Saturday 9: Rocket Man

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer the questions, however, and here is today's questions!

Sam's Saturday 9: Rocket Man (1972)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.
 
1) In this song, Elton John tells us he's taking off for outerspace at 9:00 AM. What will you be doing at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning?
Hopefully sleeping!

2) He sings that even though he uses it for his astronaut job, he doesn't understand science. Was science one of your better classes in school?
Yes I was a member of the Science Club.

3) Lyricist Bernie Taupin recalls writing the first verse of "Rocket Man" while stuck in traffic as he tried to make his way to his parents' home. Have you recently been stuck in traffic? If yes, where were you headed?

Not recently, however, when I go up to Cape Cod there will be because side of the bridge on I-195 in Providence is closed. It will mean long delays in going over the bridge or going north by the way of I-90 and I-495.

I might go that way once to see how bad the delays are on the bridge.

4) Thinking of cars ... Nigel Olsson, who plays drums and sings back-up on "Rocket Man," is a self-proclaimed "race car fanatic." What hobby are you passionate about?
Photography, but lately I haven’t gotten motivated to take photos. I hope that once the weather gets warmer that I will be out with my camera.

5) Davey Johnstone, who plays guitar on "Rocket Man," recently posted on Facebook that he was thrilled to meet Joni Mitchell. Are you on Facebook? Instagram? Twitter? Pinterest? Tik Tok?
Just Facebook and I am friends with one Sat 9er on Facebook and friends of one former Sat 9er.

6) Elton John once played charades with Bob Dylan. But only once. Elton laughingly says he can't get over how "hopeless" Dylan was at the game. What's the last game you played? Did you win?
Um… it was so long ago that I don’t remember. I hope that “Game Night” starts back up again at the local art gallery this fall.

Video games I play 0 AD.

7) In 1972, when this song was popular, Winnie the Pooh was on the cover the Sears Christmas Wish Book. That year, kids asked Santa for plush Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore. Did you have many plush toys as a child? If yes, do you still have any of them?
Yes and no. I used to have a "Teddy" bear but I don't still have any of them.

8) Also in 1972, TV cowboy Dan Blocker died. He played the middle brother, "Hoss," on Bonanza. Do you enjoy watching westerns?
I did and I watch old reruns of westerns like “Tales of Wells Fargo”

9) Random question: What inspires you?
Well that is a wide open subject… inspired to do what?
Photography? College and all the photo majors.
My MSW? The desire to be busy in retirement.
My activism? My desire to help others.

Thanks so much for joining us again at Saturday: 9. As always, feel free to come back, see who has participated and comment on their posts. In fact sometimes, if you want to read & comment on everyone's responses, you might want to check back again tomorrow. But it is not a rule. We haven’t any rules here. Join us on next Saturday for another version of Saturday: 9, "Just A Silly Meme on a Saturday!" Enjoy your weekend!

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The webcam of I-95 bridge repair after the accident last Thursday.

I-95 in Connecticut closed, video shows bridge engulfed in flames following crash: Watch

A multi-vehicle collision on Thursday caused a gas tanker to erupt into flames and damage an overpass above I-95 in Connecticut, near Norwalk.

USA TODAY

By Saman Shafiq, Thao Nguyen, & Krystal Nurse

May 3, 2024

The Book Police

Do you remember Fahrenheit 451 when you spotted a book you called the “Fire Department” to burn the book? Well the Book Police invaded a classroom looking for prohibited books…

Teacher whose classroom was searched by police for 'Gender Queer' will sue Great Barrington and schools if they refuse mediation
The Berkshire Eagle
By Heather Bellow
April 29, 2024

The English teacher who was questioned by police searching her eighth grade classroom for a controversial book says she will file a civil rights lawsuit if the town and school district do not agree to participate in mediation.

The potential for litigation has prompted the town and the Berkshire Hills Regional School District to each schedule closed-door sessions with their attorneys Monday night, according to their agendas — one of which names the teacher, who continues to ask that her name not be published out of fear for "harassment and worse."

So what set off the fire drill?

The specter of a lawsuit has boiled up since Dec. 8, when a night custodian at the school complained to police about the possibly “pornographic” contents of a book in the teacher’s classroom. He also accused the teacher of allowing a student to sit on her lap.

What followed was a plainclothes Great Barrington police officer going to the classroom after school that day to question her about the book “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe. He also tried to find the copy that she provides in her classroom as supplemental reading material that has to be checked out by students with her permission only. It is unclear where the book was located at the time of the search and where it is now. District officials previously said that its appropriateness would be reviewed.

I don’t blame the police, they received a complaint and they had to investigate, I blame the feeding frenzy that the conservatives have created, however the chief of police leaves a lot to desire.

The Berkshire Edge reported,

The report states that Officer O’Brien was the one who received the complaints from Yorke, and that, at the beginning of the investigation, O’Brien showed Chief Storti photographs of the book provided by Yorke. O’Brien states:

Two of the photographs were of the front cover of the book. The third photograph was two interior pages of the book. Chief Storti stated that the illustrations [from the book] were concerning because there was no context provided. Chief Storti stated that upon reviewing the information, as well as the photographs, it was his opinion that the Police Department had a duty to immediately follow up on the complaint.

Chief Storti was asked whether “he believed that the material was inappropriate and of a pornographic nature as contemplated by Massachusetts General Law c 272 29 (Dissemination of Obscene Matter).” The report states:

He replied ‘Yes.’ He added that this was based on, in part, because there were only three photographs, and no other context was provided. Chief Storti also explained that he was unable to determine the age of the individuals depicted in the illustrations and was unsure whether students had access to the book.

When asked by investigators, Chief Storti said that he did not believe that the Police Department needed a warrant to search the school for the book.

[…]

Under its “findings” section, the report states:

Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting, LLC, finds that the actions of Officer Joseph O’Brien, as well as the actions of the Great Barrington Police Department, regarding the incident at the W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School, on December 8, 2023, were lawful and proper.

Right next to the statement, the word “exonerated” is typed up in all capital and bold letters.

The Berkshire Eagle goes on to report…

“Our client, the teacher, has very substantial legal claims against both the Town of Great Barrington and the School District for violating her civil rights,” said Cooper, of law firm Todd & Weld LLP. “What happened never should have happened.”

So I imagine that the two sides will settle the law suit out of court and both sides will call it a victory, but we as the general public will pay the price with less access to books… the “Fire Department” did their job. Create fear about the books we read.

It Is Spreading.

Like slime spreading on everything it touches, the attack on our healthcare has spread to the north of the border.

Premier's announcement on transgender policies surprised Alberta Health Services advisory group
Internal records obtained through freedom of information request
CBC News
By Nicholas Frew
April 30, 2024

Members of the body that advises Alberta Health Services about 2SLGBTQ+ health care were surprised by Premier Danielle Smith's proposed transgender policies announcement earlier this year, according to internal records obtained by CBC News.

