Elections Don’t Mean Anything.

Republicans don’t care about elections in Florida, the governor is canning elected officials because of their politics. Towns and cities have elected progressive officials and the DeSantis comes in and s**t cans them.

Prosecutor suspended by DeSantis testifies as lawsuit begins
AP News
By Anthony Izaguirre
November 29, 2022


A Florida prosecutor suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis opened his federal civil trial against the governor Tuesday with testimony that alleged his removal was based on his personal political positions on abortion and transgender rights.

Andrew Warren, a Democrat suspended from his twice-elected post as state attorney in Hillsborough County, sued DeSantis seeking his reinstatement.

DeSantis suspended Warren over the prosecutor’s signing of statements that said he would not pursue criminal charge s against seekers or providers of abortion or gender transition treatments, as well as his policies about not charging people with certain minor crimes.

Warren was the first witness in the case before U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee, where the Democrat spent the bulk of his testimony arguing that he was removed for exercising his free speech on abortion and transgender health care.

“As state attorney, I believe it is important for me to speak out,” he said.

Now keep in mind, that the prosecutor hasn’t not prosecuted any case he only said that he would and the voters reelected him so they must agree with him, he was first elected in 2016 and again in 2020. The voters knew his position and agreed with his position. Also keep in mind that all around the country state attorneys use prosecutorial discretion all this time, this is nothing new.

~~~~~~~~

This is not the first time that DeSantis went in and voided the will of the people!

Are DeSantis’ suspensions of elected officials who didn’t commit crimes unusual
Miami Herald
By Ana Ceballos
August 26, 2022


Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis drew attention again on Friday with the suspension of four school board members in Broward County, an action that brought the number of local elected officials suspended by the governor this month to five. 

Under Florida law, the governor can suspend elected and appointed officials for wrongdoing that includes the commission of a felony, neglect of duty, malfeasance, incompetence and habitual drunkenness. The governor then has the constitutional right to appoint someone to fill that position. 

But in recent history, DeSantis’ predecessors — Republicans Jeb Bush and Rick Scott and now-Democrat Charlie Crist, who is running to unseat DeSantis — generally reserved that power to suspend elected officials when they were charged with a crime, according to records from the state Senate analyzed by the Tampa Bay Times. 

Since DeSantis came into office in 2019, he has suspended at least 15 elected officials, eight of whom were ousted for what the governor said was neglect of duty, incompetence, or misuse of authority. Five of the eight took place this year.

---

The “Don’t Say Gay” law is bearing rotten fruit with the firing of a teacher for having a Pride flag in her room and other teachers are scared about showing pictures on their desks of their spouses.

Florida Teacher Fired Over LGBTQ+ Pride Flag Lesson

Weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed "Don't Say Gay" legislation into law, an LGBTQ+ middle school teacher was fired.
Teen Vogue
By Lexi McMenamin
May 6, 2022


Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill isn’t yet in effect, but the hostile environment that surrounds the law in the state’s K-12 schools has already potentially resulted in a teacher’s firing. Casey Scott, a Cape Coral middle school art teacher, told local news affiliate NBC2 that on April 18 she was fired from her probationary, nonunion teaching role after explaining different sexualities, including her own, to her students. “A discussion happened in class and because of that, now I’m fired,” Scott told NBC2. The school district claims she was fired for “not following the mandated curriculum.”

Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, officially named the Parental Rights in Education bill, was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on March 28, just a few weeks before Scott’s firing. Per the bill, "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." According to the Fort Myers News-Press, Scott’s students were in sixth and seventh grade.

~~~~~~~~

Florida teachers who ‘say gay’ to be fired in new crackdown
Pink News
By Theo Burman
October 21, 2022


Florida has approved new regulations for teachers that could lead to them being fired for talking about LGBTQ+ lives.

The new rules, introduced by the Florida Board of Education, will punish any K-3 teacher who teaches students about LGBTQ+ issues with a license suspension or revocation.

Teachers are already banned from discussing LGBTQ+ topics by the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law but this is the first time Florida has laid out punishments for staff.

Another new rule will force schools to post information on websites and contact parents by mail about their policy on allowing trans students to use bathrooms according to their gender identity.

Now keep in mind that federal laws, Title VII and Title IX say that you cannot discriminate against employees and students because of their sexual orientation or because of gender identity.

Further more, the First Amendment says that you are entitled to “free speech” and the Fourteenth Amendment says you have to be treated equally, a straight teacher can have a picture of their spouse on their desk but a LGBTQ+ teachers cannot is a violation of the 14^th Amendment. These laws also protect the LGBTQ+ students.

Party Above All Else…

[Editorial]

Much has been said about politicians who are stirring animosity against us. But what about the voters? Around half the voters voted for them, what does it say about our country?

The voters decided put party before integrity.

The voters decided to put party before civility.

The voters decided to ignore vulgarity and put the party first,

The voters decided to ignore discrimination and put the party first.

Cruel Marjorie Taylor Greene criticizes Joe Biden for condemning gay bar shooting

Five people died in the mass shooting, and she attacked Biden for caring.

LGBTQ Nation

By Alex Bollinger

November 21, 2022

~~~~~~~

Lauren Boebert defends her past anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans tweets during KOA radio interview in wake of Club Q shooting

Colorado Public Radio

By Caitlyn Kim

November 22, 2022

~~~~~~~

Colorado Club Shooting Follows Rise in Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric, Violence

Saturday’s massacre is the latest in a string of attacks on the community

Bloomberg

By Kelsey Butler and Ella Ceron

November 21, 2022

~~~~~~~

LGBTQ groups slam Walker for ad attacking transgender athletes

The Hill

By Brooke Migdon

November 21, 2022 

~~~~~~~

Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric roils Wisconsin, providing political fuel for the right

The 'parental rights' movement is upending school board races, leading to book banning and a growing sense of dread among the small number of children who are gay or transgender.

