The NSW equality bill brings the state into line with others. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP
Rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people in New South Wales have been strengthened with the passing of a bill in the state parliament late on Thursday, after the legislation was watered down to gain Labor support.
The equality bill will give transgender people the ability to have their sex changed on their birth certificates without undergoing invasive surgery, bringing the state in line with others, and non-binary will become a gender option for birth certificates.
There were cheers in the chamber when the bill passed about 8.40pm. The independent MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the package a year ago, embraced the leader of the government in the upper house, Penny Sharpe after the vote that succeeded without the opposition’s support.
Greenwich said the changes would “improve LGBTIQA+ dignity, safety and equality” and thanked Sharpe for her work getting the legislation through the upper house.
“We’ve got more work to do and we start that work now with new confidence from these significant wins for our community,” he said on Thursday night.
After months of stagnation, Greenwich convinced the premier, Chris Minns, to support the bill by making a number of major concessions, including dropping changes to the anti-discrimination act.
While advocates welcomed the remaining elements of the bill, many also raised concerns that protections for LGBTQ+ teachers and students at private schools had been dumped.
The Equality Australia chief executive, Anna Brown, thanked community members who shared their stories and all those who campaigned to garner support for the changes.
“These new laws will have no impact on the lives of most people in our state, but for a small number of people it will make their lives immeasurably better,” she said after the bill passed.
“It’s a journey that continues as we turn our attention to the state’s anti-discrimination laws and our ongoing efforts to protect vulnerable teachers and students in religious and private schools across the state.”
Greenwich had hoped the Coalition would allow MPs a conscience vote on the bill but earlier in the week the opposition leader, Mark Speakman, confirmed his party would stand against the reforms.
Despite that, the Liberal MP for the North Shore, Felicity Wilson, crossed the floor.
“Just because your party doesn’t have a conscience vote doesn’t mean you don’t have a conscience,” she told ABC Radio Sydney earlier in the week.
Greenwich said on Wednesday that the Coalition was moving further to the right and “using my community as a political football, as a political punching bag”.
“I am concerned that we are seeing a rightwing trend developing within the Coalition,” he said. “No other leader has denied their members a conscience vote on LBGT issues.”
The opposition attorney general, Alister Henskens, held a news conference with religious figures and community members opposed to the reforms earlier in the week.
Among the concerns he raised was about the “impact upon the privacy of women’s spaces”.
“It’s moving too far and it’s moving too quickly,” he said.
But the attorney general, Michael Daley, said the opposition was misrepresenting the package.
The bill also repealed offences for living off the earnings of a sex worker and made threatening to “out” a person’s LGBTIQA+ status an offence.
It has struck me that we need a reduce-stress-be-in-the-moment-self-care sort of thing. Some of us have chronic conditions, some are recovering from surgery, some of us are physically fine other than great stress that may be getting the better of us, and some of us may have a combination of some or all, or even something else. I’m pretty sure we’re all aware of tools, but sometimes things are so worrying that we forget about that, as we urgently try to fix things, or even submit to our brains’s workings with cortisol and fear and what all. So. I don’t know what, if any of this, might help someone, but I gotta try. So here’s what’s likely gonna be a long post, with a mixed bag of stuff. Actually, I think it may turn into 2 separate posts, because I see I’ve only got one item covered, and it’s already post-length. So there may be Part 2. And maybe yet another one.
I think I should first refer people to the hotlines where professionals want to and can help. Maybe someone thinks they don’t need or want to call, or maybe someone thinks they’re not there yet. It’s just good to have the resource at hand, is all. Some gain strength from knowing they can call. So, of course, there’s 911, or whatever the 3 digit emergency number is where you live. Then, more specifically, there are numbers for mental health assistance, like 988 where you can text Q to 988 if you want an LGBTQI+ affirming counselor. National Domestic Violence Hotline , (800) 799-7233. Crisis Text Line ,Text HOME to 741741. National Sexual Assault Hotline , (800) 656-4673. SAgE’s Farmer Support Hotline , 833-381-SAGE. Veterans Crisis Line , 988, then PRESS 1 Text 838255, Chat online. Much more at https://www.apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines . Also, https://glaad.org/resourcelist/ . No doubt I’ve missed something, so please put it in comments.
