It sounds like one very bigoted man used his position to continue the fundamentalist Christian rights goal of wiping the LGBTQIA from the public view and society. Remove move us, a genocide of a group of people they don’t like. Deny the LGBTQIA their rights all people should have and that the fundamentalist straight cis Christians insisted they alone should have. Plus by claiming it was blocked because of the threats of violence from the very groups doing the enforcement work of the very bigotry he and his kind push he was supporting that terrorism against the LGBTQIA. Plus in his message he says the real reason he wants the pride people excluded. He doesn’t want sexual indentation or sexual orientation to be promoted. In other words, just keep that shit to yourself in the privacy of your home, something no one ever has said to straight cis people flaunting their sexual orientation or affections via holding hands or kissing in public. In fact the religious groups love to publically push straight couples getting married. Hugs
A local LGBTQ pride group was excluded from a southwest Iowa town’s Labor Day parade, apparently by the city’s mayor, who cited safety concerns. Shenandoah Pride planned to have a small group walking with a banner and a drag performer riding in a convertible, with candy, popsicles and stickers to hand out in the parade in Essex, Iowa, said Jessa Bears, a founding member of the group.
Essex Mayor Calvin Kinney spearheaded the decision, with no motions or city council vote. Council Member Heather Thornton, who disagreed with the move, said “it was the mayor himself,” and added she was told he had the authority and didn’t need a council vote. Kinney did not immediately respond to an email from the AP regarding the decision. The AP’s phone calls to City Attorney Mahlon Sorensen went unanswered.
The ACLU of Iowa sent the city attorney a letter Saturday urging the city to let the group participate. The letter included a Thursday email from the mayor that cited safety of the public and parade participants in not allowing “parade participants geared toward the promotion of, or opposition to, the politically charged topic of gender and/or sexual identification/orientation.” Thornton said she knew of no threats.
A local LGBTQ pride group was excluded from a southwest Iowa town's Labor Day parade, apparently by the city's mayor, who cited safety concerns. https://t.co/S8VpLQu0QE
Women and children should be excluded from the march out of safety concern. They may incite rapists to rape. /s This is the sign of a spineless politican who has no place in holding any office.
Under those conditions, anyone who participates in the parade is geared toward the opposition of LGBT rights. Because, anyone who supports LGBT inclusion could not participate in such a parade.
LGBT people existing in public is now “Politically-charged?” Uh, no, we’re *under attack* The ‘opposition’ to us existing in public are the only ones with the problem in the first place, and it doesn’t help when they can force towns to silently comply with the Christofasccist Right.
They will not stop, they believe they are on a moral crusade for their god. Even though the bible they are said to worship supports abortion and clearly claims that a child doesn’t have a soul until it draws breath. But hey why read the book when you can listen to preachers and right wing politicians shout at you that it is murder to abort a fetus even if it will kill the person it is using as a host to grow. The march by the Christian nationalist minority is in full swing and rushing forward at double time to take over the country for their god. Making the US a theocracy where church doctrine is supported by morality police / vice squads. A Christian Taliban of gang thugs like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other white supremacist thugs. They intend to do to the rights of the LGBTQIA to exist publicly in society and get the medical treatment they need, as they are doing to the rights of pregnant people of their own medical decisions or control over their own bodies. These people see the fictional story / TV series The Handmaidens Tale as a guild, not a warning. Hugs
A new ordinance, passed in several jurisdictions and under consideration elsewhere, aims to stop people from using local roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion
A crowd spills into a hallway during a city council meeting in Llano, Tex., when members voted on whether to further limit abortion access. (Christopher Lee/for The Washington Post)
LLANO, Tex. — No one could remember the last time so many people packed into City Hall.
As the meeting began on a late August evening, residents spilled out into the hallway, the brim of one cowboy hat kissing the next, each person jostling for a look at the five city council members who would decide whether to make Llano the third city in Texas to outlaw what some antiabortion activists call “abortion trafficking.”
For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city had a responsibility to “fight the murders.”
The cheers after each speech grew louder as the crowd readied for the vote. Then one woman on the council spoke up.
“I feel like there’s a lot more to discuss about this,” said Laura Almond, a staunch conservative who owns a consignment shop in the middle of town. “I have a ton of questions.”
Council member Laura Almond questions the proposed ordinance and recommends it be tabled due to the vague and potentially far-reaching language. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
More than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, many conservatives have grown frustrated by the number of people able to circumvent antiabortion laws — with some advocates grasping for even stricter measures they hope will fully eradicate abortion nationwide.
That frustration is driving a new strategy in heavily conservative cities and counties across Texas. Designed by the architects of the state’s “heartbeat” ban that took effect months before Roe fell, ordinances like the one proposed in Llano — where some 80 percent of voters in the county backed President Donald Trump in 2020 — make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on roads within the city or county limits. The laws allow any private citizen to sue a person or organization they suspect of violating the ordinance.
Antiabortion advocates behind the measure are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports,with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state. These provisions have already passed in two counties and two cities, creating legal risk for those traveling on major highways including Interstate 20 and Route 84, which head toward New Mexico, where abortion remains legal and new clinics have opened to accommodate Texas women. Several more jurisdictions are expected to vote on the measure in the coming weeks.
“This really is building a wall to stop abortion trafficking,” said Mark Lee Dickson, the antiabortion activist behind the effort.
Texas counties and highways targeted by antiabortion ordinances
A new wave of proposals would make it illegal for anyone to use certain roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion.
Conservative lawmakers started exploring ways to block interstate abortion travel long before Roe was overturned. A Missouri legislator introduced a law in early 2022 that would have allowed any private citizen to sue anyone who helped a Missouri resident secure an abortion, regardless of where the abortion occurred — an approach later discussed at length by several national antiabortion groups. In April, Idaho became the first state to impose criminal penalties on anyone who helps a minor leave the state for an abortion without parental consent.
But even in the most conservative corners of Texas, efforts to crack down on abortion travel are meeting some resistance — with some local officials, even those deeply supportive of Texas’s strict abortion laws, expressing concern that the “trafficking” efforts go too far and could harm their communities.
The pushback reflects a new point of tension in the post-Roe debate among antiabortion advocates over how aggressively to restrict the procedure, with some Republicans in other states fearing a backlash from voters who support abortion rights. In small-town Texas, the concerns are more practical than political.
Two weeks before the Llano vote, lawmakers in Chandler, Tex., held off passing the ordinance, citing concerns about legal ramifications for the town and how the measure might conflict with existing Texas laws.
“I believe we’re making a mistake if we do this,” said Chandler council member Janeice Lunsford, minutes before she and her colleagues agreed to push the vote to another time. She later told The Washington Post that she felt the state’s abortion ban already did enough to stop abortions in Texas.
Then came the Llano City Council meeting on Aug. 21. Speaking to the crowd, Almond was careful to emphasize her antiabortion beliefs.
“I hate abortion,” she said. “I’m a Jesus lover like all of you in here.”
Still, she said, she couldn’t help thinking about the time in college when she picked up a friend from an abortion clinic — and how someone might have tried to punish her under this law.
“It’s overreaching,” she said. “We’re talking about people here.”
***
A Confederate statue sits in the middle of Llano, Tex., a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
About a month earlier, Dickson had arrived in Llano with an urgent warning.
A “baby murdering cartel” was coming for the pregnant women of Central Texas, he recalled telling a group of about 25 Llano citizens in the town library, wearing his signature black blazer and backward baseball cap.
“By trains, planes and automobiles, I say we end abortion trafficking in the state of Texas,” he said.
Dickson brought along a laminated map of his state, black and red Sharpie marking each of the 51 jurisdictions across Texas that had passed ordinances to become what he calls a “sanctuary city for the unborn.”
He hoped Llano would be next.
A director of Right to Life of East Texas, Dickson joined forces with former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell in 2019, when abortion was still legal in Texas until 22 weeks of pregnancy. Together, the men set out to ban abortion city by city, focusing on conservative strongholds. The Texas ordinances relied on the novel enforcement mechanism that empowers private citizens to sue, creating the model for the statewide “heartbeat ban” that took effect exactly two years ago, on Sept. 1, 2021.
Since Roe fell, triggering a new ban that outlawed almost all abortions in Texas, Dickson and Mitchell have changed their strategy. Along with passing ordinances in conservative border towns in Democrat-led states, where abortion providers may look to open new clinics, the team has zeroed in on those helping women leave Texas for abortions — a practice they call “abortion trafficking.”
Mark Lee Dickson hosts a luncheon with local activists and pastors in Llano, Tex. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
Mark Lee Dickson displays a map of locations that have adopted the ordinance that he proposed, which makes it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on any road within the city or county limits. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
By Dickson’s definition, “abortion trafficking” is the act of helping any pregnant woman cross state lines to end her pregnancy, lending her a ride, funding, or another form of support. While the term “trafficking” typically refers to people who are forced, tricked or coerced, Dickson’s definition applies to all people seeking abortions — because, he argues, “the unborn child is always taken against their will.”
The law — which has the public backing of 20 Texas state legislators — is designed to go after abortion funds, organizations that give financial assistance to people seeking abortions, as well as individuals. For example, Dickson said, a husband who doesn’t want his wife to get an abortion could threaten to sue the friend who offers to drive her. Under the ordinance, the woman seeking the abortion would be exempt from any punishment.
Abortion rights advocates say the ordinance effort is merely a ploy to scare people out of seeking the procedure. To date, no one has been sued under the existing “abortion trafficking” laws.
