Category: Schools / Schooling / Education / Libraries
Republican National Purity Dream | David Bier | TMR
This person Same is interviewing is from the Cato Institute. Sam and David talk about the bigotry and attempt to purify the country of non-white people. tRump and his racist administration claim to want to remove 100 million from the US. There is no where near that number of undocumented people in the country. That number is almost 1/3 of the US population. Undocumented immigrants were estimated at 14 million in 2023 at the highest. So where are the rest of these people coming from? Legal documented immigrants and non-white citizens born in the US. That is why they are rounding up brown people who immigrated here legally and why they are trying so hard to end birth right citizenship. The goal has become clear and it is scary to me. To cement the white majority for as long as possible and stop the slow decline of the white majority / rize of minority demographics. Stephen Miller and the other racists in tRump administration want an apartheid state like the former South African one was. They want no rights for non-whites. They want no non-whites in positions of authority. The administration is going after businesses and higher education for not prioritizing whites over any other group. They feel no white male is less qualified than any non-white. If a non-white person scored 95 and the white person scored 75, these racists feel the white person is still more qualified because of their skin color. The racists feel the only DEI that should be allowed is the promotion of white males over everyone else. Hugs
Boise To Face $2000/Day Fine For Flying Pride Flag
The game plan is clear and was used to accomplish the genocide of the LGBTQ+ from society in Russia. Attack the most vulnerable and smallest members of the LGBTQ+ trans people in the name of saving the most vulnerable, who are the little children espcailly little girls / daughters. Every study proves that the ones in real danger or under threat are not the kids but the trans people. Then use the momentum and rising bigotry to remove all rights and equality from the rest of the LGBQ+ based on the same lies. End goal is to create a straight cis country where the Christian white male is making the country safe / regressive enough for their bigoted view of Jesus to feel comfortable enough to return and pat them on their heads. Hugs
The Idaho Capital Sun reports:
The Idaho Senate has widely passed a bill that would fine local and state governments for flying flags that aren’t on the Legislature’s pre-approved list.
The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Ted Hill, an Eagle Republican, has said House Bill 561 is meant to target the city of Boise for flying an LGBTQ+ pride flag. Boise’s City Council voted to declare the pride flag and the organ donor flag as official flags, in an apparent move to work around the Legislature’s flag ban law passed last year.
The bill would add a $2,000 daily fine, per offending flag, to the flag ban law from last year, which lacked an enforcement process. The bill widely passed the House earlier this month. But since the Senate amended the bill, it must return to the House before it would go to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration.
Read the full article.
Rep. Ted Hill [photo] appeared here yesterday for his successful bill that criminalizes using the “wrong” bathroom. Violating that law would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison. A second offense within five years would be a felony, carrying up to a five-year prison sentence.
Hill appeared here in 2024 for his successful bill banning teachers from referring to students with their preferred pronouns.
Earlier this month, the Idaho House passed a resolution to petition the US Supreme Court on overturning Obergefell.
In February, the Idaho House advanced a bill to overturn all local LGBTQ rights ordinances statewide. Thirteen Idaho cities and counties, including Boise and its home county, have such laws on the books.
Theocracy Advances With Menace
Iran isn’t the only theocracy
Sec. of War Hegseth quotes scripture during press briefings.
Trump held a toadies meeting today.
And along those lines, check this out, and also check in on your own state legislature, because these laws are coming from a national organization. Also, dig “Independence Day”, which is not at all acknowledged in the Bible; it gets more time than even Christmas or Easter. I do not think “Christian” means what they think it means. Emphases within are mine.
Kansas Legislature’s negotiators on education bills drop sports ban tied to Christian calendar
Senate majority leader’s amendment forbid sports on Sundays, Wednesday evenings
By:Tim Carpenter
TOPEKA — The Kansas Legislature’s negotiators on education bills deleted a Senate-approved change to state law prohibiting school sports practice and competition on Sundays, Wednesday evenings and multiday periods centered on Easter, Christmas and Independence Day.