I will share a bit about myself here. I’ve been diagnosed with generalized anxiety. Could be brain chemistry, could be that my life has not been a calm flow, both, something else. Whatever it is, I have it. Having treated and therapized, I know which tools work for me, and I use them, sometimes unconsciously. Anyway, I don’t like seeing people having trouble, or being troubled, or being hungry, sick, cold, hot, traumatized by war, etc., etc. My mindset has always been to do all I can to fix. Mostly to fix things immediately for the people I’m trying to help, but also the bigger working to fix. We’ve all seen my posts where I’ve shared some of the issues and items on which I work.
The thing about that is, it helps me to feel like I’m doing something that can help somebody else. It overrides anxiety and introversion when I have a reason to be “bothering” people for the greater good.
In regard to current events stress, which is weighing on all people everywhere, there are many of us around the world who are able to do just that one thing that seems so tiny-an hour on the phone, say-to make a difference, and reduce our concerns and stress. So, here is the volunteer page for the Harris-Walz campaign: https://go.kamalaharris.com/ . They still need people to make calls. Making calls to voters in other states is one of my favorite parts of helping a campaign! With a cell phone it’s almost cost and pain-in-the-neck free. Again, I’m aware of various medical issues around the commentary; that’s why I say even one hour will help the campaign, and will also help us. In addition or instead of this, one could contact campaigns of legislative candidates, like Sen. Brown, Sen. Baldwin, Rep. Sharice Davids, Colin Allred, and so many more. An hour of calls will help. And, again, you will feel better having spoken with people to further the greater good.
Now calling is a thing I’m putting forward. To me, it’s personal for each of us, what and how much we’re doing about the stress of the things in the world. I neither need nor want to know if/what anybody’s doing. I’m only putting this out as a thing from which to take our power, to put our power to work.
Since this is this long, I’ll put the first post I read this morning, it inspired me. It’s good-one of those things I needed to read, though I didn’t know it until I got started. It reminded me that while I didn’t necessarily learn or have these experiences in the same way or as early in life, I know these things, and I can do them when needed. I bet we all do, and can. I’m going to share a goodly snippet, but we should read it all if we can. Then, I’ll stop for lunch, then bring back another post part. Well, unless any- or everyone comments that they’re good, and please no more! 🌞 😄 And now from Vixen Strangely:
I tell this about myself because its true and a little weird, but when I was small, my dad taught me how to hook my fingers up and around an eyeball in its socket–just in case I ever had to. I knew what a xyphoid process was at six years old. I knew where to drive the heel of my hand into a human nose. I was taught that I didn’t have the physical strength advantage in life, so I had to have the will. I was taught that you have to walk in awareness. I was taught you watch your drink. I was taught to carry improvised weapons. I was taught to see the world in terms of potential improvised weapons.
I was taught this because some boys never get told what they should never try. Or get told but don’t really learn it. (You don’t use your knee–it’s inexact. You grab them by it. You can squeeze and disrupt a generation of losers. And I never had to do any of that. Not once. Because it’s really only a small percentage of men who are actual monsters–most are reasonable and not actual sociopaths. I like men, really. They are interesting enough and some have valuable skills. They care for the people around them and often are smarter than they think they are. It’s a confidence issue. When you are told to value muscle over brain, you know.)
I was raised to think, more or less, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. Math, science, art, politics. Sports. And it simply never occurred to me women were just out there, somewhere, either not voting because their husbands said they couldn’t or voting for exactly what their husbands told them to, until I heard about that in my early adulthood–because why? That’s crazy: we’re fully-fledged adult people, right? Even if I knew I was born just before Roe and just before women generally could even get credit in our own names.
I’ve been married twice. The idea of a man not knowing what he’s even getting politically going into a relationship is weird to me–this is me. We are talking politics. You don’t know me and not know my politics.
I was told to put in the work. Show it. Show up. I learned how to put a little bass in my voice. I learned respect is earned, not one time, but every time.
Donald Trump never had to earn the respect that he has from the bottom up, in any environment where respect wasn’t just his for showing up. Women can see through it. Do you not see his relationship with Jeffery Epstein? The couple dozen claims of sexual harassment or assault? How he speaks about women all the time? The religious right (that he has allied with) desire to end no-fault divorce and the grinning sadist desire to monitor our menses and try to punish us for our fertility and even stop us from travelling to other states to save our lives? (snip-More)
The stakes in United States v. Skrmetti are even higher than most Americans realize and could have wide-reaching consequences if the court rules to keep the ban on gender-affirming care in place.
