The Truth Is… It Is Hurting!

People and businesses are running scared, it is affecting the whole LGBTQ+ community!

A trans writer’s talk was banned over a drag law. So she’ll speak here instead

Adria Jawort was supposed to give an Indigenous history lecture in Montana. She reflects on the cancellation and reasons for hope

The Guardian

By: Kathleen McLaughlin

June 8, 2023

On the first day of Pride month, Adria Jawort was scheduled to speak at the public library in Butte, Montana. She was going to give a lecture on the history of trans and Two Spirit people in the west. She is not a drag performer. And yet the city’s top elected officials pressured the library to cancel her talk, saying it might pose a legal risk given the state’s new law against drag performers reading to children.

Perhaps naively, I thought my city would be one of the last places to censor Jawort, an Indigenous trans woman. Butte, the mining town where I grew up and now live, hasn’t voted Republican in generations. It’s the historic heart of the labor movement in the US west, a scrappy place where people pride themselves on standing up to power and protecting the less powerful. But our political landscape is changing.

The Republicans swear up and down this is to protect the children… BS! These laws are nothing more than punishing us for being born LGBTQ+. These folks have nothing but meanness in their hearts.

Mother Jones had this to say,

Here Is All the Evidence You Needed That Drag Bans Are About Erasing Trans Existence

A library in Montana cancels an event with a trans speaker, citing drag bans.

Mother Jones

By: Henry Carnell

June 8, 2023

On Thursday, Butte, Montana, became the first documented place to legally cancel an event because the speaker is trans. 

As NBC Montana reported, a lawyer with Butte-Silver Bow County informed the local library that its LGBTQ history event with transgender speaker Adria Jawort would not be taking place. The reason given? House Bill 359, which limits public displays of drag. After the cancellation, Jawort tweeted, “The irony is I testified against this bill saying it would target trans people that would include of course me. They denied it. Now here I am, targeted.”

You know that you cannot trust anything a Republican politician says. When I first starting out help to pass the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill in 2006, our lobbyist told us that if a politician says he is or is not voting for a bill trust him. Four years latter the Republicans changed their tune, they are no longer being trusted with their word.

The canceling of Jawort’s talk is case in point. Jawort, a two-spirit member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and the political director of the group Indigenous Vote, was slated to talk about the history of queer identity in Native communities. Jawort is not a performer of any kind. But she is a self-described “flamboyantly dressed trans woman.” Jawort’s situation—a trans woman, trying to give an educational speech in a library—demonstrates that what actually motivates these laws is not shielding minors from sexually explicit content. Instead, drag bans are about silencing queer culture and restricting trans existence, working toward the larger goal of removing trans people and culture from public spaces. 

They silenced Jawort. They “abridging the freedom of speech” for Jawort. Its content was not sexual, it was not explicit, it was just about the tribal history of the two spirit peoples. But they banned her out of fear of being arrested.

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Opponents say Ohio's proposed parent's bill of rights is increasingly anti-LGBTQ

The Columbus Dispatch

By: Anna Staver

June 8, 2023

A controversial bill described by supporters as giving parents more control over their children's education is being slammed by education and LGBTQ groups as anti-gay, anti-transgender legislation.

"I don’t want us to get further and further and closer and closer to the infamous legislation in the state of Florida, the so-called 'Don’t Say Gay' bill," Rep. Jessica Miranda, D-Forest Park, said. "This is dangerous for education here in Ohio."

House Bill 8 began as a bill requiring schools to notify parents before teaching any "sexually explicit instructional materials." Districts also had to disclose student health and wellness information to parents "unless that disclosure would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect."

In April, Republicans removed that last sentence over the objections of Democrats, saying teachers do not have the right to withhold information from parents.

They made even more changes broadening the bill to "sexuality content” from “explicit.”

But conservative groups like Parents Rights In Education see HB 8 as a much-needed set of protections against activist teachers and districts who assume Christian parents won't support "students that have gender identity issues.”

Once again “Parental Rights” but not every parent only those who want to tell others what they can think or say.

"They seem to be desperate for some red meat about trans kids," Bruno said. "It just seems like the legislators are going out of their way to further alienate some of the most vulnerable kids in our state."

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 And it is making news around the world, in France they wrote...

Anti-LGBTQ backlash rattles US pride events

Washington (AFP) – A spike in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and threats has taken a heavy toll on pride celebrations in the United States this year, organizers say -- especially in states where politicians want to curtail rights.

France 24 (AFP)

June 11, 2023

This month's celebrations in Houston, the largest pride event in conservative Texas, have been scaled back due to rising insurance and security costs, as well as concerns over soaring temperatures and capacity.

"We made the decision to cancel the festival this year," said Kendra Walker, president of Pride Houston 365, downgrading the plans to a parade.

The change was first announced in January as Texas lawmakers prepared bills restricting gender-affirming health care and drag performances. Now, pride planners across the US and Canada say they are facing higher bills because of anti-LGBTQ disinformation and hate.

"It only takes a few (people) that can't decipher reality from fantasy, and that's when the danger comes in," Walker said, calling it "a formidable threat" and pointing to white supremacists who planned to riot at a pride event in Idaho last year.

It is taking a toll on our freedoms. It is really a bias crime on a national scale, they want to do nothing less than criminalize us again!

Florida has become a hotspot, with Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican running for president, signing bills this spring banning youngsters from drag shows and restricting how they learn about the LGBTQ community.

"I didn't realize there was going to be that much of a real shake-up," said Carrie West, president of Tampa Pride, which in May canceled an outdoor festival after some sponsors said they were worried about running afoul of the new laws.

It started in the south and spread north just like the Jim Crow laws…

The legislation, replicated in several other US states, also comes amid a torrent of anti-LGBTQ disinformation online.

False claims linking the community to pedophilia and Satanism have amassed across social media platforms, boosted in part by conservative commentators and advocacy groups. Similar allegations and misinformation went viral in late May about Target's pride apparel collection.

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So far… the reports have been good at Pride celebrations around the country in this second week of Pride. All most all reported no problems.

A minor one in in Reading, Pennsylvania, according to Fox News…

Charges were dropped against a self-professing Christian "street preacher" who was arrested while citing the Bible in protest of an LGBTQ Pride event in Reading, Pennsylvania, authorities said.

[…]

"The charges were withdrawn after the District Attorney’s Office reviewed the videos of the incident along with applicable case law," the statement said.

Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach had told the Lancaster Patriot that he believed the arrest of Atkins was "unlawful" and "could open the City of Reading and their police department to legal action."

That was the only news article that I could find on Pride celebrations across the country. However 

school board meetings were another story, a lot of heated rhetoric. In an AP article,

GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) — Protesters briefly scuffled and punches flew Tuesday as a Southern California school district decided whether to recognize June as Pride month.

Several hundred people gathered in the parking lot of the Glendale Unified School District headquarters, split between those who support or oppose exposing youngsters to LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

Some opponents wore T-shirts emblazoned with: “Leave our kids alone.”

It was the same slogan used by some demonstrators last Friday outside Saticoy Elementary School in Los Angeles to protest a planned Pride assembly.

As in Glendale, police officers had to separate groups of protesters and counterprotesters who came to blows.