Red v. Blue States

Whew! Where to begin?

There is a difference.

Republicans states are piling on legislation that are taking away our rights and it is not just us in the LGBTQ+ community. They having introduced legislation to ban Chinese owning property. They have banned books like The Great Gatsby, The Lord of the Flies, 1984, Of Mice and Men, and Catch-22. They have banned teaching Black history, and they are banning us.

While Blue states are embracing diversity and inclusion.

Amid tidal wave of anti-trans legislation, Democratic states race to become refuges for gender-affirming care
The Hill via Yahoo News
By Brooke Migdon
February 16, 2023


Democratic state lawmakers are mobilizing against a tidal wave of proposed legislation to heavily restrict access to gender-affirming health care, combating stringent measures that can carry prison sentences as long as a decade with bills that plan to establish sanctuary states to shield doctors, transgender youth and their families in all 50 states from potential legal retribution.

In Minnesota, freshman Rep. Leigh Finke (D) hopes to make the state a safe haven for transgender youth seeking gender-affirming medical care.

Democrats flipped the Minnesota Senate in November’s midterm elections with a string of surprise victories, giving the party control of the legislature for the first time since 2014.

Finke, who is the first openly transgender representative to serve in the state legislature, said she and other Democrats had up until election night expected to spend the next two years in a divided government “playing defense” against Republicans on issues including LGBTQ rights.

But after election day, “everything changed,” Finke said. Taking advantage of a fortuitous opportunity to pass more ambitious legislation, Finke in January introduced House File 146, which seeks to prevent out-of-state laws from interfering with gender-affirming health care offered in Minnesota.

Meanwhile up in South Dakota the Republicans came up with this,

South Dakota House passes anti-drag bill banning state funding of the 'lewd and lascivious'
Sioux Falls Argus Leader
By Morgan Matzen
February 15, 2023


Sixty lawmakers in the South Dakota House of Representatives voted in favor of a bill that might prevent events like the South Dakota State University’s Gender and Sexualities Alliance’s drag show from ever happening again.

[…]

Bill sponsor Rep. Chris Karr (R-Sioux Falls) said his bill came as a reaction to the SDSU student drag show and that he found it hard to believe both SDSU and the Board of Regents would be OK such an event, and again said he believed tax dollars were spent on the event.

However, SDSU President Barry Dunn clarified in a Nov. 15 statement the event wasn’t supported by university funds.

Sioux Falls Democrats like Reps. Kadyn Wittman, Linda Duba and Kameron Nelson peppered Karr with questions about his bill Wednesday.

Then we have the Democrats in Virginia…

Virginia Dems Block 12th Republican Bill Targeting Transgender Kids
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, Democrats are standing in the way of Republican-led efforts to legislate transgender people out of existence.
The Advocate
By Christopher Wiggins
February 16, 2023


Thursday, Virginia Senate Democrats mustered a bipartisan effort to kill an anti-trans bill put forth and passed by the Republican-controlled state House.

Legislators voted down a bill that banned transgender athletes of all ages from participating in sports teams aligned with their gender identity from kindergarten through college, the Richmond Times-Dispatchreports.

During a Thursday morning committee meeting, the legislation was defeated 10-5, with Republican Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant of Henrico County voting with the Democratic majority.

When the bill passed the lower chamber of Virginia's legislature last week, the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement critical of the bill's advancement.

"In a coordinated push led by national anti-LGBTQ+ groups, which deployed vintage discriminatory tropes, politicians in state houses across the country introduced a record 315 discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2022," HRC wrote. "The majority of the discriminatory bills targeted the transgender and non-binary community, with the majority targeting children receiving the brunt of discriminatory legislation. Anti-transgender legislation took several forms, including bills aimed to prevent transgender youth from playing school sports consistent with their gender identity and bills to prevent transgender and non-binary youth from receiving life-saving, medically-necessary gender-affirming healthcare."

So you say there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. I beg to differ, one party believes in inclusion and diversity, the other party believes in exclusion, white supremacist, and getting between you and your doctor.