upon. GOP Rep Elise Stefanik ran ads promoting it.
TEAM ELISE has advanced REPLACEMENT THEORY. She is absolutely responsible, in part for the blood shed. There will be more and she will share in that also because she helped light the fuse. Her rhetoric is purposeful. It is Hitlerism. What’s she is saying was at the ideological https://t.co/BwEjrZi1FB
core of National Socialism. The new version is called NATIONAL CONSERVATISM. It’s called the New Right. @JDVance1 is a leading member also. @VanityFair and @jhensonpogue just wrote about it. The @NEDemocracy is the leading American Institution for Democracy. Perversely,
The twisted young Fascist Congresswoman @EliseStefanik is on the Board. She should be removed immediately or the rest of the Board should resign. It is beyond disgusting that she serves there while spreading the hatred she does. She is no victim. Truly, she is Bloody Elise
The White House, House Dems, & usual pedo grifters are so out of touch with the American people that rather than present ANY PLAN or urgency to address the nationwide baby formula crisis, they double down on sending pallets of formula to the southern border. Joe Biden has NO PLAN
Republican lawmakers are echoing the anti-immigrant rhetoric. An MSNBC political panel joined American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss the danger of touting lies about immigrants.
Partisans are already using the massacre to leap to broader political conclusions, as they always do. There’s no doubt that a racist subculture exists in America and is spread on social media. Politicians and media figures have an obligation to condemn it and such conspiratorial notions as “white replacement theory.” But mass shooters have had many motivations in recent years, and mental illness seems to be the most significant common denominator, to the extent there is one.
The establishment Right has spent five years looking away as some of right-wing media's most prominent members dove into the white supremacist fever swamps, now it's too late to bolster the guardrails (not that they're really trying).
WSJ ed page: “There’s no doubt that a racist subculture exists in America and is spread on social media. Politicians and media figures have an obligation to condemn it” https://t.co/yRbFEBVCWA
mass shooters have had many motivations in recent years, and mental illness seems to be the most significant common denominator, to the extent there is one.
I’d think the ready availability of guns which are quick and easy enough to use that they will mow down a roomful of people in a few minutes and powerful enough to shred small children into pieces is probably also a factor.
You knew all this white bullshit during the Charlottesville tiki-torch march. You heard all the chants back then about their ‘Replacement’ crap.\now 6 years later you suddenly wake up to the enemies in the heart of society. What are you? Slow learners?
I supervise expectant parents…. They tell me how expensive it is to even have a baby in the United States now…. People can’t afford $10,000 just to have a healthy baby. Nobody can afford that.
Is it really a matter of skin color that these people are worried about? Or is it a decline in some sort of idealized culture?
Because if it’s a matter of religious ideology, they’re missing the fact that immigrants from Central America and Mexico are giving the Catholic population in the US a boost, according to a number of studies.
“Partisans are already using the massacre to leap to broader political conclusions, as they always do.”
This attempt at deflection by the WSJ editorial board should be taken as an indication that those connecting the dots between the massacre and the right’s adoption of white nationalism are absolutely correct.
What was unspoken in the last half of the 20th Century (but those with ears to hear knew was there) is now, horribly making itself known. We really have a horrific group of racists whom Trump emboldened. Fighting them is just as important today as it was after Dred Scott.
Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke makes a passionate defense of the women’s right to choose and women’s health while on ABC’s The View. Francis Maxwell breaks it down. Video by Francis Maxwell.
Ten people were killed and three injured during a mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket Saturday afternoon, according to the city’s police commissioner. The manifesto left by the perpetrator of the hate crime appeared to get his talking points straight from Tucker Carlson, Fox News, and the Republican Party Video by Francis Maxwell.
In just the past year, Republican luminaries like Newt Gingrich and Elise Stefanik, the center-right New York congresswoman turned Trump acolyte (and third-ranking House Republican), have echoed replacement theory. Appearing on Fox, Mr. Gingrich declared that leftists were attempting to “drown” out “classic Americans.”
In September, Ms. Stefanik released a campaign ad on Facebook claiming that Democrats were plotting “a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” by granting “amnesty” to illegal immigrants, which her ad said would “overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”
That same month, Rep. Matt Gaetz wrote on Twitter, “@TuckerCarlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening to America.” In a statement after the Buffalo shooting, Mr. Gaetz said that he had “never spoken of replacement theory in terms of race.”
Read the full article. Cheney’s tweet, at least in part, appears to be aimed at her successor Stefanik.
The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.
