A Trans Short

I am doing a radio interview on NPR this morning and do not have time to write a blog today so I am leaving you with this short video...

Booster.

Not the band boosters or football boosters but the COVID-19 booster shots, there are many reasons why people do not get vaccinated. Unfortunately one of them is the fear of being “outed” by the forms you have to fill, one pharmacy asked for “gender assigned at birth” and the question is why? Why do they ask that question when no other pharmacy asks them, nor does the CDC, I haven’t been able to find that requirement on the CDC website.

U.S. pharmacy chain changes gender question on vaccine forms after trans ire
Reuters
By Sydney Bauer
April 12, 2021


ATLANTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A U.S. pharmacy chain has changed its online registration forms for COVID-19 vaccinations after transgender people complained about being asked to declare their birth sex, highlighting a heated nationwide debate about trans rights.

CVS Health Corp, which has administered millions of vaccines in the United States, said it was scrapping a “sex assigned at birth” question and would only ask people to state their gender following feedback from the LGBT+ community.

The company’s decision comes amid a U.S. culture war over trans rights as advocates and conservatives battle over access to medical treatment for minors and inclusion in schools’ sports for trans girls.

A CVS spokesman said the new form includes a note explaining that demographic information - including gender - is required by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. public health body, as part of the vaccine registration process.

ATLANTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A U.S. pharmacy chain has changed its online registration forms for COVID-19 vaccinations after transgender people complained about being asked to declare their birth sex, highlighting a heated nationwide debate about trans rights.

CVS Health Corp, which has administered millions of vaccines in the United States, said it was scrapping a “sex assigned at birth” question and would only ask people to state their gender following feedback from the LGBT+ community.

The company’s decision comes amid a U.S. culture war over trans rights as advocates and conservatives battle over access to medical treatment for minors and inclusion in schools’ sports for trans girls.

A CVS spokesman said the new form includes a note explaining that demographic information - including gender - is required by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. public health body, as part of the vaccine registration process.

“We are committed to providing equal access to vaccines. An individual’s sex, gender, race or ethnicity are in no way limiting factors in scheduling a vaccine appointment,” the spokesman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.

But other vaccinations site do not ask that question. I looked at Walgreen’s website and they don’t ask about gender assigned at birth when you request an appointment. Back in January when I made my appointment on VAMS (Vaccine Administration Management System) which is run by the CDC.

The Discover magazine had this article;

Why It's Harder for Many Transgender People to Access (and Trust) COVID-19 Vaccines
The medical field has historically neglected and abused trans people, while also overlooking them in clinical trials. Despite community skepticism, LGBTQ people overall are more Likely to view COVID-19 vaccines as a social duty.
By Madeleine Gregory
May 18, 2021


In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely threatened the LGBTQ community, especially transgender people, due to existing disparities in income, housing and health care. But with historically rooted hesitancy toward the vaccine, some experts and community members worry that transgender people won’t receive vaccinations as quickly — or access them as easily — as their cisgender peers.

Vaccine hesitancy certainly exists among transgender people, especially among trans people of color, who tend to have more mistrust of the medical system. Although more than half of transgender adults said they'd get vaccinated as of January 2021, a higher rate than the general adult population, the percentages varied by race and decreased among non-white respondents. LGBT people of color and trans people overall were also most concerned about factors like affordability, effectiveness and side effects.
[…]
“To date there is no evidence that hormone therapy has any effect, but we are not aware of any investigator who has specifically looked at this question," Stephenson says. “All the vaccine trials do record what medications participants are taking, so in theory such an analysis could be performed."

So that leads us to the Connecticut LGBTQ+ Health Needs Assessment found this about our healthcare…

• 16% of respondents reported being refused healthcare services because of their LGBTQ+ identity.
• About two-thirds (64%) of respondents mentioned having concerns related to accessing healthcare services.
• The top concerns related to accessing healthcare services included concerns that the services would not be LGBTQ+ friendly (20%), concerns that providers and staff would not be trained for their needs as a member of the LGBTQ+ community (19%), and not knowing where to access these services (19%).

And trans people said,

Transgender and Nonbinary Needs. Respondents shared that the U.S. healthcare system does not meet the needs of transgender and nonbinary communities. They mentioned experiences such as being misgendered or “deadnamed,” discrimination, malpractice or mistreatment, abuse, or not being able to afford gender-related surgeries because of insurance policies.