“The purpose of these laws is not to meaningfully enforce them,” said Neesha Davé, executive director of the Lilith Fund, an abortion fund based in Texas. “It’s the fear that’s the point. It’s the confusion that’s the point.”
While these restrictions appear to violate the U.S. Constitution — which protects a person’s right to travel — they are extremely difficult to challenge in court, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis who focuses on abortion. Because the laws can be enforced by any private citizen, abortion rights groups have no clear government official to sue in a case seeking to block the law.
“Mitchell and Dickson are not necessarily conceding that what they’re doing is unconstitutional, but they’re making it very hard for anyone to do anything about it,” Ziegler said.
Mitchell declined to comment for this story.
Bonnie Wallace prays at a luncheon hosted by Mark Lee Dickson. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
Local activists and pastors attend the luncheon in Llano, Tex. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
Asked about the constitutionality of his ordinances, Dickson cites the Mann Act, a federal law from 1910 that makes it illegal to transport “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” If the Mann Act is constitutional, he says, so is this.
Llano was a particularly attractive target, Dickson said, because the town sits at the crossroads of several highways. Travelers driving west toward New Mexico from Austin, for example, would likely take Highway 29 or 71 — both of which pass through Llano.
Key roads out of Llano
A proposed ordinance would make it illegal for anyone to use certain roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion.
When Dickson first came to town to drum up interest for his ordinance, Councilwoman Almond was well aware of his endeavors. She’d seen his flier, advertising “the effort to protect Llano residents from abortion across state lines.” Then a friend reached out to ask if Almond and her husband would sit down with Dickson for a meeting.
“I’ve got a lot going on in my life,” Almond said she told her friend. “And right now, that’s just not where my energy is.”
Almond says she was thankful when Roe was overturned. A 57-year-old former elementary school teacher, she voted twice for Trump, and says she plans to vote for him again. Her friends call her a “pistol-packing mama.” Every time she gets a text message, her phone spits out the sound of two gunshots.
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But Almond — who wears flower earrings and glittery orange nail polish — is also known as a bit of a city council wild card. At her consignment store, “Possibilities,” she employs an eclectic staffwhose beliefs span the political spectrum. Her store manager is one of the only married, openly gay men in town — and if anyone has a problem with him, Almond says, they’d better hope she doesn’t hear about it.
Almond had Llano’s community of “cowboys and hippies” in mind when she chose her store’s slogan: “Where you meet awesome people and the possibilities are endless.”
Llano — just beyond the radius of Hill Country most trodden by Austin weekenders — is known as a deer and dove hunting destination, peppered with taxidermy studios and wild game processors. Every April, residents come together to cook roughly 25,000 pounds of crawfish for a festival that draws people from all across Texas.
For antiabortion activist Mark Lee Dickson, Llano was a particularly attractive target for his proposed ordinance because the town sits at the crossroads of several highways. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
The town recently made national news as ground zero for another cultural flash point when its library removed several books from its shelves, including some that focused on sex, race and LGBTQ+ issues.
“People get along pretty well here until we have dividing issues like the library — and now this,” Almond said.
Since she heard about the proposed ordinance, Almond said, she’d been wondering whether Llano really needed to further restrict abortion. She worried the term “abortion trafficking” was confusing, creating the impression that many women were being forced to get abortions across state lines against their will.
“It sounds like more of a slave situation,” she said.
It was not clear if some of the proposed ordinance’s most ardent proponents in Llano understood what it would do, with several mischaracterizing the measure during interviews with The Post.
While the language of the draft ordinance explicitly states that it would apply to people transporting “any individual for the purpose of providing or obtaining an elective abortion,” the mayor, Marion Bishop, said the term “abortion trafficking” did not apply to women who were choosing to get abortions “on their own free volition.”
“It would be people who were either coerced or undecided, who found themselves loaded onto a van and headed somewhere,” Bishop said in an interview at the vodka distillery he owns downtown.
Pressed on the contradiction between his statement and the language of the proposal, Bishop acknowledged that what he originally said “may not be totally accurate.”
Still, he said, he continues to support the ordinance, which he views as largely symbolic.
“Is it absolutely necessary? No,” Bishop said. “Does it make a statement? Yes it does.”
The morning of the council meeting, Almond decided to cancel her plans so she could fully consider the implications of the ordinance that would outlaw “abortion trafficking” in her town.
She stillwasn’t totally surehow she would vote.
With seven hours to go before the meeting, she pulled out a printed copy of the 16-page proposal. Then she sat down at her kitchen table, pen in hand, and began to read.
***
Many Llano residents approached the podium at the city council meeting to speak out against abortion. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
The meeting was packed, with people spilling into the hallway or taking a seat on the floor. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
The whispers in the back of city hall grew louder as the crowd realized that Almond would not be voting as they had expected.
“Laura can’t do this by herself,” said an advocate for the ordinance, leaning over to the other people in her row. “She needs someone to second. There’s still a chance.”
Then the other woman on the council, Kara Gilliland, chimed in with her own hesitations.
“I’m not for abortions and that’s my personal belief,” Gilliland said. “But I cannot sit up here knowing that there are 3,400 other citizens in this town who don’t have the same belief necessarily as I do.”
Four of the five members of the Llano City Council voted to table the ordinance for another time.
“You can be mad at me if you want to,” Almond said to her town. “But I’ve got to sleep with myself at night.”
Mark Lee Dickson watches as a Llano resident who objects to the proposed ordinance speaks ahead of the vote. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
Llano residents attend the city council meeting. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
Combing through the ordinance that morning, Almond said in an interview, she scribbled furious notes in the margins, trying to identify every potential issue. She feared the law’s civil enforcement mechanism would turn members of the Llano community against each other. While she’d supported the implementation of the Texas “heartbeat ban,” which relied on the same provision, she said she hadn’t given much thought to how that could pit neighbor against neighbor.
Now it was her job to “peel the layers” — and she didn’t like where the law could lead.
As the city council moved on to other matters, Dickson ushered the angry crowd out to the porch.
The ordinance was tabled, he reminded his audience — not dead. The city would have another opportunity to consider the proposal as soon as early September.
“Is this the city council of Austin or is this the city council of conservative Llano?” Dickson said. “This is far from over. … Show up at their businesses with some signs.”
“I know where Laura works,” offered the wife of a local pastor.
Dickson recalled what happened in Odessa, a far larger city in West Texas that failed to advance an earlier version of a “sanctuary city” ordinance several years earlier. With help from antiabortion residents, he said to the group, some of the council members who opposed the measure were ultimately voted out of office.
“Now Odessa has a 6-1 majority that is in favor of this,” Dickson said.
Odessa passed the ordinance in December.
***
Mark Lee Dickson speaks with Llano residents after the city council meeting. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
The next night, Dickson drove 40 minutes to Mason, Tex. to try to convince another small, conservative community to pass the same law.
More than 20 people gathered around plates of pizza and pasta at a restaurant that doubles as a gun store. In the window, next to a sign for “fresh oysters,” someone had painted the message, “Let’s go, Brandon,” an insult aimed at President Biden. On one wall of the restaurant is a confederate flag taller than Dickson; above the bar, a flag for “Trump 2020.”
Dickson chose this location for his next meeting, inviting local pastors and other antiabortion advocates in the area to hear a version of the same speech he delivered a month earlier in Llano.
“Guys, I don’t care if there’s only one person on your city council who wants to pass this,” Dickson said. “If you have a personal relationship with a council member, reach out.”
Mason residents smiled and nodded, digging through their purses for pens to write down Dickson’s email.
Less than 24 hours later, the “abortion trafficking” ordinance was added to the official agenda for the Mason board of county commissioners.
They would take up the matter at their next meeting.
Highway 71 passes through Llano and connects travelers driving west toward New Mexico. (Christopher Lee for The Washington Post)
A growing network of foreign organisations are pouring hundreds of millions of euros into “culture war” groups campaigning to roll back LGBTQ+ rights across Europe, European lawmakers have warned.
In a resolution published earlier this month, the European Parliament raised the alarm about foreign interference in all democratic processes in Europe,pointing out that most of the foreign funding originates from Russia and the US.
This foreign interference, coupled with disinformation and numerous attacks perpetrated by malicious foreign actors, is predicted to increase in the lead-up to the European Parliament elections in 2024, becoming more sophisticated in nature.
MEPs flagged that at least 50 organisations now fund anti-gender activities — opposing what they call gender ideology.
“Europe is seeing a growing number of anti-gender movements, specifically targeting sexual and reproductive health, women’s rights and LGBTIQ+ people,” the EU parliamentary report read.
“Such movements proliferate disinformation in order to reverse progress in women’s rights and gender equality. These movements have been reported to receive millions of euros in foreign funding, either public or private, including from Russia and the US.”
Funding and modus operandi
The strategies employed by these foreign actors have evolved over time, due to increasing funding and intensifying disinformation campaigns, human rights observers have warned.
Members of the US far-right and the Russian Orthodox Church, two major players of the anti-gender movement, have joined forces to ramp up funding to Europe-based ultra-traditionalist actors with a specific focus on targeting LGBTQ+ rights, according to sources who agreed to speak to Euronews on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Over the past decade, key Christian right organisations, usually funded by private individuals linked to far-right and libertarian causes in the US, and Russian oligarchs have established a network of agencies set up in human rights institutions across Europe to carry out anti-gender diplomacy and infiltrate positions of power in member states.