NPR Wisconsin Watch

By Matthew DeFour and Mario Koran

October 31, 2022

~~~~~~~

Theses are just some of the headlines in the last couple of months don’t let the Republicans and their pundits try to gaslight you into believing that they are not stirring up right-wing rhetoric against not only us but other minorities, just look at who Trump had lunch with.

Donald Trump dined with white nationalist, Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes
The former president hosted Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. He said it was “quick and uneventful.”
Politico
By Meridith McGraw
November 25, 2022


Former President Donald Trump hosted white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach on Tuesday night, according to multiple people familiar with the event.

Fuentes, who frequently posts racist content in addition to Holocaust revisionism, was brought as a guest of rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye.

[…]

It underscores how few guardrails currently exist within the former president’s political operation, with few aides there to screen guests or advise against and manage such gatherings.

Indeed, after POLITICO first reported the sighting of Fuentes at Trump’s club, people in Trump’s orbit denied the former president met with Fuentes at all. Only later was it revealed that he not only met with Fuentes but dined with him.

Reuters in 2016 reported that this wasn’t the first time a Trump was seen with white supremacists.

One of Donald Trump’s sons appeared alongside a white supremacist while giving an interview on a conservative radio show, adding to concerns that the front-runner in the battle to be the Republican candidate in November’s presidential election is willing to accept support from extremist supporters.

[…]

During the show he was questioned by James Edwards, another radio host whose show “The Political Cesspool” is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading U.S. civil rights group, as “racist and anti-Semitic.”

Welcome to the new Republican party!

You know we saw this before, in the 1930s when voters put party first.

The British newspaper The Telegraph had an article about how the Germany people went along with Hitler.

Mobilising Hate: why the German people bought into the Holocaust
By Saul David
November 26, 202


On November 8 1942, on the eve of the 19th anniversary of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler gave an infamous speech to his most fanatical ­followers in the Löwenbräukeller, in Munich. Having rounded on the Allied leaders – the braggart ­Winston Churchill and the “half-Jew” Franklin D Roosevelt – he explained that both were mere ­puppets of the real enemy: “the international Jew”. He had warned the Jews that the consequence of starting a global conflict would be their destruction, but they had laughed in his face. “They are not laughing now,” said Hitler, to thunderous applause. “And those who are, won’t be for long.”

Martin Davidson begins with Hitler’s 1942 speech for two reasons: it took place at the very moment that the industrial slaughter of Europe’s Jews was at its height, with more than three million men, women and children gassed and shot that year; and Hitler’s willingness to speak so openly to ordinary Germans about what was happening – he used the term “extermination” three times in one sentence – was because he knew he had convinced enough of them that his malevolence towards the Jews was more than justified: they had humiliated Germany at the end of the First World War and were now getting their comeuppance.

Do we know of two demigods who are now using the same rhetoric against LGBTQ peoples and other minorities?

Could it happen again? Davidson is in no doubt. “No principle is so under attack, or so the object of fear and contempt, than the liberal commandment that prohibits dividing humanity into ‘us’ and ‘them’, and militarising the gap in-between.” 

He cites as warnings the election of Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK, and makes a spurious link between Nazis in the 1930s – lining the streets “showering adulation on the passing motorcade, racked by resentment, rocked by economic insecurity, and only too ready to racialise their grievances and cheer those offering desperate remedies” – and the “max reflex” or “aggrieved self-pity” that “became visible once again in 2016 and even 2020 across the US, the UK and, more recently, across Russia too”.

To juxtapose the Nazis with Trump supporters, Brexiteers and pro-war Russians is a historical nonsense, and a sour note on which to end a very good book.

[/Editorial]

Blinders

If you read the comments one thing that becomes immediately apparent is that they still believe that being LGBTQ+ is a choice. They are still living in the 1950s!

This comment is from a Yahoo News repost of the article below.

"The implications are unmistakable: People who identify as LGBTQ aren’t entitled to share the same spaces as other Americans. They don’t deserve the same legal protections. They shouldn’t exist."

This isn't even close to the issue or the truth, and the author knows it. We don't want boys in girls locker rooms. We don't want children being taught the lie that they can change gender at will, even on a day-to-day basis. We don't want minor teenage girls being given mastectomies. We refuse to accept any concept that is contradicted by science.

Live your life as you see fit, just don't force me to accept it.

As you can see they have no idea what they are talking, they still think of being LGBTQ+ as a choice and that permanent surgeries are done on minors.

They believe in the lies that the Republican are pushing.

Editorial: LGBTQ Americans need public support against efforts to erase them
The Virginian-Pilot
By The Virginian-Pilot & Daily Press Editorial Board
November 26, 2022


Groomers, they shout. Freaks. Pedophiles.

The names and slurs are familiar. Their intent? To demean and belittle, to intimidate and threaten.

The implications are unmistakable: People who identify as LGBTQ aren’t entitled to share the same spaces as other Americans. They don’t deserve the same legal protections. They shouldn’t exist.

Far from being at the margins of our national political discourse, these sorts of insults and attacks are now at the center of fierce arguments. You can hear them everywhere from the halls of Congress to the school board meeting rooms here in Hampton Roads.

Those delivering such hateful and dangerous drivel are people who believe that LGBTQ people have no right to be part of society — and they have no reservations about saying so, often loudly. They are committed to stripping away legal protections for these Americans, restricting them to fewer spaces in our communities and, ultimately, chasing them from public life.

[…]

But it’s more than acts of intimidation or smear campaigns. Some of the most prominent political voices in the country are voicing and amplifying these disgusting slurs and baseless attacks. They are advancing legislation that would limit LGBTQ access to health care, education, athletics and even public spaces. They want to remove legal protections that ensure LGBTQ Americans aren’t targeted for harm because of their identity. And in a concurring opinion to Dobbs ruling earlier this year, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas even questioned the 2015 Obergefell precedent that affirmed the right to marry, making same-sex unions the law of the land.

The right-wing evangelical conservatives don’t want to hear the truth, they ignore the truth, they just want to eradicate what they see as abominations.

They will continue to shout, these spiteful, shameless voices who want LGBTQ Americans erased from public life. It’s vital they do not succeed. And therefore it is essential that more people stand up for the acceptance, tolerance and compassion — the right to exist — that everyone deserves.

Can you hold them accountable in their ignorance?

You sure can, all they have to do is Google it! There are hundreds of medical websites that that explain that being LGBTQ+ is not a choice but they don't want to do that. They don't want anything that goes against their warped beliefs. They don't want to take off their blinders and feel uncomfortable they rather blame us for their woes then themselves.

And if you don’t think that is true, then I leave you with another comment from the Yahoo News article of the editorial.

There have been people like this forever, the big difference is now they are trying to shove their choices down everyone's throat. They think normal people should just go along with their plans and grooming of children. Ain't happening.

---

I am up at the cottage getting it ready to close up for the season so I have been running around on a thousand different errands that need to be done before I come back to CT on Wednesday afternoon.

I have a contractor this afternoon to see about adding an outdoor shower and deck and this morning I am at a kitchen remodeler to update the 1970 vintage kitchen.

I have to pack up the pantry and clean out the refrigerator and bring it all home.

So Who Was Responsible For The Red Flop.

Was it the college kids…

Was it LGBTQ+ voters…

Was it the women voters…

Was it the seniors…

You probably heard anyone of those stopped the Republican sweep of the election, the news media has been flooded with articles about why didn’t the Republicans sweep the elections.

The abortion-rights movement is jubilant after the midterms turned the anti-abortion tide
Insider
By Bethany Dawson
November 13, 2022


For abortion-rights campaigners, it has been an exhausting and soul-destroying few months.

Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade in June, the catalog of stories of women's health being in jeopardy due to an inability to access abortions and anxiety-inducing court hearings have provided months of chaos and devastation, Elisabeth Smith, the director for state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Insider.

But this week, those emotions have shifted fundamentally.  

Midterm voters across the country largely supported abortion access, with people in California, Vermont, and Michigan overwhelmingly supporting ballot measures that would amend each state's constitutions with language to protect abortion rights. 

