TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Tens of thousands of grieving and angry Israelis surged into the streets Sunday night after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza, chanting “Now! Now!” as they demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a cease-fire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.
The mass outpouring appeared to be the largest such demonstration in 11 months of war and protesters said it felt like a possible turning point, although the country is deeply divided.
Israel’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, further pressured the government by calling a general strike for Monday, the first since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the war. It aims to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care and the country’s main airport. (snip-MORE)
(Meanwhile, democracy in Israel doesn’t seem to be the system anymore, US Republicans’s statements regardless-) (This narrative runs current to the top. There’s a good feature at the bottom here.)
Arnon Bar-David, the chair of Histadrut Labour Federation, Israel’s main trade union which launched the strike, said he respects the decision by the labour court to end the strike at 14:30 (local time) 12.30 BST, according to the Times of Israel.
It reports him saying in a statement:
It is important to emphasise that the solidarity strike was a significant measure and I stand behind it. Despite the attempts to paint solidarity as political, hundreds of thousands of citizens voted with their feet.
I thank every one of you – you proved that the fate of the hostages is not right-wing or left-wing, there is only life or death, and we won’t allow life to be abandoned.
Meanwhile, the newspaper reports that the Hostages and Missing Families Forum encourages the public to continue the demonstrations despite the ruling. “This is not about a strike, this is about rescuing the 101 hostages that were abandoned by [prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu with the cabinet decision last Thursday,” the forum says, referring to the vote by ministers backing the IDF’s continued presence on the Philadelphi Corridor.Share
The labour court’s ruling that today’s strike must end was welcomed by Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.
In a post on X, Smotrich praised the decision to end what he called a “political and illegal strike.”
The Times of Israel reports he said in his statement that Israelis went to work today “in droves,” proving they are no longer slaves to “political needs.”
He added: “We won’t allow harm to the Israeli economy and thereby serve the interests of [Yahya] Sinwar and Hamas.”
‘Strike was not as powerful as people expected’ – dispatch from Tel Aviv
Julian Borger
Julian Borger is the Guardian’s world affairs editor
Tel Aviv this morning did not feel like a society about to bring its government down.
The debris had been removed from last night’s demonstration on the Ayalon Highway, the motorway which passes through the city centre, and traffic was moving normally.
Protesters stopped traffic at a couple of junctions around the city but for the most part, the traffic flowed. The national rail line was working, though some buses and light railway lines stopped.
Private companies gave their staff the day off, but it was more in the spirit of some sombre holiday rather than the start of an existential struggle with the government.
Ben Gurion airport only closed for a few hours, and it was announced that the whole general strike would end at 6pm. It is not government-ending stuff.
Travellers line up at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
The mood can best be described as bitterly realistic on Hostages Square, the name given to the plaza between the national library and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where hostage families and their supporters gather every day.
“I’m not sure the strike was as powerful as people expected,” said Debbie Mason, a social worker for the Eshkol regional council, the area of southern Israel abutting Gaza.
She made a distinction between what she hoped would happen and what she believed would happen, the latter being that nothing would change for the hostages.
“Unfortunately, there are too many things that are going to obstruct a deal, whether it’s on our side, whether it’s on Hamas’ side, it just doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s interest, that something should happen,” Mason said.
Hostage Square, established in the plaza between the National Library, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Tel Aviv District Court. Buses arrive here daily with youth groups from the kibbutzes, moshavs and towns from the area of southern Israel invaded by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Photograph: Julian Borger/The Guardian
Rayah Karmin, who comes from Mabu’im, a village near Netivot, near the Gaza border, agreed that a one-day strike would change little.
“Only a longer strike will make the people in government understand that the economy of Israel is going to go down,” Karmin, a vitamin supplement salesperson, said.
She pointed out that all the demonstrations and strikes were up against an immovable political fact. If a ceasefire is agreed, the far-right members of the coalition, notably Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, will walk out and the government will fall.
“Smotrich and Ben-Gvir will leave Netanyahu, and then he will be without a coalition, and he will have to go home,” Karmin said. “And he knows that next time he won’t be elected, so he wants to stay as long as he can.”
“Bibi is a magician, a really big fucking magician,” Aaron, a 28-year-old legal adviser in a pharmaceutical corporation, said. He had been out on the streets for Sunday’s mass protests, but he had no illusions about who they were up against.
“If there’s a hostage deal, the government will fall, so they are not interested in a deal,” Aaron said. “What Ben-Gvir wants and what Smotrich wants, they get, because Bibi doesn’t want to go to jail. He doesn’t want to lose power, because Bibi will be voted out in the first election if the government falls.”
This is what the fundamentalist religious / maga right want to do in the US notice the reason why they feel they need to pass this law. Because it is changing tradition. Tradition is peer pressure from dead people. The right wing straight cis people like the way things are and don’t want to include other ideas or ways. Just a warning. Hugs. Scottie
The legislation would ban LGBTQ+ rights on multiple fronts, including adoption, marriage, and civil IDs.
