Their Latest Brouhaha.

That they have been grooming and parading around to state legislature, meet Chloe Cole.

Many transgender health bills came from a handful of far-right interest groups, AP finds

AP News via Yahoo

By Jeff McMillan, Kavish Harjai and Kimberlee Kruesi

May 20, 2023

Aaron and Lacey Jennen’s roots in Arkansas run deep. They’ve spent their entire lives there, attended the flagship state university, and are raising a family. So they’re heartbroken at the prospect of perhaps having to move to one of an ever-dwindling number of states where gender-affirming health care for their transgender teenage daughter, Sabrina, is not threatened.

“We were like, ‘OK, if we can just get Sabrina to 18 ... we can put all this horrible stuff behind us,’” Aaron Jennen said, “and unfortunately that’s not been the case, as you’ve seen a proliferation of anti-trans legislation here in Arkansas and across the country.”

Forcing people out of their homes is the new Republican way. Forcing people to flee in order to feel safe in their own homes.

Many of the proposals, as introduced or passed, are identical or very similar to some model legislation, the AP found. Those ready-made bills have been used in statehouses for decades, often with criticisms of carpetbagging by out-of-state interests. In the case of restrictions on gender-affirming care for youths, they allow a handful of far-right groups to spread a false narrative based on distorted science, critics say.

Lies. They know them to be lies but you know what the don’t. They sat with them in class, they played together on the playground. But the adults are trying to force us back in the closet so that their children with know exclusion instead of inclusion.

“These are solutions from outside our state looking to solve nonexistent problems inside our state,” said Aaron Jennen. “For whatever reason, they have the ear of legislatures in states like Arkansas, and the legislators will generally defer to and only listen to those individuals.”

This is lobbying on a national level to force us back in the closet. To criminalize our healthcare.

The AP obtained the texts of more than 130 bills in 40 state legislatures from Plural, a public policy software company, and analyzed them for similarities to model bills peddled by the conservative groups Do No Harm, which also criticizes efforts to diversify staffing in medicine, and the Family Research Council, which has long been involved in abortion restrictions.

The conservatives know that they are causing us harm, they know that healthcare for us saves lives but they don’t care.

Republicans’ recent focus on legislation to restrict aspects of transgender life is largely a strategy of using social “wedge issues” — in the past, abortion or same-sex marriage — to motivate their voting base, political observers say. And it does appear to resonate; a Pew Research Center survey a year ago found broad support among Republicans, but not Democrats, for restrictions on medical care for gender transitions.

The 2024 elections will be critical for our health.

Such bills often distort valid science that supports gender-affirming care for youths, said Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who edited the section about gender dysphoria in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual. Do No Harm cites the manual in its model bill.

“These bills are not at all interested in patient care,” Drescher said. “These bills are designed to inflame.”

It’s problematic “any time policymakers are cherry-picking isolated studies or scientific research that arrives upon a different conclusion than the rest of the community or that relies upon studies without having that expertise,” said Marty P. Jordan, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University. “It’s problematic for the individuals that the legislation could impact. It’s problematic for the larger public, and problematic for democracy writ large.”

I worry for us. What will happen to the children that the Republicans are using for cannon fodder. I have seen children who transitioned before puberty and they are so happy and out going! And now in Republican states they are forced to flee their homes! It is the new “Jim Crow” era. Tell us what bathrooms to use. Tell our doctors how to treat us. Banning us from even saying our name.

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A follow-up on Friday's post about Red and Blue states...

CT House OKs nonbinary gender recognition despite debate

Hartford Courant

By Mark Pazniokas | CT Mirror

May 18, 2023

A bill directing state agencies to assess what would be necessary for Connecticut to offer a nonbinary gender option on state forms sparked a brief and one-sided debate Wednesday in the House of Representatives.

The House voted 124 to 26 to pass the bill, with the measure’s sponsors pointedly refusing to engage three opponents who argued there is no nonbinary gender and persons so identifying should not be accommodated.

“In my world, there’s only two sexes. There’s a male or a female,” said Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco, R-Wolcott. “There is no nonbinary. People can certainly identify however they choose, and I have no problem with that.”

Wolcott is a bastion of conservatives and a number of far right legislators came from there.

“When we talk about a nonbinary gender, what are we referring to? Can I get an explanation on exactly what that means?” she asked.

Blumenthal replied with 12 words: “We’re referring to anyone who does not identify as male or female.”

In their “Father Knows Best” world that they are stuck in they still think it is male and female and being LGBTQ+ is a choice. Intersex was never discussed back then and gays were still being persecuted.

Rep. Jeff Currey, D-East Hartford, one of four openly gay members of the House and a sponsor of the bill, initially cast the change as merely a bureaucratic exercise.

“We are checking all of our boxes — no pun intended — crossing T’s, dotting I’s to ensure that we are not creating any sort of systems that are going to be contrary to that of any federal requirements,” Currey said.

He smiled and conceded the bill had more meaning: It offers a small measure of recognition and acknowledgement to a marginalized group.

He is a very strong ally of the community.

In the end after a short debate that I watched on CT-N the vote was,

Every Democrat voted for the bill. Of the 52 Republicans present, they were evenly divided, 26-26. House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, voted for the measure, as did his top deputies.

I originally thought that the bill ordered non-binary option on state forms but it is only to look into a non-binary option. Which kind of burst my bubble in thinking that this was a major advancement but at least it is a step in the right direction.