The parents of a transgender teen who died by suicide earlier this year are speaking out about the toll Idaho’s anti-trans laws and the Trump administration’s anti-trans crusade took on their daughter.
“You worry about that hatred being internalized, and that’s what happened to my kid,” Elyse Thorpe told NBC News in a recent profile. “It got inside.”
Thorpe and ex-husband Joseph Pollard describe their late daughter, May Pollard, as an energetic and curious child who loved sloths, video games, and writing poetry. She just wanted to live her life and experience the same things any teen does. But she was also keenly aware of the wave of anti-trans laws and sentiment that have swept Idaho and much of the U.S. in recent years.
According to NBC News, May, who had also been diagnosed with autism, came out as trans when she was in eighth grade. She began receiving gender-affirming medical care in ninth grade. But due to Idaho’s ban on such care for minors, passed in 2022 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2024, her parents were forced to travel to Portland, Oregon, every six months to get May the care she needed. Following President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, Thorpe began making the 13-hour round trip by car to avoid creating a flight record amid the administration’s relentless crackdown on gender-affirming care for young people.
While the treatment improved things for May, the obstacles placed between her and the care she needed by anti-trans legislators continued to weigh on her.
Then, in July 2023, Idaho’s law banning trans students from accessing single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity took effect. Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of Boise High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance, and in July 2025, May joined the lawsuit under the pseudonym Jane Doe. In court filings, May described feeling stigmatized by being forced to use her campus’s two single-occupancy restrooms, which came to be referred to as the “trans bathrooms.”
“It is scary having to look around before to see if anyone will see me going into the single-user restroom, as I worry about people gossiping and speculating about me being transgender,” she said. “I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent — even students who might be friendly. For me, it is not a part of myself I talk about or that I feel is the most important part of my identity.”
Her parents told NBC News that May would avoid eating and drinking during the school day, hoping to not have to use the school’s bathrooms. “I just want to fit in,” she wrote in her affidavit in the Lambda Legal case. “It is upsetting to think that I may have to go through the rest of high school without access to something as basic as the ability to use the same restroom as everyone else.”
May’s parents say she became more troubled last fall and winter, according to NBC News. She attempted to run away to Oregon, and at least one of her poems seemed to reference self-harm. Then on the morning of January 27, Thorpe woke to find May missing from her bedroom. She later found her daughter’s body in a downstairs bedroom. May was just 16 years old.
When a detective asked her parents whether anyone might have wanted to harm May, Thorpe responded that “A lot of America” did.
“There is a huge amount of animosity, every single day, thrown at trans kids,” an angry and grieving Pollard told the detective. “The whole f**king country. The whole f**king administration, every single f**king day.”
As NBC News notes, over the last few years, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) has signed 15 anti-LGBTQ+ laws. In April, Little signed a pair of bills, one of which made it a criminal offense for trans people to use the bathroom associated with their gender, while the other banned Pride flags on government buildings.
As for Lambda Legal’s challenge to the state’s school bathroom ban, at the time of May’s death, she was one of just two plaintiffs left in the case, as all the others had graduated high school and no longer held standing. Earlier this spring, Lambda Legal moved to dismiss the case after the final plaintiff graduated.
But Thorpe has continued to protest Idaho’s anti-trans laws. According to NBC News, she stood outside Gov. Little’s office during a March 31 protest holding a photo of her daughter.
“I wanted to support the protesters and remind everyone, including the governor,” Thorpe told the outlet, “that the stakes are real.”
“The parents go and testify, and we say, ‘Children are going to die,’” she said. “We tell the legislators that, and they dismiss it. I guess they think it’s hyperbole, or they think it’s hysteria, or they think it’s an acceptable outcome, probably some mix of those things. So I don’t understand why there is an unwillingness to connect these laws to these outcomes. It was right there from the start.”