TBILISI, GEORGIA – MAY 17, 2018: Family day. People attend a rally marking the Day of Family Purity and opposing the International Day Against Homophobia and TransphobiaPhoto: Shutterstock
Georgia’s parliament on Thursday pushed ahead a sweeping package of bills that would effectively outlaw LGBTQ+ identity in the former Soviet republic.
The set of bills proposed by the ruling pro-Putin Georgian Dream party bans depictions of same-sex relationships in the media, outlaws gender-affirming surgery, and will make Pride events and the public display of the Pride flag in Georgia a thing of the past.
Parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili describes the bills as necessary to control “LGBT propaganda,” which he said was “altering traditional relations.”
The first reading of the bill titled “On the Protection of Family Values and Minors,” which draws heavily from Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ “propaganda” law passed last year, drew widespread support among Georgia Parliament deputies. The bill is scheduled for second and third readings in the fall.
In addition to outlawing public gatherings “promoting” same-sex relationships, the legislation would also limit adoption to heterosexuals, ban gender changes on official identification, and outlaw “LGBT propaganda” in education.
Georgian Dream MPs have also proposed introducing “genetic” requirements in establishing legal marriage, whereby marriage would be a union of a “genetic woman” and a “genetic man.”
The Constitution already bans same-sex marriage in Georgia, where the deeply conservative Orthodox Church holds outsized influence in the government and public sphere.
Georgia enjoyed decades of progress on human and LGBTQ+ rights following the Rose Revolution in 2003, as a majority of citizens supported a pro-Western turn and integration into the European Union and NATO.
The rise of the Georgian Dream party in the last ten years, however, has seen the government reorienting toward Russia, with the Church encouraging the rapprochement.
Georgia’s version of Putin’s draconian “LGBT propaganda” law seems designed not only to roll back progress on LGBTQ+ rights but to scuttle any hope of Georgia entering the European Union, with its strict requirements upholding civil liberties and personal freedoms.
The introduction of the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation follows the Georgia Parliament’s passage of another Russian-inspired law to label Western NGOs “foreign agents,” teeing up a harassment campaign aimed at expelling human rights and other groups that far-right conservatives and the Orthodox Church have accused of infecting Georgia and other countries with “degeneracy.”
Speaking of opponents of the nascent legislation in March, Mamuka Mdinaradze, leader of the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority, said, “Even if they brand the law against LGBT ‘propaganda’ not Russian, but Soviet, we will follow it through, given that it is the biggest challenge of modern times.”
Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment runs high among extremists in the onetime Soviet vassal. In 2021 and 2023, violent mobs shut down Pride marches in the capital Tbilisi.
Organizers say foreign agents, delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, joined far-right fascist political gangs and members of the Georgian Orthodox church to sabotage the peaceful demonstration. Hundreds were injured in the two incidents.
Rights groups and supporters described the attacks as “pogroms.”
After a court ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed an anti-trans law in Florida targeting youth and adults go back into effect, many providers were forced to end care. Read on Substack
*With thanks to Janet.*
Several transgender youth and adults are being told their care will be terminated following a ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by a majority-Trump appointed panel. The court ruled that a 2023 law, which restricts transgender care at any age, can go back into effect after being permanently blocked in June 2024.
The ruling, released late Monday, stated that transgender people are not a “quasi-suspect class,” meaning they do not receive the same level of equal protection under the Constitution as other categories such as race, ethnicity, religion, or sex. This decision implies that laws discriminating against transgender people are likely to be considered valid and constitutional by the 11th Circuit Court.
One such law, SB254, was passed in 2023. The law banned gender-affirming care for transgender youth but went further than similar legislation passed in several Republican-led states that year by also restricting care for transgender adults. The bill mandated that care for transgender adults could only be provided by physicians and required that patients receive forms outlining the “risks” of gender transition. Many proposed versions of these forms are filled with disinformation about transgender care.
The physician requirement has proven especially burdensome for transgender adults, as the majority of their care is provided by nurse practitioners. This is because the number of transgender adults far exceeds the capacity of physicians who offer gender-affirming care. Planned Parenthood, the largest hormone therapy provider in the United States, explains, “Most gender-affirming hormone care is provided at PPSP by advanced practice providers (physician assistants, certified nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners) in our health centers or over telemedicine.”
Now, with the law fully in effect, transgender adults who previously had access to care are being notified that their care will no longer be provided.
One anonymous patient shared an email from their provider, QueerMed, which stated, “Unfortunately, Florida has reinstated the ban on care for minors and the restrictions for adults… We can no longer see any patient of any age who is located in Florida.”
See that email here:
Email provided from a QueerMed Patient
Spektrum, a major provider in Florida, was also forced to terminate care and cancel new patient appointments. However, during the period when the law was blocked, the organization reportedly took steps to ensure patients were well-supplied with medication in case the law went back into effect:
“During this little freedom period as I call it … we made good use of that time to make sure all of our patients were well supplied with medication. Although I had hoped that it wouldn’t have been necessary, at least now we can say, I’m glad we did all the things that we did,” said Joseph Knoll, a nurse practitioner at the clinic, as reported by the Associated Press.
