The truth is the US has a big problem with the human body and seeing it. It was not always this way. The modesty at all costs movement is what is harmful and should have warnings. The problem with porn is not that people see it, it is not even that minors see it. It is the way the right and even some on the left fetishize it to be some grand high point of evil. By doing that, going to such lengths to show kids we are hiding it from them we are making it seem so much more than it is. It is nude people showing their bodies and doing mostly normal acts. In most porn it is acting, and if people could see all the behind the scenes stuff it would take any joy out of it, just as watching a movie being made would ruin the fun of it. What we need to do is be honest with minors about their bodies, the bodies of the sexes / genders, and human sexuality. Treat it normally, don’t freak them out over seeing a booby or a butt. Seeing a penis will not rot the mind of any kid, freaking out over them seeing it will. Plus it helps cut down child abuse if a kid feels comfortable talking with another adult about what someone is doing to them or making them do. So many survivors never told because they were too ashamed and felt it was taboo to talk about. Look at a quote from the article below, do these people really believe this garbage? Harmful to brain development? Never proven, no medical data. I am sorry, I think they have confused fundamentalist religion with fun porn. Besides be honest, does anyone watch the entire porn movie? Really? But they do sit through the entire sermon and give the preacher money. You be the judge as to which one “is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.” I can not stand these constant attempts to push their extreme fundamentalist church doctrine idea of calling normal things obscene and pushing their hyper regressive ideology on every one else. Look if they don’t want to see people nude, don’t want to see people having sex, then don’t watch it. Just don’t go to those websites! Why force everyone to live by your rules, to live just like you do. People in lockstep marching together. What a horrible place to live. Hugs. Scottie
It also orders such websites to post controversial health warnings that pornography “weakens brain function,” “is proven to harm human brain development” and “is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.”
The lawsuit comes after the Fifth Circuit last year reversed a lower-court injunction blocking the law.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks in Washington at a rally in support of then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, prior to the U.S. Capitol insurrection. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton this week sued a major online porn distributor in an effort to enforce a new state law mandating age verification and purported health warnings on adult websites.
The lawsuit, filed in state court in Austin on Monday, accuses the adult-entertainment company Aylo of violating House Bill 1181, a new state content-warning law for websites. A Montreal-based company, Aylo runs a number of major online porn brands, including Pornhub.
Among other rules, HB 1181 requires that porn websites “use reasonable age verification methods” to “verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older.” It also orders such websites to post controversial health warnings that pornography “weakens brain function,” “is proven to harm human brain development” and “is associated with low self-esteem and body image, eating disorders, impaired brain development, and other emotional and mental illnesses.”
According to the lawsuit, minors who visit Aylo’s pornographic websites are either “immediately presented with sexual material” or “are asked to complete the trivial step of clicking an ‘enter’ button.” As a result, the suit says, Aylo has completely failed to comply with HB 1181.
The suit seeks an injunction forcing Aylo to use age verification and display the required health warnings. Texas also wants hefty fines, including $1.6 million in civil penalties plus $10,000 per day dating back to Sept. 19, 2023 — the day when the Fifth Circuit first greenlit the law.
In a news release announcing the suit, the Texas attorney general’s office accused Aylo of not imposing “reasonable age verification measures to protect minors from being exposed to obscene materials.”
“Texas has a right to protect its children from the detrimental effects of pornographic content,” AG Paxton stated in the news release. “I look forward to holding any company accountable that violates our age verification laws intended to prevent minors from being exposed to harmful, obscene material on the internet.”
Aylo declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit comes amid a broader push in Texas and other Republican-controlled states to restrict content that lawmakers deem obscene. During the state legislative session last year, Texas also passed restrictions on drag shows and books it calls “sexually explicit.”
Last year, a coalition of porn-industry insiders — including a free-speech group focused on pornography — won an injunction blocking the law.
Their original suit, filed in federal court in Austin, described HB 1181 as part of a “long tradition of unconstitutional — and ultimately failed — governmental attempts to regulate and censor free speech on the internet.” Rather than imposing new content restrictions, “Texas could easily spread its ideological, anti-pornography message through public service announcements and the like,” the suit argued.
U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra, a Reagan appointee, ultimately found those arguments persuasive. Among other factors, he determined that rules requiring health warnings in 14-point font were overly burdensome and ambiguous, as “text size on webpages is typically measured by pixels, not points.”