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This is a very important news article. I hope everyone will read it. This is scary how a small mostly religious minority wants to erase an entire group of people from existence just for a made up moral certainty that they can’t accept that people different from them exist. They simply won’t accept that other people can feel differently than they do and they insist that they have the right to deny all rights to LGBTQ+ kids / people. I remember being a gay teenager hearing these same arguments about people like me in J high school. How gay kids shouldn’t be allowed in locker rooms as we may get excited by the other kids bodies and lose control and have sex with them right there in the locker room. It was a huge fight back then about gay teachers as the moral right felt they shouldn’t be teaching kids who might see being gay as normal. I remember the silly stupid republicans like Sam Nunn claiming no military person wanted to serve with or god forbid shower in the same room as a gay man. At the time I was gay and in the military and having more sex and great times even with straight guys. But the parent pushing the claim that their daughter had to change clothes in front of a trans kid went on right wing TV programs to promote the hate. The school denies that setup existed. Plus a lot of this is funded and pushed by religious hate groups with a lot of donated money behind them in an attempt to keep the country from progressing as their god is stuck with writings from 2,500 years ago and the majority of hate preachers seem to idolize the 1950s. I feel so sorry for the trans kids today. I remember what it was like for me as a gay kid in the public school system. I was not even out, just different but still I was attacked as a queer faggot. Why some people hate so deeply and want to act on it and even pass it on to others hopeing they will agree with them I can not understand. What happened to live and let live? I believe that if what someone else is doing doesn’t involve me, doesn’t harm me, then let that person be them. Qoutes from the article below. Oh and when did executive orders become laws? Did congress get dissolved, or are we now ruled by the whim or the racist bigot hater? Hugs
According to Liz Mikitarian, a retired kindergarten teacher and the founder of STOP Moms for Liberty, the coordinated efforts to undermine the rights of trans students in Illinois mimic a strategy playing out nationwide.
“You realize it’s so much bigger when you see all the communities around the country that have dealt with this exact same pattern,” Castro told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pat Green, who is still grappling with the bullying his son experienced, shares Lascano’s concerns. “From the time he was born, he had this light,” says Green. “When he was at his old school, it was just gone. … I’m really scared about the way things are right now. I remember the fear of wondering if I was going to lose my son. [These groups] are not protecting children. They are causing so much harm.”
Parents and advocates say coordinated complaints over transgender students are driving legal fees, security costs and emotional strain across Illinois school districts.
$360,000 and Counting: School Districts Are Spending Big Bucks to Fight Anti-Trans Lawsuits
Parents and advocates say coordinated complaints over transgender students are driving legal fees, security costs and emotional strain across Illinois school districts.
Pat Green sits in front of Hinsdale Township High School South, the school his son transferred to after getting bullied for being queer. Photo by Mark Black for the Chicago Sun-Times.
This story was produced in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times, a nonprofit newspaper.
Editor’s note: This article includes mention of suicide and self-harm. If you are having thoughts of suicide or are concerned that someone you know may be, resources are available here.
As Pat Green took the stage at the Valley View 365U school board meeting on April 14, 2025, he recalled another night years earlier, when he picked up his 13-year-old son from the hospital. His son, who is trans and had recently come out as queer, had been shoved into a locker so hard that he needed four staples in his forehead.
“I hear the families of LGBTQI+ youth like mine,” Green tells the board. “And I just wanted to say thank you, and for God’s sake, don’t go backwards. … I almost lost the most precious gift God ever gave me.”
In the room with Green were also members of Awake Illinois, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate and anti-government extremist group known for fighting against the rights of trans kids. They had filed a federal civil rights complaint against the district for allegedly violating Title IX by allowing transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their genders.
When Green’s son, now 25, came out over a decade ago in eighth grade, he faced slurs daily and was told to use the faculty bathroom if he didn’t want to use the girls’ restroom.
“By the end of freshman year, the light my son used to have had turned into dread. Soon after came the cutting, the suicidal ideation, the grades slipping from honor student to barely passing,” Green told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pat Green and his son. Photo by Mark Black for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Despite Green’s emotional appeal to the school board, Awake Illinois founder Shannon Adcock told the board that “failure to address the Title IX violations will invite severe repercussions, including the termination of federal funding for noncompliant institutions, which would mean $20 million in this district’s case.”
Voices like Adcock’s prompted Green to start attending school board meetings. He noticed an increasing number of complaints and lawsuits from conservative parent groups targeting transgender-inclusive school policies in Illinois that were resulting in legal and financial strain for school districts.
Documents obtained by Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) found that Deerfield School District 109 has paid nearly $360,000—the equivalent of four average teachers’ salaries—to fend off an ongoing lawsuit and pay for security costs spawned from complaints about trans-affirming bathroom and locker room policies.