Healthcare bans are currently a contentious issue in courts across the United States, with some courts blocking bans on transgender healthcare coverage or provision. A major point of contention is whether discrimination against transgender people qualifies as sex discrimination, which would subject these laws to higher scrutiny regarding their constitutionality.
The Supreme Court is poised to rule on such questions later this year in a case stemming from Tennessee’s trans care ban. If the Supreme Court were to rule that transgender people are not entitled to equal protection under the law, many forms of discrimination against transgender youth and adults could be deemed fully legal.
For trans people in Florida, many cannot afford to wait for such a decision, and many have already fled the state. For those unable to leave, disruptions to their care will likely have significant impacts on their mental and physical health.
“We are deeply disappointed by this decision and the panel’s disregard for the district court’s careful findings and adherence to the Eleventh Circuit’s recent precedent. Allowing these discriminatory restrictions to go back into effect will deny transgender adults and adolescents lifesaving care, and prevent Florida parents from making medical decisions that are right for their children. As the district court found based on voluminous evidence, the record shows that these extraordinary restrictions were based on disapproval of transgender people and serve no purpose other than to harm transgender Floridians. The plaintiffs in this case are considering their options and will take every step possible to protect their right to equal treatment under Florida’s laws, which these restrictions egregiously violate. We will continue fighting for transgender Floridians and their families, and for everyone’s right to make healthcare decisions without government interference,” said the organizations representing the plaintiffs in the case.
We practiced with caskets that were stored outside our barracks building. To simulate the weight of honored remains, we’d toss several full sandbags into the belly of the casket, and then, for hours and hours, we’d go through our exact movements.
Over and over and over and over.
Those were hot and humid D.C. summers, and it didn’t matter. Drink water. And then back at it. We’d march up crisply, pick up the casket, go through the entire funeral protocol—with an earned coordination that would rival any synchronized swimming team—and then do it again.
The first summer I was in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), the A/C stopped working in our barracks. Think of the most depressing college dorm you’ve ever seen and remove air conditioning. We’d wake up in sweat in the middle of the night and open the fridge and stick in our face for a little relief.
We’d run through flag-folding drills at night in those hot barracks. We’d stand in the hallway in our casket teams, and we’d fold and fold and fold until we could do it in our sleep. Whatever you’ve seen in movies doesn’t come close. It is an exacting choreography. No movement wasted or erred.
Does the flag look perfect in presentation? Are the red and white stripes hidden? Are the stars symmetric? Is the cloth tight in the final form? No? Why the hell not? You’d give this to a mourning relative? Do it again. We will be here all goddamn night until you get this right.
Your exhaustion doesn’t matter. Better get some sleep. No excuses. I arrived at the unit as a 19 year-old Army private, not even being close to knowing that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. You sure as hell better learn and quick. Figure it out. Get yourself right. Pray if you’re the praying type.
Because families are flying in from all across the country for what will be one of the absolute worst days of their lives, shattered, maybe beyond repair, and all we can meagerly offer them is choreographed dignity in place of irreparable loss. It will never be close to enough. Perfection is never enough.
We’d spend so much time on our uniforms. There were presses in the basement. You think your barracks room is hot? Go downstairs and be hugged by steam. Learn how to use the press. Get those creases sharp. Eradicate all wrinkles. Ignore the sweat dripping into your eyes.
We carried micrometers with us to ceremonial details to ensure our uniforms were right — down to the centimeter. We’d shine every metallic surface on our bodies. What are fingerprints? We don’t know. We’d coat the soles of our shoes with edge dressing to turn them from grey to black.
I can’t believe I’m saying this now, but learning rifle manual and element marching was taking a break from everything else. Tedious as all hell. We wore steel plates on our shoes to click as we marched. They’d bang into our ankles at times, and you’d try not to swear. That was our break.
It was constant stress, all day, every day, and yet, we had it easy. If you want hard, go volunteer for the Tomb Guards. Go ahead and throw yourself into the actual deep end and find out if you can swim. Just raise your hand when they ask for volunteers.
Go to the Tomb, and work 18-hour days for months and months. You will learn everything there is to know about Arlington. You will memorize pages and pages of information. You will recite it all from memory, or you will fail. You will barely get sleep. You will have no life. There is only the Tomb.
I knew, deep down, I wasn’t ready for that. I respected it too much to raise my hand. I didn’t volunteer. My roommate volunteered. It was a curious decision on his part given that he struggled more than any other private. He definitely wasn’t ready, but God bless him for stepping up.
It takes nine months to earn the Tomb Badge, which, at the time, in terms of rarity within the U.S. military, was second only to the Astronaut Badge. Only 500 military personnel have earned the Astronaut Badge. Only 864 have earned the Tomb Badge. Walk in space or walk in front of the Tomb. That’s rarity.
My roommate was back with us in three months. He didn’t make the cut. Sink or swim at the Tomb. There is one standard: it is perfection and that’s all there is to it. He came back to us and had the sharpest, most squared away uniform in our entire company until the day he got out.