Other tactics include abusive lawsuits intended to suppress, intimidate and silence critics (SLAPPS), money and reputational laundering, physical harassment, sending paid fight squads to LGBTQ+ marches or drag stores, hacking journalists’ devices with the Pegasus software and using troll farms spreading disinformation against LGBTQ+ activists.
And the movement is gaining momentum with more organisations from other countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Vatican City, closing ranks in their anti-LGBTQ+ lobbying and funding.
Their usual targets include minorities in unstable countries where they can exploit polarisation to radicalise the political debate and fuel violence, sources said.
Undermining the case for EU membership
Georgia’s gay pride festival on 8 July is the latest LGBTQ+ event to have fallen victim to foreign interference.
A mob of up to 2,000 anti-LGBTQ+ protestersfrom the Russian-affiliated group Alt Info, stormed Tbilisi’s festival in an attack described by Pride’s director Mariam Kvaratskhelia as “pre-planned”.
“I definitely think this [disruption] was a pre-planned, coordinated action between the government and the radical groups … We think this operation was planned in order to sabotage the EU candidacy of Georgia,” she told Reuters.
Members of Alt-Info, an ultra-conservative TV broadcaster with close ties to the Georgian Orthodox Church, had already disrupted Tbilisi Pride in 2021. Since its foundation as a conservative media platform in 2019, the group has tried to expand its political influence by creating an alternative party to both the governing Georgian Dream and opposition United National Movement. Among its stated goals is pursuing closer relations with Russia.
The former Soviet republic’s path to EU candidacy has been slowed by deeply polarised politics and the excessive influence of vested interests in economic, political and public life, alongside its territorial dispute with Russia in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.
And the cancellation of its Pride festival could deal yet another blow to its EU aspiration.
Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, condemned the “violent disruptions”, saying “anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric, disinformation and violence have no place in these debates”. The counter-protests represented a violation to the EU’s freedom of expression and right to peaceful assembly, the EU Ambassador for Gender & Diversity tweeted.
Divide and conquer
The same tension has broken out across Western Balkan countries where leaders have struggled to walk a fine identity and political line between anti-LGBTQ+ religious nationalist movements and pro-LGBTQ+ Europeanising public opinion.
While these countries generally have high levels of political and public support for joining the EU, their progress towards membership has stagnated over the past decade.
Religious nationalism has posed a significant challenge, as leaders from the Serbian Orthodox church, the Catholic church, and Islamic authorities have rallied behind their targeting of LGBTQ+ rights and formed coalitions with conservative political parties.
In recent years, anti-LGBTQ+ actions have turned more violent, with physical assaults by ultranationalist protesters on attendees of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pride in March of this year, the Belgrade Pride in 2022 and the Zagreb Pride in 2021.
The controversy surrounding a veto that would have recognised same-sex unions in Serbia in 2021 is just another example of the growing conservative backlash against LGBTQ+ rights taking hold in Western Balkan countries.
‘The tip of the iceberg’
Yet, this trend is not unique to Western Balkan countries.
In 2021, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) unearthed more than $707.2 million (€600 million) worth of anti-gender funding from the United States, the Russian Federation, and Europe, specifically targeting LGBTQ+ rights across Europe between 2009 and 2018.
The wide-ranging report, which examined 117 anti-gender funding actors active in Europe, insisted the findings were only the “tip of the iceberg” as half of them — 63 — had no existing financial data.
“Of course there are enormous data gaps that cannot be filled at the moment, so $700 million is really the tip of the iceberg of how big this anti-gender movement is,” said EPF’s secretary Neil Datta.
According to Evelyne Paradis, executive director of ILGA-Europe, the anti-gender movement’s efforts to further polarise public discourse is dragging pro-democracy governments into fuelling prejudice and hatred towards LGBTQ+ people.
“The practice of scapegoating LGBTQ+ people is starting to be instrumentalised by both the pro-democracy and the anti-democracy sides. If you make it a marker of how good you are, then you’re creating this divide,” she told Euronews.
“This [growing polarisation] is not helping what should be a healthier, calmer conversation. What’s happening at the moment is the complete opposite.”
Instead, Paradis said pro-democracy governments need to move forward with their progressive agenda and steer clear of the perverse effects of foreign-funded polarisation.
“We’re all in reaction mode and it’s very hard to resist and be in a pro-active mode. Governments need to pass through the anti-gender movement’s negative agenda and keep on pushing our positive agenda. That’s where the strategy of the opposition is working – it’s really pushing everybody in the reactive mode.”
Texas doctors fear a new era of government intrusion into medicine as lawmakers ban transition care for kids following prohibitions on abortion.
By William Melhado,The Texas TribuneJuly 17, 2023
People gather in front of the Texas Capitol during a protest against bills limiting transgender kids’ access to puberty blockers and hormone treatments in March.
Lauren Witte/The Texas Tribune
At least once a day Dr. Ximena Lopez sees a parent crying in her clinic. They’re crying because Lopez just told them they need to find a new way to get transition-related care for their children — by leaving Texas or sourcing treatments outside the state — because the state outlawed these treatments for trans youth.
After a yearslong barrage by activists and lawmakers, the state has won the battle against the use of transition-related care, like puberty blockers and hormone therapies, for transgender youth. While the war over this health care remains in question — and a legal fight to block the new law begins in Texas — clinics have closed and some doctors have stopped providing this care.
“The reason why I’m leaving Texas is that it’s unbearable for me,” Lopez said. “It’s so devastating that I just can’t bear living in a state where I feel oppressed and where I’m just seeing my patients suffer.”
Lopez formerly provided gender-affirming care to trans youth as the director of the GENder Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program, which was jointly run by the Children’s Medical Center and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. By the end of July, she’ll no longer practice at the Dallas hospital and plans to move out of Texas.
In light of the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for kids, The Texas Tribune spoke with over half a dozen doctors who practice this type of medicine about the fear of losing their jobs, scaring away medical providers from working in Texas and — most importantly — revoking this critical health care for transgender children.
From state-launched investigations into the families of trans youth, to threats of actual violence, doctors are fearful to speak out against the attacks on transgender health care. Physicians raised concerns that the state is driving physicians away from Texas and inadequately training the next generation of medical professionals.
Many said Texas was treading into a new era of medicine — marked by restrictions to gender-affirming care and reproductive health care — one in which the government tells doctors how and who they can treat.
Many doctors the Tribune spoke with declined to share their names for fear of harassment. Some likened the conversations with parents informing them that they can no longer provide this type of care to their children to cancer diagnoses or impending hospice care.
Medical providers say this type of care is lifesaving for transgender youth who face higher rates of suicide attempts and mental health problems than their cisgender peers. One in five trans and nonbinary young people attempted suicide in the past year, according to a 2023 survey conducted by The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization that focuses on LGBTQ+ youth.
Last month Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that restricts transgender youth from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapy, two treatments used to address gender dysphoria, the medical term for the distress someone experiences when their gender identity doesn’t match their body.
“In Texas we must protect children from making permanent, life-altering decisions before they have the mental capacity to do so, and Senate Bill 14 does just that,” Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said in a statement to the Tribune. Medical providers say puberty blockers are reversible and hormone therapy is partially reversible.
Mahaleris pointed to a recent survey from the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation that found a majority of the Americans surveyed oppose the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat transgender youth.
Senate Bill 14 was the forerunner in a broad swath of bills, aimed at reshaping the lives of LGBTQ+ Texans, that lawmakers pushed through this legislative session. Republican politicians also passed restrictions on drag shows and transgender athletes this session, but the implications of SB 14 are long reaching and profoundly affecting the lives of Texas families, said doctors who practice gender-affirming medicine. Families of trans youth have already fled Texas, but those who remain in the state must grapple with the consequences of losing health care access.
In recent months, many patients — including adults — have lost access to care as providers have left the state, a spokesperson for Texas Health Action, a nonprofit health care provider with clinics in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, told the Tribune.
Dr. Anita Vasudevan, a primary care physician from Texas who chose to continue practicing in California instead of returning to her home state because of the ban on gender-affirming care and abortion, said the loss of Lopez and the GENECIS program highlights the issue of specialized providers leaving the state. This translates to missed learning opportunities for medical professionals in training, which will result in worse care for patients, she said.
“We’re building a generation of providers that just, unfortunately, won’t receive the level of training that they need in order to take care of patients in the ways that they need to be taken care of,” Vasudevan told the Tribune. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.”
An onslaught of interventions
For children already receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapy under the guidance of their medical team, SB 14 taking effect presents a daunting transition.
Lawmakers decided doctors must “wean” their patients under 18 of these treatments “in a manner that is safe and medically appropriate.”
But doctors who administer gender-affirming medical treatments say there is no such thing.
“This is comparable to asking a medical professional to wean a Type 1 diabetic off of their insulin — you would never do that,” Brett Cooper, an adolescent medicine physician from Dallas, said in a statement to the Tribune.
Cooper said SB 14 prohibits medical professionals from providing evidence-based, best-practice care to their patients. Including evidence that supports the use of these treatments and the recommendations of major medical groups like the American Medical Association.
He added that, like the state’s ban on abortions, this legislation will make it more difficult to recruit medical professionals to do business in Texas.
“There has been a chilling effect of the Legislature getting involved in the doctor-patient relationship and attempting to prevent physicians from providing the evidence-based and medically necessary care to their patients,” Cooper said. “Physicians know best how to care for their patients, not the Legislature.”