Now on top of all that comes CVS requiring our gender assigned at birth, why? How many trans people are now avoiding getting vaccines because they fear of being “outed” and they don’t see the reason for the question when nobody else asks that question?

Okay when I came to the part on the CVS appointment form I answered “female” because that is what is on my birth certificate.

So I walk into the CVS store and go to the pharmacy vaccine window. I tell the clerk my name and DOB she types in some data and then directs me to the vaccine booth.

After a minute or two the pharmacist walks in asks me a couple more questions, tell me to roll up my left sleeve, I tell her I’m left handed, she enter some data into her tablet and to roll up my right sleeve, and she jabs me. She then tells me to wait for 15 minutes, she stops by to see if I am still alive and licking, and tells me that I can leave.

The wrath of CVS didn’t come crashing down on me for answering “female” on their form.

Elder Care Discrimination

Every morning I search the news to find something to comment on, sometimes there are a lack of real stories to write about and then wham!

A US Army vet was rejected from multiple elder care homes. She says it's because she's transgender
USA Today via Yahoo News*
By Marc Ramirez,
November 14, 2021


Lisa Oakley loved living in Craig, Colorado. Deer roamed the backyard, and every summer, she and a buddy would take her 16-foot camp boat out on the reservoir, where they'd fish for pike and smallmouth bass.
[…]
Last year, when she became unable to care for herself alone, Oakley, a U.S. Army veteran, hoped to live at Craig's local long-term care facility and remain in the community where she'd felt comfortable for 25 years.

Instead, she was denied placement and not just there, but at dozens of long-term care facilities statewide. To Oakley and her advocates, the reason for many of those rejections was simple – and illegal: Because she's transgender.

“When they found out I was transgender, a lot of facilities didn’t want me,” said Oakley, who eventually landed at a skilled nursing facility in Grand Junction, nearly three hours away from Craig. “A lot of transgender people, I’m sure, face the same thing. We’re humans, just like everybody else.”

The case, advocates say, illustrates both the challenges that LGBT elders face as they age and require long-term care – issues destined to escalate as the elder LGBT population grows. It also shows, they say, that existing protections aren’t enough, underscoring the importance of passing the federal Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Hold it right there!

There is federal and state levels protections for us.

Lets look at the federal protections first, NCTE writes.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: FAIR HOUSING AND TRANSGENDER PEOPLE
March 2012


The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on sex in the sale or rental of housing and in mortgage lending. In recent years, courts have increasingly held that discrimination because a person is transgender, or because he or she fails to conform to gender stereotypes, is sex discrimination under federal civil rights laws. In 2010, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued guidance stating that it would investigate complaints of housing discrimination against transgender people based on this understanding of the law.

The law also covers long term care (LTC) facilities.

Then we have Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act’s (Obamacare). Health Affairs...

On May 10, 2021, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it will interpret Section 1557 and Title IX, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The new interpretation is being made pursuant to Bostock v. Clayton County. In that case, the Supreme Court—in a 6-3 decision written by Justice Gorsuch—held that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination bars workplace discrimination because someone is gay or transgender. OCR also issued a notice of this new interpretation and its intent to enforce Section 1557 through its complaints and investigations process.

Plus we have state protection in something like 26 states. Here in Connecticut we have very strong protections with our laws and with the state agencies in charge of administering the law.

We just finished a needs assessment for the LGBTQ+ community and some of the findings are to say the very least astounding!

Housing Services

• About one-third (36%) of respondents accessed housing services in the past three years.
• Of those that had accessed services, the top housing services accessed included obtaining a mortgage/loan and/or refinancing (8%), finding/accessing affordable housing services options (5%), 211(4%), and housing services through a LGBTQ+ organization (4%).
• The top concerns/barriers related to accessing housing services included concerns that the services would not be LGBTQ+ friendly, 9%, not being able to afford the service, 9%, concerns that provider(s)/staff are not specifically trained for my needs as a LGBTQ+ member, 8%, and the wait time to receive help is too long, 8%.