But the truth is that the Tomb Guards had it easy, too. We all had it easy. Because the hardest job in Arlington National Cemetery doesn’t involve wearing a uniform. The hardest job is being a cemetery official who is given the impossible task of bringing comfort to families.
I arrived at the unit in April of 2006. In January of 2007, Pres. Bush announced a dramatic increase in troop deployments to Iraq, now known as the Surge.
For three consecutive months that year—April, May, and June—there were over 100 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq — the deadliest year for U.S. service members in the Global War on Terror.
They came back in transfer cases on a C-130 at Dover Air Force Base, and I honestly don’t know how many of them wound up buried in Arlington. But I know there were a lot. I know we were pretty busy. All day carrying caskets or leading the caisson horses or marching behind them.
That’s not including the many fatalities in Afghanistan. That’s not including the old veterans who had passed and long ago earned the right to be buried there or their family members who qualified for burials, too. Funerals, funerals, and more funerals. That sums up 2007 for The Old Guard.
Who leads on caring for the families on one of the worst days of their lives? Who plays the painful combination of clergy and therapist to the aggrieved? Who does whatever they can for the ceremonial units? Who enforces respect for that hallowed ground?
Cemetery officials.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, it’s the cemetery officials, the civilians, some of them veterans, who undertake the ludicrously impossible task of cobbling together comfort and dignity for families who have had their hearts ripped out and stomped on by tragedy.
I can’t imagine doing what they do. If I were forced to make a choice between the public service they carry out for grieving families OR putting on a uniform to join a marching element, I’m going back to the steam room. At least in that procession, there’s an available freedom to be numb.
On Monday, according to reporting by NPR’s Quil Lawrence and Tom Bowman, a cemetery official was allegedly assaulted and harassed by members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign because the official was enforcing a common sense regulation restricting filming or taking photographs.
Cemetery officials had issued clear guidance that only Arlington personnel are permitted to take video or photos in Section 60, the final resting place for those service members who were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Trump campaign staffers thought it didn’t apply to them. They were wrong.
Moreover, Arlington National Cemetery released a public statement confirming a report had been filed over the incident and included this bit:
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support, of a partisan political candidate’s campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”
What were Trump’s campaign staffers attempting to do that was so flagrantly in violation of this law that a cemetery official, in the midst of all their other necessary responsibilities, felt it necessary to step in and put a stop to it?
This comes almost two weeks after Trump, during remarks at a campaign stop, called the Presidential Medal of Freedom “better” than the Medal of Honor, a moment so completely and weirdly disrespectful that the VFW National Commander issued a statement condemning him.
This comes almost four years, nearly to the day, after reporting by The Atlantic that Trump had called American war dead “losers” and “suckers,” which was corroborated by several other news organizations, a senior official in the Defense Department, and a senior Marine Corps officer.
This comes more than eight years after Trump attacked and insulted the parents of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2004, drawing widespread condemnation from leaders in his own party.
This comes more than nine years after Trump slandered the military service of the late Sen. John McCain, who spent five-and-a-half years in captivity as a prisoner of war, being tortured, refusing to sell-out his fellow service members.
As you’ll probably recall, Trump stated: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
I fully admit to being a partisan, but for me, none of this is about politics because none of the Republicans or conservatives I have ever known would so much as consider showing anything but respect and admiration for our service members, our veterans, and their families.
This is not about favor for any party or campaign because the moment you enter Arlington, politics are to be left at the gate. It’s not about you or me or anyone other than those buried in that ground and their loved ones who will never see them again because of their collective sacrifices.
But Donald Trump is unwilling or unable to understand that because he cannot conceive of offering the highest degree of selfless service to our nation. The concept of “all gave some, some gave all” is entirely incomprehensible to him. And therefore, he cannot extend proper respect to our military.
I cannot wait for the time to come when this self-absorbed coward will permanently exit public life into a tarnished and thoroughly mediocre legacy that will haunt him for the rest of his days.
The state is one of the epicenters of the moral panic and anti-trans rhetoric that have dominated campaigns and media cycles during the presidential election. Under the guise of fighting the “indoctrination of our children”, Republicans have made restricting trans rights a focus of their platforms. Donald Trump has vowed to stop “the leftwing gender insanity” while a leading Missouri Republican has celebrated residents leaving the state due to anti-trans policies, saying: “We are better if they are gone.”
The toxic discourse has fomented fear and anger among conservatives about trans people’s increasing visibility in society and created deep anxiety and distress for queer and trans people and their families.
Parents of trans youth across the St Louis region interviewed for this article said they were desperately trying to protect their kids’ health and wellbeing as politicians have zeroed in on their children. They are rationing medications and traveling hours out of state for care. Some are counting the days until their kids turn 18 and the laws don’t apply; “We are truly doing what we can to keep our children alive,” said one mother of a trans boy.