This week's surprise midterm results have provided "a moment of celebration, a moment of jubilation, and a moment to take a breath," Smith told Insider during an upbeat phone call.

***

NEW POST-ELECTION POLL: Equality Voters Stopped the Red Wave, Rejecting Extremism and Anti-LGBTQ+ Attacks
HRC
By HRC Staff
November 17, 2022


New polling released today by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization — shows that the 2022 election defied pre-election predictions of a massive “red wave” in no small measure because Equality Voters pushed back against extremism and voted to protect commonly held values and our democracy.

Across the country, election deniers and right-wing extremists lost winnable elections because they advocated views that are out-of-touch with average voters, particularly the huge number of Equality Voters who made the critical difference up and down the ballot. Equality Voters are a group of voters modeled to support LGBTQ+ equality, numbering 62 million nationwide. They represented 39 percent of the 2022 electorate—a number that reflects the growing political strength of this voting bloc—and tend to be younger and more racially diverse than the electorate as a whole.

***

Youth Vote Helps Dilute Red Wave To Pink Tint
Forbes
By Michael T. Nietzel
November 10, 2022


Two days after the 2022 midterm elections, with the balance of power in Congress still undetermined, two things stand out about what has turned out to be one of the most extraordinary elections in recent American history.

First, the oft-forecast red wave, where Republicans anticipated piling up wins that would gain them decisive control of the House of Representatives was a washout. And second, it was a strong turnout of young voters voting for Democrats in key races that helped turn the tide.

According to estimates by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), 27% of young people (ages 18-29) turned out to vote in the 2022 midterm election, making it the second-highest youth turnout rate for a midterm election in the past 30 years, behind only the historic 31% turnout in 2018. Votes cast by young people made up 12% of all votes in this midterm, almost equal to the 13% youth share of the vote in the 2014 and 2018 midterms.

***

Happy with the election results? You can thank this group of voters who stopped the ‘red wave’
Market Watch
By Brett Arend
November 18, 2022


It wasn’t high turnout by younger, liberal voters that stopped the Republican “red wave” in the midterm elections.

It was a huge swing away from the GOP among senior citizens in the battleground races.

The swing was big among men over 65, and huge among women.

So reports a remarkable new poll conducted on behalf of the AARP jointly by Democratic polling company Impact Research and Republican pollsters Fabrizio Ward. The polls, conducted this month and in July, focused on the most competitive Congressional races in the country.

***

Okay you want the true reason why the “Red Wave” never came to fruition?

Well the truth is… you and the Republican party.

You all said “Enough is enough!” and came out to vote.

The Republican stance on “Abortion Rights” antagonized many voters by seeing a right that was taken away and also many other voters saw it as “Big Government” in direct opposition to the years of Republicans’ manta of “Smaller Government,” while others saw it as a power grab.

The Republican attack on LGBTQ rights brought out our community and also many who saw it as discriminatory and wrong.

Then there was the Republican claim that they were going to pass massive reforms on Social Security and Medicare rallied the seniors.

Those were the reasons why the Red Wave” turned into a fizzle, the Republicans are in an echo chambers and listened to their radical bases and not the people! And let that be a lesson to the Democrats, listen to the people not your progressive base.

So the big question… “Did the Republicans learn their lesson?”

Was ‘no’ vote on anti-abortion amendment a mandate? KY GOP leaders don’t think so.
Lexington Herald-Leader
By Austin Horn
November 18, 2022


Ahead of the General Assembly’s 2023 session, Kentucky lawmakers are weighing how much — if at all — they want to loosen the state’s trigger law banning the procedure after voters struck down an anti-abortion access ballot proposal. Kentuckians directly weighed in on the question of abortion earlier this month and said ‘no,’ by a margin of 5 percentage points, to the state’s proposed anti-abortion constitutional amendment. Now the future of abortion policy hangs in the balance with the Kentucky Supreme Court hearing a challenge against the state’s trigger ban on abortion. But where should the legislature go next? That depends on both the outcome of the litigation and who in the legislature you ask. Many among the GOP majority in Frankfort, at least its leaders, aren’t so sure that the vote means anything for their policy, which is among the most anti-abortion rights in the nation. House GOP Floor Leader Steven Rudy, R-Paducah, said that he doesn’t see the defeat of Amendment 2 as a mandate of any sort.

The answer is no.

And I say thank-goodness that they don’t!

Tops on their agenda in the House impeach Biden and his son, and Nancy Pelosi followed passing a national anti-abortion law, and anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ laws after yelling during the elections… “It is the economy and inflation!”

Love Is All We Need

Allies bring more change than we can, voices in our support sway more people than a trans people. When we talk about injustices and discrimination we have an axe to grind but allies speak from the heart.

Opinion: Here’s how you can support the respect, dignity and freedom of transgender people
In recent years, trans and nonbinary people have become scapegoats for far right culture wars and targets of discriminatory legislation
The San Diego Union-Tribune
By Mica Grace Miragliotta
November 25, 2022


In recent years, there seems to have been an ominous hyper-awareness of trans people, and not in the way imagined by Transgender Day of Remembrance organizers. Instead, trans and nonbinary people have become scapegoats for far right culture wars and targets of discriminatory legislation, as I outlined in an essay in The San Diego Union-Tribune in September. Most recently, queer people were killed in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay bar on Nov. 19.

[…]

Spearheaded by the San Diego Regional Anti-Hate Crime Coalition and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, San Diego County leaders joined a growing national campaign on Nov. 14-Nov. 20, calling attention to “United Against Hate Week.” If we truly want to truly stop these horrifying events, it will take a multipronged approach of education, community building and healing, preventative services, and legislation.

We must cultivate allies.

The question is how?

And it is very simple, we have magic words, and they are simple words that carry a lot of power!

“How can I help?”

In my younger days I attended women rights rallies.

Black Lives Matter rallies.

Marriage Equality rallies.

If there was a cause I was there, what that does is build bridges by showing that we are not just one issue protesters we care about others.

Did you ever hear of the Great White Fleet?

It was created by President Teddy Roosevelt to “make friendly courtesy visits to numerous countries while displaying new U.S. naval power to the world.”

Well that is what we have to do.

PBS wrote;

In a recent poll, the Pew Research Center found that 42 percent of Americans personally know a transgender person, a marked jump from five years ago when that number hovered at just 30 percent.

In the survey, most Americans — 56 percent — said that gender was determined by sex assigned at birth, a number that has barely changed since 2017, when 54 percent of Americans said the same thing. That belief contradicts the experiences of an estimated 1.4 million transgender Americans and the findings of major groups like the American Medical Association, which classifies trans and nonbinary genders “as normal variations of human identity and expression.”

We have to change those numbers!

I am a very out trans person and every time I step up to a counter to buy something. Every time I sit waiting in a doctor’s office. Every time I go buy shoes or have them repaired I a new person meets a trans person.

This Tuesday I have an appointment to go to a kitchen designer guess what she is going to meet a trans person for the first time. We have been corresponding by email so we have never meet but hopefully we will have another ally.

We need to build bridges.

---

Just after I wrote this I came across this article…

Editorial: LGBTQ Americans need public support against efforts to erase them
By The Virginian-Pilot & Daily Press Editorial Board
The Virginian-Pilot
November 26, 2022


Groomers, they shout. Freaks. Pedophiles.

The names and slurs are familiar. Their intent? To demean and belittle, to intimidate and threaten.

The implications are unmistakable: People who identify as LGBTQ aren’t entitled to share the same spaces as other Americans. They don’t deserve the same legal protections. They shouldn’t exist.

Far from being at the margins of our national political discourse, these sorts of insults and attacks are now at the center of fierce arguments. You can hear them everywhere from the halls of Congress to the school board meeting rooms here in Hampton Roads.

Those delivering such hateful and dangerous drivel are people who believe that LGBTQ people have no right to be part of society — and they have no reservations about saying so, often loudly. They are committed to stripping away legal protections for these Americans, restricting them to fewer spaces in our communities and, ultimately, chasing them from public life.

We can’t remain silent, we have to speak up and speak out!

The commonwealth isn’t immune to this sickness infecting the country. Earlier this year, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration proposed rules that would harm and possibly endanger transgender youth in public schools.

[...]

These are far from the only examples but they offer the type of exhausting and relentless opposition that LGBTQ Americans face daily. And those who stand up to this onslaught, who dare to defend these Americans or who rightly believe communities should be welcoming for all? They are subjected to similar attacks in an attempt to discourage them from speaking out.