A breakdown of costs Deerfield District 109 faces to fend off an ongoing lawsuit and pay for security costs spawned from complaints about trans-affirming bathroom and locker room policies, which was obtained via FOIA.
That amount is the equivalent of 37% of all federal funds the district received last year. It included more than $255,000 for legal defense, over $30,000 in school security upgrades and $4,000 for extra staff to screen threats.
Moms for Liberty supporters attend a Deerfield District 109 board meeting at Caruso Middle School on April 10, 2025. Photo by Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere for the Chicago Sun-Times.
“When schools are forced to fight lawsuits over issues that aren’t a problem for the vast majority of people, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. Straight up monetarily, why are we spending so much time prosecuting and persecuting a minuscule part of the population? Why do you want your tax dollars doing that?” Allaina Humphreys, founder of Bolingbrook Pride, told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
While these suits are playing out across the state, school officials say they are following policies that align with the Illinois Human Rights Act, which state regulators and courts say require schools to allow transgender students to use facilities consistent with their gender identity. That interpretation was reinforced by the Illinois Human Rights Commission ruling in 2019 and subsequent state guidance issued in 2021.
But none of this is stopping parents like Adcock. “Federal law reigns supreme,” she said at a Naperville district meeting three months after filing the first of her complaints. “Only recently have trans cultists tried to contest [Title IX].” Adcock did not respond to requests for comment.
“I think the muddying of it comes from all of [Trump’s] executive orders,” says Humphreys. “This administration has used them … to dictate policy that it has no right to dictate. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t using it as a basis for legal action.”
Why Deerfield Had to Pay Nearly $360,000
Last spring, during a series of fiery school board meetings, Deerfield parent Nicole Georgas said her cisgender daughter refused to change for gym class after seeing a trans girl in the locker room. Georgas says administrators made her daughter change in front of them and the other student.
The school district denies the allegations and says they are committed to obeying state law.
Despite this, Georgas—who declined to comment for this story—filed a federal civil rights complaint in March 2025 with the Department of Justice. Conservative legal groups Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies and Liberty Justice Center then cited Georgas’ story in complaints to the Department of Education.
America First Legal—a conservative legal group cofounded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller that has waged a litany of legal attacks against the LGBTQ community—then got in the mix. They urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Deerfield Schools District employees, asking federal prosecutors to look at whether school administrators coordinated enforcement of district policy in a way that violated students’ rights. Though no charges are identified in the referral itself, the letter invokes federal civil rights criminal statutes, which can carry penalties ranging from fines and probation to multi-year prison sentences.
In the Deerfield referral and accompanying press materials, America First Legal repeatedly referred to the transgender student as a “male” or a “boy ‘identifying’ as a girl,” and described school policies recognizing students’ gender identities as “radical gender ideology” and “transgender madness.”
Following this, Georgas sued the district seeking an injunction, punitive damages and money for emotional distress. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights repeated Georgas’ claim that students were “allegedly forced” to change in front of the transgender student, and cited previous Trump administration executive orders regarding gender.
Georgas’ message gained even more attention when she appeared on Laura Ingraham’s and the late Charlie Kirk’s shows, where she used transphobic dog whistles to describe the trans student.
“They have continued to have the biological male student present in the locker room with the girls, and they are absolutely in violation with President Trump’s executive order,” Georgas said on Kirk’s show.
Shortly after her appearance on Fox News, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about Georgas’ case. “We are not going to tolerate such behavior by men pretending to be women. The president will continue to strongly stand for the rights of women and girls, not just in sports and on athletic fields, but also private spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms,” Leavitt told the reporter.
Georgas is moving to make her ongoing lawsuit a class action before her daughter graduates from middle school, which would void the case entirely.
Parallel Efforts Across the Country
According to Liz Mikitarian, a retired kindergarten teacher and the founder of STOP Moms for Liberty, the coordinated efforts to undermine the rights of trans students in Illinois mimic a strategy playing out nationwide.
“They feed these outlets that produce more hate,” Mikitarian told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s a model of misinforming people and making them afraid of something, and that works, especially when it’s people’s children. … [But] it’s a grift and people are catching on.”
Financial Burdens
All of these complaints are costing significant time and money and frustrating many parents who see them as a waste of school resources.
Deerfield parent Elizabeth Castro attended the meetings in her child’s district last year and says it was shocking to look around the country and see the same “manufactured controversy.”