“Kids are being told by their government that they have to be eradicated from public life,” said Chelsea Freels, a recent high school graduate from St Louis, who has become a vocal advocate for trans youth like herself. “I’m 18 now. I can handle it – ish. But I have to help the kids who are younger. It’s like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. You can help them get better, but then it’s gonna go back down.”
In Missouri, less than 1% of young people identify as trans, but lawmakers have made control over their lives an increasing priority.
“It’s stressful and physically and mentally exhausting,” said Corey Hyman, an 18-year-old trans man who has been testifying against anti-trans bills for roughly five years. “These legislators really didn’t take me seriously as a young kid, and they don’t see me as human. I just wish they’d give up.”
Republicans have long sought prohibitions on puberty blockers and hormone therapy, treatments that allow children to medically transition, which families can consider when trans youth are persistent and consistent about their gender identities. The treatments are part of the gender-affirming care model, which is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association and othermajor US medicalgroups. There has been growing global scrutiny of the medications, including in the UK, which recently adopted restrictions, but they remain part of the recommendedstandards of care in America.
In Missouri, Republicans’ efforts were boosted last year by a media firestorm at a St Louis clinic for trans youth. Jamie Reed, a former caseworker at the Washington University (WashU) transgender center at St Louis Children’s Hospital, publicly denounced the clinic in February 2023, alleging youth who might not actually be trans were being rushed into treatments. A group of patients publicly rebutted the claims, sayingthe care was methodical and vital. Families argued lawmakers should stay out of their private medical decisions, but the GOP governor last June adopted a law banning gender-affirming treatments for minors.
The law said youth already receiving treatments could continue. WashU, however, ceased prescribing medications to all trans youth, meaning families could no longer continue treatment at a top children’s hospital.
Christine Hyman, Corey’s mom, recalled listening to the Senate hearing in her car when the ban passed: “I’ll never forget that feeling. First I was screaming, then I was crying. I sat in my car for half an hour when I got home, thinking, ‘How do I tell my son?’”
Living under the anti-trans laws
In the backyard of their St Louis house, Danielle Meert and James Thurow have a luscious garden of herbs and fruit trees that has become their oasis – a respite from the anxiety of trying to raise a trans boy in Missouri. “To be in the garden, not distracted by the bullshit that has consumed us for the past four years has been wonderful,” Thurow said, sitting in his living room one recent afternoon.
“Then there’s the guilt.”
That guilt, the couple said, comes from feeling they could always be doing more to stop anti-trans bills and protect their son Miles, who was turning 18 the following day.
WashU prescribed Miles hormones at age 15, and the treatment had obvious benefits, he said: “I feel comfortable in public. I don’t feel out of place with my friends who are dudes. It just feels good for people to view you as you are.”
Meert said the family was prepared for the healthcare ban. “We’ve been stockpiling medication and hiding it around town with friends and families in case child services shows up and raids our house. People say we’re overreacting or being hysterical, but these Republicans think I belong in jail, that my child is the downfall of America … He’s just a happy kid living his best life.”
They had rationed Miles’s medications so he had enough for his final year underage, but during that time, he lost access to his doctor; the law threatens revoked licenses for practitioners.
Miles said he had become adept at managing stress from anti-trans bills, joking of the sports bans: “It’s not like trans and gay people are known for their athleticism.” He knows how to calm his mother when she suffers panic attacks. He extends grace to those who oppose his rights, saying he understands people have questions about something unfamiliar.
He felt “very relieved” to turn 18, making his care lawful again. But he worries about younger kids.
Republican lawmakers in Missouri have made it one of the most hostile states in the nation for trans youths. Photograph: Hudson Heidger/Missourian
One St Louis mother of a 12-year-old trans boy has spent months talking to clinics in Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan to try to find care for her son, who had been seen by WashU.
At a young age, the boy had repeatedly spoken of dying. “He didn’t want to grow up because he knew what that would look like,” said the mother, who requested anonymity to protect her son’s privacy. Once he started living as a boy and received gender-affirming treatment, his anger issues dissipated and he excelled at school, she added.
She scoffed at the media narrative that parents were trying to turn their kids trans. “You wouldn’t wish this upon anyone – for your child to feel uncomfortable in their body. But you do have to give freedom to children to tell you if something is wrong. You have to be loving and affirming and open to your child’s journey.”
In November, WashU sent her a letter expressing “deep regret” that a former staffer had publicly discussed her family’s treatment – an apparent reference to Reed, the former caseworker, who seemed to suggest in the media that this mother was rushing treatments.
“I was working with world-class doctors and the brightest minds in this science – how can that be wrong, how can that be illegal, how can that be bad parenting? I’m not denying my child medical care. I’m making sure I comply with the best practices,” said the mother, who provided records indicating there were roughly three years of appointments before her son got puberty blockers, which doctors recommended.
Her boy will soon need additional treatment. She has scheduled an initial appointment in Chicago, but she is anxious about travel costs and worried she will have to take medical leave. “This has robbed us of joy,” she said. “I hate counting the years until my son is 18 and he can move where he wants and go get care. I hate that I’m rushing his young, beautiful life to beat the legislative actions mandating what he can do.”