This piece was published in partnership with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy. Sign up for their newsletter here.
A Supreme Court case that will decide whether Tennessee can continue to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth could imperil the ability of all Americans to make decisions about their health care, experts say. The outcome depends on how far the court is willing to stretch its ruling that overturned federal abortion rights.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the court has agreed to take up the question of whether gender-affirming care bans for trans youth are unconstitutional, in response to the Biden administration petitioning on behalf of trans youth and their families in Tennessee — one of 26 states that has bannedsuch care for minors. The outcome of the case will grant much-needed clarity in a political landscape that has thrown the lives of trans people across the country into turmoil, as hospitals turn patients away, pharmacies deny prescriptions and families travel hundreds of miles to find care.
But with the case set for oral arguments on December 4, the stakes are even higher than most Americans realize, legal and policy experts say. Tennessee has banned gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, for a specific demographic — trans youth — while allowing those same treatments for cisgender youth. If the Supreme Court allows the state to keep its ban in place, that could imperil everyone’s access to health care.
“What the state of Tennessee is arguing is really dangerous for any person who has any sort of medical condition,” says Ezra Young, a civil rights lawyer and constitutional scholar. Tennessee is dictating what medical treatments people should or should not be allowed to have, Young said; that goes well beyond states’ authority to regulate medicine, specifically because giving health care to trans people is not a public health concern.
“The state can make sure that the doctor you see has a medical degree and has an active medical license, for instance,” he says. “What the state can’t do is micromanage the medical decision-making of patients or doctors, and that’s for good reason. Bureaucrats or lawmakers aren’t medical experts.”
Yet in half of U.S. states, Republican lawmakers have banned or restricted medical care that many trans people need to live, over the protests of the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, and other leading medical groups. Federal judges have attempted to block these bans from taking hold, finding them to be likely unconstitutional. Appeals court judges have disagreed and overturned those decisions. Now, the Supreme Court will have the final say.
“If we don’t win here, it’s going to be open season on any health care related to transgender people,” says Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. If the Supreme Court holds that banning gender-affirming care is not discriminatory, then trans people would no longer be protected under the Affordable Care Act, he argues. States and private insurers would be able to exclude gender-affirming care from coverage plans.
“It would be devastating. I mean, absolutely catastrophic,” Minter says.
Ultimately, the outcome of this case will have a wider impact beyond gender-affirming care. A Supreme Court ruling endorsing Tennessee’s argument that the state can ban safe medical care — just because it disagrees with who that treatment is being given to — would enable the government to control people’s health decisions and enact other blatantly discriminatory policies, legal experts say.
“I think this case has bigger and broader implications than a lot of people realize, even frankly within the legal community,” says Michael Ulrich, an associate professor of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University’s School of Public Health and School of Law. If the Supreme Court agrees with Tennessee’s ban, there’s nothing stopping states from banning or restricting other kinds of health care, he said — like what gets covered under Medicaid.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s office, representing the Biden administration, will split argument time before the Supreme Court with Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
The United States v. Skrmetti case is focused on whether Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The state insists that its ban has nothing to do with sex and that it does not target trans people. Instead, the law “sets age and use-based limits,” Tennessee’s attorney general argues. Minors can still access hormones and puberty blockers for medical purposes, as long as those treatments are not being used as part of a gender transition or to alleviate gender dysphoria. The state claims such a distinction is not based on sex because “neither boys nor girls can use these drugs for gender transition.”
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. This ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had guaranteed the right to an abortion since 1973. When writing the majority opinion in Dobbs, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito briefly addressed a theory that suggests abortion could be covered under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. This idea is not part of Roe, or at issue in Dobbs, but was invoked in a separate “friend of the court” brief. Alito dismissed it, saying that state regulations on abortion do not discriminate based on sex.
“So that’s what the state of Tennessee is now latching on to, this passing reference, this brief statement in Dobbs, and they’re pinning their whole argument on it,” says Minter. “Everything hinges on it.”