In a video posted to social media on Jan. 31, Smith laid out a host of proposed policies focused on transgender youth, including several regarding gender-affirming care. She formally announced the policies at a news conference the following day.

Records obtained by CBC News through a freedom of information request highlight concerns raised by members of the AHS Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) provincial advisory council in the days after the premier announced the proposed policies.

"This announcement is politically motivated and not based in fact or clinical guidelines," one council member wrote in a Feb. 2 email to two named AHS officials and other recipients whose email addresses were redacted. The sender's identity was also protected under privacy legislation.

"I believe we have an obligation to inform (as per our mandate) those in our sphere of influence, which includes the public, and leaders within the organization with the right information," the email said, adding that the council also needed to convey "the damage this policy does to the health of 2SLGBTQ Albertans especially those kids."

The lies about puberty blockers has spread, the blockers have been used safely since the early 1980s but now the right-wingers are citing their fake research!

Among other things, the government's proposed policies would ban top and bottom surgeries for anyone under 18 (Doctors say bottom surgeries aren't performed on youth and top surgeries are rare.)

Puberty blockers and hormone therapies would not be permitted for those under 16, unless someone has already started treatment.

Teens aged 16 or 17 could start hormone therapies if they are deemed mature enough and have parental, physician and psychologist approval.

Once a trans woman goes through puberty their voice will never change go back and this policy will cause life long harm.

The polling results suggest that 44 per cent of Albertans agree with the government's proposed policy about gender-affirming surgeries for minors. The same proportion of Albertans believe puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender affirmation should not be permitted for children aged 15 and under.

Opinions were more divided about older teens: the poll suggests that 28 per cent of Albertans feel it is appropriate to allow mature teens, aged 16 or 17, to start puberty blockers and therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation, if granted approval.

What does the poll show?

First off the adults who have an opinion about puberty blockers know absolutely nothing about except for the for the lies the conservatives push that they are experimental and cause life long dangers… both of which are lies. While the teens know the truth.

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The U.S. National Institute of Health had this to say about the puberty blockers…

CONCLUSIONS

Among transgender adults in the United States who have wanted pubertal suppression, access to this treatment is associated with lower odds of lifetime suicidal ideation. This study strengthens recommendations by the Endocrine Society and WPATH for this treatment to be made available for transgender adolescents who want it.

The the American Physiological Society (APS) writes,

Researchers say the results bolster the evidence that short-term use of puberty blockers does not cause permanent damage to the ovaries and uterus. However, they noted that because the study was conducted in rats, additional research would be needed to confirm the findings in humans.

“The results of this study suggest that the short-term developmental delay of the uterus and ovaries caused by the puberty-blocking treatment in young female rats was reversible. A majority of reproductive function also recovered immediately after puberty blocking withdrawal,” said Brandon Jones, PhD, the study’s first author and assistant professor of exercise science at Marshall University. “This study can help inform adolescents and their families in the decision to take puberty-blocking medication.”

But the conservatives don’t care about facts. They just want to force us back into the closet.

Not All Churches Are The Same

Some are affirming while other are hateful. One preaches “Love thy neighbor” and the others preach fire and brimstone. And one is split right down the middle.

United Methodists repeal ban on LGBTQ clergy

The Hill

BY LAUREN IRWIN

May 1, 2024

Delegates within the United Methodist Church voted to repeal their church’s longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy Wednesday, showing overwhelming support that contrasts with decades of controversy over the issue.

The church voted 692-51 at its General Conference to remove a rule that bans “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as a minister, The Associated Press reported.

In the past, elders within the United Methodist Church have reinforced the LGBTQ ban during their annual conference, held in Charlotte, N.C., but the group has moved in a more progressive direction after some conservative members left the denomination.

The change doesn’t mandate or explicitly affirm LGBTQ clergy members but means the church no longer forbids them from serving churches across the country. After the vote, applause broke out and members from advocacy groups embraced, per the AP.

It was painful for them, they lost a sizable chunk of their congregation over it.

Delegates voted Tuesday to remove mandatory penalties for conducting same-sex marriages and remove bans on considering LGBTQ candidates in the network of churches. The votes are historic for the delegation that has been debating LGTBQ rights for more than half a century, the AP reported.

While the changes are celebrated by many current members, the AP noted that nearly 8,000 conservative congregations across the country disaffiliated with the church from 2019 to 2023 after the denomination did not enforce its bans around LGBTQ communities.

NPR wrote,

The tone of the Charlotte meeting has been decidedly upbeat, in sharp contrast with the last, highly contentious global meeting back in 2019, when heated floor debates left many feeling hurt.

In fact, there was no floor debate over the clergy and marriages rules this time around. Rather, they were included on a consent agenda.

However, in the years leading up to this General Conference, about one-quarter of United Methodist congregations in the U-S left the denomination. Those congregations tended to be among the most conservative in the church. Their departure made the decisions this year less fraught.

It is sad that it came to this but the haters chose to leave rather than follow the teaching of Jesus.

A Bad Word…

And it is not even a four letter word… it is “Diversity.”

Have you noticed that the right-wingers do not like diversity, equity nor inclusion. They think that it is their god given rights to discriminate against people they don’t like. People whose eyes are oddly made, people whose skin is a different shade, people who love people, people whose gender identity is different from theirs.

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states
AP News
BY DAVID A. LIEB
April 24, 2024

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards, with officials in about one-third of the states now taking some sort of action against it.

Tennessee became the latest when the Republican governor this week signed legislation that would prohibit banks and other financial institutions from considering a customer’s participation — or lack thereof — in “diversity, equity and inclusion training” or “social justice programming.”

That came shortly after the Democratic governor in Kansas allowed legislation to become law without her signature that will prohibit statements about diversity, equity or inclusion from being used in decisions about student admissions, financial aid or employment at higher education institutions.

Last week, Iowa’s Republican-led Legislature also gave final approval to a budget bill that would ban all DEI offices and initiatives in higher education that aren’t necessary to comply with accreditation or federal law. The measure expands upon a directive last year from the Iowa Board of Regents to eliminate DEI staff positions.

Republican lawmakers in about two dozen states have filed bills seeking to restrict DEI initiatives this year. They are countered by Democrats who have sponsored supportive DEI measures in about 20 states. Altogether, lawmakers have proposed about 150 bills this year that would either restrict or promote DEI efforts, according to an Associated Press analysis using the legislation-tracking software Plural.

For over thirty years in manufacturing and twenty of them as a department manager I have never been told to hire a certain number of people with certain characteristics. I have had to sign policy statements saying that I would not discriminate in my work, but nowhere, at no time was there anything about a quote systems. We NEVER had to have a certain number of Blacks, or a certain number of women.

Higher education institutions and many businesses have long devoted resources to improving diversity and inclusivity.

More recently, conservative groups began raising concerns that DEI initiatives are promoting an agenda that elevates racial or gender identity over individual merit. Since 2022, about half a dozen conservative or libertarian organizations have offered model measures to state lawmakers to eliminate DEI offices or prohibit the use of DEI criteria in training programs or employment, academic and financial decisions.