The effort to expand on Kansas State High School Activities Association rules for scheduling athletic events, currently concentrated on Dec. 25 and July 4, was led by Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi, R-Wichita. He convinced Senate colleagues to accept his amendment to Senate Bill 515 expanding no-sports days on calendars at public and private schools statewide.
During Senate debate on Blasi’s amendment, questions were raised about his focus on Christian faith traditions. His amendment passed on an unrecorded voice vote of the Senate.
During Senate and House negotiations Monday on SB 515, Wichita Republican Rep. Susan Estes and Wichita Sen. Renee Erickson, who serve as lead negotiators on the Legislature’s education bills, agreed to cast aside Blasi’s broadened moratorium. His amendment was removed from legislation intended to enable homeschool students to join sports at private schools in the way state law permitted them to be part of public school athletics.
Blasi said he was motivated to act on concerns expressed by constituents that school-sponsored sports interrupted periods that ought to be reserved for family or church activities.
Specifically, his amendment would forbid sporting events on Sundays and on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. to midnight from Sept. 1 to April 30. In addition, he sought to apply the prohibition to a four-day window around Easter, but only from 6 p.m. to midnight. A five-day ban at Christmas and a seven-day ban encompassing Independence Day would be part of the new state law.
“This is going to assure we focus on what really keeps communities strong — that is family and faith,” Blasi said.
Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, said she was anxious the Legislature was wading into the KSHSAA rulebook without considering family interests in other religious faiths. Blasi’s amendment didn’t address Islam’s Ramadan, Judaism’s Passover or Rosh Hashanah, Hinduism’s Maha Shivavatri or Buddhism’s Bodhi Day.
“Not any religion was considered,” Blasi said. “This was just a response to constituents.”
Francisco wasn’t convinced of the amendment’s merits.
“My constituents would like me to be as inclusive as possible,” she said.
The amendment left on the cutting room floor by the House and Senate conference committee was defended by several other members of the Senate.
Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, said she was a strong supporter of Blasi’s effort to turn back the clock in Kansas to an era more respectful of faith traditions.
“It’s a sad day that we have to legislate this,” Tyson said. “Years ago, it wasn’t even an issue. It was a standard and acceptable, but here we are.”
Sen. Brad Starnes, R-Riley, said the amendment was crafted to affirm religion as the “bedrock of our country.”
The objective of the amendment was to clear school calendars so students had more time to pursue religious interests, said Sen. Michael Murphy, R-Sylvia.
“As we move away from that, we do so at our peril,” Murphy said. “It’s time we moved back to some of those traditions that served us well.”
The House-Senate conference committee bundled the stripped down SB 515 and Senate Bill 361 into Senate Bill 382. SB 361 allows foreign exchange students to enroll in their host’s public school district. SB 382 deals with administration of state assessments to K-12 students in virtual schools. As of Tuesday, neither the House nor Senate had voted on the the three-bill deal.
Banned Books
It’s a blog entry by Jenny Lawson, about one of her books. I haven’t been able to open her WP blog for a few weeks, now; I get the page that says it’s an unsafe connection. I either don’t know how, or can’t get a whole post in the WP Reader, but I did get this whole post in email, so I’ll copy & paste it here. Jenny is funny, but this is not good news about Texas and literacy.