Additional Housing Services Comments. Respondents also shared open-ended feedback about their experiences accessing housing services. Salient themes from those comments include:

• •211. Respondents mentioned that their experiences using 211 have not been helpful, especially for those experiencing homelessness. Some also have concerns for transgender individuals as their experiences with 211showed operators were not competent or sensitive to trans-specific needs for housing/placements.
• •Affirming and Supportive Services. Respondents mentioned the need for more LGBTQ+ friendly services related to housing (e.g., real estate agents, rental groups, attorneys, and financial assistance services) or assistance with how to find these services. Some also felt housing service agencies/providers should have LGBTQ+ competence training.

[…]

• Intersectional Needs. Respondents mentioned that their gender identity, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, ability (physical or mental health-related), and/or documentation status particularly compounded their experiences related to housing. These experiences included not being able to work to afford most housing options or lacking access to accommodations needed to live.

[…]

• Older Adults. There were specific housing comments related to the older adult LGBTQ+ population. These comments included concerns related to the inclusivity and safety of senior housing or assisted living facilities and affordability/financial assistance for those looking to live in their own home.
• Safety Concerns and Discrimination. Some respondents noted that they did not disclose

However even with years of education and training we are still facing discriminations. A group of us from US HUD, CT Coalition to End Homelessness, CT Fair Housing Center, AIDS CT, and CT TransAdvocacy Coalition (Me) did training around the state for homeless shelters and also 211 for a couple of years to no affect. What I see as one of the problems was we did training for the managers and not the staff and I don’t think it never got passed the managers.

And we are facing the same thing in LTC facilities. Social isolation, staff outing them, and not getting the proper healthcare. Some LTC are heeding the call, but others are lackadaisical about obeying the laws. They see that they will only get a slap on the wrist so why bother with the training and following the law.

According to the survey; about five percent of the respondents said that they lined in a senior housing, a retirement community, assisted living, and/or nursing home. One of the comments mentioned in the report said;

“We need LGBTQ+-welcoming retirement communities, assisted living, and nursing homes. I don't want to have to go back in the closet if I need to move to a residential community.”

What I think will bring about the change is a good hefty law suit and fines. That is the only way to get the shelters and 211 attention… in their pocketbook.

Where to file a complaint:

• The Department of Public Health (DPH) has an online complaint form for complaints against nursing homes
• The Long Term Care Ombudsman (LTCOP) is a federally mandated advocate for nursing home, assisted living facility, and residential care home residents.
• The  Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities: How to File a Discrimination Complaint
• The Connecticut Fair Housing Center (A non-profit NGO) - Report Discrimination

~~~~~~~~

* The USA Today article is behind a paywall just to show you how stupid that is, the same article is on various news sights that are not protected by a paywall.

Will The US Get Infected With More Hate.

Besides book burning and the increase in hate crimes and discrimination the right is getting more aggressive against LGBTQ. I wouldn’t doubt that we see something like this here in the US.

This Gay Teen Romance Film Is Sending Far-Righters Into a Raging Frenzy
The Daily Beast
By Anna Nemtsova
November 13, 2021



KYIV—A Ukrainian film director of Armenian origin, 29-year-old Khachatur Vasilian, is facing a wave of vicious attacks from pro-Russia politicians and neo-Nazi thugs alike for his new film, My Young Prince, an artful movie about a gay teenager who falls in love with another man.

When the film, which is set to debut in 2023, was announced earlier this year, Vasilian and his team were well aware that they might face backlash—especially from Ukraine’s far-right circles. What he didn’t expect was that his life would be threatened, not only for being the first Ukrainian director to film men making love, but also for being ethnically Armenian and non-Slav.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see protests at LGBTQ+ film festivals, or at LGBTQ+ night clubs conservative states,

The Telegram post brought dozens of far-right radicals together. Crowds of them dressed in black walked the streets of Kyiv holding a long banner that read: “Death.” They shot firecrackers and chanted, “Death to the rich!” and put a sign in front of the Closer nightclub that read “Nayem Shop,” a racist reference to Mustafa Nayem, a corruption-fighter, journalist, and politician of Afghan origin who serves as Ukraine’s deputy minister of infrastructure.

Then in neighboring Bulgaria...

'He Hit Me And Just Kept Coming': Mob Allegedly Led By Bulgarian Presidential Candidate Attacks LGBT Center
Radio Free Europe
By Elitsa Simeonova
November 02, 2021


SOFIA -- Furniture, some of it smashed and streaked with black spray paint, lays scattered about the Rainbow Hub in Sofia, a chilling reminder of the violent attack on the LGBT center last weekend.

Located in an apartment block in the Bulgarian capital, the Rainbow Hub was hosting a gathering on October 30 when a group of about 10 men barged in and proceeded to smash and destroy anything in their way.

The mob was allegedly led by Boyan Rasate, a notorious ultraright figure in Bulgaria who is also running in the country's presidential election on November 14.
[…]
The attack on the Rainbow Hub has been condemned not only across the Bulgarian political spectrum but by several embassies in Sofia, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

I am worried that we will start seeing violence directed at us as conservative frustrations mount, as the conservatives look to create more hate to divide our country. We now have politicians who are calling us pedophiles and our books porngraphic. What is next? 

VOTE! That is the only way out. We have to get out the vote, the Republicans don't want you to vote and we have to show them at the polls. 

Fluff.

[RANT]

That is what the readers want.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Fantasia Fair… I set a record for visits to my blog!

When I write about a trans woman being beaten with a 2x4… 30 or 40 hits.

When I write about a Connecticut politician trying to strip health insurance from us… nothing.

When I write about a bill to prevent trans children from transitioning… again 30 or 40 hits.

When I wrote about Fantasia Fair… 1200 hits!

People one day you are going to wake up and find that it is now illegal for us to go out in public, get your head out of the sand. Hate crimes against trans people are skyrocketing! Laws against us has turned into an epidemic! Dozens, and dozens of laws have been introduced not only in red states but also in blues states. Courts have ruled against us in housing, employment, and in public accommodations.

They don’t care if you only crossdress on weekends, they don’t care if you have transitioned, all they care about is that they hate your guts and want to see you dead! Dead! Dead! The murder of trans people this year is on its way of setting a record for our murders.

Harvey Milk at speech given on Gay Freedom Day (1978-06-25) in San Francisco said,

Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents. I know that it is hard and will hurt them, but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you, not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths. Destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake.

It was true then it is true now.

You upset their 1950 view of the United States, they do not like you if you are different from them wither it is your skin color, your religion, your sexual orientation, your gender identity, you are different from them and they hate feeling “uncomfortable.”

You can’t hide, it is time for action.

Get out and be an activist just by being yourself.

[/RANT]

Saturday 9: Without You

Sam’s Saturday 9: Without You (1972)

Unfamiliar with this week's song. Hear it here.

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…
I'm driving home this morning so I will be replying to your posts in the afternoon.

1) Nilsson sings that he can't forget this evening. Did anything happen this evening (or last night, if you're answering during the day) that you expect you'll recall for a long time?

Nope, just another typically boring night.

2) In the 1960s, he worked in a very "un-rock-star" job: computer programmer in a bank. Looking over your career, have you more often worked in or out of an office setting?

I worked in a factory most of my life, except for a couple of years when I was a junior engineer.

3) He fibbed to get the job, telling the bank he'd graduated from high school when in reality, he was a drop out. Have you ever fudged a fact on your resume?

Nope… that is ground for an immediate dismissal.

4) The bank found out the truth but was so pleased with Nilsson's personality and performance they kept him on. Tell us about a friend or loved one's misbehavior that you have overlooked.

A couple of friends are conservatives.

