Escalating anti-LGBT+ hate and the terrorism it inspires

[Paladin]

And on the other side of the coin, trans folks may now have a place to flee to.

Michigan Senate passes historic bill to protect LGBTQ rights

The bill to expand the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act still needs to pass through the Michigan House before it can become law.

www.freep.com

Roads are open; we've got deep dish pizza & Coney Dogs!

 

[Nevermore]

Well, now I've seen it all. A positive post by Paladin.

 

[Patch]

Bless

 

[Patch]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1630797229073264641

 

[Patch]

It's a bloody race to the bottom with these fascist assholes.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1631736816184463360

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1631738297180622848

 

[NovaSaber]

Good news first:

New bill would allow Missouri schools to teach LGBTQ history

A new bill would allow Missouri schools to teach history about the roles and contributions of the LGBTQ community to students.

fox2now.com

But here are the extremes the transphobes are sinking to:

A New Bill Could Legalize Kidnapping Trans Kids by Their Parents

A new bill in Florida could let parents take their child from their other parent or across state lines if the child is receiving gender-affirming health care.

www.vice.com

“A court may not treat a parent′s removal of a child from another parent or from another state as unjustifiable conduct or child abuse,” reads the bill, introduced Friday by Republican state Sen. Clay Yarborough.

The bill would also let any court step in to determine custody if a child is getting gender-affirming health care. And it would block any public agency from spending money on gender-affirming care, leaving people who depend on the government for help affording this care to fend for themselves.

Texas Resolution Seeks To "End Gender Affirming Care" Entirely

Though the resolution is filled with talking points against trans kids, it calls ALL gender affirming care "dangerous" and says it "ruins lives."

erininthemorn.substack.com

Transgender people have been warning this would happen for the last three years. The state of Texas has released a bill which is the first of my knowledge to openly call for the end of gender affirming care in its entirety. SCR #3 is a bill filled with falsehoods and designed to provide justification for Texas’s extreme action against transgender people. Just last week, Texas released 10 bills targeting the transgender community, defining trans people as doing drag and curtailing their medical treatments and ability to exist in public. Now, this bill specifically calls for an “end to gender affirming care.” Let’s look through it:

And of course bigots are also dangerously anti-vax:

Anti-LGBTQ+ university’s round-the-clock revival turns into measles superspreader event

As many as 20,000 people may have been exposed to a contagious attendee...

www.lgbtqnation.com

 

[Nevermore]

Good news first:
And of course bigots are also dangerously anti-vax:

Anti-LGBTQ+ university’s round-the-clock revival turns into measles superspreader event

As many as 20,000 people may have been exposed to a contagious attendee...

www.lgbtqnation.com

Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.

 

[Patch]

Good resource:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1632116184823873539

 

[Rhinox]

. . . . are we sure that's not a map of traditional democrat and republican stronghold states?

 

[Patch]

Would it be wrong?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1632109858408243200

 

[Ungnome]

... Starting to believe I may have chosen the wrong time to start slowly opening the closet door.

 

[Patch]

Not sure we've ever had a right time, honestly.

 

[Ungnome]

True enough, but lately the pendulum seems to swinging in the wrong direction.

 

[Patch]

Well, things can vary depending on your living situation. Are you in a "safe" (or "safe-ish") area? Do you have the ability to move elsewhere if you need to? Is gender-affirming healthcare available where you live?

 

[Ungnome]

I'm in a safe-ish area(probably a bit safer on the OTHER side of the bay, but not a huge difference), just always had issues with anxiety, which is one of the reasons I'm still closeted(even though being closeted is likely contributing to said anxiety issues)

CVReynolds... Hoping Florida comes to its senses soon. Really sorry you have to put up with probably the worst Republican government in the the US.