Groomers, they shout. Freaks. Pedophiles.

We must speak out, we can no longer remain a spectator. It is our lives and way of life that is being threaten!

A friend has a saying that I like… “If you hear mean, intervene.”

Now We Know!

Did you ever wonder why we are trans… well now we know!

It is because of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)!

Um… What?

Say that again?

Matt Walsh says that GMOs are turning people transgender “to a certain extent”
"Clearly there's something in the food, there's something in our diet and our environment, that's affecting us at a really basic internal level."
LGBTQ Nation
By Alex Bollinger
November 26, 2022


Anti-transgender activist and Daily Wire writer Matt Walsh is now claiming that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food are turning people transgender.

Speaking at the University of California, Berkeley at an event that was streamed on Facebook, an audience member asked Walsh: “What biological and chemical changes are occurring in society through pharmaceuticals and food – like genetically modified food – contributing to how people see gender and what we currently see in society and what your film is about?”

After saying that it was a “good question,” he agreed.

[…]

“Now, I’m not saying that in and of itself explains why we have, you know, the proliferation of transgenderism, but it just goes to show that clearly there’s something in the food, there’s something in our diet and our environment, that’s affecting us at a really basic internal level, and, you know, that’s something I think that’s worth exploring for sure.”

Whew!

I thought that it was going to be some wacko theory like like estrogen from birth control pills showing up in streams.

The headline sounded like something out of a Margaret Atwood dystopian novel: “Fish becoming transgender from contraceptive pill chemicals being flushed down household drains.” Actually, it was a news article that appeared in The Telegraph, a well-known British newspaper, earlier this month. Its alarmist sentiment quickly spread.

Outlets ranging from the International Business Times to National Geographic Australia to The New York Post picked up on the story and ran with it, also declaring that the estrogen in birth control was resulting in “transgender” fish. These news stories all cited a University of Exeter environmental biology professor named Charles Tyler as the source of this information. Yet the way the sites presented the information was extremely misleading—and not just because Tyler never said these fish were “transgender.”

Or because of social media.

The short version of my detransition story...is that when I was fifteen, I was introduced to gender ideology on Tumblr and began to call myself nonbinary.” So writes 23-year-old American Helena Kirschner in her heart-wrenching autobiographical piece, “By Any Other Name.” In her testimony, Helena traces her pursuit of gender transition back to her adolescent obsession with Tumblr’s pastel-colored icons of waifish androgyny. The time spent on these blogs began to distort her self-perception. Eventually they led her to virtual haunts where her “friends” blamed her teenage angst on being born in the wrong body.

Golly gosh what relief!

I’ll just avoid eating vegetables and I won’t be trans anymore!

Oh wait… I don’t eat vegetables already.

Seeing The Light

It is big in the conservative community… detransitioning. They have some poster children that they like to spotlight but one of them has retransitioned and he was on Good Morning America.

Former 'detransitioner' fights anti-transgender movement she once backed
Trans people have been the target of anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country.
ByKiara Alfonseca
November 23, 2022


Ky Schevers is fighting back against the anti-trans movement she once took part in.

Schevers was assigned the sex of female at birth and later chose to start gender-affirming care by taking testosterone to transition from female to male in her mid-20s. She stopped taking testosterone, though, in the years that followed while she continued to explore and question her gender, later falling into an online anti-trans group of "detransitioners" – people who once did but no longer identify as transgender.

Now, Schevers says she has “retransitioned," identifying as transmasculine and gender queer, which means she identifies with both genders. Schevers uses she and her pronouns, but heavily identifies with masculinity, as defined by the LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center states.

His retransition is not what I want to write about this morning, but this study.

A 50-year study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior performed in Sweden estimated that less than 3% of people who medically transitioned experienced "transition regret." Other studies have estimated similar results, some citing even lower figures.

Despite this low percentage, these individuals have become a focal point of anti-transgender legislation and activism.

The article went on to say why people detransition.

A recent large study from Harvard found that gender-affirming surgery was associated with improved mental health outcomes in those who are transgender.

Another recent large study from Harvard found that even among those who do go on to detransition, it is often due to external pressures such as stigma and non-acceptance in their environments, rather than a sudden resolution of gender dysphoria.

The study mentioned in the article said...

Discussion

We studied the applications for sex reassignment in the total population of Sweden during 50 years. There was a pronounced increase of applications from the year 2000. Approximately 2.5 times more FMs and three times more MFs applied between 2001 and 2010 compared to the three previous decades. This accords with reports from Toronto and the Netherlands where the number of adolescents who seek help for gender dysphoria has increased (de Vries & Cohen-Kettenis, 2012;Wood et al.,2013). The same has also been reported from Catalonia (Gomez-Gil et al.,2006). There are several possible explanations for the increase in gender reassignment applications. First, a drift in diagnostic criteria has occurred in that the Legal Board in Sweden has been increasingly more likely to sanction late onset MF (Olsson & Moller, 2003). As a consequence, the proportion of MF in general and late onset MF in particular increased during thes tudy period. But this occurred back in the 1980s and 1990s andcannot explain the surge after the turn of the century. Second, it has been suggested that homophobia in countries like Australia and Singapore may cause gay males to undergo SRS (Ross et al.,1981;Tsoi,1988). 

[...]

The regret rate defined as application for reversal of the legal gender status among those who were sex reassigned was 2.2 %for the whole period 1960–2010 with no significant sex difference. The risk of regretting the procedure was higher if one hadbeen granted a new legal gender before 1990 (11/15). For thetwo last decades, the regret rate was 2.4 % (1991–2000) and0.3 % (2001–2010), respectively. The decline in the regret ratefor the whole period 1960–2010 was significant. However, thelast period is still undecided since the median time lag until applying for a reversal was 8 years. If excluding 2001–2010 thep value is .002. The Swedish regret rate is slightly higher com-pared to previous reports: 1 % for FM and 1–1.5 % for MF (Pfa¨fflin, 1992), 0.4 % for both genders (Weitze & Osburg,1996), and 0.6 % for both genders (Meyer zu Hoberge, 2009).

But these low rates of detransitioner don’t want to be talked about in hearings for anti-trans legislation they want to paint a picture of it being a fad created by social media.

The GMA article went on to say,

But that's where “detransitioners" come in. Detransitioned activists have often testified in public hearings on policies concerning the transgender community.

They are the darling’s of the Republican party and the party don’t want hear others who have had a successful transition, they only want naysayers.

---

If all goes according to plan I will be on my way up to the Cape to close up the cottage for the winter.

Postponed until tomorrow. 

402 Years Ago

The Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod and most of the history that we learned about it is wrong.

The New York Post has this article about the Pilgrims…

Pilgrims’ descendants defend their ancestors — and the history of America
By Peter W. Wood
November 21, 2020

Rebecca Locklear, 64, a 12th-generation Cape Codder, is a descendant of four of the families who arrived on the Mayflower in November 1620. She worries that society today, “is put into groups that are supposedly in a struggle against one another, rather than looking for commonality” — a view that opposes “the more open, inclusive society that the signers of the Mayflower Compact envisioned.”

[…]

Locklear and Whitaker both wrote to me after they read my recent New York Post essay, “This American Lie.” In it, I argued that The New York Times’ 1619 Project — which links the beginning of our country to the arrival of the first slaves on our shores in 1619 — is completely wrong. Instead, the Pilgrims’ signing of the Mayflower Compact in 1620 is a more accurate root of our nation, which is built on the idea that “all men are created equal.” Even before the Pilgrims and dozens of non-Pilgrims (or “Strangers” as the Pilgrims called them) stepped ashore in Plymouth, they set aside their deep divisions and voluntarily joined together to sign the Compact, agreeing to govern themselves with “just and equal laws.” After settling in Plymouth, this group lived in peace alongside their Native American neighbors, the Wampanoags, in a treaty that was unbroken for more than 50 years. In 1621, the autumn harvest meal between the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoags marked the first ever Thanksgiving feast in America.

Yes, the Mayflower Compact was an important document but they brought over slaves and indentured servants. And they didn’t live in peace with the indigenous population… Did you ever hear of the King Phillip War and the Pequot War?