In Dobbs, Alito wrote that abortion cannot be protected under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, citing the arcane Geduldig v. Aiello — a case about pregnancy-related disability benefits — and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, a case dealing with the rights of anti-abortion protesters. These rarely cited cases found that state regulations on abortion and pregnancy, or opposing abortion, are not sex discrimination. Tennessee is now using this framework to argue that “any disparate impact on transgender-identifying persons” caused by its law does not single trans people out for discrimination in ways covered by the 14th Amendment.
If the state’s gender-affirming care ban is found by the Supreme Court to be discriminatory under the 14th Amendment, it is subject to heightened scrutiny — a more rigorous review to determine whether a law is constitutional or not. In that scenario, Tennessee is more likely to lose.
Using abortion case law to support bans on gender-affirming care is especially dangerous, experts say. Tennessee is taking the Supreme Court’s own decision in Dobbs out of context, according to lawyers who have worked in LGBTQ+ rights cases for decades. And, if the justices read Tennessee’s law, it is obvious that banning gender-affirming care for trans people is discriminating based on sex, they say.
The United States v. Skrmetti case is focused on whether Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The state insists that its ban has nothing to do with sex and that it does not target trans people. Instead, the law “sets age and use-based limits,” Tennessee’s attorney general argues. Minors can still access hormones and puberty blockers for medical purposes, as long as those treatments are not being used as part of a gender transition or to alleviate gender dysphoria. The state claims such a distinction is not based on sex because “neither boys nor girls can use these drugs for gender transition.”
But, although the question before the court has become more specific, this ruling still has the potential to broadly set back LGBTQ+ rights.
Tennessee argues that the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers is sex-based discrimination prohibited under the Civil Rights Act, has nothing to do with this case. But going down this road leads to more questions, Ulrich says: Is discriminating due to sexual orientation also not considered sex-based discrimination?
“Then you can see just a proliferation of discriminatory laws that are coming out thereafter,” he says. “That’s a really dangerous proposition for the entire LGBTQ+ community and it’s setting us back significantly.”
Sruti Swaminathan, an ACLU staff attorney who has been counsel in this case from the beginning, said United States v. Skrmetti will test how far the Supreme Court is willing to stretch its Dobbs decision. They are well aware that the outcome of this case could curtail bodily autonomy for everyone. And taking this challenge before a conservative-majority Supreme Court has stoked fears among trans people of worst-case scenarios.
“We’re already at the place where half the country has banned this care. We need to not let the 6th Circuit decision stand idly and be utilized in the way it has,” Swaminathan says.
But Tennessee’s tactics, and the consequences that they could have during a time when laws targeting reproductive and transgender health care are proliferating, still worry them.
“I’m terrified. What we learned from Dobbs is that these attacks won’t stop with abortion,” Swaminathan says. “Banning abortion seems to be one pillar of an effort to write outdated gender norms into the law.”
U.S. v. Skrmetti began as a lawsuit against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Tennessee’s argument in this case illustrates a larger coordinated effort to attack abortion access alongside gender-affirming care, says Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks LGBTQ+ legislation.
States across the country have attempted to define sex based on reproductive capacity at birth. These efforts open transgender people up to discrimination and ignore the realities of intersex people, as well as cisgender women with conditions like primary ovarian insufficiency. Proponents of gender-affirming care bans inaccurately portray the effects of hormone replacement therapy on trans people’s reproductive ability by conflating the treatment with sterilization.
This Supreme Court case exemplifies a much larger argument that’s been a through line across attacks on transgender care and trans issues across the country, Casey says: What is sex, and who is protected when we think about that?
“Many of these state actors and politicians and extremists are clearly very invested in the concept of sex and defining sex in a very restricted and extraordinarily old-fashioned way that focuses only on people’s reproductive capacity, and then they use that argument in whatever context they can to advance the policies that would match that worldview,” he says.
In the last few decades, we have been witness to systematic failures in American life. Time and time again the guardrails we believed existed turned out to be illusions, or at best, guardrails without any teeth. The courts, the financial institutions, the legislators, and especially the media – entrusted as the watchdogs of democracy – have absolutely failed.
There is only one group that, more often than not, has been up to the task: The people. The people keep showing up and at the very least, voting to put people in charge to clean up the messes. Of course, once those people are in office they too often respond with timidity and reluctance and don’t go as far as necessary to exercise the mandate they have been given, but the people did their jobs.