Reed declined to comment on the mother’s story and criticisms of her efforts, but has previously stood by her claims and continued to argue that the “clinic was harming kids” with medical interventions.
A ‘nightmare’ at schools
Missouri Republicans’ efforts have not stopped at healthcare. Earlier this year, lawmakers proposed bills to end legal recognition of trans people, prevent trans people from using facilities that match their gender identity in schools and workplaces and criminalize teachers who use trans students’ pronouns.
The bills did not pass, but LGBTQ+ families say the demeaning debates and news cycles have taken a toll. Some said they encountered bullying at school, hateful comments from neighbors and casual transphobia at social gatherings. Others said they were forced to cut off relatives who had absorbed misinformation or refused to use correct names and pronouns. Some outspoken advocates said they feared for their safety. Several parents said the stress had made them physically ill.
At one school board meeting last month in St Charles county, a more conservative county neighboring St Louis, queer and trans youth and their supporters sat through a lengthy discussion surrounding a proposal to make it easier for civilians to challenge potentially “obscene” materials – a move seen as an effort to increase censorship of LGBTQ+ content. Some attendees held “trust our teachers and librarians” signs and a trans pride flag, applauding when a student criticized the removal of queer characters from shelves; another speaker said kids shouldn’t be exposed to “sexual scenes”.
Toward the end of the meeting, a board member gave a speech about her disdain for trans youth using locker rooms, an item not on the agenda.
Youth protesters and parents of trans kids gathered at the end of the meeting to commiserate.
“The trans community is burning to the ground here. It’s a nightmare. Where are the national LGBTQ+ organizations?” said Kim Hutton, who has a trans son.
“They frame these policies as ‘protecting the children’, but they’re really just hurting specific marginalized groups. It’s not fun to see when you’re part of those marginalized groups,” said Hannah Yurkovich, a 17-year-old St Louis high schooler at the meeting. “I grew up here, I love St Louis, but I can’t be part of it, if it’s going to keep being against who I am.”
Her friend, Rohan Webb, 18, attended a neighboring high school that adopted gender-neutral bathrooms to better support LGBTQ+ students and had queer support groups. “To see this school district move in the exact opposite direction is saddening,” they said. “To see them getting to make students’ lives so much worse is infuriating.”
‘Will Democrats throw us to the fire?’
Trans Missourians and their families say they have endured by leaning on each other. Families carpool to government hearings. A regional summer camp provides a safe haven for LGBTQ+ youth. Rene and Kyle Freels, the parents of Chelsea, the recent high school graduate, run a support group for trans kids and parents, and they have organized “Transgiving” potlucks for Thanksgiving.
Chelsea has dedicated significant time to supporting trans youth who don’t have the resources she has had. Over breakfast at a queer-friendly cafe with her parents, she described how she assists others in legally changing their name, saying she had just received a court alert about a case she was managing.
“It’s all in the bucket of preventing suicidality,” Chelsea said matter-of-factly. “That is what worries me the most about going to college, because sometimes I have to talk them down … What happens if I’m not in St Louis?” She said she has been fighting to stop friends’ suicides since she was 15 and learned to always gets friends’ addresses in cases of emergencies.
“The public only hears from trans people in the positions of the highest of privileges. I have supportive parents, I’m white, I’m 18, I got healthcare – later than I needed it, but I got it. But my story is one aspect of the trans story, and it’s one of the better ones, and even it is filled with sadness.”
Chelsea, who is leaving the state for college and is interested in coding and liberal arts, said she felt disillusioned with politics. On the Republican side, people were using “genocidal rhetoric” to talk about trans people, she said, referencing calls for the “eradication of transgenderism” at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference and demonization of trans people in the Trump-aligned Project 2025.
On the Democratic side, candidates defend trans rights, but it feels fragile, she said.
“The Democrats in Missouri are our allies, they’re the best support we have in the chamber, but there’s an anxiety they won’t always be that way. When shit hits the fan, they’ll say, is it worse to be out of office and standing on your morals, or is better to just throw a little bit to the fire? But the thing they’re throwing to the fire are my friends and family.”
The Freels considered relocating to Illinois last year, but couldn’t afford it.
“There will always be trans kids and they will be out and asserting themselves,” Rene Freels said. “We’re part of this leftover crew that is super mad and stubborn and wants to see this resolved and want our kids to have full civil rights.”
(From L-R) Rene, Chelsea and Kyle Freels pose for a photo. ‘There will always be trans kids and they will be out and asserting themselves,’ says Rene Freels. Photograph: Sam Levin/The Guardian
Miles, who hopes to become a teacher or work with youth, said leaving is not an option: “I’ve always wanted to stay here. It sounds weird, but I really love Missouri. I have so many memories here and I could see myself raising my kids here.”
Missouri is where he spent his whole life, where his favorite restaurants and hiking trails are, where his girlfriend and her family live, where he had his first date, he said.