First off the Mayflower wasn’t just carrying Pilgrims, there were also Brownists or Separatists who were fleeing England on board the Mayflower.

The Mayflower compact is a significant historical document, the "wave-rocked cradle of our liberties", as one historian evocatively put it. Signed by the Pilgrims and the so-called Strangers, the craftsmen, merchants and indentured servants brought with them to establish a successful colony, it agreed to pass "just and equal laws for the good of the Colony" ¹

The Mayflower first stop in “New World” (which was really only the “New World” if you came from Europe because the indigenous peoples lived here for tens of thousands of years.) wasn’t Provincetown, they first stopped in Newfoundland to resupply, probably at Renews in Newfoundland. And they were actually heading for the Hudson River where they had a charter from the Virginia Colony to settle.

The Pilgrims had slaves and indentured servants (a fancy word for slaves).

Just as their brutality has traditionally been downplayed, the Puritans' embrace of slavery has been ignored. Not only did the colonists import African slaves, they exported Native Americans. By the 1660s, half of the ships in Boston Harbour were involved in the slave trade. At least hundreds of indigenous Americans were enslaved. ¹

Provincetown was a known harbor, fishing fleets from England, France, Portugal, and Spanish ships all stopped there to resupply and get fresh water. The Grand Banks are only a couple of hundred miles offshore.

In an article in the Cape Cod Times they write...

Myth: The Pilgrims were the first Europeans to land in Southern New England and to interact with the Native people.

The commonly told version of the 1620 Mayflower landing is that the Pilgrims were the first Europeans to step onto the shores of Massachusetts. According to historic accounts, however, Europeans had been visiting New England since at least the late 1400s. The Basques, English and French had a thriving fishing industry off the coast of Maine and New England. The first documented European to make contact with either the Narragansetts or the Wampanoags in Southern New England was Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazano, who, in 1524, while sailing for the French, traveled up Narragansett Bay and traded with the Native people he found there. ⁶

The BBC article also mentioned earlier contacts with Europeans,

It's also a mistake to view the arrival of the Mayflower as the first interaction between white settlers and indigenous North Americans. Contact with Europeans had been going on for at least a century, partly because slave traders targeted Native Americans. When the pilgrims came ashore, a few members of the Wampanoag tribe could even speak English. ¹

While sitting out in Provincetown harbor they realized that they didn't have a charter to settle there and there were no laws governing them. So they got this idea… The Mayflower Compact.

Quickly, the Pilgrim leadership drafted a rudimentary constitution to “combine our selves together into a civil body politick”—which would, through democratic process, enact “just and equal laws…for the general good of the Colony.”

[…]

In reality, the signing was probably more of an informal affair, Pickering says. “The document was carried from person to person: ‘Here—sign this!’ There was also a bit of coercion involved. You weren’t getting off the boat until you signed.” ²

And they were not good neighbors… They stole the Wampanoag food!

Oh look somebody buried corn in clay pots!

To narrow it down to the outermost areas of Cape Cod, the Nauset tribe, which was part of the Wampanoag Nation, would likely have been watching and wondering what the intentions of the Mayflower occupants were, Peters said.

[…]

“Certainly the Nausets didn’t write down (that) they were watching the Mayflower come ashore, but we absolutely know that they would have. You can’t pull that boat up to the coast and people not notice,” he said. “And for them, it must have been such an odd sight to all of a sudden see women and children step off the ship …”

[…]

The text also describes how the exploring party came across “heaps of sand” under which they found baskets of “fair Indian corn” and ears of corn of varying colors. The Englishmen dug up the food stores and stole them.

After stealing their food the Nausets said enough…

“I think they would have thought about that very carefully, and I think they were careful in how they responded,” he said. “Ultimately, they did respond in the ‘first encounter’... you know, shoot some arrows at them to say, ‘OK, time for you to move along. We don’t want to take the risk of having Europeans hanging around here.’ That ultimately pushed them over to Plymouth, which was just a short ride in the shallop for them to get there.” ³

The Wampanoag tells their story for the 400 anniversary of the Mayflower…

The Wampanoag have lived in southeastern Massachusetts for more than 12,000 years. They are the tribe first encountered by Mayflower Pilgrims when they landed in Provincetown harbor and explored the eastern coast of Cape Cod and when they continued on to Patuxet (Plymouth) to establish Plymouth Colony.

[…]

Chapter 1: Captured: 1614

In 1614, a European explorer kidnapped twenty Wampanoag men from Patuxet (now Plymouth) and seven more from Nauset on Cape Cod to sell them as slaves in Spain. Only one is known to have returned home: Tisquantum, who came to be known as Squanto. This tragic and compelling backstory to the colonization of Plymouth has been long overlooked comes to life in the exhibit’s dramatic images and video impact statements.

[...]

Chapter 3: The Great Dying – 2016

God’s Will or Unfortunate Circumstance?

Between 1616 and 1619 Native villages of coastal New England from Maine to Cape Cod were stricken by a catastrophic plague that killed tens of thousands, weakening the Wampanoag nation politically, economically and militarily. ⁵

And then came the Mayflower.

As for the first "Thanksgiving" the indigenous peoples were not invited but can a running.

Myth: The Pilgrims and Wampanoags came together in November 1621 for a Thanksgiving feast.

There’s a lot to unpack with this one, and not just because it forms the basis of our country’s Thanksgiving Day story.

First, while the Puritans did have “days of Thanksgiving” they were literally the opposite of a big, fun, family feast. They were usually days of fasting and prayer that maybe would be broken with a larger meal.

Edward Winslow, in his writing about the first few years in Plymouth titled “Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims in Plymouth,” does mention a celebration marking the settlement’s first successful harvest, probably held around October 1621. Given the context, it certainly wasn’t a huge deal but it would later become one in modern America.

According to Winslow, despite the fact that the Wampanoags had allowed the Pilgrims to live on their land, provided them with aid and taught them how to successfully grow native crops, the Wampanoags were not invited to this celebration. They arrived only after the Pilgrims started shooting their guns into the air. Believing themselves to be under attack, the Wampanoags head sachem, Massasoit, showed up at the settlement with about 90 warriors expecting war. Instead, they found a celebration and they decided to stay, with their hunters bringing in five deer as a contribution. Rather than a happy celebration of camaraderie and partnership, the feast that would serve as the basis of the traditional Thanksgiving myth was actually quite a tense affair, fraught with political implications. ⁶

The Pilgrims and the Mayflower have been romanticized and the truth has been swept under the rug and glossed over and now on the 400 anniversary of their landing in the “New World” is still trying to be whitewashed and the Trump is creating of the 1776 Commission to continue to whitewash history.

1. Mayflower at 400: What we all get wrong about the Pilgrim Fathers

2. 400 years on, the Pilgrims get a reality check

3. A nation created, a nation diminished: Pilgrims’ arrival in Provincetown 400 years ago spawned a clash of cultures

4. “OUR”STORY: 400 YEARS OF WAMPANOAG HISTORY

5. Pilgrim myths: Don’t believe everything your kindergarten teacher told you

Happy Thanksgiving

I am away today at my nephew's in northwest Connecticut, but for many people Thanksgiving and the Holidays are an especially lonely time, they might have been estranged from their family since they came out to them or their families and children have disowned them and for them Thanksgiving is a time when they feel their loss the greatest. Thanksgiving is a time where we reflect on all that we have been thankful for the year but for those of us it could also be a time a great sadness while they see others around them celebrating during the holiday seasons. So let us open our hearts and doors to them and invite them to the table.

I want to thank all the military men and women who are away from their loved ones this holiday... thank you for your service.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the lighter side... I leave you with some Thanksgiving cartoons and what would Thanksgiving be without "Alice's Restaurant" and "WKRP" turkey drop.

And of course the two favorites!

What would Thanksgiving be without Alice's Restaurant!

And WKRP's turkey drop!

 

Gaslighting

Definition:
: psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator
: the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one's own advantage

The right-wing pundits are trying to change the facts of the Club Q murders.

Tucker Carlson Guest Blames LGBTQ 'Evil Agenda' for Colorado Shooting
Newsweek
By Giulia Carbonaro
November 23, 2022


Florida political operative Jaimee Michell, founder of the controversial anti-trans group "Gays Against Groomers," told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs "was expected and predictable" and to be blamed on the LGBTQ "evil agenda" of gender-affirming care.

Talking to Carlson about the mass shooting, Michell claimed that what's really hurting the LGBTQ community is labelling "groomers"—a term that falsely equates non-heterosexual sexualities and non-cisgender identities with pedophilia—an anti-LGBTQ slur, and said that tragedies like the one at Club Q will keep happening "until we end this evil agenda."