In every presidential election since 1988, with the exception of 2004, a plurality or majority of the public voted for the Democratic candidate. That is a data point you rarely see repeated and I am quite certain that if it was Republicans with such a popular vote winning streak both the party and the media would never shut up about it. That is a triumph of decency. It would be easy for voters to be snowed under by the right’s avalanche of lies and hate, ably amplified by their buck-chasing friends in the press, but the voters keep seeing through it.
To be certain, there are structural barriers. Neither Al Gore nor Hillary Clinton became president even though the will of the American people said they should have been. And the presidencies of Bill Clinton, Obama, and Biden have had too many missed opportunities to push the ball forward, even though all three of these men had mandates to go quite far.
But what matters is that enough voters saw through the haze of absolute bullshit to send a message to do the right thing.
Here we are again. The Republican Party has always glowed bright with a hateful intensity, but Trump has allowed them to move that hate from Mitt Romney’s “quiet rooms” to spotlights like Madison Square Garden. The press and the oligarchs that own it at institutions like The New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN and others, are quite happy to make billions of dollars from GOP fueled hate, as long as they can make a buck. They just don’t care about the consequences.
Voters still care. It may be naïve or cringe, or corny, but they believe. Voters have shown us that a majority of them are opposed to hate, opposed to racism, opposed to misogyny, opposed to treating people as second class based on their orientation. And a majority of them are pro-decency.
Yes, most of the pro-decency vote has a liberal ideology but it is more than that. There are people who just don’t like being crude bigots that spend all of their time shoving the faces of the vulnerable into the dirt. There are more of us than there are of them, and they have to effectively cheat or rig the rules to overcome our numbers.
Decency is on the march, but we are at a breaking point, again. Election day or week is not a “fever break” moment. No matter the outcome, but especially if decency is victorious again, we cannot go to sleep. The bad boss at the end of the game has not been defeated. 2004 showed us that. 2008 showed us that. 2012. 2016. 2020. The forces of darkness and depravity do not respect the will of the people and if you retreat, expecting that everyone will finally accept the supremacy of decency – the other side will see that as an opening.
The decent people need to stand up for what they believe in and then keep standing, keep pushing back, until the other people are broken – and then decency most continue to advance and remain forever vigilant.
I voted for decency, and I always will. I know I’m not alone.
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(Honestly, the entire Don-Madison Square Garden “event” idea sickened me, but I didn’t think his campaign could afford to do it. Anyway, it happened, and the fact that there was any crowd at all nauseates me. One of my great grandfathers immigrated to the US before the 1st World War, earning his citizenship in part by fighting for the US and allies in that war. The other side of the family immigrated between the wars, as they could see what may have been coming, and did. I’m fairly certain all their spirits, including each and every US veteran in my family living or dead, are also nauseated and maybe angry about this “event.” I’m happy there are people like Heather Cox Richardson, who put sensible light onto historic events. So everybody do all you can to Get Out The Vote! The facts are all on our side. -A)
I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way.
It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight.
There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.
Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence.
Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024.
On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.
Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.
Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “in a strange way the papers did perform a public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like.”
Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started his career in the U.S. Musk “did not have the legal right to work” in the U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants.
The New York Times has tended to downplay Trump’s outrageous statements, but on Saturday it ran a round-up of Trump’s threats in the center of the front page, above the fold. It noted that Trump has vowed to expand presidential power, prosecute his political opponents, and crack down on immigration with mass deportations and detention camps. It went on to list his determination to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), use the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels “in potential violation of international law,” and use federal troops against U.S. citizens. It added that he plans to “upend trade” with sweeping new tariffs that will raise consumer prices, and to rein in regulatory agencies.
“To help achieve these and other goals,” the paper concluded, “his advisers are vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power.”
On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in giant capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” And then, inside the section, the paper provided the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the paper said.
On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, host Jake Tapper refused to permit Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, to gaslight viewers. Vance angrily denied that Trump has repeatedly called for using the U.S. military against Americans, but Tapper came with receipts that proved the very things Vance denied.
Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden began in the early afternoon. The hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally. Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” He went on: “And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” Hinchcliffe also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins.
The speakers who followed Hinchcliffe called Vice President Kamala Harris “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” They called former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a b*tch,” and they railed against “f*cking illegals.” They insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.”