“You realize it’s so much bigger when you see all the communities around the country that have dealt with this exact same pattern,” Castro told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Hundreds of community members and trans-rights supporters applaud and cheer during a Deerfield District 109 board meeting at Caruso Middle School in Deerfield, IL, on April 10, 2025. Photo by Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere for the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Deerfield school district still hasn’t heard from the federal government, school officials say. And the Department of Education didn’t respond to a request for updates on the investigations.
“Schools should not be forced to divert hundreds of thousands of dollars away from classrooms, student services, mental health supports, accessibility accommodations and educational programming simply to defend their efforts to support vulnerable students,” Asher McMaher, the executive director of Trans Up Front IL, told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times. “These are vital public resources that should be invested in children, not spent responding to coordinated attacks on transgender youth and the institutions working to protect them.”
Policy Matters
Beyond the lost money and the chaos, the lawsuits and complaints have affected the trans kids who are at the center of these debates.
“The human cost is even greater than the financial one,” says McMaher. “These actions create fear, uncertainty and instability for transgender students and their families, many of whom are already navigating significant challenges. … The greatest tragedy is that these costs are entirely avoidable, yet they continue to grow as attacks on transgender youth are increasingly normalized and encouraged at the national level.”
According to Corey Lascano, LGBTQ coordinator for the Chicago Teachers Union, policies inform school culture, which is concerning especially when school is “the only place where [some trans youth] can feel safe to be themselves.”
Corey Lascano, a board member with Trans Up Front IL. Photo by Anthony Vazquez for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pat Green, who is still grappling with the bullying his son experienced, shares Lascano’s concerns. “From the time he was born, he had this light,” says Green. “When he was at his old school, it was just gone. … I’m really scared about the way things are right now. I remember the fear of wondering if I was going to lose my son. [These groups] are not protecting children. They are causing so much harm.”
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While I detest the end song he plays I love Mark’s take on issues. He doesn’t pull his punches and lays out the facts. In this case it is important to watch to the end where he elaborates on the current attempt to genocide trans people by making them illegal as Russia has. Now requiring that no business, event or medical facility that takes any government money can allow any kind of support or positive affirmation of trans people. He talks about how important it is to let trans youth socially transition and live as the gender they identify with, and to get puberty blockers to not go through the wrong puberty. He mentions trans children figure out their gender the same way and ages that cis kids do. Hugs
Panic over the existence of LGBTQ+ people is becoming so ridiculous it’s almost impossible to tell if it’s satire or not. In this video we’ll look at some of the most ridiculous examples of right-wing hysteria over queer people. Well also talk about how conservatives have successfully weaponized their outrage against queer people and how culture influences politics.
The Humanist Report (THR) is a progressive political podcast that discusses and analyzes current news events and pressing political issues. Our analyses are guided by humanism and political progressivism. Each news story we cover is supplemented with thought-provoking, fact-based commentary that aims for the highest level of objectivity.
This is another Riley Gaines person trying to say she lost only because her opponent was trans. They claim that the wrestler Kallie Keeler was sexually assaulted. The issue is that all the wrestlers asked and the experts say the moves were standard wrestling moves. Even the coach says that fingers often end up in places they don’t belong in normal activities in public. I was not a wrestler, but I know someone who did wrestle in high school. I had joked with him I couldn’t have done wrestling with all the hands on the crotch of the wrestlers touching each other’s cocks and balls or fingers in the butt. He told me it was very common and if you watched many boys got up from the floor during or after a match with hard ons or wet spots on their uniforms where their dicks are. The law suit is an over the top attempt to get wrestler Kallie Keeler a bunch of rewards that she did not earn and to punish all trans athletes. It also is so she can repeat Riley Gaines track of using her anti-trans hate to be on TV and make a lot of money she wouldn’t make if she was not pushing bigotry and hate. Plus if the opponent was a cis girl and accidentally did the same thing she wouldn’t have won either. This is a Christian family who feels entitled to award seh did not earn. Athe the end of the video he reads responses and comments from anti-trans people who said it was a commonly used move and sexual touching happens. Hugs
The right-wing legal group Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a sweeping federal lawsuit on behalf of Washington high school wrestler Kallie Keeler, claiming she was sexually assaulted during a match against a transgender opponent.
