Are You A Groomer?

For half of the people here in the U.S. it is a pejorative for the other half it is a synonym for caring.

I want to be a groomer, I want to help people, I want them to know that there is a safe place for them. I want them to know that someone cares for them.

When a parent accepts their child as trans or gay… that’s grooming and I hope that there are more groomers.

When a teacher uses the proper pronouns… that’s grooming and I hope that there are more groomers.

When a child calls a LGBTQ+ suicide hotline… that’s grooming and I hope that there are more groomers.

When people care for each other it is grooming, and I want more groomers in the world.

Moms for Liberty Uses False and Inflammatory Language to Vilify LGBTQ People
By GLAAD
December 5, 2023

Despite billing itself as a “grassroots organization,” Moms for Liberty (M4L) is an anti-LGBTQ extremist group with powerful national connections. Co-founder Bridget Ziegler is married to Florida Republic Party Chair Christian Ziegler, who was recently accused of sexual assault by a woman who previously had a three-way sexual relationship with the couple. In light of the allegations, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a longtime M4L supporter, has asked Christian to resign. One local M4L chapter in Pennsylvania even broke off from the national organization.

These allegations follow years of Moms for Liberty and supporters like Christian Ziegler deploying false and revolting rhetoric about LGBTQ people. This ongoing disinformation campaign, including the use of harmful “groomer” language, is central to M4L’s anti-LGBTQ playbook. It has serious social and political ramifications for America’s 1.9 million LGBTQ youth, who are directly impacted by anti-LGBTQ laws and school policies.

The Republicans are trying make something evil out of caring. The Daily Beast writes,

Under Elon Musk’s leadership of Twitter, tweets linking LGBT people to “grooming” have skyrocketed, jumping 119 percent since Musk’s takeover in October 2022, according to a new report released by the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

The study also found that Twitter is making millions from big-name advertisers, whose brands are appearing alongside hateful anti-LGBT rhetoric.

“Tolerance of this content is part of Elon Musk’s business model,” said Callum Hood, Head of Research at CCDH, who helped write the new study. “There is real world stuff happening now that appears to be a result of this rhetoric online.”

The animus that the Republicans are creating against LGBTQ+ people and our allies is all for one purpose that they are willing to life long harm to child all because they want power!

"Save the Children" means to the conservatives for them to grow up as good little straight conservatives and anything other than that goal is “Grooming” of course they don’t see that as grooming.

Brainwashing! Part 1

[In Depth Report]
 

A bunch of billionaires are trying to brainwash the children and the right-wingers are loving it!  And the conservatives are eating it up because it is filled with their propaganda.

One of my favorite musicals is South Pacific is about racism and interracial relationships and my favorite song from the play is… “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

I was cheated before
And I’m cheated again
By a mean little world
Of mean little men.
And the one chance for me
Is the life I know best.

To be on an island
And to hell with the rest.
I will cling to this island
Like a tree or a stone,
I will cling to this island
And be free—and alone.
“You've Got to Be Carefully Taught” (Rodgers/Hammerstein II)

 

Ain’t that the truth! You got to be taught to be a bigot, you got to be taught to dislike trans and gay people, you got to be taught dislike Blacks and Latinos, you got to be taught to dislike the people your parents don’t like.

A lot is happening in Florida education. These are some of the changes kids will see
NPR
By Ayana Archie
AUGUST 14, 2023

The Florida education system has been in the spotlight lately as Gov. Ron DeSantis banned diversity and inclusion programs at public, postsecondary institutions, and the state's board of education approved a controversial social studies curriculum.

Now, as Florida students are beginning to go back to school, here are some other changes they will face.

Videos promoting conservative values
The Florida Board of Education approved the use of PragerU Kids videos to be shown in K-12 schools in late July, according to local news reports.

Named after conservative radio host Dennis Prager, Prager University Foundation is a nonprofit organization that says it makes videos that "promote American values," calling them "a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education." It is not a university.

In regard to U.S. colonization, historian Jeff Fynn-Paul says in a video titled "Are We Living on Stolen Land?" that no piece of land belongs to a single group of people indefinitely and finishes the video by asking "who wants to talk about" the morality of conquest?

