The Voters Can’t Be Trusted.

In another case of the Republicans overriding the electors…

Montana transgender lawmaker silenced: What to know

AP News

By Amy Beth Hanson, Sam Metz and Matthew Brown

April 27, 2023

The latest high-profile example of statehouses deciding who can be heard during legislative debates is playing out in Montana, where a transgender lawmaker on Wednesday was barred from speaking on the House floor for the remainder of the session.

For days before voting to discipline her, legislative leaders in the GOP-controlled statehouse had not allowed Rep. Zooey Zephyr to speak during debates because she said colleagues who voted to ban gender-affirming care for youth would have “blood” on their hands.

The remark provoked outrage from Republicans who said the language was belittling and an affront to civil discourse. Zephyr rebuffed demands from legislative leaders to apologize for her remarks, leading to days of standoff between her and lawmakers in the majority party over how to move forward.

As she speaks out against the she tell the truth, that with the passage of the anti-trans bill she said that research has shown the the suicide rates increase in the trans community as a result of passing laws like those. But the Republicans don’t like the truth.

The 34-year-old Democrat is from the left-leaning college town Missoula, where she’s been a staffer at the University of Montana. She has spent much of her life advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and worked behind the scenes during the 2021 legislative session to help block efforts to ban gender-affirming health care.

Following her November election, she said she wanted to enlist moderate Republicans to push back on what she called “extreme and dangerous attacks” and help people understand transgender adults like her.

Instead, she and fellow members of the Democratic minority have been powerless to stop Republicans from passing proposals focused on transgender kids. In addition to banning gender-affirming care for minors, lawmakers also passed legislation that says misgendering or deadnaming students is not illegal discrimination unless it rises to the level of bullying.

But the Republicans consider it okay to misgender and deadname  her but when she speaks the truth…

House Majority Leader Sue Vinton, a Republican, immediately called Zephyr’s comments inappropriate and disrespectful. That evening, a group of conservative lawmakers known as the Montana Freedom Caucus demanded Zephyr’s and deliberately referred to her using male pronouns in a letter and tweet. That’s known as misgendering — using pronouns that don’t match a person’s gender identity.

The Republicans steam roller have a super trifecta and they shut down anything that the Democrats introduce.

IS THIS RELATED TO THE TENNESSEE LAWMAKERS BEING EXPELLED?

Not directly, but the dispute reflects tensions and harsh rhetoric around culturally divisive issues — including firearms, racial justice and rights for the LGBTQ+ community — that currently dominate much of America’s political discourse.

It is either the Republican way or the highway.

You know who else does that?

Russia, China, Hungary and other authoritarian governments.

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NPR reported,

The tension in the Montana House has been building for a while. Zephyr said she ran for office after Republican lawmakers passed legislation restricting the rights of transgender Montanans in 2021.

Now in office, she's taken a very strong stance against bills to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, to ban minors from attending drag shows and to define sex as binary in state code.

[…]

Zephyr says she stands by her comments. In a notice, Republican leaders cited the section of the Montana Constitution that gives authority to the legislature to "expel or punish a member for good cause" with a two-thirds majority vote.

The Republicans have a different definition of “for good cause” for Republicans and Democrats.

House Minority Leader Kim Abbott says her caucus will hold Republicans accountable for their "anti-democratic agenda." The public gallery was closed for Wednesday's proceedings.

Them wrote that,

On Wednesday, Republican members of the far-right “Montana Freedom Caucus” went on the attack, calling for Zephyr to be officially censured in a statement posted to Twitter that repeatedly misgendered her, using the pronoun “his” to refer to Zephyr throughout. 

The statement falsely claimed that the legislation protects children against “forced life-altering and unnecessary” surgeries. In reality, the bill prohibits best-practice trans medicine conducted with informed consent, while making exceptions for non-consensual surgeries performed on intersex youth. The caucus even claimed that statements like Zephyr’s are “exactly why tragedies such as the Covenant Christian School shooting in Nashville occurred.” Republicans and conservative pundits have repeatedly weaponized the shooting over the past month to falsely claim that trans people are dangerous.

[…]

House Minority Leader Kim Abbott told ABC News in a statement that the Freedom Caucus’ demand was “blatantly disrespectful,” adding, “I find it incredibly ironic that these legislators are making demands of others that they refuse to abide by themselves.” Rep. Theresa Manzella, chair of the caucus, did not reply to Them’s request for comment prior to publication.

But that is all okay because a Republican said it!

They lied about the Nashville shooting, it was never proven that she identified as trans… it was something that the right-wing created and the police or the prosecutors didn’t say that she was trans.