NEVER have I heard of any businesses or colleges saying that they a quota system…. It is just another Republican lie to stir up to stir up anger in their base.

Corporate Diversity Programs Treat Minority Employees As Tokens, Not People | Opinion
Newsweek
By Raquel Rosario Sánchez
April 26, 2024

Diversity training is creating hostile work environments for minority groups. That is the key takeaway from new research published at the end of March by Britain's Free Speech Union. The report, titled "The EDI Tax: How Equity, Diversity and Inclusion is Hobbling British Businesses," surveyed 800 employees, 36 percent of whom said they witnessed employees being penalized by their employer for challenging the training. In addition, 31 percent said they had left a job because of their employer's promotion of political ideology. This figure rose to 43 percent among black people and 46 percent among Asian people.

[…]

The report states that Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) training, now unavoidable in most U.K. workplaces, is supposed to "make offices more inclusive, attractive places to work, particularly for members of historically disadvantaged groups. But according to the people we surveyed, it is having the opposite effect—and is particularly unpopular among ethnic minorities."

[Note: the Britain's Free Speech Union is conservative organization. Wikipedia says “The Free Speech Union has been criticized by journalists and former student members, who believe that the FSU has a right-wing agenda and that its stated aims are misleading.” So its pedigree is questionable.]

I did diversity training. And I can tell you there were a lot of people in those training session that didn’t want to be there. After one particular tense exchanges with one homeless shelter managers who was extremely against trans people in “HIS” shelter, the lady from HUD said something to like this, “Sir when you received that funding from HUD you agreed to these terms. Are you saying that you will not abide by those terms you agreed to? We are here today to give you tools to meet those obligations.”

And all we did to set him off was asked for pronouns while introducing yourself. Boy! He went off like a skyrocket. He went through the whole 90 minute workshop with his arms crossed, legs spread, and a sour look on his face like he was forced to eat a lemon. He even wrote to his congressional representatives that I found out about for the woman from HUD the next time we met to do the training… and our congressional representatives wrote back… obey the law or give back the money.

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And this will even set off more firework works from the conservative, Republican states are suing over this.

EEOC says workplace bias laws cover bathrooms, pronouns and abortion
The guidance is not legally binding, but lays out a blueprint for how the EEOC will enforce anti-bias laws and can be cited in court to back up legal arguments.
NBC News
By Reuters
April 30, 2024


The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Monday said employers refusing to use transgender workers’ preferred pronouns and barring them from using bathrooms that match their gender identity amounts to unlawful workplace harassment under federal anti-discrimination law.

The EEOC updated its enforcement guidance on workplace harassment for the first time in 25 years, including to reflect a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that anti-bias laws cover LGBTQ workers, after an earlier attempt stalled during the Trump administration.

The commission in the new guidance also addressed the rise of remote work and said that discriminating against employees based on their decisions to have abortions or use contraception is a form of sex discrimination.

The guidance is not legally binding, but lays out a blueprint for how the EEOC will enforce anti-bias laws and can be cited in court to back up legal arguments.

Some Republicans and conservative and religious groups had criticized the expansive guidance after the commission unveiled a draft version in September. They said it conflicts with state laws on abortion and LGBTQ issues and fails to acknowledge that religious employers are exempt from anti-discrimination laws in many cases.

EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows in an interview said the guidance reflects decades of court rulings that have expanded workers’ rights to be free from workplace harassment, and that updating it was necessary to ensure that employers are aware of their legal obligations.

The right-wingers are hopping mad! They are not going to stand it! I foresee Republican governors’ saying that they are going to defy the Title VII federal law as they said that they will not follow the federal Title IX law!

Court Revives Title VII Claims Against CRT and Gender Identity Training
SHRM
April 30, 2024

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of claims brought by a state employee alleging that he was retaliated and discriminated against for his opposition to critical race theory (CRT) and gender identity training.

[…]

Nearly two years later, the father and son received emails from their supervisors instructing them to complete workplace trainings titled “How to be Anti-Racist (CRT Training)” and “Understanding Gender Identity and Expression: Moving Beyond the Binary.” The plaintiffs claimed that the trainings instructed employees to speak or refrain from speaking on certain political and ideological matters.

[…]

On Sept. 10, 2020, the father expressed his opposition to the gender identity training to one of his supervisors and sought a religious exemption. On Oct. 6, 2020, he emailed the supervisor, notifying him that he planned to retire on Jan. 6, 2021. On Oct. 27, 2020, the director of the Equal Opportunity and Access Division informed him via email that his request for a religious exemption was denied. On Nov. 2, 2020, the father replied that the denial of his exemption request solidified and confirmed his decision to leave the DHS.

This is not a clean case of refusing diversity training but it is also wrapped in “Religious Freedom” and I foresee other cases of “Religious Freedom” coming up in the courts for the new Title VII and Title IX policies.

 

Then you know who had to put their 2¢ in...

DEI destroyer? Trump vows to crush 'anti-white' racism if he wins 2024 election
USA Today
By Jessica Guynn
May 1, 2024

Lending his voice to anti-DEI fervor sweeping the Republican party, Donald Trump telegraphed a dramatic shift to America's approach to civil rights if he wins a second term as president, vowing to focus on "anti-white" racism, not on racism against people of color.

Asked about supporters who believe anti-white racism now represents a greater problem than anti-Black racism, the former president told Time magazine: "I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed."

In the exclusive interview, Trump also said he would use the U.S. military to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants; deploy the National Guard to quash protests and gut the U.S. civil service.

He has to appease the white nationalist and white supremacists in his cult.

One of the goals of the presidential transition plan is reversing “the DEI revolution” by eliminating policies and programs such as affirmative action that work to counter racism that favors white people. Project 2025 calls it "affirmative discrimination."

As I said this whole Project 2025 thing is placate his whiteshirts, such as the Proud Boys and to form a white Christian nationalist country.

It is my god giving right to be a bigot.

Finally Some Good News

This time it is out of Maine and they joined other Democratic state to ban abortion and trans health information from being sent out of state.

GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD)
April 23, 2024

Advocates praise passage, signing of shield law that will protect Maine providers of reproductive care and care for transgender people from out-of-state attacks
Maine joins more than a dozen states in enacting protections as Biden administration announces similar protections for abortion patients under federal patient privacy law

(Portland, MAINE) – Governor Janet Mills has signed into law a bill that will protect Maine’s providers of reproductive care and care for transgender people from out-of-state attacks. The measure, LD 227, was approved by the legislature on April 12 and will take effect in mid-July.

Lawmakers heard from numerous Mainers and care providers who advocated for the measure in March. In the days following that public hearing, legislators faced physical and political threats along with rampant disinformation. In addition, attorneys general from 16 red states threatened legal action if Maine’s legislature continued working on the bill. As Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey stated, the bill “simply protect[s] providers of legally protected reproductive and gender-affirming health care provided in Maine from interference or retaliation from states with different policies.”   