In his ruling from August, Ezra also cited Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — a longstanding standard that protects online publishers from liability for content produced by third-parties. Without explaining its reasoning, the conservative Fifth Circuit overruled that injunction, including with a one-page administrative stay in September. Those orders paved the way for Texas to enforce the law, including with this latest suit.
Clearly the man speaks from personal experience and exhibits the signs of “impaired brain development” to this day. He doesn’t even have the brain power to keep both eyes open at the same time.
Pornhub has added North Carolina and Montana to its block list as both states implemented age-verification laws on Jan. 1. A similar ban was imposed in Arkansas in August, joining Mississippi, Virginia, and Utah.
Now hold on there, bubba louie! I live in texas…and how am I supposed to spend my golden years with no porn??? Paxton is just doing shit so the christians will vote for him.
More BS pseudoscience clap-trap from a state with no cognitive functionality. Just ban it in Texas and be done with…though I suspect a lot of those cowpokes will start livin’ up to that name if you do.
This surgeon general is totally unqualified for his position. He was picked for his political stance and willingness to lie and edit official studies to shore up DeathSatnis’s political positions. When DeathSantis tried to force the state University to make give him a position and a high salary, the school refused saying he was totally unqualified. For those that don’t know, measles is extremely dangerous, leading to lifelong illnesses and medical issues such as losing your ability to hear, along with death. Measles also kills your immune system so you lose all prior immunities and can make it so your system struggles to gain the immunity to other diseases. Below I listed some of the things that can happen. Measles are not a joke, you do not want your child exposed to the real thing, get them vaccinated. Hugs. Scottie
Long-term effects of measles
For every 10,000 children infected with measles, 2,000 will be hospitalized; 1,000 will develop ear infections with the potential for permanent hearing loss; 500 will develop pneumonia; and 10 to 30 will die, said Hotez, who is also dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
Measles often leaves patients vulnerable to secondary bacterial infections, such as pneumonia, one of the most common causes of death in measles patients, said Patricia Stinchfield, president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Measles also causes “immune amnesia,” in which the immune system loses its ability to fight infections that a patient was previously immune to, Cherry said. The virus wipes out 11% to 73% of a person’s antibodies — both those acquired through infection and vaccination — which can leave patients at increased risk from viruses such as the flu and bacteria that cause pneumonia and skin infections. A devastating long-term complication of measles called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, which is more common in countries where the virus remains endemic. The fatal condition can cause memory loss, irritability, disturbances in movement, seizures and blindness, and can develop six to eight years after a child has apparently recovered from measles. Although anti-seizure drugs can sometimes ease symptoms, they don’t cure the disease. Encephalitis. About 1 child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability. Death. Nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz held a press conference on school safety measures Tuesday and called for the replacement of Florida’s surgeon general — as the measles outbreak in South Florida continues to expand.
She called for the termination of Dr. Joseph Ladapo and for Governor DeSantis to replace him with a public health expert, following the surgeon general’s controversial handling of the outbreak.
Ladapo told parents of unvaccinated children that it is their choice whether their students attend class — a contravention of federal guidelines calling for their mandatory exclusion. “Surgeon General Ladapo is a misinformation super-spreader,” Rep. Wasserman Schultz said during the press conference.
The measles outbreak has made its way to Central Florida. Over the weekend, the Florida Department of Health confirmed a tenth case out of Polk County.
The case is travel-related, and the patient is between 20 and 24 years old, making them the first Florida adult to be infected with the virus this year.
It comes after nine children and teens were infected with measles in Broward County. Measles is extremely contagious. Unvaccinated people have about a 90% chance of being infected if exposed.
I’m hosting a press conference alongside @FIU's Dr. Mary Jo Trepka and PTA leader Latha Krishnaiyer to share measles vaccination safety measures. I will also call for new leadership in Florida’s top health position. Join us: https://t.co/B3zQfhUBdz
if kids go deaf, or they die, or are sick for a month, it’s a small price to pay for freedom from an overreaching dictatorship of democratically elected government.
As Surgeon-General, Ladapo would be the one to sign off on any revocations. He is not going to quit this sweet gig that pays well and gives his quackery a veneer of legitimacy.