Compelling NYTimes story on how GOP politicians and Fox News pundits like Tucker Carlson espouse ideas about "replacement theory" – elites engineering demographic change to disempower white people – similar to notions echoed by some violent extremists. https://t.co/zUecrCur27
Yeah! Republicans are going to denounce their own base? While they’re at it maybe they could denounce their religious extremists and their anti-vaxxers and their conspiracy theorists! LOL!
After 50 years of coddling this faction, funding and promoting these people because they needed them for power, it is not going to change until they lose a series of Red States governors, etc.
And that ain’t happening soon. Besides this faction now runs the show.
She knows. I think she’s trying to expose this to a broader Republican base that the cuurent GOP are actually super extreme. She is hoping that she can rekindle a return to a more “moderate”/civil Republican base.
Sadly, THIS is your current GOP leadership, and we’ve repeatedly heard the demagogue’s stance on white nationalism, white supremacy, and rabid bigotry. We hear it echoed on FOX News and through the candidates he endorses. pic.twitter.com/siXHTBjxr5
That same month, Rep. Matt Gaetz wrote on Twitter, “@TuckerCarlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening to America,” In a statement after the Buffalo shooting, Mr. Gaetz said that he had “never spoken of replacement theory in terms of race.”
Ah, of course, he only meant it in terms of.. what, heritage? “Western Culture”, another buzzword used when they don’t want to say ‘race’? Please, do be specific…
Heterosexual Supremacy is the cornerstone of the Republican Party. They didn’t hide their hate. It was straightforward part of the Republican Platform until that platform was chucked in favor of it being “whatever Trump says it is.” . So it should be no surprise that they are now becoming more open about their White Nationalism too.
This bizarre twisting of reality is what is really tearing the country apart and fueling the anger of many. The complete disconnect from the truth changed to attack your opponents. Are these the people that should be in elected office making the laws people have to live under? Do you trust any of these people to make sensible choices about relations with other countries or wars? I don’t. Hugs
Nick Fuentes — the young white supremacist who also bemoans “white genocide,” leads the Groyper movement online, and organizes the annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) — took to his Telegram channel as news of the killings broke to immediately (and without evidence) insist it was a “false flag” attack.
Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers — a member of the Oath Keepers who has appeared at Fuentes’ AFPAC conference — made a similar claim, conspiratorially suggesting Gendron was a government agent. “Fed boy summer has started in Buffalo,” Rogers wrote in a Telegram post.
Mike Cernovich, the onetime Pizzagate conspiracy theorist who has tweeted that “diversity is code for white genocide,” labored to paint Gendron as an ideological foe of the right, an environmentalist Nazi who fell under “demonic influence.”
A short recap of Rogers’ not-so-greatest hits includes posting an anti-Semitic meme on her Gab and Telegram accounts hours before she spoke at the White nationalist AFPAC conference, getting censured by fellow Republicans in the Arizona Senate, and praising Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
In another tweet, she pushed to celebrate Confederate generals on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day days after speaking at a rally for former President Donald Trump, and a raging tweet storm she called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “globalist puppet for Soros and the Clintons.”
Racist Republican lawmaker claims white supremacist Buffalo shooting was a false flag. https://t.co/cmD6GAAPmm
Trump-endorsed AZ Gov candidate Kari Lake, proudly touting her endorsement from Wendy Rogers, who said the Buffalo mass shooting was a false flag operation conducted by the FBI. pic.twitter.com/4XzU5BXWFJ
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 15, 2022
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey helped get Wendy Rogers elected in 2020. When asked a few months ago about her embrace of white nationalism, Ducey told reporters it was better than having a Democrat in office. https://t.co/keUXqa00MY
In July, Wendy Rogers posted a tweet about immigration that said, "We are being replaced and invaded." She was quickly called out by a Jewish group in Arizona, whose director called it "thinly-veiled hate speech." https://t.co/B8dM9bshGM
Very good piece on PBS Newshour Weekend by Kathleen Belew. She calls it like it is: these aren’t “lone gunmen”, they’re all white nationalists and connected.
Between 2017 and 2019, there were 49 far-right domestic terrorism incidents in the U.S. and four from the left. The far-right incidents produced 145 fatalities; the left-wing incidents produced four.
So amusing. Literally, every time a white supremacist commits a mass murder it’s always considered a false flag event. That way they can shut down all discussion about weapons of war in the hands of milita, white nationalists and teenagers.
They NEVER take responsibility for the evil they do…for the inflammatory words they use to incite the crowds for their own political ends, while ignoring the fact that those same toxic words take root in disturbed & violent minds.
Why it seems like just yesterday that Trump & the GOP were blaming Jan 6 on ANTIFA, the Democrats, and even the Feds as a false flag operation, refusing to acknowledge it was their own supporters.