Texas Republicans’ effort to regulate the lives of transgender youth started long before Abbott signed SB 14 in June. Six years ago, the Legislature unsuccessfully tried to pass a bill requiring transgender people to use restrooms in public schools and governmental buildings that aligned with their sex assigned at birth.
In the years since, Republicans in the state have mounted a multipronged attack on gender-affirming care, in part, because issues like restrictions to medical care for LGBTQ+ people and drag shows had strong support from Republican voters.
In 2021, after the Legislature failed to restrict gender-affirming care, activists turned their attention to Lopez’s GENECIS program, targeting hospital board members and accusing the program of committing child abuse. Shortly after Children’s Health quietly closed the clinic, which was jointly run by UT Southwestern, Lopez was prompted to sue the hospital for shutting down operations to new patients.
The following year, Abbott directed the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents providing this type of care to their trans children for child abuse, terrifying families that they might be separated from one another.
More recently, suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton launched investigations against both Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston and Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas for providing this type of care — even before SB 14 became law. Doctors working at Dell Children’s parted ways with the hospital after Paxton’s announcement, which left patients and their families scrambling to find specialty care, some of the needed treatments were unrelated to the gender-affirming treatments the state targeted.
Other states that have passed laws forbidding trans youth from taking puberty blockers and hormone therapy have encountered legal challenges. In Arkansas, a similar restriction to gender-affirming care was struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that it violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender children and families. Legal groups in Texas have already committed to challenging SB 14.
Despite the rebukes of these laws in the courts across the country, the quiet closures of clinics and doctor departures in Texas have left medical professionals feeling alone in the fight for their patients’ best interests. Evidence shows access to gender-affirming care for young people improves the mental health of trans minors. Doctors said hospitals facilitating this type of health care are aware of its benefits, but are fearful of pushback from politicians.
“Many hospitals in these states, like Texas, I think are against these politicians and extremists and legislators, [but] they’re afraid of financial risks, they’re afraid of retaliation and they’re taking the easy way out which is to abandon their doctors and their patients and just subdue to this political pressure,” Lopez said.
Her employer, UT Southwestern, did not return requests for comment for this story.
While large hospital systems are not the only providers who treat trans youth, advocates say it’s evident that a chilling effect has reached physicians who prescribe gender-affirming care across the state.
In San Antonio, a city of nearly 1.5 million, only one doctor was administering gender-affirming care to trans youth in recent years, said Andrea Segovia, senior field and policy adviser for the Transgender Education Network of Texas. But after Abbott leveraged DFPS to investigate Texas families, the provider stopped providing these treatments, Segovia said.
She’s watched the number of providers who care for trans patients shrink. She said parents of trans youth are struggling to find pediatricians for their trans kids even for non-gender affirming care purposes, like routine vaccinations and physicals.
“People are being treated like they have a scarlet letter,” Segovia said.
De facto elimination of care
Prior to his graduation from UT Southwestern Medical School this spring, Antonio García was deliberating where to pursue his residency training in family medicine.
He could stay in Texas, where he grew up and his family lives, by leveraging his existing geographic connections to ”match” into a residency — a competitive process in which medical students are placed at specialized programs in hospitals or clinics for further medical training after graduating.
During medical school, García worked with providers in the GENECIS program, including Lopez, where he saw the positive impact the clinic had on patients and their families. He wanted to continue doing that important work, by providing gender-affirming care to trans people.
To do that García has decided to leave Texas.
“I also saw that as an opportunity to leave all of this behind and go somewhere where I knew that I was going to be able to get gender-affirming-care training, where I was going to be able to live my life openly, freely and not have to have all of these kind of concerns,” García told the Tribune. As a gay man, García said the state’s increasing hostility to the LGBTQ+ community prompted his decision to leave Texas.
Seeing the backlash against individual providers and clinics has been devastating, García said. Noting Lopez’s departure, he said the animosity toward medical professionals and trans people is driving doctors away.
“[The doctors are] doing the right thing for these families, for these kids, and seeing that work be stifled and impeded has been just really unfortunate,” he said.
One area of particular concern, doctors said, is the worsening of an existing pediatric specialists shortage. In Texas, an estimated 17.4% of children have special health care needs that require attention from specialized pediatricians, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. These shortages mean patients have to travel longer distances and wait for weeks or months to see subspecialists, which can result in delaying or forgoing treatment.
Lauren Wilson, a pediatric hospitalist and the president of the AAP Montana chapter, partially attributes this shortage of doctors for children to the disparity in pay between adult and pediatric specialists. According to a 2023 compensation report from the healthcare-related companies Doximity and Curative, endocrinologists make nearly $60,000 more annually than their pediatric specialist peers, who undergo commensurate levels of training.
Shortages in this speciality — pediatric endocrinology — is of particular concern to Wilson because these doctors treat a wide range of children. This area of medicine deals with hormones and associated issues and mostly treats children with diabetes or growth problems. But these physicians also often specialize in gender-affirming care treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapies for trans children (less specialized physicians can also administer gender-affirming care.)
Wilson said these laws targeting pediatric health care — which could criminalize medical practices not even related to gender-affirming care — are unprecedented. In April, Montana became one of 20 states to ban trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care. It’s also the state that barred a transgender lawmaker from the Montana House floor for violating “decorum” rules after she told colleagues that voted in favor of restricting gender-affirming care would have blood on their hands.
Wilson also noted the de facto elimination of care by targeting clinics, by state leaders and extremists, has forced hospitals to stop this care.
“We’re in a position as physicians where we want to do what’s best for our patients, we want to follow all relevant guidelines. But we also want to not go to jail or lose our license to practice medicine,” Wilson said.
The Tribune asked Abbott’s office about the prospect of Texas losing medical providers because of the new law.
“Passed by a bipartisan majority in the Texas Legislature, SB 14 ensures access to appropriate and medically necessary services, with parental or legal guardian’s consent. Endocrinology treatments and procedures that are not intended to change the biological sex of a minor are unaffected by this law,” Mahaleris, Abbott’s spokesperson, said.
It’s not clear how many doctors have left or will leave Texas in response to restrictions on gender-affirming treatments, but states that have enacted other health care restrictions offer some clues.
States with abortion bans saw a 10.5% decrease in applications for obstetrics and gynecology residencies in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Doctors, including Lopez, said they have already seen the effects with candidates deciding after the interview process not to accept positions in Texas “because of the politics.”
“Living in a medical dictatorship”
Treating gender dysphoria in Texas is not new. In 1965, the UT Medical Branch opened a gender clinic, providing treatment for hundreds of transgender people in the decades that followed.
Most major hospitals in Texas have been providing this type of care for over a decade. It only became widely controversial after lawmakers sought to criminalize doctors for providing this care, Lopez said.
Doctors lamented the spread of misinformation by lawmakers advocating against gender-affirming care during the most recent legislative session. Experts say this has further contributed to distrust between the public and the medical community, which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic because of vaccine misinformation.
Hospitals across the country, including Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. and Boston Children’s Hospital, have received bomb threats and violent messages after far-right harassment campaigns falsely accused the hospitals of performing genital surgery on minors.
Doctors say while transition-related surgeries are rarely performed on people under the age of 18, these procedures were also banned by SB 14. Conservative activists have incorrectly cast gender-affirming care as irreversible “genital mutilation” in an effort to restrict access to these treatments.
Several doctors declined to share their names publicly, citing a fear that false allegations would be directed at them. Doctors suspect threats of violence and harassment are why some Texas hospitals targeted by far-right activists chose to quietly stop providing these medical treatments, instead of standing with patients and doctors.
“No one feels particularly safe,” said one doctor who spoke with the Tribune on the condition that their name would not be published.
Lawmakers who oppose this type of care feel emboldened, Lopez said.
“It’s just also, again, a dangerous precedent because if politicians can tell hospitals what to do, then they can do that for so many things,” she said. “And then where is the patient’s autonomy? Where’s the voice of science and medicine at that point?”
Doctors pointed to an example of a trial court in 2021 that ordered doctors to administer the drug ivermectin, commonly used to treat parasitic worms in horses, after a patient’s relative sued the Fort Worth hospital to compel physicians to administer it. The treatment gained notoriety as a false cure for COVID-19 in right-wing circles, including from then President Donald Trump. The 2nd Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision, but the attempt to supersede the doctor’s expertise was clear.
Doctors worry that the latest health care restriction for trans youth is a dangerous precedent with an uncertain future. While much of the attention around gender-affirming care was aimed at children, bills limiting this type of care for adults have also gained traction in the Texas Legislature.
“I can compare this with living in a medical dictatorship, in which you are told what treatment you can and can’t do,” Lopez said. “But it’s not based on reason. It’s based on whatever the person in power is saying is best.”
From the linked article in the above Joe.My.God. post. Remember, this is a Yale history grad, claiming that is OK to honor Confederate Generals that fought the US government to keep slavery because “But at the end of the day, you know, we had people that have done great things for this country,” DeSantis said.”
Despite the limited scope of the DoD’s renaming, the Governor likened taking Bragg’s name off the fort to moves to “take Abraham Lincoln off the statue down in Boston … take Teddy Roosevelt down in New York City” and “remove George Washington’s name from schools in San Francisco.”
“And that’s not, I think, what I want to see. I mean, I think you can look back at anybody and you could find flaws. But at the end of the day, you know, we had people that have done great things for this country,” DeSantis said.