The problem? There’s video of the match, and according to multiple wrestlers, coaches, and wrestling experts I spoke with, it shows nothing controversial. Just legal, routine wrestling techniques.
The lawsuit goes far beyond the match itself, targeting the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), school officials, coaches, and state authorities while demanding that Keeler’s losses to transgender athletes be erased from the record books and that trans athletes be barred from competing against her in the future.
Despite the dramatic allegations, Pierce County prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges, and even some conservatives who oppose transgender participation in sports have criticized ADF’s characterization of the match.
The Trump administration is investigating three dozen Illinois school districts to assess if their curriculums include “gender ideology” — and parental opt-outs — and whether trans students can participate in competitive sports.
The districts are the latest in a string of public schools, colleges and universities across the country named as subjects of similar federal investigations since President Donald Trump began his second term last year.
The ACLU of Illinois said the Trump administration is wrongly interpreting both federal and state law.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Three dozen Illinois school districts are the latest in a string of public schools, colleges and universities across the country named as subjects of federal investigations into whether the institutions teach about sexual orientation and “gender ideology,” and whether parents can opt out of such curriculum.
The inquiry, announced by the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday, will also “assess” whether the 35 school districts around the state, plus Chicago’s largest charter school network, allow transgender students to use single-sex bathrooms or participate in competitive sports.
The DOJ’s notice did not say what prompted the investigation or why the districts — which range from rural schools with extremely small enrollment to one of the largest districts in Illinois — and the agency did not respond to a request for clarification. More than half of the school districts are in the Chicago area, though the list does not include any of the large suburban school districts that have attracted attention in recent years for litigation over trans students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms.
But Thursday’s announcement did point to a June 2025 U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires school districts to allow opt-outs for LGBTQ-related lessons in the classroom, plus a more recent March ruling blocking a California policy that allowed schools to keep a student’s gender transition private from their parents.
“This Department of Justice is determined to put an end to local school authorities keeping parents in the dark about how sexuality and gender ideology are being pushed in classrooms,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in the news release.
Dhillon, who advised Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and rose to prominence as the face of several unsuccessful lawsuits against California’s COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, is the administration’s key lawyer on civil rights issues. As assistant attorney general for civil rights, Dhillon oversees the “Title IX Special Investigations Team” — a joint effort between the DOJ and U.S. Department of Education that was launched last year.
“Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: Parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children,” Dhillon said. “This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”
In a statement, Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed the inquiry as the Trump administration continuing to “punish states the president does not like,” calling it a “sham investigation.”
“The Civil Rights Division used to investigate actual discrimination concerns to ensure all individuals are treated equally under the law, but they’re now focused on belittling the rights and humanity of LGBTQ+ communities,” he said.
In 2019, Pritzker signed legislation requiring Illinois public schools’ history curriculum “include a study of the roles and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this state,” but Thursday’s news release made no mention of the law.
String of investigations
The DOJ’s announcement is similar to more than a dozen from the Trump administration since the president began his second term last January, most citing Title IX, the sweeping 1972 federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.
One of his first official acts back in power was signing an executive order dubbed “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” which threatened to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
That included school lunch funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as the state of Maine found out in early 2025 after a public spat between the president and Gov. Janet Mills at the White House over the executive order. After the Department of Education launched an investigation into the state’s education agency and subsequently froze the funding, a judge ordered the USDA to unfreeze the funds, and the agency settled the suit.
Inquiries announced last year in states like New York, Oregon and Washington are ongoing, though the administration has claimed it found evidence of violation of Title IX in Kansas and Colorado school districts. The administration has also launched, and in some cases wrapped up, similar assessments of public universities and community colleges.
ACLU of Illinois cites wrong interpretation
Ed Yohnka with the ACLU of Illinois said the Trump administration is wrongly interpreting both federal and state law, which he said are both “clear that students have an ability to play on sports teams and to use private areas consistent with their gender identity.”
Yohnka also said it was ironic that the Trump administration, brought to power by Republicans who generally oppose government overreach, was trying to limit local control of school districts.
“None of these schools need some ideological culture warrior in Washington, D.C., telling Watseka what their curriculum should be,” he said. “The notion that Justice Department is going to launch investigations and divert money for education because the president signed a piece of paper is just a misuse of our tax dollars.”