 The BloggessRead on blog or Reader Today they banned my book. It was not the first. It won’t be the last. Here’s what I want you to know .  By thebloggess on March 25, 2026 |
| This is not what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about how I’m about to go on book tour for my new book in a few days. Instead I am writing about the fact that I was just informed that my first book Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was banned from the high school library of a nearby town I love and visit often. Honestly, I’m not that upset about my book being banned. I’ve had so many letters from young people who felt they’d been helped by my books but it does have some profanity and so I can understand the reasoning even if I disagree with it. What I am upset about is the stories about how New Braunfels ISD has pulled more that 1,500 books from their school library shelves after the Texas’ Republican-backed book banning law (senate bill 13) passed. The bill ordered all public school libraries to review books for “profane” and “indecent” content and I guess Let’s Pretend This Never Happened was deemed too dangerous for high schoolers. Weirdly, my book was not on the original list of the 1,500 books triggered for review on March 13 but a week ago it was added to the New Braunfels ISD website as being removed for being “non-compliant”. (I’ve been called worse.) I guess 1,500 books weren’t enough. But then, it’s never enough for book banners.This is going to happen more and more. It used to be a rarer thing…almost a badge of courage to have a book banned. Now? It’s everywhere…this war against books and ideas and people. Reading is how you fall in love with people different from you, and how you develop compassion for them…because if you love them, you want to protect them. But there are some people who don’t want you to love others. They need you to fear them. Books save lives. They have saved mine. Books are safety nets for so many of us, and right now those nets are being cut.The list of banned books is incredible in length and includes so many that I adore. Equally upsetting is the fact that so many classics that shaped me have been pulled from the shelves and placed into restricted sections where they can only be accessed by students enrolled in Advanced Placement Literature, because God forbid a normal high school student would want to read the works of dangerous writers like *checks the list* Jane Austen and Emily Brontë (whose name they misspelled). Sometimes it feels like we’re living in A Brave New World (restricted) and that the book burning of Fahrenheit 451 (restricted) is closer than ever, with no Sense and Sensibility (restricted) about what this will cost. It feels like we’re going through The Crucible (restricted) and are caught in a Catch-22 (restricted) where we can’t convince people how terrible it is to ban books because they either don’t know the power of books or they absolutely know it and fear it. It’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (banned) how book banners go out on some kind of A Discovery of Witches (banned) and fight against Acceptance (banned) and of diversity, while we are losing All The Beauty in the World (banned). America is a Beautiful Country (banned) in so many ways, but we will lose so much of that beauty if we don’t make Changes (banned) to cherish and embrace and grow what makes us Educated (banned) and compassionate. The diversity of voices is necessary…it is a reflection of who we are and who we want to be. A plethora of ideas and voices and experiences…This Is What America Looks Like (banned). We can’t just pretend that Everything’s Fine (banned) and that this is just an overreaction of Anxious People (banned). Do you think this is what the founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton (banned) envisioned? I’m going to stop here because I’m sure you can see that this dumb paragraph is WAY TOO EASY TO WRITE because there are so many books they have issues with and you probably get the picture already but y’all….Jane Eyre? The Color Purple? The Odyssey? Crime and Punishment?? THIS IS WHAT WE’RE SAVING TEENAGERS FROM? So what can you do? You can buy books that are being targeted, especially those written by the LGBTQ+ authors or authors of color because they are being targeted the most. Supporting those authors tells publishing to keep producing those books because they are needed. Publishers will lose money if libraries become afraid to purchase books and so we need to make sure that they know the audience is there and greedy for diverse voices. Get a library card and start checking out those books and more, to prove to the government that libraries need funding and that people care about reading. Read to your children. Read in front of your children. Talk online about the books that you love so that your passion ignites others. If you’re a parent you can get involved with your school to make sure this doesn’t happen in your school and you can protest it if it happens. You can vote out the people who seem to be obsessed with freedom, but mainly when it’s their freedom to take away yours and your children’s. You can run against school board members who are book banners and show up at the meetings. You can keep updated by following organizations like PEN AMERICA, or the Texas Freedom to Read Project or Authors Against Book Bans. *deep breath* This is probably filled with typos and is not really the sort of thing that I should be writing the day before I leave to start my book tour but it’s important. When books and thoughts and people are suppressed, we all lose. Keep fighting the good fight, friends. It’s worth it. Comment |
Peace & Justice History On Elton John’s Birthday
I made a big production on Elton’s birthday last year, and it sort of fell flat. So just know that March 25th is Elton’s birthday, and he’s still standing. Click the links and enjoy. And now some Peace & Justice History.