The reality is the majority of FL voters have made clear they’re okay with having this quack and the party that enables him in charge. Until that changes, he won’t be going anywhere.
This is a post on Jill’s blog. She has one of the most outstanding blog I have ever had the privilege to read in my life. But as grand as this story is and it is grand no questions asked, I wonder if the feelings directed to those different might be able to be used for another group of people, desperately struggling for their own rights. Hugs. Scottie
The goal here is to keep pushing the idea that there is no one born with a gender identity different from what the doctor might see when he holds you up after birth. No one, just as no one is born gay or lesbian. It is a lifestyle choice of course, kids rebelling after being groomed / recruited by those other horrible people that chose that lifestyle. That means keeping reinforcing it is child abuse to let your kids socially transition. It is child abuse to let boys grow long hair, to let girls cut their hair. It is child abuse to let a boy where a dress or skirt. The horror of it all. You know what might fix it, make those trans boys kids marry an older straight man when they first display the idea of being a boy. 8 maybe, 10, definitely by 12. Get them pregnant will show them they are not a boy.
If you are someone that believes any of the above you are wrong, you are a bigot, you are drastically misinformed / uninformed. You are holding on to ideas that were debunked decades ago. This is about reinforcing Christian church doctrines / ideas into laws, schools, and forcing everyone to live by them. This is about errasing the LGBTQIA from society and vilifying them by making them the horrible boogieman that kids should be terrified of. Remember the 1950s school films telling boys to beware the homosexual who was always out to snatch them, take them somewhere, then raping them making them homosexuals also, a future danger to other boys. Boys Beware: This 1955 educational film warns against “the dangers of homosexuality,” which is described as “a sickness of the mind.” The ten minute video was produced by the Unified School District and the Police Department of Inglewood, California. That is the world these people love, that they think is real and wants to force the country to return to. Often they cloak it in god says, but it really is about their own comfort, their own feelings, their own hates and bigotry. Hugs. Scottie
There is a video I tried every way I can think of to embed in the post. It won’t show up so I am going to take it out and just put up the link there in its spot. Hugs. Scottie
Gov. Greg Abbott said those who fail to report instances of minors receiving gender-affirming medical care could face “criminal penalties.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks during a press conference in the Permian Basin, in Midland, Texas, on Feb. 1, 2022.Eli Hartman / Odessa American via AP file
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is calling on “licensed professionals” and “members of the general public” to report the parents of transgender minors to state authorities if it appears the minors are receiving gender-affirming medical care.
The directive was part of a letter Abbott, a Republican, sent Tuesday to the Department of Family and Protective Services, calling on it to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” of any reported instances of minors undergoing “elective procedures for gender transitioning.”
Abbott’s letter follows an opinion released Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which stated that allowing minors to receive transition care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery is child abuse under state law.
Paxton issued the opinion after the Legislature failed last year to pass a bill that would have made it a felony alongside physical and sexual abuse to provide such care to minors. An opinion is an interpretation of existing law; it does not change the law itself but can affect how it is enforced.
In Tuesday’s letter, Abbott tasked licensed professionals who work with children — including teachers, nurses and doctors — and “members of the general public” with reporting such claims. He added that state law “provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse.”
Advocates allege that both Paxton’s opinion and Abbott’s letter are politically motivated, noting that they were released just ahead of the March 1 Republican primary and that both men face a crowded field of contenders in their re-election bids.
Adri Pèrez, policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQ equality at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said Paxton is trying to distract from the problems plaguing his campaign. He is awaiting trial for a 2015 indictment on charges of securities fraud, and he is under investigation by the FBI over allegations of bribery and abuse of office. Paxton’s office did not return a request for comment.
“There’s no court in Texas or the entire country that has ever found that gender-affirming care can constitute child abuse,” Pèrez said.
Brian Klosterboer, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement that neither the opinion nor the letter have a legal effect and “cannot change Texas law nor usurp the constitutional rights of Texas families.”
“But they spread fear and misinformation and could spur false reporting of child abuse at a time when DFPS is already facing a crisis in our state’s foster care system,” Klosterboer stated. “The law is clear that parents, guardians, and doctors can provide transgender youth with treatment in accordance with prevailing standards of care. Any parent or guardian who loves and supports their child and is taking them to a licensed health care provider is not engaging in child abuse.”