Trump took the stage about two hours late, prompting people to stream toward the exits before he finished speaking. He hit his usual highlights, notably undermining Vance’s argument from earlier in the day by saying that, indeed, he believes fellow Americans are “the enemy within.”
But Trump perhaps gave away the game with his inflammatory language and with an aside, seemingly aimed at House speaker Johnson. “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over,” Trump said.
It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote.
Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024, this seems his likely plan.
But to do that, he needs at least a plausibly close election, or at least to convince his supporters that the election has been stolen from him. Tonight’s rally badly hurt that plan.
As Hinchcliffe was talking about Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia talking about her plan to spread her opportunity economy to Puerto Rico. She has called for strengthening Puerto Rico’s energy grid and making it easier to get permits to build there.
After the “floating island of garbage” comment, Puerto Rican superstar musician Bad Bunny, who has more than 45 million followers on Instagram, posted Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico, and his spokesperson said he is endorsing Harris.
Puerto Rican singer and actor Ricky Martin shared a clip from Hinchcliffe’s set with his 16 million followers. His caption read: “This is what they think of us.” Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who has 250 million Instagram followers, posted Harris’s plan. Later, singer-songwriter and actress Ariana Grande posted that she had voted for Harris. Grande has 376 million followers on Instagram. Singer Luis Fonsi, who has 16 million followers, also called out the “constant hate.”
The headlines were brutal. “MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally,” read Axios. Politico wrote: “Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks.” “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally,” the New York Times announced. “Speakers at Trump rally make racist comments, hurl insults,” read CNN.
But the biggest sign of the damage the rally did was the frantic backpedaling from Republicans in tight elections, who distanced themselves as fast as they could from the insults against Puerto Ricans, especially. The Trump campaign itself tried to distance itself from the “floating island of garbage” quotation, only to be met with comments pointing out that Hinchcliffe’s set had been vetted and uploaded to the teleprompters.
As the clips spread like wildfire, political writer Charlotte Clymer pointed out that almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the states—about a million in Florida, half a million in Pennsylvania, 100,000 in Georgia, 100,000 in Michigan, 100,000 in North Carolina, 45,000 in Arizona, and 40,000 in Nevada—and that over half of them voted in 2020.
In 1939, as about 18,000 American Nazis rallied inside Madison Square Garden, newspapers reported that a crowd of about 100,000 anti-Nazis gathered outside to protest. It took 1,700 police officers, the largest number of officers ever before detailed for a single event, to hold them back from storming the venue.
These took several days to wade through. I admit I do it not only for the news but for the memes in the comment sections which are pure gold. But just reading the headlines and blurbs can give you a great idea of how really dangerous and disastrous the right / republicans are. Fox is a totally unhinged media arm of cult tRump. The rest of the right wing media is desperate for their cult ideas of ruling people and having control of their private lives, sexual expressions, and how people simply exist. Please look these over and read the ones that interest you. This shit is serious and real and we have few days left before a direction is chosen for this country. Also notice that why the right claims that crime is up and people are terrified to step outside their homes, crime is way down. Hugs
Harris appeared here in June 2021 when he attempted to bring a loaded and concealed handgun onto the House floor. He then denounced calls for his resignation as “cancel culture.”
In October 2021 he had to be physically separated from Democratic Rep. Collin Allred after an argument over the certification of the 2020 election, which Harris had voted against.
Residents pleaded with the council, arguing that such proposals were divisive, stoked fear among the community, and would further stretch city services. “It is not only unnecessary but also a complete waste of the city’s time, money and resources,” Alexander Ermels, president of PFLAG’s Odessa chapter and a transgender man, said. Mayor Javier Joven [photo], who is up for reelection in November, has said his mission has been to help the city “repent.”
Penalties include a $500 fine and trespassing charges. Odessa, located in west Texas, has a population of 120,000.
For the past 13 months, when a 17-year-old applied for a driver’s license or state ID and marked that they would like to register, the DMV’s system did not transmit their voter registration application to the SEC. As a result, approximately 17,000 young voters were not registered to vote despite indicating a desire to do so. These voters were also not notified that their registrations had been rejected.
(Way to go-run for office! Especially in and as opposition to people like Steve Scalise-A)
A trans nonbinary Louisiana candidate for the U.S. House released a defiant campaign video this week, showing themself injecting testosterone to defend bodily autonomy.