“I’m not in a position to say that somehow I’m so much better than any of this. It’s a different time. People make mistakes. There’s different parts of our society, we look back and can say was a mistake. But this idea that we’re going to erase history, I just think, is fundamentally wrong, and we’re not going to do that.”
'I think you can look back at anybody and you could find flaws.'@RonDeSantis doubles down on restoration of 'iconic' Fort Bragg name
While we’re at it, let’s also create Fort Hirohito. Why not, he was the leader of a foreign nation that attacked the United States. Let’s run with this theme Governor Fucknutz.
“And here’s the thing, you know, you learn from history, you don’t erase the history” and yet history that makes students uncomfortable can’t be taught in schools…right
Trump’s an elderly sociopathic narcissist, he’s spent decades refining his charisma and reflexes to lie instantly, without hesitation and with complete believability.
Ronnie isn’t, even if he’s a sociopath himself, he’s just hungry for power and clout and tries constantly to copy Trump to try and steal his thunder and his followers. But he can never be as good a liar.
Wow, he first says the name of the military base did not cause him to learn any history at all, then claims keeping the name is vital to learning the history he was totally ignorant about until they removed the name of the incompetent traitorous slaver, demonstrating he is lying through his teeth. He must have experts help him prove himself a liar like that, I don’t think he’s clever enough to figure it out himself.
I guess he means we learn only from white history, not the black history he is censoring in the schools. That’s erasing history, asshole!! This guy is such a lying fucking hypocrite.
Watters wanted and got the Tucker spot at fox. To get it he has to appeal to the most right wing demographics sought after by media, and to win them he has to be full open racist and the most ardent supporter of the right wing conspiracies along with pushing the idea of Christian nationalism. Hugs
Jesse Watters on Monday went after Barack Obama for criticizing the disparity in media attention on the submersible that imploded during its venture to the Titanic wreck when compared to the sinking of a fishing boat that was carrying up to 750 refugees. https://t.co/kAYwlmOh0L
Watters, new host of Tucker’s 8pm slot, says of Obama: “This is a guy whose father has roots in Africa…Spent a lot of time in Hawaii. Was that the last state to get a star on the flag? He's never really looking at things from an American perspective.” pic.twitter.com/cXZ6xKD1JE
If man sees a kid playing in the street, then notice a car driving down the street, and he shrugs and says ‘free will’ and the car hits the kid, is that man a good person or a bad person?
Yet somehow Christians want to tell you that God is good, even though he allows bad things to happen. (And he could have just stopped it all by making Adam and Eve barren, or ending the world 4000 years ago.)
Ending one segment that knocks Pete Buttigieg for "prioritizing a far-left green agenda" only to tee up another segment about the "brutal temperatures" and "dangerous heat" in Texas. pic.twitter.com/ZRFYPKBbcP
Two workers died amid extremely high temperatures in Texas, a tragedy that's likely to exacerbate criticism of Gov. Abbott's water break ban. https://t.co/11ZeBlijYd
“We are flying electric helicopters on Mars, but we can’t use the dryer in Texas. This is because scientists are in charge of Mars and Republicans are in charge of Texas” ~Amy Martin #ERCOT#Texasgrid#VoteThemAllOut2022pic.twitter.com/uIW3c3cyHr
TWO MEN leaving a public restroom . Man#1 approaches Man#2 and says: “Excuse me sir but I noticed you didn’t wash your hands after using the urinal. I’m from Texas and in Texas we’re taught you should always wash your hands after using the restroom.” Man#2 replies: “Well I’m from California and in California we’re taught you should’nt pee all over yourself.”
I wish non-Dem Texans would learn to blame the GQP they vote in for the shitty state of their infrastructure but if the Ted Cruz fleeing for Cancun didn’t teach them shit . . .
This is really a non-issue because if the power goes out and people die, nobody can sue the power company because the Republican Texas Supreme Court just held that Republican-controlled ERCOT is immune from lawsuits. No liability = No Problem.
Strang previously appeared here when he declared that people who oppose Trump are possessed by demons and that voting against Trump is a vote for the “apocalypse.” Also, holograms and Trump’s impeachments? Both the work of Satan. We last heard from him when he appeared in a “documentary” with Dr. Demon Semen.
What’s happening lines up with God’s Word regarding what would happen in the end times before Jesus returns.
But that’s what you want, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you be happy? I mean, your imaginary friend is going to show everyone he’s not imaginary after all. That’s a good thing, right?
There was a book, “The Late Great Planet Earth” that was popular among the end times folks. “The last days are nigh!” Published in 1970. 53 years ago. And even in the late 1800s, preachers were saying the end times were near.
They literally pray “Lord come quickly!” But then complain about all the “signs of the end times” as if that’s a bad thing. They should be working -toward- the ‘one world government” and a global currency and world peace and “the mark of the beast” because that’s what will bring the rapture. (Your eschatology may vary).
This is basically the attempt by white supremacists to prevent the natural decline of white majority / supremacy in the US. They are terrified over the demographics that shows the steady decline of the white majority and the increase in non-white people. It terrifies them because they fear being treated as they have treated POC all during the history of the US. They want to remain the unchallenged authority they have always been. This denies everything we understand about culture and human development, not to mention what the US has always stood for. We are better / stronger / improved the more we blend and add to our prior society. Hey if you treat others that are different from you decently, they will do the same to you. If you act like an asshole toward them, they might do the same back. The thing to understand is be a decent nice person to others. Remember race is a social construct. We are all humans. We may look different but we really are the same species. Do dogs or cats of different colors be racist against each other, and should they, as they are all dogs or cats. Hugs
LMAO this clown went to Harvard Law school and should know the Constitution a little better, particularly the 14th Amendment. But you needn't take my word for it. Birthright citizenship was defined and affirmed by the SCOTUS in 1898, in US v. Wong Kim Ark:https://t.co/OAYLAAteLy
— Deborah, who loves fashion & loathes fascists (@litbrit) June 26, 2023
Yes… and look which demographic he’s coddling. They’ll fall totally in line with him. Evangelicals always find the worst in humanity to align themselves with
I don’t do 1930s/40s comparisons lightly or often, but DeSantis could certainly be someone to take us down a similar road, just a 2020s version of it. He’s already taking actions in that vein — shipping human beings like cargo, book bannings, etc. I’m not suggesting it could be a literal Holocaust, but he will seriously and intentionally harm a lot of Americans (and more so, people wanting to become Americans) before he would be done. A lot of people would die.
Also, I’m not not saying he wouldn’t cause a literal Holocaust, either.
We will never stop fighting bigots like Ron DeSantis – they must be told repeatedly that LGBTQ Americans deserve ALL the rights due to them under our Constitution.#Pride2023https://t.co/oT6gpM9nPQ
— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) June 30, 2023
JackFknTwista day ago edited O/T : – At the risk of having only one tune, I don’t think it can be said often enough that in their doctrinaire zealotry the conservative Justices of the Supreme Court have betrayed their underlying hypocrisy. In their preening self-importance all they have exposed is their lack on any integrity, their enthusiasm to lie at any opportunity and their shallow semblance of probity. What we have on the US Supreme Court is a few liars, charlatans and those willing to prostitute themselves at the alter of the Federalist Society on the one hand and to rich ‘grooming’ billionaires on the other. Was there ever a Supreme Court so compromised?
Yes, 1937 or so. Towards the end of the “gilded age”, the SCOTUS was as virulently anti-decency as Alito and Thomas are now. FDR, then president, make a threat to “pack” (unfvck) the court and the court suddenly changed its tune on what the law was. Then the plan to fix the court fell apart.
There’s some suggestion that a similar thing may have happened between last term and this one with regard to KNAW, Roberts and Raspberry Baret. They have not gone along with the same degree of YOLO-ALITO that marked last year / the Dobbs Term.
They can’t win on real issues that matter to people so we’ll have lots of noise on wedge issues over the next year. Brown people invading, drag queen groomers and Susie has to call her teacher they/them at school.
DeSantis keeps trying to resurrect the infamous Jones commission – which attemped to erase homosexuality from all colleges and other schools throughout the state some 50 years ago, along with the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who tried it nationally. The only result was the ruining of the reputations and hopes of over 200 students and faculty in Florida. This is evil in its strongest form.
Most of this is Florida law, so US SCOTUS is largely irrelevant unless there is a conflict with Federal Law. The Florida SCOTUS is packed with bigots, in a large sense the fate of Florida rests in the hands of the appellate courts.
That’s gonna be the kicker. We already know the FLSC is packed with bigots. The appellate courts are either going to side with a dictator or with the republic that placed them in their robes.
I feel like this is part of the whole make shit up and get it to the current Supreme Court so they can declare god and church and money or whatever. Like the website bitch in Colorado and the made up gay client.