To date, 21 states across the country have enacted bans or near total bans on abortion. At least 24 states have banned access to safe and effective medical care for transgender adolescents, and some have moved to restrict access to care for transgender adults.

You want to guess what political party the governor is with?

Are you surprised?

Maine Public Radio writes,

A legislative committee split along party lines on Thursday over a proposed "shield law" to protect health care professionals who offer gender-affirming care to transgender individuals.

Maine already has protections for medical professionals who provide abortions to women from states where abortions are banned or access is restricted. The bulk of those protections come from an executive order issued by Gov. Janet Mills in 2022. The bill that was endorsed by a majority of committee members on Thursday would strengthen those protections for abortion providers and expand them to health care professionals who offer gender-affirming care to transgender individuals.

How about guessing the Republican response to the bill?

But Republicans suggested that the bill could violate the rights of parents of transgender children or encourage kidnapping and trafficking of minors across state lines. Bill supporters responded that the measure would not change any laws related to parents' rights in Maine or laws allowing the prosecution of illegal activity, such as kidnapping.

Republicans also raised concerns about harming the relationship between law enforcement agencies in Maine and other states. And they accused Democrats of a lack of transparency because the text of the bill was released only days before the public hearing.

"I think this whole process is shameful," said Rep. Joshua Morris, R-Turner, who was one of the four votes against the bill.

The Republican states played hard ball with making threats…

Last week, the proposal drew national attention after the attorneys general from 16 states sent a letter threatening legal action if Maine enacts the bill. All of the attorneys general represent states that have restricted access to abortion and/or gender-affirming care.

In their letter to Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, Gov. Janet Mills and Democratic legislative leaders, the attorneys general portrayed the bill as an attempt to bully officials in other states. The group took particular issue with language that would allow health care providers in Maine to counter-sue states that go after them for providing gender-affirming care.

Typical Republican trickery with threats and lies.

It Is All Smoke And Mirrors.

The conservative effort to force us back in the closet are all based on lies and half truths. They distort the research and use the lies as weapons against us.

How Anti-Trans Efforts Misuse and Distort Science

Three types of misinformation are being used against transgender people: oversimplifying scientific knowledge, fabricating and misinterpreting research and promoting false equivalences

Scientific America

BY COREY S. POWEL

April 19, 2024

Anti-trans sentiment has existed for a long time, but it seems like we're at a moment of particularly intense attacks. Why is that?

Florence Ashley: It’s definitely been getting worse. A lot of people who have been out since the '70s and '80s are saying that this is an unprecedented level of public hate. Even if there's been progress around rights for a lot of people, there's a whole lot more hostility. I am located in Canada, where we're starting to have anti-trans bills that would have been mostly unheard of just five years ago. In the U.S., the fact that the courts are so stacked by Trump appointees at the federal level has been particularly daunting. We are seeing alliances between the anti-reproductive justice and anti-trans movements, which is really concerning.

Trans culture is more visible today than it has been in the past. Does that help, or is increased visibility stirring up the anti-trans movement?

Florence Ashley: Visibility is very much a double-edged sword. There are good sides to visibility, of course. It helps people realize that they're trans. You have more access to trans narratives, which gives you more space to understand yourself, and that's very positive. But at the social and political level, it has been quite negative. We're seeing a lot more people who vehemently hate trans people, who are even willing to harm trans people. Whereas people who are favorable to trans people largely just leave us alone. And a lot of reforms that we were able to achieve with relative ease, in a less visible manner, are now being rolled back.

Back in the old days… 1990s in order to get medical care you had to meet a narrow acceptable range: First trans women must be sexually attacked to men (After all we don’t want to be creating lesbians!), and second you had to be able to integrate into society and live stealth (We can’t create trans people who can be “Read.”). The original Harry Benjamin Standards of Care were very strict and that is one reason we got a reputation for lying, “Oh yes, I’m attacked to men!”

I also believe increased visibility is a two edge sword, it encourages us to come out but at the same time it creates fear in the conservatives that we are everywhere. 

Many of the arguments against trans rights center on the idea that transness itself is not legitimate—that there are just two sexes, period. You describe this idea as “sex essentialism.” Can you explain that term, and talk about how it shapes the debate?

Simón(e) Sun: Essentialism is the idea that you can take any phenomenon that is complex and distill it down to a particular set of traits. In the case of sex essentialism, the idea is that you can sufficiently describe sex by a few particular characteristics. In this debate, it used to be chromosomes, now it’s gametes (egg and sperm cells). The target is always moving, because if you want to make something binary, then you need to find the most binary characteristic. Today, sex essentialism boils all of sex down to the gametes that a person produces. Then you draw a line from gametes to all of these other characteristics—to sex roles, even to the personality of an entire individual. But biology is just not that simple. The sex essentialist perspective is completely wrong about the biology of how sex characteristics arise.

Heck! The conservatives still belief that a woman can keep from getting pregnant during a rape.

You have written about three broad misinformation techniques in the trans debates: oversimplifying scientific knowledge, fabricating and misinterpreting research and promoting false equivalences. Are these the same techniques that have been used in science-based arguments about race and other human traits?

Simón(e) Sun: Absolutely. Even in climate change. Perhaps the most salient example is race science. There’s an entire history of asking about the science of racial differences, and how can we describe them in a biological way. That kind of research has been used in the past, and still is to some extent today, to bolster racist arguments. It’s an oversimplification to say that one population exhibits a lower average IQ than another population. That’s just biology, but there’s also social environment, socioeconomic status and other factors that come into play.

When can you trust a Republican to tell the truth?

What about ordinary people who want to help but don't know where to start—what can they do?

Florence Ashley: Shut down misinformation and hate when you see it crop up around you. Oftentimes we don't like confrontation, so we just let misinformation go. We need people to start speaking up whenever it comes up. And be loud. We’re in an ecosystem where the anti-trans voices are trying to portray themselves as speaking for a silent majority. We need people to be loud enough to counter any impression of a silent majority. You can also help trans people materially. Give them a job, help them get housing, help them pay for transition-related medical care. Share your power with trans people, giving them opportunities to write, opportunities to share with audiences and opportunities to have a say in policy-making. And share your skills.

The right-wing is well funded by billionaires and religious fundamentalists, they back “research” like the ROGD (Rapid Onset of Gender Dysphoria) and the latest attack on puberty blockers. I bet all that “new” research into the blockers will find that they are not safe even though they have been used for over 40 years of use.

 

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“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

Trump Again Vows Mass Deportations and Won’t Rule Out Political Violence
In an interview with Time magazine, the former president said he planned to use the military to deport migrants and would not dismiss the possibility of political violence after this year’s election.
The New York Times
By Michael Gold
April 30, 2024

Former President Donald J. Trump told Time magazine in an interview published Tuesday morning that if elected in November, he would deploy the U.S. military to detain and deport migrants and permit states to decide whether to prosecute those who violate abortion bans, while hedging on the possibility of political violence after the 2024 election.