 

[Patch]

Big emails leak of anti-trans activists just dropped:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1633523165249822725

Inside the secret working group that helped push anti-trans laws across the country

Leaked emails give a glimpse of the religious-right networks behind transgender health care bans.

www.motherjones.com

 

[NovaSaber]

Man convicted of federal hate crime after trying to kill all of the LGBTQ+ people in his town

John Russell Howald has a violent, disturbing past and now faces life in prison...

www.lgbtqnation.com

Here are 5 bills still alive targeting transgender rights in Indiana

These five bills targeting the LGBTQ community are still alive after lawmakers reached the halfway point of Indiana's legislative session.

www.indystar.com

• House Bill 1608 bans schools and teachers from discussing human sexuality in kindergarten through third grade and prohibits school employees from using names or pronouns that don't match a student's sex assigned at birth without parental consent. It also requires schools to inform parents if their children request such a change, which critics say amounts to "outing" a transgender child and could put them in a dangerous situation. The bill would also allow teachers to continue using dead names and non-affirming pronouns, over the request of parents. It passed the House 65-29.
• Senate Bill 480 prohibits doctors and other medical professionals from providing gender-affirming health care to minors, even with parental consent. Proponents of the bill say it's needed to protect children from making life-altering decisions before they're old enough to understand the consequences. Opponents say it will ban life-saving care and strip parents of their rights to make medical decisions for their children. It passed the Senate 36-12.
• House Bill 1569 would prevent imprisoned people from using state tax dollars for gender-affirming surgery. Republicans who backed the bill say they’re protecting taxpayers from paying for what they consider an unnecessary procedure. Democrats and LGBTQ advocates say this is a preemptive attack on an already marginalized group over a procedure not being provided in Indiana facilities. It passed the House 68-24.
• House Bill 1407 says that the Department of Child Services cannot remove a child from their parents' care solely on the basis of the parents not affirming their gender identity or consenting to gender-affirming health care. It also would grant a high bar for the infringement of "parental rights" ― that government cannot infringe on a parent's right to direct their child's upbringing, education, health care and mental health except "by a compelling governmental interest of the highest order." It passed the House 58-33.
• Senate Bill 350 would prohibit cities, towns and other local units of government from imposing bans on the kinds of services that social workers, mental health counselors, family therapists and other such service providers could offer. Raatz, the bill's author, said he brought the bill after the city of West Lafayette considered a ban on conversion therapy, where practitioners try to change LGBTQ clients’ gender identities and sexual orientations through faith-based mental health counseling. It passed the Senate 34-14.

Several other bills also seemingly connected to this wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation, albeit tangentially, are also still moving.

• The House adopted an amendment to House Bill 1001, the budget bill, that prohibits state dollars from going to the Kinsey Institute, a research body housed at Indiana University that’s devoted to the study of human sexuality. While the lawmaker that introduced the bill framed it as an issue with the institute's namesake, Rep. Cindy Ledbetter, R-Newburgh, said she supported the amendment because her work as a nurse practitioner requires her to complete continuing education and that has included training from the Kinsey Institute on how to administer gender-affirming medications to transgender children.
• Another bill, Senate Bill 380, includes a provision that reiterates a school district's ability to implement a dress code to curb "distractive behavior." The bill's author, Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, said the bill was to address concerns about kids dressing up as "furries" in classrooms, a national rhetoric that's sprung from concerns about how LGBTQ kids identify and express themselves. Senate Bill 12 also seems to target LGBTQ students. The bill seeks to rid classrooms and school libraries of "inappropriate" books and other material "harmful" to minors. Examples used by proponents of the bill are often titles with LGBTQ themes.

 

[Patch]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1634039123215302656

Amazing what happens when people can't simply abstract us away as "wokeness run amok" or some other bullshit.

 

[Pocket]

Amazing what happens when people can't simply abstract us away as "wokeness run amok" or some other bullshit.

There's an argument to be made that people of privilege spend too little time around those who are different from them, and that prejudice stems from being able to concoct an imaginary idea of what they're like in their heads without any firsthand evidence to contradict it. And that that's why people who live in more densely populated areas are more progressive than those who don't.

Trouble is, even if we could force them all to abandon their homes out in the country and move to the city, the result would be that the decent marginalized people who already live there would suddenly have to put up with them. There's something to be said for the "safe spaces" that you end up with when all the people of privilege voluntarily move out.

 

[Patch]

I doubt it. It didn't change my Trump-supporting conservative mother's mind when I came out as trans; if anything, it made her even more upset about it, because that made it personal.