Yohnka said he wasn’t aware of any pattern among the three dozen districts the DOJ is investigating, but one school official from rural northwest Illinois has an “emerging operational theory.” In a social media post Friday, Oregon Community Unit School District 220 Superintendent PJ Caposey said he didn’t have “definitive answers” from the DOJ as to why his district was included, he posited it may have something to do with the districts’ participation in a federal School Violence Prevention Program grant.
“To be absolutely clear, this does not confirm that grant participation is the reason for inclusion, nor can we state that as fact,” he wrote. “It is simply one possible connection being explored as we work to better understand the broader picture.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
I did some reviews on the Cass report because it was supported by so many anti-trans bigots. Turns out there were so many lies and errors in the report that it became clear the purpose was to discredit the clinic and get it shut down. The report was driven by anti-trans people and even Cass herself was well known to be anti-trans. But what is so irksome is the lies still get told and circulated repeatedly even when they are pointed out. The idea of social contagion was found to be entirely made up by people desperate to keep their child from transitioning. The idea came from a website set up for parents that had kids transitioning and they hated it. The Cass report used lies from that site as if they were medical facts saying that parents were not told and children were being rushed to transition, when even the parents admitted they had all the information in writing that they had to sign and the biggest complaint was how long it took to get seen by the clinic with many kids going through puberty before they got gender affirming care. The idea of large amounts of detransitioners is totally made up as real studies have found it is less than 2% and the regret levels are well below any other medical procedure. I wish haters and bigots would understand if they have to make up stuff and lie to prove their point then they have no point to make. They just hate the idea of people not accepting they are the gender / sex assigned at birth and don’t want to accept new medical data. Hugs
Again all this is about is a Christian nationalist desire to mimic Russia and remove all LGBTQ+ representation from the public view in the name of “protecting children from porn” as if just being or media representing LGBTQ+ people is pornographic and sexual. These people feel anything not straight and cis is sexualizing and abusing children simply because they do not want the LGBTQ+ people to exist. Hugs
Side note. Ron got home last night 3-2-2026 about 6 pm. I made him a supper of a salad and two hamburgers with the fixings. He was so happy. I was happy. We went to bed and snuggled which made Tupac who has snuggled me every night a bit unhappy but he pressed in from the other side. All day Ron and I have been together, unloading the car, doing laundry, Ron started on the floors in the kitchen, and we are making a pork tenderloin, potatoes, brown gravy, carrots, and greenbeans for supper. It is so good to have my husband home. I understood why he had been gone for the better part of three months but it sure is grand to have him home. I feel better, anxieties lower, and happy feeling up. Also for those worried I was not eating which I was not, I ate like a pig at a trough tonight, having a first heaping plate of everything and then going back for a second heaping plate. The end of the second one was a bit challenging to finish but I did. I offered to pick up the last bits of left overs but ron said he would do it. I think he noticed I was trying to hide that I was swaying and wobbleing when I walked due to my pain levels. Hugs
Discussion of gender is not sexualization. Making books available to students that represent the diversity of their experiences and showcase the numerous ways to be a person in the world is not sexualizing them. Such an interpretation says far more about the adults and the perspectives they’re applying to books than it does about the books or their intended audiences.
Following this week’s State of the Union Address, House Republicans worked quickly to advance legislation to ban books from public schools nationwide. House Resolution 7661 (H.R. 7661), also known as the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” would modify the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 by prohibiting use of funds under the act “to develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to, children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material, and for other purposes.”
The bill was introduced by House Representative Mary Miller (Republican, Illinois). 17 additional Representatives cosigned it.
H.R. 7661 is an anti-trans bill, and tucked within its provisions are those that ban books for those under 18 that “include sexually oriented material.” This is the same vague language used in numerous states across the U.S. to ban books from public schools and public libraries. This bill includes “lewd” and “lascivious” dancing as prohibited topics or themes. No such books for young readers exist, but facts don’t matter to a regime seeking total and complete control.
The bill goes on to further define “sexually oriented material” as anything broaching the topics of “gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” The latter is an intentionally harmful word used as a cudgel to harm trans people. Such a broad definition also ensures that this kind of bill could be applicable in any situation where it would benefit the banners. It isn’t a stretch to see a bill like this used to outright ban all books by or about LGBTQ+ people under the guise of it being “sexually oriented.”