Mr. Trump has rarely given lengthy interviews with mainstream news outlets, particularly since leaving the White House. His conversations with Time — a sit-down at the former president’s residence in Palm Beach, Fla., and a follow-up phone call — offered a revealing glimpse of how he would wield presidential power, challenge democratic norms and reshape the country if he won back the White House in November.

[…]

Mr. Trump also brushed aside questions about political violence in November by suggesting that his victory was inevitable. But when pressed about what might happen should he again lose the election, he did not dismiss the possibility outright and did not proactively say anything to deter supporters from again resorting to it.

“I think we’re going to win,” he said. “And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

A Biden campaign spokesman, James Singer, argued that Mr. Trump's stated plans were unconstitutional and anti-democratic. “Trump is willing to throw away the very idea of America to put himself in power,” Mr. Singer said in a statement.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

He would not rule out using the Justice Department as a political tool.
After previously pledging to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family, Mr. Trump told Time he “wouldn’t want to hurt Biden.”

Yet he also suggested that any action might be conditioned on an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether presidents have any immunity from criminal prosecution.

“If they said that a president doesn’t get immunity, then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Biden has not been charged with any crimes, and an impeachment inquiry by House Republicans has not produced any solid evidence of wrongdoing.

 “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

There Is No Differences?

Oh really, how many time have you heard that about the Democrats and Republicans?

I was posting some links on Facebook when I ran across this, now tell me do you think that in Republican states you would see this web page on a the state website?

Department of Aging and Disability Services: LGBTQ+ Resources for Older

We are proud to announce that our staff have received training from the National Resource Center on LGBTQ+ Aging and the State Unit on Aging is now a Safe Space for our friends in the LGBTQ+ community.

Do you think that you would find a web page like this on the Florida or Texas web pages?

What about this? The governor’s Hate Crimes Advisory Council [Which I am a member] do you think you would see anything like this in Republican states?

The Republicans were introduced last year over 510 anti-LGBTQ bills up from 180 in 2022! Democrats, zero!

So I don’t want to hear about not voting this year! Our lives depend upon it!

 

---

 

It is something that trans people know really well... bias crimes and bias speech.

Here is where I stand on the topic of the college protests, if it is peaceful and they are not threatening anyone then it is covered under the 1^st Amendment.

 

But however, Republicans and Democrats see it differently,

Morning Report — Campus protests expose differences in red and blue America
The Hill

By Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch

April 29, 2024

Pro-Palestine protests on college campuses across the country are here to stay.

From Ivy League universities in New York and the Northeast, to schools in the Midwest, Texas, the South and California, the surge in student activism has resulted in protest encampments and other demonstrations, drawing significant police crackdowns and sometimes appearing to attract outside disruptors. At least 900 protesters have been arrested during demonstrations on college campuses in the last 10 days, according to a Washington Post tally.

So what are they protesting?

It seems to me that the debate is over our country's policy on the middle-East and that is a fair topic to debate.

THE PROTESTS HAVE EMERGED as the latest flashpoint in the internal Democratic debate over the war. Most Democrats say they both support free speech and condemn antisemitism, and consider criticism of the Israeli government to be fair game. But debates over how to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitic speech are fraught and reaching a fever pitch on campus.

[...]

THE PROTESTERS ON CAMPUSES are getting very different responses from elected officials in red and blue states. Texas is seeing pushback after state troopers in riot gear arrested more than 50 people at a peaceful demonstration, and Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has threatened expulsion for students who engage in unsanctioned demonstrations, while New York has made clear the National Guard will not be called in as authorities negotiate with Columbia University’s student encampment.

The Republicans believe we should all fall in-line behind them like good little ducks in a row.

“That is a concerning difference,” said Kaivan Shroff, senior adviser to the Institute for Education and a Democratic political strategist. “I think that there is a much more sort of set of standards for protecting free speech and basic human rights in the blue states.” [Their emphasis]

Then we have the Democratic Presidential Convention this year...

The clashes between anti-war protesters and police is spreading alarm among congressional Democrats who worry that anger over Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza could engulf their convention in late August. Images of police arresting students have Democratic lawmakers bracing for chaos in Chicago — where in 1968, the Democratic National Convention was marked by violent clashes between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who attended the 1968 convention, said he’s worried that protests at this year’s convention might overshadow the official proceedings.

I am also worried about the convention.

Let's bust heads! Politico writes,

State troopers and local police this week arrested scores of demonstrators who assembled at flagship public schools in red states with a history of setting trends on free speech, diversity programs and LGBTQ+ issues for the right. Texas institutions are staring down an order from Gov. Greg Abbott to overhaul campus policies. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is suggesting expelling students who cross the line separating free speech from targeted harassment.

 

[...]

 

 Now prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are calling for National Guard troops to be deployed to clamp down on protests.

“It’s not an accident that it’s Mike Johnson, rather than the Democrats in the House, who are going to Columbia to decry it as insufficiently protective of the sensitivities of a minority group,” Dorf said in an interview. “He’s making the same kinds of claims that the DeSantises of the world were complaining about less than a year ago.”

Gee when and where have we seen that? I know 1970 and Kent State, and my memory of it, it didn't go well. Back then it was a Republican governor that called in the Guard and now it is the Republican governors and Republican Congressional delegates that wanted the Guard to step in to the peaceful demonstrations. They want to show the voters that they are tough on crime even when no laws were broken.

Bias Speech is not a crime! It is a crime only if there are threats made or calls of violence.

Anyone Surprised?

I’m not surprised.

Houston Public Media...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration Monday for expanding federal sex discrimination protections under Title IX to include LGBTQ+ students.

Title IX is a sweeping civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at federally funded colleges and K-12 schools. The Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX rules, which came earlier this month, redefines sex-based harassment to cement protections for LGBTQ and pregnant students.

Paxton joins a number of Republican leaders across the country who have sued to block the change from taking effect.

"Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology," Paxton wrote in a Monday statement. "This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden's extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk."

Did you really expect anything different, it was a matter of would do yank them to court first, Texas or Florida. The Houston Chronicle wrote,

The Biden administration issued similar guidance two years ago, but Texas and 19 other Republican-led states sued and convinced a federal judge to block the policy. The department’s newly finalized rules were delayed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.

Hopefully this law suit will not block the policy like the courts did the last policy.

Paxton has frequently filed suits against the Biden administration in Amarillo, where cases are all but guaranteed to go to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney for a conservative religious liberty legal group who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump.

Let us hope the the court will follow the U.S. Judicial Conference guidelines on picking judge. The Texas Tribune said the changes were the result of Trump changing them,

In its final interpretation of Title IX, the Biden administration sought to extend a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case decision related to workplace discrimination to students. The high court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII, a civil rights law that bars employment discrimination on the basis of sex, applied to gay and transgender workers.

The Title IX changes also walk back rules set during the Trump administration that required “live hearings” in which students accused of sexual misconduct could question accusers in a courtroom-like setting. The Biden administration kept Trump-era provisions that allow informal resolutions and prohibit penalties against students until an investigation is complete.