~~~~~~~~

Right-wing media continued attacking the LGBTQ community after the mass shooting in Colorado Springs
Conservative pundits used the massacre at an LGBTQ nightclub as an excuse to further “grooming” smears
Media Matters
By Eric Kleefeld
November 21, 2022


[…]

On Monday, conservative activist Rob Smith appeared on Fox Business’ Varney & Co., stating that as a gay man he had previously frequented Club Q when he lived in Colorado Springs. “We should all have the families and the victims in our prayers right now,” Smith said, calling the shooting “an absolute tragedy.” But, he then added in response to criticism: “There is a sort of far-left LGBT activist contingent that will stomp over the blood of these dead bodies in order to push their agenda, whether it is a gun control agenda, whether it is an agenda to bully and shame the people that are speaking up against drag queen story hour, against the sexualization and grooming of children that is coming from these far-left LGBTQ sort of circles.”

(Right-wing media have routinely misappropriated the term “grooming,” which describes a social process involved in child sexual abuse, to describe any education or cultural exposure to children about LGBTQ people.)

[…]

Not to be outdone, Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro’s response to the Club Q shooting was to blame progressives for society being so divided, proclaiming, “The Left has no problem blaming tragedies like the one in Colorado Springs on their political opponents. According to them, anyone who doesn’t support their radical social agenda is complicit. And yet they wonder why society is more polarized than ever.”

~~~~~~~~

Colorado mass shooting: Liberal media blame Republicans for tragedy over LGBTQ rhetoric
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Col., were tied to the attack by journalists.
Fox News
By Nikolas Lanum
November 23, 2022


Numerous liberal journalists and pundits appeared to blame Republicans, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colo., for Saturday’s tragic mass shooting in Colorado.

[…]

The suspect faces five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of a bias-motivated crime. Investigators as of Tuesday are still seeking a motive, yet prominent media figures had already decided a day earlier that Republican rhetoric surrounding the LGBTQ community was directly correlated with the attack.

Hmm… why would bias crimes be include in the charges if the murders were not motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias? The right-wing seem to forget that little fact.

~~~~~~~~

Right-wing influencers and media double down on anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in the wake of the Colorado shooting
Tucker Carlson was among the conservative media figures who continued attacking LGBTQ people in the wake of the Club Q shooting.
NBC News
By Ben Goggin and Kat Tenbarge
November 23, 2022


Some right-wing media figures and influencers have doubled down on the use of inflammatory rhetoric against the LGBTQ community in the wake of Saturday night’s shooting at a Colorado gay club that killed five. 

The rhetoric mirrors what LGBTQ advocates have warned about for months, most notably false claims that children are being sexualized or “groomed” by LGBTQ people and events. The Colorado shooter’s motive is unknown, but the primary suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich is facing five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of bias-motivated crime-causing bodily injury, more commonly known as hate crimes. Aldrich's first court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.

On Monday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson condemned the shooting, focusing on the suspect’s reported history of making a bomb threat in 2021. Three minutes into his nearly 15-minute monologue, however, Carlson’s show displayed a graphic reading “STOP SEXUALIZING KIDS.” On Tuesday evening, Carlson hosted a guest who said shootings would continue to happen "until we end this evil agenda that is attacking children."

Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, said that the repetitive messaging from Carlson and others has opened the door for violence against LGBTQ people.

Maybe the victims should get in touch with the lawyers who won a billion dollar settlement against Alex Jones. Maybe that might shut-up these hate mongers.

A Reply To A Hatchet Job.

Last week the New York Times had a hatchet job on us about puberty blockers… shame on them!

They Paused Puberty, but Is There a Cost?
Puberty blockers can ease transgender youths’ anguish and buy time to weigh options. But concerns are growing about long-termphysical effects and other consequences
By Megan Twohey and Christina Jewett
November 14, 2022


The medical guidance was direct.

But as an increasing number of adolescents identify as transgender — in the United States, an estimated 300,000 ages 13 to 17 and an untold number who are younger — concerns are growing among some medical professionals about the consequences of the drugs, a New York Times examination found. The questions are fueling government reviews in Europe, prompting a push for more research and leadingsome prominent specialists to reconsider at what age to prescribe them and for how long. A small number of doctors won’t recommend them at all.

[…]

That could lead to heightened risk of debilitating fractures earlier than would be expected from normal aging — in their 50s instead of 60s—and more immediate harm for patients who start treatment with already weak bones, experts say.

“There’s going to be a price,” said Dr. Sundeep Khosla, who leads a bone research lab at the Mayo Clinic. “And the price is probably going to be some deficit in skeletal mass.”

[…]

Dr. Khosla and Dr. Gordon don’t believe the effects on bones are reason for medical providers to halt use of the drugs in adolescents. Butthey think the risks should be factored into patient decisions and that bones should be carefully monitored.

WPATH has responded to the article...

The recent New York Times article, “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost?”, furthers the atmosphere of misinformation and subjectivity that has grown to surround the area of gender affirming medical interventions for transgender youth. The methods of the authors of this piece come up short in their interpretation and application of available data; the article supports inaccurate narratives that puberty blocking medicines are conclusively harmful to long-term bone density or other health outcomes, and that transition reversal/regret is a common outcome for these treatments. Additionally lacking in the article is an explicit statement that any harms which may exist outweigh the substantial benefits these treatments confer to transgender youth, and we wish to respond below to certain specific statements and references made in this article.

The cited bone expert from Mayo Clinic, Dr. Sundeep Khosla, MD, is an adult endocrinologist who does not work clinically with transgender youth and has only a single publication on transgender health. This publication is not a research study, but a brief review commentary on the issue of bone density in adult transgender people. Transgender youth are not addressed in the commentary. In this paper, data are reviewed and discussed, and it is concluded that in the context of hormone therapy, “bone mineral density is generally preserved in both trans women and trans men”.