He can’t imagine moving away from his elderly grandparents, who he stays with on a weekly basis. “I have a plan for my life,” he said, “and I couldn’t imagine doing it somewhere else.”
Throughout Meert and Thurow’s home are objects they have repurposed from friends who left the state due to anti-trans laws.
In the garden, the couple recently put up a sign saying they had planted beans “in remembrance of the 50+ families we know that have left Missouri”. But the number of departures is greater, she said. They’ve lost count.
August 22, 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower announced a voluntary moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. A report outlining a system for monitoring and verifying compliance of a complete ban on such testing had been released just the day before. The Conference of Experts, as it was known, had been meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to work out the details on detection of violations of such a treaty. The U.S. delegation was led by Nobel physics laureate Ernest Lawrence from the University of California (the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is named after him). Eisenhower predicated his moratorium on U.S.S.R. and U.K. agreement to the same limitations. All three countries agreed to the one-year halt in testing and to begin negotiations on a complete test ban at the end of October; all three performed last-minute (atmospheric) tests before the opening of talks.
August 22, 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer, leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), testified in front of the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention. She was challenging the all-white delegation that the segregated regular Mississippi Democrats had sent to the presidential nominating convention. Singing at a boardwalk demonstration: Hamer (with microphone), Stokely Carmichael (in hat), Eleanor Holmes Norton, Ella Baker . Mississippi’s Democratic Party excluded African Americans from participation. The MFDP, on the other hand, sought to create a racially inclusive new party, signing up 60,000 members. The hearing was televised live and many heard Hamer’s impassioned plea for inclusion of all Democrats from her state.The hearing was televised live and many heard Hamer’s impassioned plea for inclusion of all Democrats from her state. In her testimony she spoke about black Mississippians not only being denied the right to register to vote, but being harassed, beaten, shot at and arrested for trying. Concerned about the political reaction to her statement, President Lyndon Johnson suddenly called an impromptu press conference, thereby interrupting television broadcast of the hearing. Hear her testimony Link to photo gallery
August 22, 1971 The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) arrested twenty in Camden, New Jersey, and five in Buffalo, New York, for conspiracy to steal and destroy draft records. Eventually known as the Camden 28, most were Roman Catholic activists, including four priests, and a Lutheran minister. “We are not here because of a crime committed in Camden but because of a war committed in Indochina….” Cookie Ridolfi The Camden 28
August 22, 1972 Rhodesia’s team was banned from competing in the Olympic Games with just four days to go before the opening ceremony in Munich, Germany. The National Olympic Committees of Africa had threatened to pull out of the games unless Rhodesia was barred from competing. Though the Rhodesian team included both whites and blacks, the government was an illegal one, controlled by whites though they represented just 5% of the country’s population. It had broken away from the British Commonwealth over demands from Commonwealth member nations that power be yielded to the majority. Read more
August 22, 1986 The Kerr-McGee Corporation agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million ($2.68 in 2008), settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit. She had been active in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union, specifically looking into radiation exposure of workers, and spills and leaks of plutonium. The story of Karen Silkwood
(I know cane toads are an abhorrent, invasive species, being moved [by humans!] from their original place on the planet to another place, to try to control another species. However, there is a YA novel about cane toads that ended up being a “banned book” one year. The then-kid was really into banned books, so we bought it, and it was a bit of a tear-jerker and I have a tiny soft spot for them, since it wasn’t their faults they got transplanted; they were only doing the best they could. Anyway, here’s this.)
Scientists have successfully saved freshwater crocodiles from toxic cane toads invading northern Australia with an unusual new tactic – doctored cane toad carcases.
By teaching freshwater crocodiles (Crocodylus johnstoni) to associate cane toads (Rhinella marina) with a bout of food poisoning, they reduced death rates by at least 95%.
Across the dry season (May to October) between 2019 and 2022, Macquarie University scientists worked on the project with Bunuba Indigenous rangers and the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) in Western Australia.
They collected cane toads, removed the poisonous parts, and injected the bodies with a nausea-inducing chemical that caused the crocs eating them to feel temporarily sick.
It’s a behavioural ecology method known as conditioned taste aversion, and it worked remarkably well.
“The first three days we noticed the crocodiles were taking the cane toads, then they would go away,” says Bunuba ranger coordinator Paul Bin Busu, whose team set up hundreds of bait stations across 4 large gorge systems in the Kimberley region of north-western Australia.
The doctored cane toads were deployed alongside chicken meat control baits to monitor the effectiveness of the training.
“Then we noticed they would smell the cane toad before eating, and on the last day we noticed that it was mostly the chicken necks getting eaten,” says Bin Busu.
The team used nocturnal ‘spotlighting’ surveys and remotely triggered wildlife cameras to monitor crocodile and toad numbers following the intervention.
“Our baiting completely prevented deaths in areas where cane toads were arriving and decreased deaths by 95% in areas where toads had been for a couple of years,” says Macquarie’s Dr Georgia Ward-Fear, who is lead author of the report detailing the findings in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Ward-Fear says these effects continued in the years following.