How this will proceed is anyone’s guess as it goes through the court system.

January 20th 2025

Hopefully it will not be a date which will live in infamy. Hopefully we will still have a Democratic President. There are a number of article about what might happen if Trump wins.

The New Republic writes,

Conservatives Plan to Ban Abortion and Cut LGBT Rights Starting Next January

Project 2025’s 180-Day Playbook is a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.

By Melissa Gira Grant

February 8, 2024

On January 20, 2025, conservatives plan to resurrect a 150-year-old defunct law to ban abortion across the nation. This is not a secret plan—far from it. It’s part of the 180-Day Playbook produced by Project 2025, detailing priorities for an incoming conservative president on day one. These 900 pages lay out a Christian nationalist vision of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity; all pregnancies would be carried to term, even if that requires coercion or death; and transgender and gender-nonconforming people do not exist. 

Project 2025’s 180-Day Playbook is driven by such ideology. “Look at America under the ruling and cultural elite today,” writes Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, in the document’s foreword: “Children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” Project 2025 claims to present the “consensus recommendations” of “the entire conservative movement” for addressing purported crises like these: The first guiding principle is “Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.”

The hundreds of pages that follow lay out specific plans for each department—from Health and Human Services and Education to Labor and Justice. Make no mistake: As steeped as Project 2025 is in the conspiratorial imagination of the right, its plan is comprehensive and dangerous. Health care providers, educators, employers, and the government’s own civil rights enforcement apparatus, among many others, would all be marshaled to ensure our acquiescence in this dictatorial male supremacist society.

When people say that this election is a matter of life and death to us, they are not kidding! These people dislike our guts along with our gay brothers and lesbian sisters! They want to bring back the time before the Stonewall Uprising!

Project 2025: The Right’s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women

With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent—no matter what happens in future elections.

Ms.

By CARRIE N. BAKER

February 28, 2024

Wealthy right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation has published a detailed plan for the next Republican president to use the executive branch of the federal government to attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and the BIPOC community, by eliminating the agencies and offices responsible for enforcing civil rights laws and placing trained right-wing ideologues in staff positions throughout the federal government. 

Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—the plan has “four pillars”:

1. an 887-page policy agenda,

2. a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,

3. a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and

4. a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.

To develop this plan, the Heritage Foundation organized a broad coalition of over 90 conservative organizations—a who’s-who of groups that have led attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, gender studies, the Equal Rights Amendment and #MeToo initiatives.

The coalition includes Concerned Women for America, the Independent Women’s Forum, the Eagle Forum, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation, Moms for Liberty, AAPLOG (the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Students for Life of America, Alliance Defending Freedom, First Liberty and Turning Point USA.

This is a “Who’s Who” of right-wing pundits! 

HRC, other groups to rally against GOP ‘masterplan’ for a Christian theocracy

Demonstration is Saturday at Heritage Foundation, author of Project 2025

The Washington Blade

By Christopher Kane

January 25, 2024

The Human Rights Campaign will join a coalition of groups for a rally on Saturday against Project 2025, the 887-page plan that would reshape American government if a Republican is elected president in 2024.

The demonstration was organized by the Center for Popular Democracy as part of its yearlong Stop the Coup campaign. Participants will gather by the headquarters of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, which produced Project 2025, at 1 p.m.

“A blueprint for a future dictatorship that reflects the GOP’s 2025 party platform” the Center for Popular Democracy wrote in a press release, “Project 2025 is an 887-page extremist GOP masterplan to systematically dismantle our federal government and democracy.”

The document “envisions America as a future Christian theocracy and seeks to replace public education with the Bible” and was created by “The Heritage Foundation and 75 Christian groups” as “a radical plan to retake power in America.”

That is their ultimate goal, to bring back the time before the Stonewall Uprising! They want to create a theocracy, an utopian dream of the Handmaid's Tale.

The Advocate from November write,

Roberts outlines a vision of a nation in crisis. “Today, the American family is in crisis,” he wrote. “Children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.”

These statements, which include archaic language, have ignited outrage and concern for their implications on the rights and well-being of the transgender community.

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare,” Roberts wrote. “It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”

All the world’s troubles are our fault. We are the scapegoats for society’s woes. It is not the billionaires hording their moneys, it is not the oligarchs, it is us the lonely trans community that only make up 0.5% of the people.

It is all about control! Control of the lives of proletariat by the bourgeoisie that is the Republican goal. They are stripping public educations, they want to make birth control illegal, the want to control women’s bodies, and for us in the LGBTQ+ community they want to eradicate us.

 

---

 

And a second term will affect more than us.

How Trump’s second term could be different from his first
The Hill
By Brett Samuels and Rebecca Beitsch
April 28, 2024

Former President Trump’s pursuit of a second term in the White House could lead to an administration stocked with loyalists who are laser-focused on implementing Trump’s agenda and are willing to cater to his whims.

Critics, including some who have worked closely with Trump, have expressed concerns that a second Trump administration would have fewer officials willing to act as guardrails and would enable the former president to act more impulsively, in part because of his lame duck status.

“That is one of my biggest concerns about a second Trump administration, is there would be no guardrails,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump spokesperson who has become a critic of the ex-president. “I think there were a lot of people in the first Trump administration who were very skeptical of him but believed it was their duty to serve, so they went to go work for him to try and, I think, guide him and put him on a better path.”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020 before running a primary campaign against Trump in the 2024 race, told The Washington Post the prospect of a “vendetta tour” was his greatest fear about a possible second Trump term.

That is also my concern, he will pack the administration with his cronies.

When they show you who they are, believe them the first time.

Maya Angelou

For Those Who Stand By Us…

It pays a toll. Businesses that have stood by us like Bud Light, Target, and Plant Fitness have paid  price in their support of us.

How an inclusive gym brand became a battlefield over LGBTQ rights

At least 54 threats have been received by Planet Fitness locations following attacks by far-right influencer Chaya Raichik

The Washington Post

By Taylor Lorenz and Gus Garcia-Roberts

April 28, 2024

John Hart-Battles, a 17-year-old high school junior in Oklahoma, joined Planet Fitness last June to keep in shape as a member of his school’s color guard team. As a young gay man, he liked Planet Fitness’s focus on inclusivity, an approach that turned it into one of the leading fitness brands in the United States. He started going twice a week.

But for the past few weeks, he, like many LGBTQ Planet Fitness patrons and staffers, has stayed away, as at least 54 bomb threats have been made to Planet Fitness locations across the country, many of which led to evacuations. “It’s one of my worst fears, to be hate crimed, specifically in a locker room,” said Hart-Battles, who called the attacks on Planet Fitness “very unsettling.”

Local police and the FBI say they have yet to determine who is behind the threats, which in some instances have forced the evacuation, police say, not just of Planet Fitness locations but of businesses nearby.