[…]

Yet another video has been shared widely online because it depicts slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass saying that while slavery was wrong and evil, it was a compromise the Founding Fathers had to make to "achieve something great."

“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid”

The billionaire conservative right-wingers propagandists are funding this!

What Is PragerU: Controversial Conservative Platform Entering Classrooms In Florida And Oklahoma
Forbes
By Antonio Pequeño
September 5, 2023

TOPLINE PragerU, a nonprofit known for producing short and often controversial videos promoting conservative viewpoints of different civic topics, had its content approved for use in Oklahoma’s public schools Tuesday—about a month after Florida adopted the use of the content in its own classrooms, prompting backlash over its presence in public classrooms.

KEY FACTS

• State Superintendent Ryan Walters announced the PragerU initiative in Oklahoma on Tuesday, which will allow teachers to independently show videos produced by PragerU Kids, a division of the nonprofit that produces “pro-American kids shows for every grade” meant to combat “woke agendas,” according to its website.
• Content on the PragerU Kids YouTube channel, which has received backlash, includes a video depicting a cartoon Christopher Columbus saying slavery wasn’t an issue during his time period because of its widespread use and another describing George Floyd as a “Black man who resisted arrest.”
• YouTube has restricted, demonetized and removed videos on PragerU’s primary YouTube channel, including two anti-trans videos that were pulled from the site for violating hate speech policies.
• Fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks provided most of the seed money for PragerU in the platform’s early stages, according to multiple outlets.

The nonprofit’s main source of income comes from donations, with $65 million in donations raised from more than 100,000 donors in 2022, according to an annual report.

 [...]

 

“America's education system has been hijacked by one side,” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit told Time last month, suggesting teachers are somehow “held hostage to” left-leaning education systems.

“It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—“

The Republican propaganda machine is cranking out the conservative mantra…

What parents should know about PragerU Kids videos, which can now be shown in Florida schools
Some videos downplay slavery, question whether humans really cause climate change, and insert opinions into what otherwise appears to be educational content for children.
WUSF NPR
By Kerry Sheridan
August 9, 2023

Florida recently became the first state to give the green light for free online videos by PragerU Kids to be shown to children in kindergarten through sixth grade in public schools.

The move has sparked controversy. PragerU said that its content pushes back against what it calls "woke agendas infiltrating classrooms."

Despite Gov. Ron DeSantis' repeated assertions that Florida backs "education not indoctrination," conservative radio host Dennis Prager, the founder of PragerU, has said the content is meant to indoctrinate, showcasing pro-American, Judeo-Christian values.

WUSF's Kerry Sheridan spoke with Jessica Wright, a former teacher who is now the vice president of the nonprofit Florida Freedom to Read Project, about what parents should know.

What are the main things to know about PragerU?

"I think the unique thing to understand about PragerU is that there is no bid process for this. They aren't a traditional vendor that even requires payment, because it's free.

"It's not an accredited university. It does not have creators with a vast education background. And it says right on their website what their intention is, which is purely for indoctrination. And it says specifically for conservative values.

This is well funded and many Republican politicians are pushing this grooming in the classrooms!

"And, frankly, in education, when you look at parents, the supermajority says we don't want politics in our classroom, we don't want conservative or liberal values. There doesn't need to be an agenda.

"And so I find it interesting that as a state, we've said over and over again that we don't want indoctrination, but yet we are promoting this resource that's highly accessible, and doesn't require any sort of permission from our districts or our county leadership, and saying, 'Hey, this is what you can use.' And it's a complete slap in the face to say that we don't want indoctrination. But yeah, we're promoting this."

The conservatives when after the “Woke” agenda and replaced it with their anti-LGBTQ+, anti-Black, anti-Latino, and their own “misinformation” and one of their “pet” woke lies is globla warming.