Some populations of freshwater crocodiles in tropical Australia have fallen by more than 70% due to ingesting cane toads.
“Freshwater crocs can be heavily impacted as their river systems dry out during the late dry season,” says Ward-Fear.
“They end up congregating in large numbers with very little food, and as toads begin to use these waterbodies for rehydration, the two come into contact and we see large numbers of crocodile deaths over a few months.”
Now, conditioned taste aversion interventions can be planned both ahead of and behind the cane toad invasion front in areas with similar ecology.
August 19, 1791 Benjamin Banneker, the first recognized African-American scientist, a son of former slaves, sent a copy of his just-published Almanac to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, along with an appeal about “the injustice of a state of slavery.” More about Benjamin Banneker, his achievements and his letter to the president
August 19, 1953 Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq Royalist troops surrounded, bombarded and burned the residence of the Mohammed Mosaddeq, the recently dismissed elected Iranian Prime Minister. After having briefly fled his country for Italy due to the rioting over his unconstitutional dismissal of Mosaddeq, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was returned to the Peacock throne with dictatorial power. All this was done with the planning, financing and assistance of the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6.
August 19, 1958 The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Youth Council in Oklahoma City, led by Clara Luper, a high school history teacher, began sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters, inspired by success in Wichita, Kansas. [see August 11, 1958].
August 19, 1970 The U.S. deployed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles near Greeley, Colorado. It was the first missile with multiple (then three-170 kiloton) nuclear warheads known as MIRVs (Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles). The MIRV: each cone is a warhead All the details about this fearsome armament
August 19, 1989 Anglican Bishop and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu was among hundreds of black demonstrators, members of Mass Democratic Movement who were whipped and blasted with sand stirred up by helicopters as they attempted to picnic on a “whites-only” beach near Cape Town, South Africa.
Please note what these bigots say. The issue under rational-basis review is not whether Texas should be concerned about opposite-sex sodomy, but whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. They claim it is OK for straight cis couples to do anal sex, but not for two guys. Why, because they hate gay people, they hate the idea of having sex between people with both having dicks. This is just an attempt to have a straight cis society enforced by a Christian Taliban. It is based in a desire for a society that only includes people like them, with the same feelings and ideas that they have. The rest of us can just fuck off and get out. It is simply bigotry and anti-LGBTQ+ hate. This is the idea that if they do something it is OK but if others they don’t like do it then they are wrong and evil. Also notice they do their best to push these bigotry ideas on other countries which are poorer and need the money these groups bring. All this bill does is say treat others including trans people with respect and dignity. Don’t try to keep looking into their pants to see what is between their legs. Hugs. Scottie
A divided Supreme Court on Friday left in place lower court orders blocking changes to sex discrimination rules for schools in many states while new protections for transgender students under Title IX are being challenged.
The Biden administration, in an emergency request, had argued the court orders were too sweeping and some of the updates should be allowed to take effect as scheduled on Aug. 1. But the GOP-led states and conservative groups challenging the new rules said the components can’t be easily separated.
“Schools would have to work out how the Rule functions without its key provisions, amend their policies, and train their staff accordingly—all by next week—and then do it all again after judicial review,” lawyers for Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents a Louisiana school board, told the court last month.
As I’ve mentioned here many times, Alliance Defending Freedom once petitioned the US Supreme Court to keep homosexuality criminalized. Since then, they have provided free legal support to overseas groups seeking to maintain or institute such laws in their own countries.
Here’s what ADF Global executive director Benjamin Bull said in 2013 when India re-criminalized homosexuality:
“When given the same choice the Supreme Court of the United States had in Lawrence vs. Texas, the Indian Court did the right thing. India chose to protect society at large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates. America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage, and understood that these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society.”
In 2003, ADF president Alan Sears co-wrote a book titled The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing The Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, which warned that eliminating anti-sodomy laws would lead to the overturning of “laws against pedophilia, sex between close relatives, polygamy, bestiality and all other distortions and violations of God’s plan.”
And from the ADF’s 30-page Lawrence amicus brief:
Same-sex sodomy is far more effective in spreading STDs than opposite-sex sodomy. Multiple studies have estimated that 40 percent or more of men who practice anal sex acquire STDs. In fact, same-sex sodomy has resulted in the transformation of diseases previously transmitted only through fecally contaminated food and water into sexually causes diseases — primarily among those who practice same-sex sodomy. The issue under rational-basis review is not whether Texas should be concerned about opposite-sex sodomy, but whether it is reasonable to believe that same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem. It clearly is.
Alliance Defending Freedom was jointly founded in 1994 by the leaders of Coral Ridge Ministries, Focus On The Family, and the American Family Association.
#BREAKING: By 5-4 vote (with Justice Gorsuch joining the three Democratic appointees in dissent), #SCOTUS *rejects* Biden administration applications to put most of its new Title IX guidance back into effect. Rule remains blocked pending further litigation: pic.twitter.com/L0W0op2FwI
Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq
Clara Luper
Scottie's Playtime 