When I did diversity training one of my slides read,

Microaggression

    • Misuse of pronouns

    • Using old name (Deadnaming)

    • Use of derogatory words:

        ◦ Transvestite

        ◦ It

        ◦ He/She

        ◦ Shemales

        ◦ Tranny (maybe used within the community)

    • Judging and Blaming

    • Shaming or Guilting

    • Ridiculing

    • Shunning or Ignoring

    • Attacking friends of the target

It is the last bullet point that effects our allies. It is not only those who our are our friend who also get targeted but also businesses that support that get attacked.

It seems that a right-wing talk show host might be behinds it,

But the pattern is familiar to LGBTQ activists, who link the wave of threats to the far-right influencer Chaya Raichik, who runs the social media account @libsoftiktok. She has made Planet Fitness the object of critical posts since early March when Planet Fitness revoked the membership of a woman in Alaska who complained about “a man shaving in a women’s bathroom” and posted a photo of the person online.

These people on social media stir up animosity against us and then hide behind the First Amendment, but many of them social media accounts cross the line to “Incitement to violence.”

Violent threats have followed Raichik’s tweets before, including dozens of bomb threats against LGBTQ pride events, children’s hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, drag queen story hours, and at least two dozen public schools and libraries. Schools in California, Colorado and Oklahoma have canceled classes and evacuated students following Libs of TikTok posts about them. Raichik recently compared her Planet Fitness posts with last year’s controversy after Anheuser-Busch paid a trans influencer to tout a beer brand in an Instagram post. “This might be the most successful boycott since Bud Light,” she said.

Hello law enforcement officials, district attorneys! How about looking in to legal charges?

Bomb threats and evacuations

The 54 incidents are national in nature: Seven Planet Fitness locations in Virginia have been targeted, and at least two in Maryland, according to the tabulations. In Fargo, N.D., two locations were evacuated, and a franchise manager explained to police that “this has been happening across the country at their other locations” since the incident in Alaska, a police report shows.

On Friday, a bomb threat to a Planet Fitness location in Charlottesville caused a nearby street to be closed to traffic during rush hour, police said. It was at least the second threat to the same location. The Planet Fitness employee who answered the phone at that location shortly after the incident said they were “not allowed to say anything.”

Hey! Isn’t that terrorism? I sure hope that the FBI and police are going after the terrorists making the bomb threats.

Haley Zapal, an LGBTQ Planet Fitness member in Atlanta, said that she hopes the company can remain publicly supportive of the trans community and not cave to online pressure. “If they’re prioritizing safety,” Zapal said, “I think they should keep in mind who is doing the aggression, and it doesn’t seem like it’s the trans people.”

The only way to stop these bomb threats are long prison sentences. Start locking them up for 5 to 10.

They Have Our Backs!

Most of the time you only hear the negative but many time those who support us are not carried by the mainstream news agencies don’t carry the pro-trans article.

Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, and more urge NCAA to stand up for trans inclusion
They and hundreds of others have signed on to a pro-inclusion letter.

The Advocate

By TRUDY RING

APRIL 24 2024

Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, and other sports stars are urging the National Collegiate Athletic Association to allow transgender athletes to compete under their gender identity.

The NCAA last revised its policy on trans athletes in 2022. For a decade previously, it allowed trans women who’ve completed a year of testosterone suppression treatment to compete alongside cisgender women. The change in 2022 let the governing body for each sport to set standards on testosterone levels.

Now, after another college athletic association barred all trans women from participating in women’s sports, the star athletes and others are calling on the NCAA to stand up for inclusion. More than over 400 current and former NCAA, professional, Olympic, and Paralympic athletes sent an open letter expressing that sentiment to the NCAA Board of Governors, which is having a virtual meeting Thursday. It’s not clear if the trans policy is on the agenda, but “the end of April and beginning of May is typically a key rules-making period for the NCAA,” The Washington Post reports. The NCAA will also hold its annual inclusion forum this week.

“To deny transgender athletes the fundamental right to be who they are, to access the sport they love, and to receive the proven mental and physical health benefits of sport goes against the very principles of the NCAA’s Constitution,” says the letter. Its more well-known signers include WNBA coach Cheryl Reeve, soccer champion Megan Rapinoe, trans male swimmer Schuyler Bailar, and WNBA players Bird, Layshia Clarendon, and Brianna Turner.

[…]

The letter continues, “Within the context of broad legislative attacks on the rights of trans people in the United States, opposition to trans athletes is driven by certain politicians who seek to control our bodies, not by science or data. Although trans exclusionary efforts claim to ‘protect women’s sports,’ in reality, they fail to address any of the real, documented threats to women in sports, namely unequal pay, failure to uphold Title IX, rampant sexual abuse and harassment of women and girl athletes, and a lack of equal resources for men’s and women’s teams (as we saw in March Madness tournaments just three years ago).”

They are so right! “...opposition to trans athletes is driven by certain politicians who seek to control our bodies, not by science or data.”

Most people have no idea about what the research actually says, they just go by “Boy playing on girls teams” and they just parrot the Republican propaganda.

“Despite claims by those suing the NCAA over trans inclusion, studies used to justify the exclusion of transgender athletes are methodologically flawed and misinterpreted to further discrimination,” the missive goes on. “In fact, the most current scientific review of transgender women in elite sport (published in 2022 by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES)) underscores that transgender women do not have an advantage over cis women in sport.”

There is a law suit here in Connecticut about trans people playing in sports, the courts found in favor of the trans athletes, NBC News reported…

The case had been dismissed by a Connecticut judge in 2021, and that decision was affirmed by three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit a year ago.

But on appeal Reuters reported that,

A U.S. appeals court on Friday revived a lawsuit by female former high school track team members challenging a Connecticut policy that allows transgender girls to compete on girls' teams.

The full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the four women could pursue claims that the policy deprived them of wins and athletic opportunities by requiring them to compete with two transgender sprinters.

And so it continues, our Human Rights are at the mercy of judges.

---

"...Prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…"

The Republicans only think that their views are permissible, that all other speech should be repressed!

Why Republicans think the National Guard is a solution to pro-Palestinian protests

There’s a reason House Speaker Mike Johnson is wrongly describing Columbia’s protests as violent.

MSNBC

By Zeeshan Aleem

April 26, 2024

House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday afternoon and said he would demand that President Joe Biden intervene in pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place on campus for over a week — including by potentially calling in the National Guard to dismantle encampments. His statement echoed calls from his Republican colleagues Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who have already asked for the National Guard to be sent in to clear out the protesters. (Cotton has also, in a now-deleted social media post, suggested that people should violently confront pro-Palestinian protesters on the streets.)

These Republicans’ calls for troops to be sent in to repress peaceful student protests are incredibly chilling. They also reflect the GOP’s generally extreme attitudes on the Israel-Hamas war and intolerance of rhetoric remotely critical of Israel. For Johnson, trying to seize control of a wedge issue for Democrats using aggressive law-and-order rhetoric also provides a convenient opportunity for political stagecraft as he faces internal dissent in the House.