Florida Approved a PragerU Climate Cartoon for Schools. We Asked a Scientist to Fact-Check It.
“I find something like this…to be really dangerous.”
Mother Jones
By JACKIE FLYNN MOGENSEN
AUGUST 18, 2023

If the culture war has a ground zero, it may be Florida schools. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, the state has banned discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms up to third grade; prohibited “critical race theory” (a concept that educators say was never taught in grades K–12); made it easier for parents to ban books with racial or LGBTQ themes; and, most recently, approved public school guidelines that imply slavery benefited some Black people.

In DeSantis’ own words, “Florida is the place where woke goes to die.”

It’s also, apparently, where science goes to die. Last month, Florida became the first state in the nation to approve the use of “educational” videos produced by the conservative organization Prager University Foundation, a group co-founded by right-wing radio host Dennis Prager. While no school district has announced plans to show any of PragerU’s videos, NPR reports, there’s nothing to stop teachers from independently airing the material. As a Florida Department of Education spokesperson said in a statement, the material aligns with Florida’s revised civics and government standards.

[…]

If the message sounds like it was spun up by oil and gas interests, that’s no coincidence: As E&E News first reported, Prager University, which is not an actual university, has received funding from Texas fracking billionaires Farris and Dan Wilks and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has worked to undo climate regulations. Last month, as E&E News noted, Prager told the conservative group Moms for Liberty, “We bring doctrines to children…But what is the bad of our indoctrination?”

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
 

And that is what they are exactly what they are grooming the children the Republican way!

This afternoon, I’m writing about the funding!

[/In Depth Report]

There Is A Name For That.

Stochastic
adjective
sto·​chas·​tic stə-ˈka-stik
stō-
1
: random
specifically : involving a random variable
a stochastic process
2
: involving chance or probability : probabilistic
a stochastic model of radiation-induced mutation
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Random acts of terrorism is happening around the country for many they don’t feel safe going out of their house. Bowling allies, night clubs, concerts, parades are not safe anymore.

Stochastic Terrorism: Links Between the GOP, Right-Wing Influencers & Neo-Nazi Violence
The right is weaponizing language to encourage acts of violence against marginalized communities.
The Advocate
By Christopher Wiggins
October 23, 2023

As part of its effort to demonize LGBTQ+ communities nationwide, the GOP has removed books from classrooms, banned the mention of gender identity and sexual orientation, and forbidden using pronouns. Drag queens are portrayed as deviants, while transgender people are portrayed as illegitimate and needing to be legislated out of existence.

In August, Laura Ann Carleton, who went by Lauri, was murdered outside of the Southern California boutique that she owned because she dared to show her support for the LGBTQ+ community. A man who held anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes shot and killed her when she wouldn’t remove a Pride Flag that flew at the store.

Throughout the current political climate, in which Republicans have chosen to make mainstream positions held by some of the most extreme far-right fringe elements that espouse neo-Nazi and white supremacist worldviews, coupled with right-wing media figures and grifters who amplify bigoted and dangerous narratives about marginalized groups like Black and LGBTQ+ people, one alarming tactic is gaining popularity – stochastic terrorism.

As a result of this tactic, armed white supremacists and other hate groups are screaming rabidly at children in public venues. In some places, schools are also being swept for bombs multiple times per week.

The want to create wedge political environment demonizing those who are different… different religion, different country of origin, different sexual orientation, and different gender identity.

Stochastic terrorism refers to violent acts performed in response to messages intended to inspire such actions. As another way of putting it, this type of terrorism is statistically predictable but unpredictable for individuals.

[…]

She says to look no further than the word “woke,” which Republicans have coopted from African-American Vernacular English and made to connote a negative falsely negative concept when it denotes something entirely else.

That is the Republican way, name calling and “put downs.” We are seeing my politicians using rhetoric to incite violence and then pretending innocence.

Kayyem says that other far-right agitators who have taken over the mantle were born from that success. Chaya Raichik’s [See below] use of her Libs of TikTok Twitter (now X) account to target the LGBTQ+ community is one such example, Kayyem says.

Raichik regularly targets Drag Queen Story Hour events where kids listen to over-the-top characters read, claiming that people are “grooming” children for sexual exploitation. She also focuses a lot of her attention on school libraries that carry LGBTQ+ books like, This Books is Gay.