| March 25, 1807 Great Britain abolished international trade in slaves. Emancipation of slaves in the country, however, did not occur until 1834, and persisted as unpaid apprenticeship for the technically emancipated for years after that. The story of abolition in England |
| March 25, 1872 Toronto printers went on strike for a 9-hour workday and a 54-hour workweek—the first major strike in Canada. When the editor of the Globe newspaper had thirteen of them arrested, 10,000 turned out to support them. Later that year unions were made legal in Canada. |
| March 25, 1894 In the midst of a depression that had begun the previous year, a millionaire businessman from Massillon, Ohio, Jacob Coxey, organized a march of an “industrial army” from Ohio to Washington, D.C. Congress had done little in response to the economic crisis and Coxey advocated a range of solutions, many considered radical at the time, such as building roads and other public works (known as infrastructure today).  Coxey’s Army passing through Mayland on their way to Washington. Coxey is seated behind the horses looking at the camera. “Coxey’s Army” gathered on the Capitol lawn but they were driven off and Coxey was arrested for trespassing when he tried to deliver his address to the crowd in violation of their first amendment rights “peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.” |
| March 25, 1911 The Triangle Shirt Waist Company, occupying the top floors of a ten-story building on New York’s lower east side, was consumed by fire.  147 people, mostly immigrant women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions, lost their lives. Approximately 50 died as they leapt from windows to the street; the others were burned or trampled to death, desperately trying to escape via stairway exits illegally locked to prevent “ the interruption of work.”Company owners were charged with seven counts of manslaughter—but were found not guilty.The incident was a turning point in labor law, especially concerning health and safety. For three days prior, the company, along with other warehouse owners, had grouped together to fight the Fire Commissioner’s order that fire sprinklers be installed.   Protests in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, button from the struggle Comprehensive collection of materials on the tragedy from Cornell University’s labor school |
| March 25, 1915 The Sisterhood of International Peace was founded in Melbourne, Australia, by Eleanor May Moore and Dr. Charles Strong. |
| March 25, 1965 Their numbers having swelled to 25,000, the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers arrived at the Alabama state capitol.Organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the march was to bring attention to the denial of voting rights to black Americans in the state and elsewhere in the south. Twice the people had been turned back, denied the right to leave Selma peacefully.  Martin Luther King Jr. and wife Coretta lead march into Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. King spoke to the crowd: “Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. (Yes, sir) The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now.” The Federal Voting Rights Act was passed within two months. The Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail |
March 25, 1965 Viola Liuzzo Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, driving marchers back to Selma from Montgomery, was shot and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen from a passing car. She had driven down to Alabama to join the march after seeing on television the Bloody Sunday attacks at Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge earlier in the month. It was later learned that riding with the Klansmen was an FBI informant, Gary Rowe. More about Viola Liuzzo Viola Gregg Liuzzo |
| March 25, 1967 Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led an anti-war march for the first time in Chicago, opposing the Vietnam War by saying: “Our arrogance can be our doom. It can bring the curtains down on our national drama . . . Ultimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation The bombs in Vietnam explode at home—they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America . . . .”  Reverend King addresses rally at the end of the Chicago march photo: Jo Freeman |
| March 25, 1969 The newly wed John Lennon and Yoko Ono-Lennon began their seven-day “bed-in for peace” against the Vietnam War in the presidential suite of the the Amsterdam Hilton in The Netherlands. Their doors were open to the media from 10am to 10pm. They invited all to think about and talk about creating peace. “Yoko and I are quite willing to be the world’s clowns, if by so doing it will do some good”.  The Wedding and “Ballad of John and Yoko” |
| March 25, 1972 30,000 participated in the Children’s March for Survival in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Welfare Rights Organization. They were supporting the Family Assistance Program, then pending in Congress (but never passed), which guaranteed a minimum income level for all families. |
| March 25, 1990 A new community, Segundo Montes, was started by campesinos in El Salvador who had lived for nine years as exiles in Honduras following the El Mozote Massacre, when 1000 civilians were killed by the U.S.-trained Salvadoran military. The town was named after a priest who had helped them in the Colomoncagua refugee camp on the border, and who was murdered along with four other Jesuit priests by the Salvadoran military. |
A Princeton Boycott:
Op-Ed: Princeton Kicked a Trans Runner Off the Track. Now Athletes Are Organizing A Boycott
The alleged targeting of transgender runners at non-professional events marks an alarming escalation.