Win or lose, Tater will screech about how he’s “fighting for families* and against woke culture & a woke & woke judges.” Others will be smart enough to point out his losses or how vaguely worded his laws are, but at the end of the day, DePudding will declare himself “the great fighter for American values*”
* values & families don’t include individuals, friends or family of the LGBTQ, nonChristians, nor nonWhite racial groups. Additional exclusions not listed or implied are applicable by the tiny dictator
Ron DeSantis is the worst candidate I’ve ever seen. It’s like he’s been assembled from the discarded spare parts of Bobby Jindal, Bill deBlasio, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker. https://t.co/5f6UILNVPI
DeFascist can indeed get the country on a different path – Here’s what Ron DeFascist has accomplished – – LGBT students cannot discuss their personal lives with teachers or counselors, making them feel marginalized, alone, and possibly increasing their risks of suicide. Some parents with LGBT family members are moving out of the state. State ACLU currently suing to end this. – Universities are unsure what they can or cannot teach based on the whims of literally one man. GOP prefer students to be inculcated with cheap cheerleading America First nationalism (this shut down by a judge, results pending) – History teachers can’t teach about the truth of American racism and black history because it might upset white people – Some teachers are seeking employment in another state. – A school principal had to resign because one of her teachers showed students a picture of Michelangelo’s David. – A teacher is under investigation because she showed 13 year olds a Disney movie with a gay character. – Women who discover they’re pregnant after 6 weeks, and are unable to have a child, can’t get an abortion in Florida, even though there should be retroactive abortion, Don Jr. lives there – Property taxes and insurance costs are becoming unaffdable – Million dollar contracts are given to DeFascist’s donors – 87,141 people died of Covid in Florida. Less would have died had there been the slightest of protective measures taken, but DeFascist didn’t allow that. – Hispanic farm and construction workers are not going to work out of fear of DeFascist’s draconian rules to punish undocumented workers and their bosses. Hispanic truckers are refusing to deliver to the state. Farm products are rotting while remaining unpicked. – Students and companies who support diversity and inclusion are no longer allowed to do so. – Trans children can no longer get medical care, use bathroom of pronouns of their choice (this shut down by a judge, results pending) – a court could temporarily remove children from their homes if they receive gender-affirming care – LGBT people who seek medical care can be denied it if they’re unlucky enough to have a religious fanatic doctor. – Drag queens can be arrested for appearing in drag in public where children can see them. (this shut down by a judge, results pending) – Any idiot can buy a gun without a permit, training, or with or without a criminal record. – Disney, the state’s largest employer, is suing DeFascist because of politically motivated harassment after he started a fight with them because they don’t approve of his anti-LGBT laws. Disney cancelled a $1 billion construction project that would have brought the state over 2,000 jobs. – More to come. White retirees probably love him because he’s getting rid of the blacks, gays, immigrants and other assorted annoyances. DeSantis calls Florida “the freest state in America.” Actually you’re free to move here, retire and die.
A “standing order” that Trump has claimed authorized him to declassify documents removed from the Oval Office could not be found by either the Justice Department or Office of Director of National Intelligence https://t.co/wPbnrUTi8s
The Supreme Court has issued an interim order recognizing marriage rights for same-sex and non-traditional heterosexual couples! This landmark decision calls for amendments to the Civil Code — [1/2] pic.twitter.com/hlW7MRvqHB
Fantastic news! The world is evolving, but sadly the GQP and TFG will do everything in their power to stop equality in this country from becoming pernanent and legal. I’m sure TFG is probalby labelling Nepal as one of those shit hole countries he doesn’t like.
Apparently, our evangelical and assorted radical Christian groups, who hate us with the love of God, didn’t know where Nepal is or didn’t know such a country existed. I’ll bet they’re boning up on their geography now.
The San Diego Union-Tribunereports: Two protesters offended by a Pride exhibit at the Rancho Peñasquitos Library have checked out nearly all the books in the display and vowed to keep them until the library eliminates what they call “inappropriate content” for children. The anti-gay protest is the latest example of a growing national backlash against Pride exhibits, which experts say has been fueled by debates over how schools should handle transgender minors. The Rancho Peñasquitos protest ratchets up the usual backlash San Diego library branches experience when they create Pride exhibits or host events like drag queen story times, said head librarian Misty Jones. The protesters, Peñasquitos residents Amy Vance and Martha Martin, said libraries are open, public spaces for children that should be free of references to gender identity and how adults experience sexual attraction. Read the full article. A local city council member is raising money to buy additional copies of the books.
Protestors ruin Rancho Penasquitos library's Pride exhibit by checking out nearly all the books https://t.co/q5erkSeWAZ
I’m starting to think this is a matter for the police. They checked them out and stated that they have no intention of returning them unless the library does exactly what they want. Last I checked, that’s called theft.
They get 5 renewals, unless the items have holds on them. So I urge anyone and everyone in San Diego who is disgusted by their motives to place holds. MANY HOLDS. That way they will be required to return the items or be turned in to a collections agency. That will also likely block their library privileges to borrow any other materials. If it goes beyond that, it is indeed theft.
I had a home in a small town for nearly 30 years. It had a small library, maybe twice the size of the one in my high school. The “Christians” would come in and check out ALL the non-Christian religious books and never return them. It was their way of making sure people couldn’t learn about other religions. And this was before Trump and the MAGA folks. If your religion of “Christianity” is SO GREAT, it should be able to prove itself against the others by its merits and ideals, not by making the beliefs of others unobtainable.
Damn these people. A book offered me permission not to hate myself for being who I am.
*** Editor note *** It was books that gave me my escape from my life. It was books that let me leave the life of abuse, hurt, and fear I was living constantly at home, in my home. It was books that let me understand I was not a horrible abomination in life that was going to do horrible things and die in a gutter as my adoptive parents (the ones beating and sexually abusing me and letting their kids do so) claimed long before they even knew I was gay, that I did not need to suffer in silence, (Which I did for most of my life). These books that these people are trying to ban and deny to the very kids that need them meant so much to me and other kids. Please do not let them. Look in the 1950s these people want to revert the social and country to there were no of these kinds of books, no positiverepresentatives in media, but gay, lesbian, and trans kids still existed. I am going to post a video about a old long time soap opera about gay people and the damage hate can do. Hugs.
When you say “wife,” “husband,” “fiancé,” “girlfriend,” etc.–all commonly heard from heterosexuals–you are inserting sexuality in public spaces where children are or may be.
Mere gender identification on a bathroom door is the actual issue here. These delusional evangelicals are literally incapable of connecting the dots on gender/sexual expression issues.
I’m currently reading a book about the John Birch Society and everything they are doing now is the same shit the Birchers were doing in the 50s and 60s. Only back then MSM and even the GOP leadership weren’t on their side.
They don’t care about corporations either. They only want Republicans to hold the power over everything – people, corporations, city councils, school boards, etc.
Republicans sure don’t like people voting, do they? They’ll overturn elections, make it harder for statewide resolutions to pass, throw out elected officials they don’t like, and now this. Democrats might wish to mention this on the campaign trail.
Kinda like how Texas has created special rules that only apply to specific counties that vote mostly Democratic that take away aspects of self-governance from them.
Thank my dogs that love gravy that this hateful right winger did not have a gun. But this attacks and violence is what the right wants, what the right wing media with their lies about anything dealing with gender or sexual orientation is grooming or sexualizing kids. The right wing media screaming PROTECT THE CHILDREN creates the anger, rage, and fear of the subject in their thuggish followers that leads to this. Attacks on the LGBTQ+ and their supporters is the goal! I am tired of it. Already a recent poll of self reporting republicans showed the first ever decline in acceptance of gay people. A drop of 14 points. This is the result of trying their best to demonize any mention of the LGBTQ+, rainbows, and pride flags. Calling teachers groomers, attacking the best medical practice advice of all the major medical organizations which calls for accepting and assisting trans kids. They do so using lies, myths, and just made up bullshit to attack a marginalized group. This has to stop. Hugs
A triple stabbing during a gender studies class at the University of Waterloo is believed to have been a hate-motivated attack, police said Thursday as they laid multiple charges against a 24-year-old former student. The Wednesday attack injured three people and shocked the university campus located about 100 kilometres west of Toronto.
Geovanny Villalba-Aleman [photo], a recently graduated international student, faces three counts of aggravated assault, four counts of assault with a weapon and two counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, police said.
“Investigators have reason to believe that this was a planned and targeted attack motivated by hate related to gender expression and gender identity,” Waterloo Regional Police Chief Mark Crowell said at a Thursday news conference.
The police said that on Wednesday, at about 3:40 p.m., about 40 students were in a classroom when the suspect came in and stabbed three people: a 38-year-old female professor; a 20-year-old female student and a 19-year-old male student. All three were taken to the hospital with “serious but non-life-threatening” injuries, the police said.
In what he described as a “shocking attack,” James Rush, a vice president of the university, said in a statement on Thursday that the stabbing took place during a lecture in a class called Philosophy 202 — Gender Studies.
Chief Mark Crowell of the Waterloo Regional Police said at a news conference that the suspect had entered the classroom and spoke briefly to the professor, apparently to confirm the subject matter of the class. Then, he stabbed her with two knives, stabbed the other two students and attempted to stab a third.
Local, federal and provincial leaders have spoken out about the stabbing, condemning this violent act. Speaking to reporters in Brantford on Thursday morning, Premier Doug Ford said the stabbing at the University of Waterloo was “unacceptable” and expressed concern for the victims.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said news of the stabbing was “horrifying and unacceptable. This type of violence must always be condemned.” Marit Stiles, leader of Ontario’s NDP, said she was thinking of the students and staff affected, and called the news “horrifying.”
Hagey Hall reopened on Thursday after being temporarily closed Wednesday night and the campus is open for all scheduled activities, said university spokesperson Nick Manning.