She has amassed over 2 million followers in more than a year using the schtick she’s carved out for herself, reposting videos of queer — particularly trans — creators often out of context with commentary meant to ridicule and inspire ill will, vilifying the LGBTQ+ community generally, with specific ire reserved for drag queens, things Raichik deems “woke,” and transgender-related issues.

In an article in Scientific America they write about this.

How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence
Pundits are weaponizing disgust to fuel violence, and it’s affecting our humanity
By Bryn Nelson
November 5, 2022

A week and a half before the midterm elections, a man broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house, screaming “Where’s Nancy?” and attacked her husband with a hammer. David DePape, charged in the attack, had posted a slew of rants that included references to a sprawling conspiracy theory known as QAnon, which claims that Democratic, Satan-worshipping pedophiles are trying to control the world’s politics and media.

Several hours before, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson interviewed right-wing activist Christopher Rufo, who claimed drag queens participating in book readings were trying to “sexualize children.” The people who support these events, he said, want to create “a sexual connection between adult and child, which has of course long been the kind of final taboo of the sexual revolution.”

[…]

Dehumanizing and vilifying a person or group of people can provoke what scholars and law enforcement officials call stochastic terrorism, in which ideologically driven hate speech increases the likelihood that people will violently and unpredictably attack the targets of vicious claims.

At its core, stochastic terrorism exploits one of our strongest and most complicated emotions: disgust.

That is exactly what the Republicans want, they want to cast themselves as the savior of mankind from these vile people.

People who are trying to outlaw gender-affirming care for transgender kids and purge pro-gay books from library shelves have stirred up disgust by invoking the specter of sexual “grooming”; others have made the same accusations against those speaking out against such legislative efforts, and some have used the idea to fuel disinformation about the cause of scattered pediatric monkeypox cases. The manufactured grooming mythology has spurred another round of moral disgust and outrage.

They are the groomers! They are the ones who are trying to force their ideology, their religious dogma on us. They are the ones lying!

In the lead-up to the midterm elections, a blitz of far-right radio ads targeting Black and Hispanic stations in swing states has repeated falsehoods about transgender people and a QAnon warning that the Biden administration will make it easier for children “to remove breasts and genitals”—an attempt to evoke disgust. Other ads aimed at white audiences claim minorities are the true aggressors and destroyers of social norms. One decries “anti-white bigotry.” Another warns ominously, “Stop the woke war on our children.”

The cynical appeal to protecting children by attacking minorities has exposed a bitter irony: disgust is an emotion that evolved to keep us out of danger, but people have long misused it to inflict cruelty and catastrophic harm.

They are the ones condoning violence. In Lewiston ME the “shooter seems to have held extremist right-wing views, particularly against the transgender community, according to social media accounts appearing to be from him.” according the Advocate.

 

The Scientific America article ends with,

What can stop stochastic terrorism and break the cycle of disgust-fueled vilification, threats and violence? Turning off the source of fuel is a start. Programs to counter violent extremism, particularly those that emphasize early intervention and deradicalization, have yielded some successes in at-risk communities. Other programs disrupt the ideological ecosystem that creates radical conspiracies through counseling, education and other community interventions. Beyond understanding how our emotions can be exploited to demonize others, we can refuse to buy into “both-sides” false equivalence and the normalization of dangerous rhetoric and extremism. We can do better at enforcing laws against hate speech and incitement to violence. And ultimately, we can disengage with media platforms that make money by keeping us disgusted, fearful and forgetful of our own decency—and shared humanity.

But what can you do when it is the politicians who are stirring up the animosity against minorities?

---

Then we have social media that is also stirring up animosity toward us.

Libs of TikTok's Chaya Raichik Threatens Anti-Defamation League Over Extremist Label
The creator of Libs of TikTok demands her name be removed from ADL’s “Glossary of Extremism.”
The Advocate
By Christopher Wiggins
October 25 2023


Chaya Raichik, the provocateur behind the polarizing anti-LGBTQ+ Libs of TikTok account on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has issued a demand to the Anti-Defamation League to expunge her name from their “Glossary of Extremism.”