Mel Manuel, who is running to unseat far-right House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, released the video on social media platforms on Tuesday. In the video, Manuel called on voters to “take a stand” while performing a routine testosterone injection.
“I believe that you, not the government, own your own body,” Manuel told viewers, wearing a “My Body My Choice” T-shirt. “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
Manuel, who is running on a platform of abortion rights, universal healthcare, and gun control, highlighted a recent analysis that found Republicans had spent more than $65 million in anti-trans advertisements since the start of August. They also promoted Louisiana’s “Geaux Vote” app, which allows voters to find their polling location and get ballot information.
“To my LGBTQ+ family and our allies… No one is coming to save us,” Manuel wrote in the video description. “We have to show up at the polls for ourselves and for those we love. I’ve spent the last year and a half campaigning because we need to speak up and be represented before it’s too late. You can speak up now with your vote.”
Manuel is the cofounder of Queer Northshore, an LGBTQ+ activist organization based in St. Tammany Parish, and has previously organized against conservative book bans and anti-trans laws in the state. In contrast, Scalise has earned a reputation as a staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ Republican since first taking office in 2008, voting against the Byrd-Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Respect for Marriage Act; he is also firmly anti-trans, condemning “the left’s radical gender ideology” in a 2022 statement calling for trans girls to be banned from school sports. Scalise even once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” referring to the infamous former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Given that Manuel is running in opposition to all that, injecting T on camera is a pretty big flex. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean they expect to win; as their campaign website notes, Manuel’s goal is simply to get 35% of the vote. “Even if your candidate doesn’t win, if we can move the needle to 35 percent or 40 percent of the vote, that means the next progressive candidate will get more funding,” they explained to The Nation last year. “There’s a very, very small chance at winning, and I understand that, but we can still use the role of candidacy as a platform in and of itself.”
A teacher in Manchester, England, who outed a trans student and posted transphobic messages on social media is now banned “indefinitely” from teaching in England.
Prior to the decision, Camilla Hannan had admitted to posting a series of tweets in which she outed a student of hers as trans and disparaged the trans kids at her own school. Though the panel convened in September, the UK’s Teaching Regulation Agency posted the decision online on Tuesday.
(snip)
“In particular, the panel found that Miss Hannan had a deep-seated attitude, and that, whilst she was entitled to have that attitude and hold the views that she did, it was not acceptable for her to have posted these on social media in a way that was damaging to the profession, the school, pupils and in particular Pupil A,” the report reads.
Hannan will be allowed to appeal the decision in two years, though the panel’s decision did not bode well for any future lifting of the suspension. “It is necessary to impose a prohibition order in order to maintain public confidence in the profession,” the report reads.
This summer, a group of 20 trans teen activists gathered outside the U.K. Department of Education’s London Headquarters in order to demand greater protections for trans students. Activists hoped to underscore the “urgent need for policy changes that respect and protect the rights of trans youth, including their rights to autonomy, safety, trust, respect and inclusion.” One of their demands included protection from transphobic bullying, misgendering, and deadnaming, something that is apparently just as applicable to teachers as fellow students.
Again I wish to thank Janet, whose link I will place below, for showing me the article that had this link. I was in a bit of despair of having to fight all over the same fights I fought as a kid. Not realizing for years my fight was over while hers has continued. I realized how self centered I was being. I am not sure if the links will come through, but if you go to the site linked above they list states where anti-trans attacks have failed. Again thanks Janet. Hugs
Voters have routinely rejected candidates who peddle transphobia and try to control their personal health care decisions, and polling shows widespread American support for equality, Democrats as defenders of young people, and a rejection of anti-transgender rhetoric.
In State After State, Anti-Trans Attacks Have Failed
In Arizona…
In Georgia…
In Kansas…
In Kentucky’s 2023 gubernatorial race…
In Michigan…
In Nevada…
In Ohio…
In Pennsylvania…
In Wisconsin…
In Virginia…
In 2022 Post-Election Polling, Equality Was a Winner and Anti-LGBTQ+ Attacks Were A Dud
Equality Voters delivered huge margins to Democrats at every level of the ballot.
At the U.S. House level, 81 percent of Equality Voters supported the Democratic candidate. Equality Voters delivered similar margins for Democratic U.S. Senate candidates and Democratic candidates for governor.