[…]

The single expert who performed the literature review, Dr. Farid Foroutan, PhD, is an epidemiologist with no experience in clinical medicine, child and identity development, bone density, or any aspect of the field of transgender health. Nearly the entirety of his professional experience lies in population health studies of heart disease. The interpretation of clinical studies, especially those with findings that are nuanced, inconclusive, or have a small effect size, require interpretation through a clinical lens, with clinician-scientists experienced in the translation of research data into clinical practice. In fact, Dr. Foroutan recently co-authored a paper which highlighted this very concern, so it is unclear why he did not advocate for a more nuanced and clinically grounded analysis, and an expanded roster of expertise on the review team.

[…]

Finally, the authors of this article suggest that “England’s National Health Service last month proposed restricting use of the drugs for trans youths to research settings.” In fact, the pivot that the National Health Service took was to enroll ALL youth initiating puberty blockers for treatment of gender dysphoria into a prospective research protocol so that more comprehensive data might be collected.

And of course the Republicans have latched on to this study and saying that the study vindicates them.

Will They Pass It?

Marriage equality is on the Senate's table and the Democrats will vote for it but the question is will there be any crossover votes?

Same-sex marriage faces Senate test with GOP votes uncertain
AP News
By Mary Clare Jalonick
November 16, 2022


Staring down the prospect of divided government in the next Congress, Senate Democrats are moving forward with legislation this week to protect same sex and interracial marriages. It’s a vote that’s “as personal as it gets,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday.

Schumer is holding a test vote on the bill Wednesday, betting that at least 10 Republicans will vote with all 50 Democrats to move forward with the legislation to ensure that same-sex and interracial marriages are legally recognized nationwide. The bill has gained steady momentum since the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion. An opinion at that time from Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that an earlier high court decision protecting same-sex marriage could also come under threat.

However all is not rosy, there is the filibuster in the Senate that could derail the bill.

Still, it’s not yet certain whether Democrats have the 10 votes they need to overcome a filibuster on Wednesday and get a bill through the 50-50 Senate. So far, at least three Republicans have said they will vote for the legislation and are working with Democrats to pass it: Maine Sen. Susan Collins, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman.

Most Republicans have stayed quiet on whether they will support it, but those pushing the bill say they believe the 10 GOP votes are there. Democrats delayed consideration of the legislation until after the midterm elections, hoping that would relieve political pressure for some Republicans who might be wavering on the bill.

I think the vote should be interesting in that we see if the Republicans stay with their anti-LGBTQ+ views or will there be enough brave Republicans that will step over aisle to support marriage? Will they see the handwriting on the wall from the past elections?

Stay tuned to the “Same bat Time. Same bat channel” for the thrilling vote in the Senate.

Sure, Lets Pile On The S**t!

Texas has gone into overdrive with anti-trans legislation! Now remember that we are only something like 0.5% of the population.

Texas Lawmakers Are Gearing Up to Make Life Miserable for Trans People
More than 800 bills were submitted to the Texas legislature. The docket is full of culture war legislation
Rolling Stone
By Nikki McCann Ramirez
November 15, 2022


MULTIPLE BILLS HAVE been submitted to the Texas state Senate that would make providing or consenting to gender-affirming care for a minor a form of child abuse under Texas’s Family Code.

The bills are just a handful of the more than 800 legislative proposals submitted to the Texas legislature in anticipation of the new legislative session, which begins in January. The list of submissions is clogged with every form of culture war grievance one could imagine. They include bills that would ban trans athletes from K-12 sports, increase penalties for election fraud, institute a requirement that public schools teach that human life begins at conception, further restrict abortion access, and criminalize the possession of vapes on school campuses.

Whoa! Did you get that? More than eight hundred bills! That is insane!

An obsessive fixation on transgender youth has taken over Republican politics in recent years, with pundits claiming that the transgender community is a predatory space intent on corrupting and harming children in order to increase their numbers. On Tuesday, former Trump adviser Stephen Miller tweeted that Americans “live in a country where it’s easier to get chemical castration drugs than Ivermectin.” 

With lies like that no wonder violence against us is climbing, yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the number trans people killed was reported as 69 trans people just because they are trans. The right-wing legislators are stirring up hostility against us.

The blatant hostility against transgender individuals has already resulted in an increased climate and of violence against transgender individuals and their supporters. In September, a woman was charged with leveling a fake bomb threat at Boston Children’s Hospital, forcing an evacuation. The threat happened after days of right-wing pundits making sensational, and false, claims that the hospital’s Gender Multispecialty Service program was performing genital reassignment surgeries on “young girls.” This year alone, the Human Rights Campaign has tracked at least 32 murders of transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The thing is the Republicans using us as their punching bags to drum up votes doesn’t work, the voters are wising up to the Republican shindigs.

Football!

No, no not U.S. football but soccer.

November 20th the Soccer World Cup begins in Qatar and it is loaded with a lot complaints about human rights violation in Qatar.

European Football Group Demands FIFA Remedy Migrant Worker Abuses
FIFA’s Shut Up and Play Mindset Alienates Fans and Football Associations
Human Rights Watch
By Michael Page
November 7, 2022


Last Sunday, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Working Group on Human and Labour Rights, representing 10 football associations, reaffirmed their support for a remedy fund for Qatar’s migrant workers. UEFA demanded that FIFA, global football’s governing body, “deliver concrete answers” on this issue. This much-needed intervention was likely in part a reaction to FIFA’s letter to qualifying teams last week telling them to “please, let us now focus on football.”

FIFA’s unofficial “shut up and play” policy is especially ghastly viewed against the backdrop of the past decade where thousands of migrant workers were subject to wage theft and families lost sole breadwinners to unexplained deaths. UEFA has rightly recognized Qatar’s promising recent reforms while also demanding remedy given that much of it came too late or was weakly enforced for many workers to benefit.

FIFA has evaded previous calls to commit to remedying migrant worker abuses, and it is possible they are bowing to Qatari pressure. Last week, Qatar’s Labour Minister rejected calls for a compensation fund, while FIFA has for months issued non-committal remarks on establishing a fund to address the organization’s human rights responsibilities. FIFA President Gianni Infantino meanwhile has made a string of remarks whitewashing the serious abuses migrant workers faced building tournament infrastructure in Qatar.

But the world is literally watching. FIFA’s strategy to bury their heads in the sand and buy time until November 20, hoping that the excitement for the game overshadows all other concerns, is failing.

But it is not foreign workers it is also us, LGBTQ players and staff who will be having problems.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then there is all the other stuff wrong with having it in Qatar…

A Beginner's Guide to Everything Wrong with the Qatar World Cup
Corruption, human rights and worker abuses, the most expensive beer in the world… It's not a great list!
Vice
By Fred Garratt-Stanley
14 November 2022<


The stage is set for the world's first Winter World Cup. Shiny new stadiums, metro links, and infrastructure have been built, but as the world's eyes settle on Qatar, the Arab state continues to be dogged by negative stories. The most controversial World Cup in history, the 2022 tournament has been making headlines ever since FIFA (football's international governing body) named Qatar as hosts in 2010. Corruption scandals, human rights abuses, and sweltering playing conditions have become synonymous with the looming championship.