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO STABBING ATTACK WAS HATE MOTIVATED: POLICE
"A 24-year-old recent graduate from the University of Waterloo is facing 10 charges after reportedly stabbing three people, including a professor, during a gender studies philosophy class."https://t.co/bBHlhETAio
Waterloo regional police say a 24 year old, international student has been charged in a hate-motivated crime related to gender expression & gender identity, in connection to a stabbing that injured three people during a gender studies class at University of Waterloo on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/IVbSx91qK4
Gah, and it is so evident, too! What the hell is UP with that? It doesn’t even have to be our community, either. Look at Abbott and his “no water breaks” law. These people just seem to WANT more suffering in the world. I absolutely don’t get it.
Conservatives love to talk like libertarians until someone does something they don’t like. They want to be free to be assholes without consequences but how dare anyone even look at them disapprovingly!
But jesus christ and a half WHY do they WANT to be assholes? This baffles me. Anyone who chooses to be an asshole simply ADDS to the number of assholes in the world! Why would people want this?
I hear you, But the person’s responsible ARE making it up. They are ‘being’ themselves (sic). People full of potential, with dreams and hopes of being AUTHENTIC, are systematically being slaughtered.
Leaving the HATE alone, ignoring it, is no longer an option.
At least being in Canada he didn’t have easy access to a gun.
Hundreds of MAGAT/incels are making their presence known in the comment section of Canada’s national main stream, right wing newspaper suggesting they deserved it because of their woke ideals.
Because this was in Canada, three people were stabbed and all will live. If that had happened in the US dozens would be dead and we’d need DNA to identify some of the bodies.
As far as I’ve seen centrist comments have mainly been confined to ‘look what your inflammatory rhetoric made him do.’ This is directed at trans people and their allies rather than at the hatemongers, of course.
Jordan Peterson is called the Incel King for a reason and I bet when the cops look at this specimen’s computer, they’ll find videos, writings and 4/8 Chan like bullshit from people like Peterson, FOX, Shapiro et al. You can bet on it. It should be noted that while Peterson still has his Incels in Canada, he is seen as an intellectual pariah.
Texas has banned diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at state-funded colleges and universities. The racial equity so many people fought so hard to gain is under attack! We have to ACT and demand MORE from our leaders! https://t.co/18LBTG6L53
#Republicans officially banned diversity offices in state colleges & universities. They are suppressing inclusivity in education & thrusting us towards ignorance & division. #Texas is a diverse state & every #Texan deserves equal opportunities. #txlegehttps://t.co/RuVTGFZBKd
— Senator Roland Gutierrez (@RolandForTexas) June 15, 2023
Next on the chopping block.. mandatory wheelchair ramps.
One of those “things,” DeSantis noted, would be going after diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. “For example, like the Civil Rights Division, our Civil Rights Division in Justice will do all discrimination,” DeSantis promised. Much of the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s recent work includes targeting hate crimes, discrimination in prison and employer abuses of immigrants
Bootsie sees “diversity inclusion” as a threat to his white heterosexual male, Christian dominance. He must have very low self esteem, a fragile sexual identity and feel inferior to race, gender, ethnic and religious identities that don’t mirror his own. Bootsie is an insecure little tyrant and I bet he’s 🤏
With the exception of Sarasota County, all of the counties mentioned above went for Biden in 2020. In Orange, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, Biden won by double digits. Miami-Dade went for Biden by eight points.
In a separate article, Florida Politics notes that DeSantis also vetoed funding for the arts and even playgrounds in blue counties. Yesterday DeSantis vetoed funding for repairs and maintenance of public broadcasting stations.
More than $3M in flooding fixes for South Florida's tri-county area gets drained away in budget vetoes
According to Walsh, a suicide prevention hotline is a “sexually explicit chat room.” His 24-post Twitter thread went viral overnight. Walsh has called the rainbow flag a “symbol of hate” and said that he’d rather be dead that have a trans child. Earlier this year he called for executing doctors who treat trans children.
You have to be a soulless bastard to attack a suicide prevention organization. These ghouls are actively working to ensure LGBTQ people die.
— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) June 16, 2023
They're also attacking a homeless shelter for LGBTQ youth. I previously worked with some clients from Ali Forney. The kids that go there literally have nothing. They're disowned and made homeless by bigoted families. This is beyond despicable to go after them. pic.twitter.com/n71o8DGTs0
— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) June 16, 2023
Elagabalus2 days ago They make LGBT children’s lives miserable by indoctrinating their parents to hate them, and then when their parents throw them out of the house these monsters complain that there’s someone there to help them. It doesn’t get more evil than that.
As I said last year… If you’re starting with the premise that Donald Trump is a completely innocent, billionaire, ex-President then you have to ask yourself, where are all the lawyers? pic.twitter.com/rw0uSw51Qe
Mention DeSantis’s wife, Casey, her cancer diagnosis and his military service.
Never before has a presidential effort invested in doors in the way the DeSantis machine is doing. By Labor Day, Never Back Down aims to have about 2,600 trained canvassers in the 18 early nominating states, many with hotel rooms and rental cars, iPads and evolving scripts, not to mention a paycheck from working in a position that is now advertised on job boards as between $20 to $22 an hour.
“We want our army out in the field to be able to provide a concierge type of service,” the group’s chief operating officer Kristin Davison said. “There are people that don’t make it through the school. We are not going to graduate someone who is not up to the standards of what we want at the doors.”
Sounds kinda groom-y. Just don’t try shoving an agenda down my throat.
How government rules for classified papers could help Trump delay his trial
Graymail, ‘Goldilocks rule’ and silent witnesses could help the former president put off case until after 2024 election
The law created a series of pretrial steps that must be taken to decide exactly what classified information will be used in court, and how. Lawyers who have worked such cases view the law as a time-consuming and difficult set of procedures that can be extremely beneficial to any defendant seeking to delay a trial.
OH THIS IS GOOD!!
A Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers lawsuit against a local newspaper just backfired spectacularly, exposing DAMNING 2020 election emails between top state officials and the Trump administration.
OH THIS IS GOOD!! A Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers lawsuit against a local newspaper just backfired spectacularly, exposing DAMNING 2020 election emails between top state officials and the Trump administration.
State Senator Dan Laughlins defamation lawsuit against “The Erie Reader” opened him up to discovery, and ended up revealing a series of emails pertaining to Trump’s pressure campaign on Pennsylvania Republicans to illegally overthrow the election in 2020.
High level communications between far-right gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, and member of Trump legal team Christina Cobb, is part of the information that’s been released. In those emails, Mastriano expressed his concern that Trump’s proposal to overturn the election was “illegal.”
The emails also detail how Trump PERSONALLY called Mastriano and pressured him to overturn the election, and even furnished false documents about Dominion Voting Systems “rigging the election against Biden” in an effort to do so.
“We’re not saying a word on this crap,” Laughlin said in an email after he got word of the plan, worried about his own parties attempt to unlawfully overturn the election. It seems like the emails implicate Trump in yet another crime. Unreal.
Fine appeared on JMG in May 2022 when he tweeted what many interpreted as a threat to assassinate President Biden. Before that, Fine appeared on JMG when he called for felony charges after Florida Democrats staged a sit-in over the racist US House map submitted by DeSantis. And before that, he appeared here when he threatened to defund a Florida Special Olympics event and called a local school board member a “whore” because she’d been invited its fundraiser gala and he was not. Fine was a sponsor of the bill that stripped Disney’s self-governing status. His family owns annual passes to the “woke” theme park giant. He recently arranged for a Florida town to honor a war criminal who was convicted of executing four Iraqi prisoners. He last appeared here in April 2023, when he declared, “Damn right, we ought to erase” LGBTQs.
Fine is also a sponsor of Florida’s bill criminalizing drag shows in view of minors. Of note, his wife runs a self-described “sultry” burlesque show that would violate her husband’s law.
.@RonDeSantis vetoed $2M for @BrevardZoo because one of his political allies, the insufferable @VoteRandyFine, urged him to do so b/c the Zoo wouldn't let Fine campaign there.
While defending his bill in Florida that would ban drag and pride events, @VoteRandyFine said that "if it means erasing a community, because [LGBTQ people] have to target children, then damn right we outta do it."
— Alejandra Caraballo 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇵🇷 (@Esqueer_) April 12, 2023
Vindictive DeSantis vetoes $2M for Brevard Zoo after henchman & rabid racist Randy Fine's rift with the zoo came in the wake of a controversy involving Fine renting zoo event space after zoo hours for a political fundraising event #DeSantisIsAMadFascisthttps://t.co/FLq3a3ciPH
— Lesley Abravanel 🪩 (@lesleyabravanel) June 16, 2023
A zoo, Black History event and university funding: Ron DeSantis under fire after vetoing local funding because lawmakers didn’t endorse him https://t.co/vsNAy4XpJx
While the haters loudly call on companies to remain “neutral” in the “culture wars” (rather than acknowledge the existence and equality of LGBTQ+ individuals, and of many kinds of healthy relationships and families).
Republicans in several states have made it legal to run over people blocking the road. https://t.co/hr1aovIXd1
Jay Silversmith2 days ago We got it, xtians. You’ve been appointed by god to judge everyone. Everyone is going to hell but you. You’ll all fly up into the sky. Now go the fuck away.
One thing that Worf mentioned once, Klingons do not have gods. They did, but they were so troublesome that they killed them. Kahless is just a sort of warrior Buddha, a real person who lived with honor that they try to live up to.
I like that.
Obama preached Personal responsibility all the time.
Black unemployment was cut in HALF under Barack Obama from 16.6 March 2010 to 7.5%
He took a mess the GOP left him and cleaned that shit up.