That number was comparable to the level of support Equality Voters gave Joe Biden in 2020 (also 81 percent) and nearly matched the level of support Black voters delivered this cycle (87 percent).
Among self-identified LGBTQ+ voters, who made up a midterm record 7 percent of the 2022 electorate, fully 80 percent supported U.S. House Democrats. LGBTQ+ voters delivered similar margins for Democratic U.S. Senate candidates and Democratic candidates for governor.
MAGA efforts to spread propaganda about and attack transgender people failed.
In this survey, voters were asked which specific issues motivated them to vote this year. Inflation (52 percent) and abortion (29 percent) ranked first and second on this list. Less than 5 percent identified gender affirming care for transgender youth or transgender participation in sports as issues motivating them to vote – last on this list.
This confirmed extensive research prior to the election that found anti-transgender attacks were only effective in riling up extreme members of the conservative base
While the attacks were ineffective with the general electorate and in fact repelled swing voters, they still caused harm, including increasing stigma, discrimination, and violence against the transgender community.
A Super Majority of Americans Support Equality
New data from Navigator Research shows strong majority support for LGBTQ+ equality, and deep concern over MAGA attacks on fundamental freedoms.
Nearly two-in-three Americans support federal nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, including 58% of independents and 42% of Republicans.
61% say they will not support candidates who want to ban health care for transgender people, including 59% of independents and 41% of Republicans.
70% say they are concerned that politicians are attacking gay and transgender youth to divide us, maintain their political power and control, and score political points, a clear indication that the American people see through the MAGA anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.
A majority of Americans agree that parents, mental health professionals, and doctors are best equipped to decide the kind of care a child needs, not politicians.
The vast majority of Americans — 7 in 10 — think that politicians are not informed enough about abortion and gender-affirming care to create fair policies
According to September 2023 polling by The 19th and SurveyMonkey, Americans would prefer that politicians either protect transgender people or not focus on transgender issues at all. Only 17% of Americans, and only 29% of Republicans, say politicians should focus on restricting gender-affirming care.
Americans Believe the Amount of Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation Is Excessive, Agreeing It Is “Political Theater”
Likely voters across all political parties look at GOP efforts to flood state legislatures with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation as political theater. Polling indicates that 64% of all likely voters, including 72% of Democrats, 65% of Independents, and 55% of Republicans think that there is “too much legislation” aimed at “limiting the rights of transgender and gay people in America” (Data For Progress survey of 1,220 likely voters, 3/24-26, 2023).
This quote from Cuban-American former Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sums it up:
“Intolerance is not a good look on anyone. I remain optimistic that voters will see through this charade and will encourage their elected officials to solve the real problems of America instead of masquerading as Moral Police Officers.”
Majorities Disapprove of Banning LGBTQ+ Content in Schools – and Seem Prepared to Punish Candidates Who Do So
When asked if middle school libraries should include materials related to “gender identity” (57% “should”) and “sexual orientation” (56%), the majority of Americans believe this content should be available. In fact, by a margin of 32 percentage points, Americans are more worried that “materials that could be valuable to students will be removed from school libraries”(62%), than worry that “materials that could be harmful to students will remain in school libraries”(30%).
Yet again, Democrats and Independents are in a different place than their GOP counterparts suggesting headaches for Republicans in the 2024 elections. (Grinnell College National Poll, 3/14-19, 2023)
Indeed, it looks like this issue could be a disqualifier for elected officials who support curriculum censorship and book bans, based on recent polling (Ipsos, 4/24-25, 2023 among 1,005 adults nationwide, the vast majority of whom are registered to vote). More than six in 10 Americans say they would be less likely to back a candidate who “supports policies that ban books in schools and in school libraries on subject matter that deals with sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity”(38% more likely, 62% less likely).
And Americans Trust Democrats to Defend Equality, Youth Wellbeing
The 2024 Navigator Research poll showed that President Biden and the Democratic Party are more trusted than Republicans to safeguard LGBTQ+ equality and protect America’s youth.
60% of those polled say they trust Democrats to protect the LGBTQ+ community, compared to just 19% who say they trust the GOP.
54% say they trust Democrats to protect the rights and freedoms of the community, compared to just 22% who say they trust the GOP.
46% say they trust Democrats to care for children’s wellbeing, compared to just 37% who say they trust the GOP.
Scottie's Playtime 