Though this legislation would apply to institutions using funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, there’s little question that it would expand to include all public libraries, not just those in public schools. We’ve already seen this very thing play out across the country.
These local-level policies, alongside state-level policies like Iowa’s Senate File 496 and Idaho’s House Bill 710–both still working their way through numerous lawsuits–provided the roadmap for the proposal of federal-level book ban legislation. It was only a matter of time, and the ongoing onslaught of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric that has grown exponentially under the Trump-Vance regime made this the prime moment.
Discussion of gender is not sexualization. Making books available to students that represent the diversity of their experiences and showcase the numerous ways to be a person in the world is not sexualizing them. Such an interpretation says far more about the adults and the perspectives they’re applying to books than it does about the books or their intended audiences.
You can read the full text of H.R. 7661 here, including its list of cosponsors. Right now, your best way to have your voice heard about this hateful and discriminatory bill is to call your House representatives and urge them to veto this bill at every opportunity. There are years’ worth of resources from which you can pull about where and how all of these bills are calculated and targeted, and you can pull from the numerous ongoing lawsuits challenging similar bills and policies at the local and state level. Let your lawmakers know that you’re watching them and their voting records, especially if they’re among the roster of those proposing the legislation.
These bills aren’t about removing books; books are just one of the tools. These bills are about the complete and total erasure and removal of queer people from American life.
Don't be fooled by this bill's name– this is a book banning bill that will exclude LGBTQ books from all public schools NATIONWIDE.Call your congresspeople and tell them to VOTE NO on this nakedly bigoted book banning bullshit. http://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c…
The conflation of porn and LGBTQ (but specifically trans) issues is purposeful. It's part of the Project 2025 plan to criminalize LGBTQ+ ppl.It starts with books. It moves to bathrooms. Then it moves to govt IDs. We're in it already.You don't need to be an expert to see where this goes next.
Nazi Republican Mary Miller who has quoted Hitler in the past now wants to ban strippers in public schools…and she's all in with banning any book that dares mention LGBTQ+ issues…www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/gop-…
A recent article from Jesse Singal in the New York Times seemed to indicate the organization might be quietly retreating from supporting trans youth care.
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Yesterday, anti-transgender activist and columnist Jesse Singal published a piece claiming there were “cracks in the wall” around gender-affirming care (which you can find fully fact-checked here). To make that case, he relied heavily on a statement from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons that bypassed the organization’s normal scientific review process and was advanced under pressure from leadership aligned with the Trump administration, including a president who is a major Republican donor. Singal also invoked the American Psychological Association, suggesting the organization was retreating from its 2024 position supporting transgender care and rejecting claims that gender identity is “caused” by external factors. But a representative for the APA tells Erin In The Morning that the organization stands firmly by its 2024 guidelines supporting transgender youth care and provided documentation indicating Singal mischaracterized its position.
“No, APA’s position has not changed,” says a representative speaking for the APA, attaching a link to their 2024 policy statement which provided broad support for gender-affirming care. “APA continues to support unobstructed access to evidence-based care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals of all ages.”
The 2024 policy statement is to date one of the most significant supportive stances of any medical organization for gender-affirming care. It states that gender-affirming medical care is medically necessary, opposes bans on gender-affirming care, declares that being transgender is not caused by autism or post-traumatic stress, establishes the organization’s support for combatting disinformation on transgender healthcare, and finds that rejection of a trans youth’s gender identity can increase their risk of suicide and harm their psychological wellbeing. The policy was passed overwhelmingly, 153-9, with each voter representing a large subset of the organization’s 157,000 members. Now, the organization says that it is not accurate to claim that there is any regression on support for transgender youth care from the organization.
The organization also disputes Singal’s portrayal of a 2025 letter written by Katherine McGuire to the Federal Trade Commission. In his piece, Singal claims the APA “cautioned that gender dysphoria diagnoses could be the result of ‘trauma-related presentations’ rather than a trans identity,” and noted that “co-occurring mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder) … may complicate or be mistaken for gender dysphoria,” framing this as evidence that the organization is retreating from its 2024 policy supporting transgender youth care. That interpretation is incorrect, according to an APA representative, who says the letter does not contradict the organization’s 2024 position and does not represent a regression in its support for evidence-based transgender care.