Editors Note: The following article is an Op-Ed submitted by Max Freedman. Max Freedman is a journalist covering LGBTQ+ topics, primarily but not entirely politics and music, from Philadelphia, PA.
When transgender runner Sadie Schreiner was allegedly removed from the heat sheet at Princeton University’s May 3, 2025 Larry Ellis Invitational track meet simply for being transgender, she sued the university and accused it of discrimination—and she’s not the only transgender runner taking action. Winter Parts, a well-known transgender running advocate, is organizing a boycott of Princeton’s two spring 2026 track meets, the Sam Howell Invitational on April 4 and the Larry Ellis Invitational on May 1.
“I want to see [the Larry Ellis Invitational organizers] face visible consequences for excluding someone from their meet,” Parts said. “My hope is that a lot of [athletes boycott]. I think it would send a strong financial and visual message to the Princeton officials if they’re going through the effort of trying to put on this meet, and nobody wants to show up because everyone’s upset with how they treated Sadie.” Notably, Parts doesn’t personally know Schreiner—who ran as “unattached” at the 2025 Larry Ellis Invitational, meaning unaffiliated with a running club or university track and field team but eligible to participate based on prior official race times—but was moved to take action nonetheless.
Although excluding transgender runners is, unacceptably and despicably, par for the course these days at professional running events—current NCAA and USA Track & Field policies ban transgender women from competing with other women—the two Princeton track meets aren’t professional events, making their alleged transgender exclusion an alarming escalation. Just as potentially concerning is that, whereas both track meets have previously been open to unattached runners and runners from clubs, Parts said that a coach from a prominent running club told them that, for the 2026 meets, only runners on university track and field teams are eligible to participate. It is unclear if or how this newly restricted eligibility is related to Schreiner’s pending litigation against Princeton athletic director John Mack and Princeton director of track operations Kimberly Keenan-Kirkpatrick. Mack, Keenan-Kirkpatrick, and a representative for the third defendant in Schreiner’s lawsuit, Leone Timing & Results Services, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Schreiner was unable to comment due to her litigation.
Parts has emailed the track and field coaching staff at just under three dozen prominent colleges and universities, including Rutgers University, Temple University, and Columbia University, to demand that they and their runners boycott the 2026 meets. They have also contacted Mack and Keenan-Kirkpatrick to inform them of the boycotts, and some of their friends have joined their boycotting efforts and contacted their alma maters to encourage non-participation.
Avery Prizzi, a non-binary runner who has encouraged eligible runners not to attend the events, said that it feels like an escalation of transphobic rhetoric that a mere track meet, rather than a professional race, has excluded transgender runners. “[The events are] an experience [where] there’s no qualification, there’s no prizes, no first-place trophy,” Prizzi said. “People go to run fast and get a time for themselves. It’s all post-collegiate stuff. There’s no incentive besides running fast. To know that [the event organizers are] just gonna be garbage toward what, effectively, is just a place for people to go and better themselves or race a clock seems completely pointless or outside the mission I figured they were touting.”
Non-binary runner Will Vedder said that “the whole issue that’s been raised on a national level around trans inclusion or exclusion in sports is this, pun intended, trumped-up issue.” Vedder is a 2025-2026 board member of Philadelphia Runner Track Club (PRTC), and although PRTC members are ineligible to participate and the organization does not endorse boycotts, Vedder has told people about the boycotts to nevertheless support transgender runners, saying that excluding transgender people from sports is “based on misinformation. As we know, trans women don’t have any advantage over cis women when it comes to competitiveness in sports. Studies have shown that again and again. The fact that people are acting against what science says and excluding people who just want to run and compete, it’s infuriating.”