Raichik is primarily known for her aggressive critiques against the LGBTQ+ community. Those comments frequently trigger bomb threats and targeted harassment towards the spotlighted individuals or events that have included teachers, school districts, and libraries.

On Tuesday evening, Raichik intensified her challenge against the ADL’s classification by tagging the organization’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, in a post on X.

I guess the truth hurts.

Libs of TikTok, now boasting over 2.6 million followers, has gained notoriety for promoting anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments by sharing selectively edited content to deride LGBTQ+ individuals and liberals. Much of Raichik’s criticism zeroes in on transgender people, whom she continually misgenders and dehumanizes in her commentary online. The account has notably targeted Drag Queen Story Hour events and school libraries carrying LGBTQ+ friendly books, accusing them of “grooming” children for sexual exploitation. These highlighted instances often result in a storm of online harassment and, sometimes, real-world threats.

Why can’t she be charged with “incitement to violence?”

The narrative surrounding Raichik’s social media endeavors is part of a broader conversation on stochastic terrorism, where public rhetoric incites violent actions without explicit instructions. Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official and a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has acknowledged Raichik’s tactics as examples of this phenomenon in a report by The Advocate.

Let me ask you a question.

What is the Republican party platform? All we here out them what they are against, what are they for besides the oppression of minorities? Are they for repairing the roads? Are they for getting the lead out of public water supplies? Are they for upgrading our electrical grid?

What do they stand for?

I Think That I’m Going To Gag!

Because of "Gays Against Groomers" (GAG) an anti-LGBTQ+ group.

A friend sent me this email from a pro LGBTQ+ faith group…

Dear ________________,

For many of us, the anti-LGBTQ hate group "Gays Against Groomers" burst into the public eye in the aftermath of a tragedy.

Just days after the horrific anti-LGBTQ violence at Club Q in Colorado Springs, the founder of "Gays Against Groomers" set off a firestorm when she hatefully told Tucker Carlson that she expects these shootings will continue "until we end this evil agenda" of gender-affirming care.

"Gays Against Groomers" and its sister organization "Trans Against Groomers" claim to represent LGBTQ people who want to protect children from alleged abuse. But in reality, they function as a front group for MAGA-rooted bigotry: smearing LGBTQ folks who teach inclusivity in schools as "groomers," attacking Pride celebrations in schools, and harassing health care workers who provide gender-affirming care.

Both PayPal and Venmo have banned "Gays Against Groomers" over its promotion of hate speech and violence. But Donorbox -- an online platform that helps non-profit organizations raise money -- is now letting the hate group solicit donations using its tools.

Anti-LGBTQ hate and violence are on the rise, and too much of it is being perpetrated in Jesus's name. As Christians, let's stand with the queer and trans community and tell Donorbox to stop funding hate now.

My first thought was about the name "Gays Against Groomers" was “Oh they are against Trump and the Republican party!

There is a political cartoon circulating on Facebook…

Unfortunately, hate runs in families, it is taught from one generation to another and it is the right-wing conservatives who are groomer the next generation of bigots.