The FTC letter sent by APA Services was not saying that transgender identity can be caused by autism or depression. Rather, it was describing what any competent psychologist does with any patient: assess the whole person, including whether conditions like depression or anxiety are present. The letter does not say that depression or anxiety or autism cause gender dysphoria; it says that psychologists are careful about not mistaking these conditions for gender dysphoria. Notably, the letter was written in direct response to the Trump administration’s FTC, which had accused gender-affirming care providers of deceiving consumers, and McGuire was explaining that psychologists conduct thorough, individualized assessments—not that the organization’s position on care or “causes” of being transgender had changed. Had McGuire not indicated that psychologists were making these determinations, the FTC would likely then accuse the organization of not investigating its crank theories on gender dysphoria.
You can view the letter here:
American Psychological Assocation Response To Ftc Rfi Gender Affirming Care 9 26 2025 Signature (1)
“The 2024 policy statement and the 2025 FTC letter are consistent. The 2024 statement reflects the organization’s policy position on access to care. The 2025 FTC letter describes what competent psychologists do in individual clinical practice: they do not make generalized claims to families but instead provide individualized, evidence-based assessment. Both documents reflect APA’s consistent commitment to evidence-based psychological care,” says the representative.
The American Psychological Association’s reaffirmation of its support for transgender youth health care is significant. The organization is among several reportedly under FTC investigation as part of a broader effort to pressure medical bodies to retreat from transgender youth care. It is also facing a coordinated pressure campaign from anti-trans activists like Jesse Singal and outlets such as The New York Times, both of which have repeatedly sought to cast doubt on established standards of care. That context makes Singal’s portrayal especially consequential. Readers were left with the impression that the APA was backtracking. According to the organization itself, that is false. What Singal presented as evidence of “cracks in the wall” was yet another attempt to manufacture doubt around the professional consensus supporting transgender youth care.
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Again it is a fundamentalist / evangelical Christian who wants to force everyone to follow their church doctrines by enshrining them in the civil laws. Their hate seems to drive them far more than Jesus’s love. All studies ahve show that not only does conversion therapy not work it is very harmful to those that experience it. These people don’t care because they want the LGBTQ+ gone, erased from society. When will they learn it is inherent and can’t be changed by outside forces or because a person wants it to? I like to ask people who believe in it if they could be converted to gay or trans and the response is always no that would be crazy. Then why try to convert LGBTQ+ kids / people. Because they see it as a choice and a sin, and nothing on can say will change their minds. Horrible people doing horrible things. Hugs
Ohio Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would punish state agencies and local governments for being too supportive of LGBTQ+ youth. Among a slew of provisions, conversion therapy would be reinstated where it has been banned, teachers may be prevented from using a student’s preferred pronouns, and parents wouldn’t be able to lose custody due to refusing to support their child’s gender identity.
“State institutions, government institutions cannot promote that woke ideology,” state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, said in an interview Tuesday. Click believes government agencies have been overly affirming of LGBTQ+ children, which he claims has hurt parents. “It is not conversion therapy to help children discover their identity and who they are biologically,” Click said. Click has focused significant time in the legislature targeting LGBTQ+ people.
Click, a former pastor, last appeared here in December 2025 when he introduced the “Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act,” which would mandate teaching public school students about “the positive influence of Christianity on American culture.”
He first appeared here in 2018 when he led the invocation at Trump rally by asking Jesus to protect Trump from “wicked jungle journalism.”
In 2023, Click appeared here when he convened a hearing against transgender rights during which his invited guest testified that non-Christian lawmakers are “possessed by demons.”
Click is a regular on Tony Perkins’ podcast.
Andy does not know the what it means to be a Christian and he does not know the definition of love. You cannot lie to people and love them at the same time. Boys cannot become girls nor can girls become boys. You cannot lie in the name of Jesus and call yourself Christian. https://t.co/0APK0LHlce
🚨The woke media describes ripping children from the parents as “overly affirming!” 🦄 🌈An “educator” calls it an attack on autonomy 😱 LISTEN UP LIBS! OUR CHILDREN DO NOT BELONG TO THE GOVERNMENT OR TO YOU‼️#AFFIRMINGFAMILIESFIRST#HB693@MegEBrock@CCVPolicy@Heritage…
John Russell (He/Him)July 20, 2026, 1:00 pm EDT
Scottie's Playtime 