[…]

Bribery

In May 2015, Swiss authorities raided a Zurich hotel and arrested seven high-ranking FIFA officials. This followed a lengthy FBI campaign to expose a decades-long criminal conspiracy at the top of the game. The crux of the matter? FIFA officials had been awarding votes to prospective World Cup hosts (chiefly Russia and Qatar) in exchange for bribes.

[…]

Migrant worker deaths

When Qatari capital Doha's glittering new stadia are unveiled this November, spare a thought for those who have paid for this tournament with their lives. In February 2021, a Guardian investigation revealed that 6,500 migrant workers had died in Qatar since the World Cup was awarded, mostly men from South Asia. Under the Kafala sponsorship system, which turns employees into indentured labourers unable to leave the country without an exit visa insured by their employer, these workers experienced conditions likened to modern slavery.

[…]

Attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people

Another ethical concern is the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Qatar, a state where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by imprisonment. Adelaide United's Australian left-back Josh Cavallo, the world's only openly gay top-flight men's footballer, has expressed concern about visiting Qatar, while many LGBTQ+ fans fear a hostile reception. Depressingly, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly suggested that LGBT fans should “be respectful” and show “flex and compromise” if they plan to attend the World Cup. The FA have assured gay English fans that they won't be arrested for public displays of affection (yep, what a grim sentence). But ultimately, travelling fans aren't the main victims — LGBTQ+ Qatari citizens face hostility all year round. Tournament organisers will put on a good show, using flashy architecture and football's unrivalled PR power to politely hoodwink visitors. But once everyone's gone, LGBT Qatari people will continue to suffer.

Then there is the fact that it is in the dessert!

They will be playing in over 100 degrees in the shade!

Then there are the spectators,

England football fans are generally known as a rowdy, topless, lager-guzzling bunch. But they'll struggle to match this reputation in Qatar. Booze will only be served in Doha's four and five-star hotel bars and restaurants, which will inevitably be packed. And even if you reach the bar, you're coughing up £12-15 for an average pint. In fact, Qatar topped the charts in 2021 as the most expensive place in the world to buy a beer.

That is if you can find any beer.

The New York Times says that the beer booths have to be moved!

The message came from the highest levels of the Qatari state: The beer tents must be moved, and there would be no discussion about it.

With the opening game of the World Cup only days away, Qatari organizers have been working hurriedly in recent days to relocate Budweiser-branded beer stations at eight stadiums after a sudden demand that three people with knowledge of the belated change said had come from inside the country’s royal family.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive planning details for the tournament. World Cup officials appeared to confirm the changes in a statement, however. Budweiser said it only learned of the new plan on Saturday — eight days before the tournament’s first game.

The decision to move the beer stations appeared to be rooted in concern that the prominent presence of alcohol at stadiums during the monthlong World Cup would unsettle the local population and thus represent a potential security problem. But it also highlighted an issue that has stalked the buildup to the first World Cup in the Arab world, and that is expected to be contentious throughout the tournament in Qatar, a conservative Muslim country where access to alcohol is tightly controlled.

Ever since FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, awarded the hosting rights to Qatar in December 2010, tournament organizers have grappled with balancing the obligations they signed up to fulfill — which include the sale of alcohol and providing promotional space for Budweiser, one of FIFA’s biggest sponsors — with concerns about upsetting, or alienating, a domestic constituency that has chafed at some of the culture clash inherent in bringing a traditionally beer-soaked event to a Muslim nation.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a November 10th article on the Human Rights Watch they wrote,

On November 8, Khalid Salman, a 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup Ambassador, described homosexuality as “damage in the mind” in an interview with ZDF, a TV channel in Germany. He also remarked that being gay is “haram,” which is Arabic for “forbidden.”

[…]

On November 8, Khalid Salman, a 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup Ambassador, described homosexuality as “damage in the mind” in an interview with ZDF, a TV channel in Germany. He also remarked that being gay is “haram,” which is Arabic for “forbidden.”

Salman’s suggestions are harmful and wrong. The Qatari government should reject this prejudice but has yet to do so. False information can be harmful to lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, including residents of Qatar, who already face discrimination, violence, and state-sponsored conversion practices. Comments like these only fuel existing bias, undermine basic human rights, and further exclude LGBT people from the public sphere. 

In October, Human Rights Watch documented arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment in detention of LGBT Qataris by the Preventive Security Department. As a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” center. Despite sustained pressure, Qatari authorities have refused to repeal laws criminalizing same-sex relations.

Did you see that about us? State-sponsored conversion practices!

Think about this player that was written about in CNN,

After announcing his sexuality last year Cavallo said that he would be “scared” to play in Qatar, where same-sex activity is prohibited.

In response to Cavallo’s fears at the time, Nasser Al Khater, the chief executive of the tournament’s organizing committee, told CNN: “On the contrary, we welcome him here in the state of Qatar, we welcome him to come and see even prior to the World Cup … Nobody feels threatened here, nobody feels unsafe.”

“I know personally, if I go there, I will be protected because I’m in the public eye,” Cavallo told CNN anchor Amanda Davies.

“But it’s not me that I’m worried about. It’s those ones that are messaging me. It’s those people that aren’t in the public eye that are scared to even be themselves and walk the streets.”

“To see that we’re heading to a country that’s criminalizing people like myself … It’s quite concerning,” added Cavallo.

What about the spectators who are not in high visibility as the players? Would you feel safe?

LGBT football fans told to be respectful at Qatar World Cup
BBC News
By Jasmine Andersson
October 26, 2022


LGBT football fans who attend the World Cup in Qatar should show "a little bit of flex and compromise", Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said.

Speaking to LBC on Wednesday, he told fans travelling from England and Wales to be "respectful of the host nation", where same-sex activity is illegal.

Within hours, the prime minister's official spokesman said LGBT fans should not be expected to "compromise who they are" if they visit Qatar for the World Cup.

Labour called Mr Cleverly's remarks "shockingly tone-deaf".

The Voice of America (VOA) said that some LGBTQ fans are going to stay away...

"As a lesbian woman, it's really hard for me to feel and think that we are going to a country where we don't know what could happen and how we could be safe," she said. "It was a really hard decision."

Nino de Rivera's concerns are shared by many LGBTQ soccer fans and their allies worldwide. Some have been mulling whether to attend the tournament, or even watch it on television.

The U.S. Men's Team (USMT) got a little dig in, though they can't show it in Qatar, the British Guardian wrote,

The US men’s team are showing their support for the LGBTQ community by way of a rainbow-themed logo at their training facility in Qatar as they prepare for this month’s World Cup.

Same-sex relationships are illegal in Qatar, and the host nation has been the subject of criticism for its LGBTQ policies as the World Cup approaches.

[...]

The rainbow badge, which will not be worn by the team during World Cup games, has been routinely displayed by US Soccer as a way to promote a spirit of inclusivity.

“Our rainbow badge has an important and consistent role in the identity of US Soccer,” US Soccer spokesman Neil Buethe told Reuters. “As part of our approach for any match or event, we include rainbow branding to support and embrace the LGBTQ community, as well as to promote a spirit of inclusiveness and welcoming to all fans across the globe.

The design features seven rainbow-colored vertical stripes below “USA” in dark blue letters and is part of the “Be The Change” initiative the team adopted in 2020 with the goal of inspiring action on social justice issues.

So with all these human rights issued why is the World Cup being held in Qatar, it is simple… $$$$ cha-ching $$$$! They out bid everyone else or made an offer they couldn't refuse.

What I would like to see is a player and TV viewer boycott of the games.