A 2023 Frontiers in Sports and Active Living study acknowledges a lack of evidence that transgender athletes are superior in performance and concludes, “Individuals should not have to make a choice between being their authentic selves or being athletes.” Only one transgender person, Quinn—a non-binary Canadian soccer player who uses a mononym in place of a traditional first and last name—has won a gold medal at the Olympics. Additionally, some transgender women runners, including Schreiner herself, have noticed that their performance permanently decreases after starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT). As made clear by the lack of scientific evidence about transgender runners’ supposed athletic advantages, transgender participation in not just running but all sports harms absolutely nobody. It’s the exclusion of transgender athletes that causes harm, and the consequences of this maltreatment reach far beyond the field.
“In the context of the things going on with trans people,” Parts said, “small actions like kicking a trans person out of a track meet build up to the general public thinking lowly of trans people, thinking it’s okay for laws to be passed affecting our lives, demonizing us, trying to eventually result in us being jailed or killed. Trying to push back against that will, hopefully, help increase acceptance of trans people in the public eye.” And with that, the chances of anti-transgender laws being passed — or even proposed — could decrease. A boycott might feel small, but it could help reverse the tides in a big way, and if you know runners on college and university track and field teams, you too can demand that they not participate in the 2026 Sam Howell and Larry Ellis Invitationals.
A bunch of The Majority Report Clips on different subjects.
Leaked Interior Department database reveals US plans to revise historical information
This is total white supremacy Christian nationalism and an attempt to both roll back all civil rights of minorities and project a fake white Christians were the only good people in the country mentality. Propaganda in other words to support fragile white men’s egos and prop up declining church attendance. This is driven by people who don’t want to share the country equally with others but want everything for their group only. They want to remove an entire group of people from society, the LGBTQ+ community and go back to the pre1960s civil rights for nonwhites. Hugs
An internal government database first reported, by the Washington Post and posted on two public on Monday revealed the scope of the Trump administration’s effort to revise or remove information on African-American history, LGBT rights, climate change and other topics at hundreds of national park sites.“The narrative being advanced is false and these draft, deliberative internal documents are not a representation of final action taken by the department,” an Interior Department spokesperson said. The National Park Service is part of the Interior Department.
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United States Department of the Interior logo and U.S. flag are seen in this illustration taken April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationThe U.S. Interior Department said a database revealing how President Donald Trump’s administration planned to revise information on key phases of American history at national park sites was deliberative and the employees who released it “will be held accountable.”An internal government database first reported, by the Washington Post and posted on two public on Monday revealed the scope of the Trump administration’s effort to revise or remove information on African-American history, LGBT rights, climate change and other topics at hundreds of national park sites.“The narrative being advanced is false and these draft, deliberative internal documents are not a representation of final action taken by the department,” an Interior Department spokesperson said. The National Park Service is part of the Interior Department.Trump has targeted cultural and historical institutions – from museums to monuments to national parks – to remove what he calls “anti-American” ideology.His declarations and executive orders have led to the dismantling of exhibits on slavery, the restoration of Confederate statues and other moves that civil rights advocates say could reverse decades of progress.The Interior Department spokesperson alleged the internal working documents were edited in a misrepresenting way before being released. The spokesperson also labeled the release as inappropriate and illegal, without specifying the law it allegedly violated.“Employees who altered internal records and leaked in an effort to hurt the Trump administration will be held accountable,” the spokesperson added.The Trump administration has sought to stifle internal dissent within government agencies and taken action against employees who have criticized its policies.Last year, some employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency were put on leave after they signed an open letter against the agency’s leadership, while some Environmental Protection Agency employees were fired after they signed a letter critical of the government’s actions.Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus
A Nationwide Book Ban Bill Has Been Introduced in the House of Representatives
Again all this is about is a Christian nationalist desire to mimic Russia and remove all LGBTQ+ representation from the public view in the name of “protecting children from porn” as if just being or media representing LGBTQ+ people is pornographic and sexual. These people feel anything not straight and cis is sexualizing and abusing children simply because they do not want the LGBTQ+ people to exist. Hugs
Side note. Ron got home last night 3-2-2026 about 6 pm. I made him a supper of a salad and two hamburgers with the fixings. He was so happy. I was happy. We went to bed and snuggled which made Tupac who has snuggled me every night a bit unhappy but he pressed in from the other side. All day Ron and I have been together, unloading the car, doing laundry, Ron started on the floors in the kitchen, and we are making a pork tenderloin, potatoes, brown gravy, carrots, and greenbeans for supper. It is so good to have my husband home. I understood why he had been gone for the better part of three months but it sure is grand to have him home. I feel better, anxieties lower, and happy feeling up. Also for those worried I was not eating which I was not, I ate like a pig at a trough tonight, having a first heaping plate of everything and then going back for a second heaping plate. The end of the second one was a bit challenging to finish but I did. I offered to pick up the last bits of left overs but ron said he would do it. I think he noticed I was trying to hide that I was swaying and wobbleing when I walked due to my pain levels. Hugs
Discussion of gender is not sexualization. Making books available to students that represent the diversity of their experiences and showcase the numerous ways to be a person in the world is not sexualizing them. Such an interpretation says far more about the adults and the perspectives they’re applying to books than it does about the books or their intended audiences.