It’s unclear whether Abbott and Paxton can force the Department of Family and Protective Services and other state agencies to investigate claims of child abuse against the parents of trans kids without passing legislation that changes the law.
At least one county-level official has said he will not enforce Abbott’s directive. Christian Menefee, the elected attorney who represents Department of Family and Protective Services in civil child abuse cases in Harris County, where Houston is, said in a statement that Paxton and Abbott “are ignoring medical professionals and intentionally misrepresenting the law to the detriment of transgender children and their families.”
“My office will not participate in these bad faith political games,” he said. “As the lawyers handling these cases, we owe a duty of candor to the courts about what the law really says. We’ll continue to follow the laws on the books — not General Paxton’s politically motivated and legally incorrect ‘opinion.’”
Over the last year, nearly two dozen states considered legislation that would bar access to some or all gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Some states, including Texas, considered bills that would’ve charged parents or doctors who provide transition care with a felony. Only two states — Arkansas and Tennessee — have enacted restrictions on such care for minors, and a federal judge blocked Arkansas’ law from taking effect in July.
“Conservative officials in Texas and other states across the country should stop inserting themselves into health care decisions that create needless tension between pediatricians and their patients,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the deputy principal press secretary for the White House, told the paper. “No parent should face the agony of a politician standing in the way of accessing life-saving care for their child.”
Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health and the first openly transgender Senate-confirmed federal official, added that the Department of Health and Human Services “stands with transgender youth and their medical providers.”
“Our nation’s leading pediatricians support evidence-based, gender affirming care for transgender young people,” she said.
Supporters of restrictions on gender-affirming care argue that minors cannot consent to care that includes permanent changes to their bodies. Advocates note that all relevant major medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association — say that gender-affirming care is medically necessary for transgender youth and is backed by decades of research.
The Endocrine Society, an international medical organization for the field of endocrinology, which includes the study of hormones, said in a statement Wednesday that Abbott’s directive “rejects evidence-based transgender medical care.”
“Medical evidence, not politics, should inform treatment decisions,” the group said in a statement. “The governor’s directive reflects widespread misinformation about gender-affirming care. When young children experience feelings that their gender identity does not match the sex recorded at birth, the first course of action is to support the child in exploring their gender identity and to provide mental health support, as needed.”
The Endocrine Society added that its clinical practice guideline recommends only reversible treatments for adolescents, such as puberty blockers, after they have entered puberty. Older adolescents “who demonstrate the ability to provide informed consent to partially irreversible treatment and experience persistent gender incongruence” can start hormone therapy. The guideline also recommends delaying surgery until the age of legal majority, which is 18 in most states.
If you do not recognize this it is from a Chick tract called The Last Generation. It was about what our side was supposedly going to do. It is always projection.
They are not going to stop because they know that there is no one to enforce the constitution. There is nothing the federal government can do and they know this and will act accordingly.
“Reports?” I assume /s? But seriously, circumcision is obviously elective surgery an infant can’t consent to. Gender affirming care (seldom surgery) is only done with consent and years of medical consultation.
So, if a 17 year old girl gets a boob job because it makes her feel better about her body, is that considered gender affirming care to Abbott and those like him? I’m betting he couldn’t articulate why that doesn’t count for him… not that he has to try with his base, of course.
In the past 10 years, we have relived a good chunk of the 20th century. We have experienced pre and post WW2. I have a much greater understanding of that time period now.
Again another post that needs as much air time as possible. For the record I have many Christian viewers / followers. They are grand and decent people many who are LGBTQIA allies. I often repost the Rev. Ed Trevors, who is a person I respect. What I fight back against is hate preachers of any faith or some with no faith who want to harm others simply for being born different than they are. I have serious issues with those that use their religion to attack the civil rights of others. I love people who use their faith to influence their uplift and support others, especially those who are most disadvantaged. Do you know the difference? The ones I mentioned before would gladly have / share a meal with me, I have to think most of them would volunteer to pay for the meal. The haters, hate preachers wouldn’t even think of having a meal with me and if they did might poison my food or stab me with a knife during it. The point is some religious / Christian not only would want my death for pushing for equality for LGBTQIA but would work to cause it if they wouldn’t be charged for it. Hugs. Scottie