I even know of a number of trans people who voted Republicans, they have no empathy for their fellow trans people. Even here in Connecticut the Republican gubernatorial endorsed “Parental Rights” a code word for being able to discriminate against us. To be able to ban LGBTQ+ books in schools, to prevent teachers and students from mentioning anything LGBTQ+, and to ban us from sports and bathrooms.

~~~~~~~

The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities report is out for the fiscal year 2021/2022. Here are the 2021/2022 & the 2021/2020 data from the report.

CHRO Complaints

Basis	Employment	Housing	PA*	Other	Totals
2021/2022
Gender Identity	25	0	7	0	32
Sexual Orientation	32	1	6	6	49
2019/2020
Gender Identity	30	0	3	0	33
Sexual Orientation	54	6	4	0	64

*Public Accommodations

They also reported;

PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS: Denied Accommodation 12, Food 2, Other 139, Police Conduct 6, Public Agency 12 & Reasonable Accommodation 3

This is from all complaints from all categories.

It Is Out There!

The right-wing conspiracy theorists are already stirring up the hate against us (There is that word again, so tell is it justified?). I was on a Zoom meeting yesterday on Monkeypox (The say they are going to change the name but everyone still uses it.) and one of the people on the meeting was from the ADL and he posted this like from their website blog,

Right Wing Lies About Monkeypox Target LGBTQ+ Community
From: Center on Extremism
August 8, 2022


Right wing public figures, notably U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), are sharing homophobic and potentially dangerous lies about the transmission of the monkeypox virus. These false narratives, which paint the LGBTQ+ community as child predators, put that community at significant risk. They are also easily debunked.  

Background 

On July 22, 2022, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky was interviewed on Washington Post Live to discuss the current state of COVID and other public health issues. During the broadcast, she noted that two children had contracted monkeypox – both of whom could be “traced back to individuals who come from the men-who-have-sex-with-men community.”  

On July 23, 2022, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency. Later that day at 6:22 pm, Marjorie Taylor Greene shared Walensky's segment about monkeypox in children on several of her social media pages with the caption, “If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it?” 

[…]

Greene’s post, however, gave the conspiratorial and bigoted theories additional oxygen – and reach. 

By the evening of July 25, 2022, the content had appeared verbatim on 8kun’s Q Research board, TheDonald, GreatAwakening.win, and Telegram (including an official Philippines-based Proud Boys channel).

So do you think that justifies using the word “hate?”

Despite these efforts, the heightened focus on monkeypox being transmitted through sexual contact has been used by extremists in conjunction with homophobic slurs and demonization of gay men, as seen in a white supremacist group’s Telegram post from May 21, 2022. In this post, a forwarded message containing vulgar slurs suggested that “as many gays as possible should get together to contract monkeypox”, conflating the transmission of the virus with pride activities:

On July 28, 2022, another post shared in a QAnon-centric Telegram channel included an article alleging that the mainstream media are distorting the narratives surrounding monkeypox in an effort "to hide the epidemic of pedophilia and grooming plaguing America”. 

How about now?

The rhetoric coming out of the Republican party is getting deadly, there is going to be violence at some LGBTQ+ event.

Monkeypox-fueled hate echoes the HIV/AIDS era, even in rainbow cities
Washington Post
By Petula Dvorak Columnist
August 18, 2022<


It was a sunny day last week when it finally happened, the thing Jay had left his small, conservative hometown in the South to avoid — hate.

He came here to be his full self. But it was the pink mask and Birkenstock sandals the man singled out as he verbally assaulted the 31-year-old on the Yellow Line last week, using slurs targeting gay people, ranting about monkeypox and advancing into Jay’s personal space as the train stopped in a tunnel.

It’s “people like you that can’t stop going to orgies getting the rest of us killed,” the guy screamed into Jay’s face, as Jay balanced his Trader Joe’s grocery bag and tried to keep his composure.

Jay got off at the next stop, and the man who raged at him didn’t follow. But the man’s hatred — and the silence of others in the Metro car and on the platform after he left the scene — is jarring in a nation where same-sex marriage is legal but discrimination against someone based on who they love is not.

For many in the community they have never had to confront this hatred, for the old-timers this in nothing new, they lived through the violence and hatred of the AIDS/HIV epidemic and the hatred of gays. The San Francisco Gate had this to say about back then,

A significant source of Reagan's support came from the newly identified religious right and the Moral Majority, a political-action group founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination. Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals." Reagan's communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is "nature's revenge on gay men."

With each passing month, death and suffering increased at a frightening rate. Scientists, researchers and health care professionals at every level expressed the need for funding. The response of the Reagan administration was indifference.

And now we are seeing the Republicans once again stirring up the hate and to add gas to the fire are the social network's conspiracy theorist are spreading the lie. Now we see white supremacist marching in the streets of Boston. Now we see Pride events and Drag Queen's Story Hours coming under threats. 

And people tell me that I am over reacting about the dangers.

As one person in yesterday’s meet said, it could have started in any community. It is just that one person attended the wrong party.

---

Another Court Victory.

And another court case that will be going to the Supreme Court!

Court: Arkansas can’t ban treatment of transgender kids

AP News

By Andrew DeMillo

August 25, 2022

 A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas can’t enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled for October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law.

Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban, which prohibits doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment. There are no doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery on minors in the state.

“Because the minor’s sex at birth determines whether or not the minor can receive certain types of medical care under the law, Act 626 discriminates on the basis of sex,” the court’s ruling Thursday said.

[…]

“The Eighth Circuit was abundantly clear that the state’s ban on care does not advance any important governmental interest and the state’s defense of the law is lacking in legal or evidentiary support,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement. “The state has no business categorically singling out this care for prohibition.”

Now we will see this going to the Supreme Court mainly I think because other appeal judges have okayed the ban and that will mean the cases will proceed up the chain of courts.

A federal judge in May blocked a similar law in Alabama. A Tennessee ban that was enacted last year on transgender treatments for youth, which is limited to providing gender-confirming hormone treatment to prepubescent minors, remains in effect.