Following this week’s State of the Union Address, House Republicans worked quickly to advance legislation to ban books from public schools nationwide. House Resolution 7661 (H.R. 7661), also known as the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” would modify the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 by prohibiting use of funds under the act “to develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to, children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material, and for other purposes.”
The bill was introduced by House Representative Mary Miller (Republican, Illinois). 17 additional Representatives cosigned it.
H.R. 7661 is an anti-trans bill, and tucked within its provisions are those that ban books for those under 18 that “include sexually oriented material.” This is the same vague language used in numerous states across the U.S. to ban books from public schools and public libraries. This bill includes “lewd” and “lascivious” dancing as prohibited topics or themes. No such books for young readers exist, but facts don’t matter to a regime seeking total and complete control.
The bill goes on to further define “sexually oriented material” as anything broaching the topics of “gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” The latter is an intentionally harmful word used as a cudgel to harm trans people. Such a broad definition also ensures that this kind of bill could be applicable in any situation where it would benefit the banners. It isn’t a stretch to see a bill like this used to outright ban all books by or about LGBTQ+ people under the guise of it being “sexually oriented.”
Though this legislation would apply to institutions using funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, there’s little question that it would expand to include all public libraries, not just those in public schools. We’ve already seen this very thing play out across the country.
Katy Independent School District (TX) banned any books about “gender fluidity” among its bans of “sexually explicit materials.” Just last month, the Texas school district outside Houston banned over 140 LGBTQ+ books under the policy. Greenville Public Library (SC) has banned all books for those under 18 with “trans” themes or topics, a ban later replicated and expanded in York County Library to include “gender identity” books (also in South Carolina). Greenville’s library was sued by the state’s chapter of the ACLU on behalf of several library patrons.
These local-level policies, alongside state-level policies like Iowa’s Senate File 496 and Idaho’s House Bill 710–both still working their way through numerous lawsuits–provided the roadmap for the proposal of federal-level book ban legislation. It was only a matter of time, and the ongoing onslaught of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric that has grown exponentially under the Trump-Vance regime made this the prime moment.
Discussion of gender is not sexualization. Making books available to students that represent the diversity of their experiences and showcase the numerous ways to be a person in the world is not sexualizing them. Such an interpretation says far more about the adults and the perspectives they’re applying to books than it does about the books or their intended audiences.
You can read the full text of H.R. 7661 here, including its list of cosponsors. Right now, your best way to have your voice heard about this hateful and discriminatory bill is to call your House representatives and urge them to veto this bill at every opportunity. There are years’ worth of resources from which you can pull about where and how all of these bills are calculated and targeted, and you can pull from the numerous ongoing lawsuits challenging similar bills and policies at the local and state level. Let your lawmakers know that you’re watching them and their voting records, especially if they’re among the roster of those proposing the legislation.
These bills aren’t about removing books; books are just one of the tools. These bills are about the complete and total erasure and removal of queer people from American life.
Scottie's Playtime 