“I called them out because the Pride movement is not about rights for gay people anymore, that’s been totally determined for a very long time. Every single American has equal rights.
A common statement from the religious side of this issue goes something like this “stop shoving your gay agenda down our throats”. In the same breath, they go on to say, “You don’t see us shoving our religion down your throat”. Well then… Have you ever had a homosexual knock on your door (usually around dinner time) asking if you have found Elton John? Have homosexuals ever passed laws that make the government print “In Homosexuality We Trust” on your money? When was the last time homosexuals passed laws that rewrote the Pledge of Allegiance to say, “One Homosexual Nation”? Have homosexuals erected a monument with Marc Jacobs’ top 10 fashion rules at your local courthouse? Have any homosexual groups spent millions trying to pass laws to outlaw marriage between a woman and a man? Have homosexual activists worked to pass laws limiting birth control, abortion, etc? Did a homosexual ever prevent you from buying liquor or a car on Sunday? Is there a book promoting homosexuality in almost every hotel room in the country? Have homosexuals pushed for laws to make the missionary position illegal? Have homosexuals tried to pass a law allowing them to legally refuse service to Christians? Right, they have never shoved their religious agenda down our collective throats.
For the last two weeks, Starbucks workers have taken to social media to report that the company is no longer allowing Pride decorations in-store. This seems to be the first year the publicly "pro-LGBTQ+" company has taken this kind of stance.
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) June 13, 2023
Taking a cue from Target, who bowed to anti-LGBTQ+ pressure and removed pride merchandise, corporate and district management are taking down the pride decorations that have become an annual tradition in stores.
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) June 13, 2023
In union stores, where Starbucks claims they are unable to make “unilateral changes” without bargaining, the company took down Pride decorations and flags anyway – ignoring their own anti-union talking point.
— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) June 13, 2023
The march of the rabid right terrorists continues, threatening corporations and businesses with everything up to and including potential violence unless they capitulate. Sickening.
I am going to Pride this year (I haven’t always) and will encourage everyone to get out in the damn streets. I am hearing sooooo much of this insidious “but not in front of the children” far-right / Russian / Nazi propaganda, wnich was tired nearly 50 years ago when Anita Bryant called her organization SAVE THE CHILDREN”. In my generation the number of self-identified queer people was 2% – for Gen Z, it’s 20% – we need to be counted!
Here is a guy pushing hate but too cowardly to be upfront about it. He prefers to be sneaky and do the right wing gaslighting. He calls the pride flags divisive, but who are the ones making them that way? Not the LGBTQ+, the fundamentalist religious right wing conservatives are the ones drumming up the hate and anger. He is doing what the right always does, blame the victim of their hate and abuse. Just like a domestic abuser often blames the victim by saying “look at what you made me do”, he blames the flags that I just posted a group made little boys stomp on! Hugs
“We’ve flown the pride flag for two years, and the world didn’t end,” one local official said.
Orange County, California has banned the Pride flag from being flown outside of any county offices or on county government properties. The banning follows a recent increase in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in the county.
In a meeting last Tuesday, the county’s Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to ban the flag. Republican supervisor Andrew Do requested the ban, Q Voice News reported, citing his desire to stop any “divisive” flags from potentially creating community disruptions at future board meetings.
Florida town defiantly flies Pride Flag after mayor warns against it
The town gave in to the mayor’s request last year, but this year they chose a new path.
Democrat Doug Chaffee voted in support of the ban along with Republican Donald Wagner. The board’s two other Democratic members, Vicente Sarmiento and Katrina Foley, voted against the ban.
Do’s resolution only allows the flying of the Orange County, state, and federal flags, as well as a flag for U.S. military soldiers who are prisoners of war and missing in action (POW-MIA). He said he supports the LGBTQ+ community, pointing to his efforts to help transgender people get vaccinated against COVID-19 and his hiring of a gay man to the county’s top public health leadership role, Voice of OC reported.
Do said his proposal wasn’t motivated by opposition to any specific social issue. However, Wagner disagreed, noting that Do issued his proposal at the beginning of Pride Month.
“It is not a coincidence that this policy is in front of us right now,” Wagner said. “It is not a coincidence that we’re considering it today for the first time in the more than 100 years of this County’s existence. We’re considering it today, in response to the divisive effort to fly one particular flag. So yes, there absolutely is a connection.”
Foley asked Do if his proposal would ban a recent sheriff’s flying of a police appreciation flag, one that doesn’t fall under Do’s list of pre-approved flags. Do responded, “You’re free to ask, and I’m free to ignore you.”
Foley said, “By taking the stance today of banning the Pride flag, which is what this is tantamount to, at all of our county buildings, our county board offices, other than in our internal offices, our parks, our airport, our harbors, our beaches, it sends the wrong message to America and to the world.”
In February, the conservative-led city council of Huntington Beach (13 miles southwest of Orange County) voted 4-3 to ban Pride flags from flying outside of its City Hall. Supporters of the policy said it was necessary to stop future battles over which group’s flags are allowed and which ones aren’t.
Councilmember Dan Kalmick denounced the vote, saying, “It’s of course a ban on the city flying the Pride flag. Call it what it is… We’ve flown the pride flag for two years, and the world didn’t end.” The city previously flew the flag for six weeks during Pride Month.
Huntington Beach resident Gretchen Dawson told the council that the ban “sends a signal that we’re not safe here,” adding, “Safety is the biggest reason why we fly the Pride flag … by taking it away – not flying it – you are communicating to me that we don’t deserve safety.”
Frank Rodriguez, who called himself an executive member of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Gays Against Groomers, said the Pride flag doesn’t represent him. He destroyed one while making his public comment to the council.
Again, it is driven by fundamentalist religious people and their demand to have everyone live by their church / religious doctrines. The right claims that social acceptance and tolerance of people who are different from them, the LGBTQ+, is indoctrination. But teaching kids to stomp on a symbol of another group, teaching kids to yell insults to kids different from them, teaching kids to hate is somehow not indoctrination but good parenting to these bigots. Being kind and respectful of a kid’s feelings and respecting their desire to be addressed by a preferred name or pronouns is abuse, but including your kids in a violent shouting hate shouting when they might be either soon feeling or are feeling that they are different is again good parenting. These people want to close off young minds and deny young people the right to develop into more than clones of their parents. The pro-LGBTQ+ supporters showed up in great numbers and that is what we need in the US also.
One last point. These people scream leave our kids alone, but they are the ones attacking other peoples children. These peopel demand the right to not only teach hate to their children but to also they demand the right to teach that same hate to every other child regardless of those kids parents wishes. They demand parental rights not only for their children but yours as well, removing your parental rights over your own child. Leave our kids alone should be the slogan of the LGBTQ+ parents. These haters are terrorizing the LGBTQ+ kids and their teacher supporters in the schools, yet they claim others are indoctrinating or grooming kids. Hugs
Protests against “gender ideology” in Canada’s capital city Friday brought far-right conservative Christians and Muslims together to attack Ottawa’s local school board for supporting LGBTQ+ students.
The unusual alliance was met by an equal or greater number of counter-protesters defending the rights of LGBTQ+ kids and denouncing “transphobic, fascist ideology.”
A new directive by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board inspired the demonstration, organized by notorious far-right Canadian provocateur Chris Elston, aka Billboard Chris.
The all-staff notice advised the use of they/them pronouns for students until their preferred pronouns were expressed.
Video from the demonstration shows Muslim women and others encouraging young children to stomp and dance on progress Pride flags strewn on the ground and clapping with joy.
The clip shows an older white man holding a large Canadian flag leaning down to shake one kid’s hand in solidarity.
“Right on, boys!” he declares, beaming.
"LEAVE OUR KIDS ALONE" – Muslims and Christians unite on the streets of Ottawa, trampling the Gender Ideology Flag. This is a turning point. Let kids be kids. pic.twitter.com/ATvXfzMPao
Shouts of “Leave our kids alone!” were heard up and down the street where the protest took place, home to two high schools and a primary school.
“This is going to horrify Justin Trudeau,” posted Keean Bexte, with the far-right media site The Counter Signal. “All of these proponents of childhood mastectomies and penectomies are officially on notice. The minority communities that have propped up your governments have finally had enough.”
It is very rare for transmasculine teens to get mastectomies before the age of 18 and genital surgery is not performed on trans minors.
Police announced they made five arrests at the demonstration, without providing details. Scattered acts of violence were reported.
While a heat wave, fires, and smoke have enveloped the region since the beginning of June, Bexte laid recent high absentee rates at Ottawa schools at the feet of the school board and their nonbinary naming advisory, claiming parents were pulling their kids out in “silent protest” of Pride Month.
Hundreds showed up to counter the right-wing alliance.
The counter-protest “fills my heart,” said Emily Quail, an organizer and mom of a child at one of the nearby schools.
“The only way to correctly counter fascism is by showing up like this on the street and telling them we outnumber them,” she told The Canadian Press.
“We will not let them spread their transphobic, fascist ideology anywhere, here or anywhere else, and that starts with community strength and that’s what I’m really proud to see today.”
The Ottawa area school board condemned Elston for planning the protest in front of schools.
“It really raises doubts about a group that, I think it goes without saying, but it’s a group that is literally targeting children,” said Alex Silas, a school district official.
In 2020, Elston, a Vancouver insurance agent, paid for a billboard declaring, “I ❤️ JK Rowling”, and then wore the message on a sandwich board at protests after it was denounced as “hateful expression” and taken down.