~~~~~~

 It seems to me that the Republicans are trying to force down on everyone some weird version of 1950 “Father Knows Best” morality. They are trying to live a Norman Rockwell painting, a little white church with the father in a suit, the mother in a dress with heels, a boy, a girl in a dress with Mary Jane’s on bobby socks, and their dog spot.

They Are Grooming Us

The conservatives are always saying that we are “grooming” their children but in reality they are grooming children to be straight by denying students from talking about being LGBTQ+.

Homework assignment requires kids to explain how they would de-gay their friends
The assignment said to write a letter to "a friend of your same gender who is struggling with homosexuality" and use "the Bible, reason, and your personal friendship" to talk them out of being gay.
LGBTQ Nation
By Alex Bollinger
May 16, 2022


A Christian school in Kentucky told students to explain how they would take a friend out of being gay in a homework assignment entitled “Letter to a Homosexual Friend.”

“Essay: Write a letter to a friend of your same gender who is struggling with homosexuality,” a screenshot of the middle school homework assignment from the Christian Academy of Louisville (CAL).

Assume that you have known this friend since Kindergarten, that you go to the same church, and that you have been pretty good friends over the years until now. This friend is your same age.”

“The aim of the letter should be to lovingly and compassionately speak truth to the person you’re talking to in a way that does not approve of any sin. Instead, TRY TO PERSUADE THEM OF THE GOODNESS OF GOD’S DESIGN for them.”

What would you write? Would you say that you would encourage them to follow their heart?

One person responded to Davis with a letter that probably wouldn’t have gotten a good grade but that the friend may have actually appreciated.

Here is his letter.

In another article about this…

Kentucky middle school students asked to write letters to imaginary friend ‘struggling with homosexuality’
Students were asked to convince their friend that they are not gay using lessons from the Bible.
The Hill
By Brooke Migdon
May 16, 2022


Middle school students at a private Christian school in Kentucky last week were sent home with an assignment to write a letter to an imaginary friend “struggling with homosexuality.” Using teachings from the Bible, students were asked to “persuade” their friend in no less than eight sentences that they are not gay.

[…]

Davis told the Louisville Courier Journal that a close friend whose child attends CAL had shown him the homework and was “visibly and understandably upset about the assignment.”

“She doesn’t know how to handle it. … And her kid’s upset,” Davis said. In a series of follow-up tweets, Davis “completed” the homework assignment himself, writing a letter addressed to his seventh-grade self, who had been afraid to come out as gay.

“I’m sorry you can’t be yourself,” Davis wrote to his younger self. “I’m sorry adults teach something is wrong with you. Stay strong. You’ll find out by being yourself and staying strong…things really work out for you.”

Oh... By the way now that the school is in the spotlight the school is back peddling saying that the assignment was to use the Bible for or against being gay. It is funny that the assignment only mentioned "De-gay."  

They are the ones who are grooming targeting us with their hate and it is taking a toll on children who are afraid to come out, who do self-harm, but that is what the conservatives want… they want us back in the closet.