Did you get the part where they said “...repress peaceful student protests…?”

The Republicans just don’t care First Amendment Rights only when it is in their favor. They just want to repress people and ideas they don’t like.

Friday I wrote, “Have we learned anything yet?” about Kent State in 1970 the Republicans want a repeat of that to prove to their right-wing base that they are tough on protesters. What is even more worrying is that the base agree with bringing the Guard to bash heads.

The Republicans Takith Away And The Democrats Givith (The Continuing Sage)

How many times have I said that the Republicans think that laws don’t apply to them?

Biden’s new Title IX rules protect LGBTQ+ students, but avoid addressing transgender athletes
AP News
By COLLIN BINKLEY
April 19, 2024

The rights of LGBTQ+ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration.

The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden. He had promised to dismantle rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who added new protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.

Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes.

The administration originally planned to include a new policy forbidding schools from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, but that provision was put on hold. The delay is widely seen as a political maneuver during an election year in which Republicans have rallied around bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Yeah he didn’t go far enough, but it is a compromise. I much rather have a Democratic landslide in November than Trump in the White House. Because the majority of courts have been in our favor because of the Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board case. Once President Biden wins in November we will hold his feet to the fire then.

Instead, Biden is officially undoing sexual assault rules put in place by his predecessor and current election-year opponent, former President Donald Trump. The final policy drew praise from victims’ advocates, while Republicans said it erodes the rights of accused students.

The new rule makes “crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.

Yeah, he added that from Trump deleting it, do we want him again?

Louisiana education chief tells schools to ignore new Title IX rules for transgender students
The Hill
By Brooke Migdon
April 22, 2024

Louisiana’s top education official on Monday instructed schools to ignore new Title IX rules unveiled by the Biden administration, warning that extending the civil rights law’s protections to transgender students may violate existing state and federal law.

The Education Department last week issued a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX — which prohibits sex-based discrimination at federally funded schools — including an expanded definition of sex discrimination that includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

[…]

The new rules, which are set to take effect Aug. 1, drew immediate criticism from Republicans, who slammed the proposal’s transgender student protections as an attack on women’s rights.

In a letter sent Monday to school system leaders and board members, Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s superintendent of education, said the new Title IX rules likely conflict with Louisiana law, and schools “should not alter policies or procedures at this time.”

But wait! There's more...

State Superintendent tells school districts not to comply with new Title XI rules

KFOR News

By Taylor Mitchell

April 24, 2024

Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters is pushing back on the Biden Administration telling school districts not to comply with the new Title XI regulations. The new rules would prohibit sex-based discrimination at government-funded schools. 

Walters argues the recent rule changes are illegal and unconstitutional. On Tuesday, he told all Oklahoma superintendents to not make any changes based on the new regulations.

“If the Biden administration really wants to move forward with the most radical initiatives that we have ever seen in the country’s history we’re gonna sue him,” said Ryan Walters, Oklahoma State Superintendent. 

These officials should know that federal law supersedes state and local laws. But they are Republicans and they can do what they want. Their federal funding should be cut.

Cuckoo Award

Gullible! You know some people will believe anything, even the most stupid things because of their biases. They despise anything trans!

Today Cuckoo Award goes to the family that believed that the Evil Queen was a drag queen!

Furious Disney World visitors complain about ‘male’ Evil Queen – despite being told she’s a woman
A family has allegedly complained after encountering a “biologically male” performer at a Walt Disney World restaurant.
Pink News
By Amelia Hansford
April 27, 2024

The father of a family-of-four is said to have complained to a member of staff while dining at the Story Book restaurant, at Artist Point, Florida – a themed lodge with performers dressed as characters from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.

Speaking to Disney-focused blog That Park Place, the father said he told the waiter serving his table that he had a problem with a “man dressed in drag”.

While waiting to be served, the family were reportedly invited to meet the “Evil Queen”, a character the father said they had “high hopes” for. But after claiming the performer had a “man’s voice,” he complained.

He said the performer was “a man” and that he felt “disrespected” by Disney because it did not conform to his “family values.”

[…]

“For the most part, the manager just listened and never once apologised for anything. At one point [the manager said]: ‘I can assure you that she is a woman’.”

[...]

 

There was similar online outrage in 2023, when a much-loved Disney employee dubbed “Nick the fairy godmother” was filmed welcoming kids to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Disneyland California. In the video, Nick describes their role as “the fairy godmother’s apprentice” as they welcome a child to the store.

 

A performer playing the Evil Queen at Disney World. (Getty)

So this weeks Cuckoo Award goes to the parents who see drag queens everywhere!

Saturday 9: Stay

Saturday 9: Stay (I Missed You) 1994

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this week's song, a woman is accused of only hearing what she wants to. "Selective listening" is when you choose to focus on what's important to you and ignore what isn't. Are you often, sometimes, or never guilty of selective listening?
Yes, especially when food is involved.

2) She turns the radio up when she hears her favorite song. What song have you recently sung along to?
Oh, that was a very long time ago.

3) This week's featured artist, Lisa Loeb, has always been a big reader. Her band was called Nine Stories as a tribute to her favorite author, JD Salinger. If you were to name a band to honor your favorite author, what would you call it, and why?
The Zimmer’s
It would be named after Marion Zimmer Bradley, the author of the Darkover series.

4) This week's song is her first and biggest hit. "Stay" was on the soundtrack of Reality Bites, a movie starring her friend and one-time neighbor Ethan Hawke. Ethan gave this song to the film's director, Ben Stiller, who agreed it was perfect for the film's closing credits. When you watch a movie, do you stick around for the closing credits?
Nope, never. But I do know those who do… boring!

5) In the 1990s, Lisa was popular for her style and appeared on many magazine covers, causing People magazine to comment, "Though she rose to fame as a singer, she's probably just as well known for her glasses." Do you wear glasses? If yes, do you consider your eyewear purely functional, there to improve your sight, or are your glasses an extension of your personal style?
If I don’t wear my glasses I’m blind as a bat! I lost my glasses in the house and I had to go out to the car and get my old pair so I could find my new pair.

Last week I forgot that I had them on and I went into the shower... Poof, instant fog!

6) Today Lisa does a show on Sirius Radio, and she enjoys broadcasting while her favorite collaborator, her cat, sits on her shoulder. Is there a pet in the room with you as you answer these questions?
Nope.

7) Lisa raises funds for SCOPE, a charity that helps children from low-income families attend summer camp. When you were a kid, did you go to camp?
Yes, scout camp. And also to day camp.

8) In 1994, when this song was popular, the nation's attention was riveted to a white Bronco driven by a man named Al Cowlings. Without looking it up, can you recall why this was newsworthy?
Oh yes and he just passed away.

9) Random question: Can you do a cartwheel?
Ha, you’re funny! Right now I’m hobbling around. I blew my back out Tuesday night and my back is slowly getting better, I figured another two or three week for it to get to the point where every move is not a stab in the back.