5) Before finding success as a singer, Nilsson was a songwriter. He composed "Cuddly Toy," recorded by the Monkees. Do you have a favorite Monkees song?

I think number one is "Pleasant Valley Sunday" followed by "Last Train to Clarksville" and honorable mention is "Daydream Believer."

6) In 1976 Nilsson married Una O'Keeffe. They met in a New York restaurant, where she was a waitress. He asked her about her accent -- she was from Dublin -- and a romance ensued. While the waitress and the rock star seemed like an unlikely couple, they remained together until his death in 1994 and had six children. Do you know how your parents (or grandparents) met?

I know exactly how they meet… I read it in my mother’s diary. My father went to work in a land surveyor office how they just hired a nice looking college man for a summer job.

7) Nilsson was a night owl and found he felt most creative late at night, right before he fell asleep. When are you at your best: morning, noon or night?

Around 4 or 5 in the morning.

8) In 1972, the year "Without You" was a hit, Alice Clark Browne made history as the first African American aerialist to perform with Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus. Did you ever attend the circus?

Yes. But you have to remember Connecticut has some of the strictest laws in the country for circus tents due to the circle fire, "The Day that the Clowns Cried."

Where I have my car serviced is right by the winter quarters for the Coleman Brothers circus and in high school a friend’s parents had high wire act and they practiced in their backyard.

9) Random question -- Think about last week. Would you prefer this week to be more exciting, or more boring?

Well it all depends… if like “The World According to Garp” where the plan flies into the house? No thanks. If you mean a marching band goes by my house, than maybe.

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!

How Many Of These Are Familiar?

[RANT]

I sometime watch YouTube video by Beau of the Fifth Column and in his video he mentioned Umberto Eco. I searched Google and found this article.

Umberto Eco Makes a List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism
Open Culture
November 22, 2016


One of the key questions facing both journalists and loyal oppositions these days is how do we stay honest as euphemisms and trivializations take over the discourse? Can we use words like “fascism,” for example, with fidelity to the meaning of that word in world history? The term, after all, devolved decades after World War II into the trite expression fascist pig, writes Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay “Ur-Fascism,” “used by American radicals thirty years later to refer to a cop who did not approve of their smoking habits.” In the forties, on the other hand, the fight against fascism was a “moral duty for every good American.” (And every good Englishman and French partisan, he might have added.)

Eco grew up under Mussolini’s fascist regime, which “was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, not because of its mildness but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy.” It did, however, have style, “a way of dressing—far more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be.” The dark humor of the comment indicates a critical consensus about fascism. As a form of extreme nationalism, it ultimately takes on the contours of whatever national culture produces it.

He said that there were warning signs to fascism in 1995 and the article listed an abridged list of them…

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7. The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

Now ask yourself how many of these warning signs do we see in the today’s Republican party? Let me count the ways.

• The cult of tradition: Trying to bring back bans on LGBTQ people, and trying to bring back abortions to the 1950s
• The rejection of modernism: Vaccines are bad!
• Disagreement is treason: Trump, need I say more? RINOs.
• Fear of difference: Anti-LGBTQ, Blacks, and immigrants.
• Appeal to social frustration: Critical Race Theory, anti-trans laws, and the attacks on LGBTQ books in the library.
• The obsession with a plot: Election fraud.
• The enemy is both strong and weak: The attacks on non-Christian religions and the so called attack on Christmas.
• Everybody is educated to become a hero: Trumpism they are the “True” defenders of the Constitution as they try to stop Congress from doing their duty.
• Machismo and weaponry: Look at the people who stormed the Capitol dressed out in their para-military grab and showing up at rallies armed to the teeth.
• Selective populism: The Cult of Trump.
• Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak: “Let's go, Brandon,” CRT, Woke, and the list of their jargon goes on and on.

And remember he wrote this in 1995 not in 2016 or 2021.

The Republican party is on its way to becoming fascist party and their goal is a one party system like Russia or China. 

[/RANT]

Photos…

As most of you know I am into photography, so here are some recent photos (All the photos are HDR and some of them are panoramas made up of multiple photos)…

I just got a new laptop and new photo software, I had been using Lightroom but Adobe in their infinite wisdom made all their software subscription. That might be good for professionals photographers but amateurs can’t afford that for something that they may use four or five times a month. So I got a whole suite of programs to replace Lightroom.

• GIMP,
• RAW Therapee,
• PhotoMatrix,
• Topaz Denoise AI,
• Topaz Gigapixel AI,
• Hugin Panorama Editor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right now I am heading back home, I left bright and early to be home in time for a one o’clock Zoom meeting with the Governor’s Hate Crime Council so I left the cottage at around 6 AM timed to the opening of the local Dunkin.

I decided that instead of rushing back this morning for the Zoom meeting that I will do it from the cottage and go home tomorrow morning.

Book Update – Part 2 Book Burnings.

After I wrote yesterday’s post this came out…

Virginia school board members call for books to be burned amid GOP's campaign against schools teaching about race and sexuality
Insider
By John Haltiwanger
November 10, 2021


Two VA school board members called for burning books that have been deemed worthy of removal.

The Spotsylvania County School Board directed staff to begin removing "sexually explicit" books from library shelves.

The GOP has been pushing against teaching students about race and sexuality.

This came as the school board directed staff to begin removing "sexually explicit" books from library shelves, after voting 6-0 in favor of the removal, the Lance-Star reported. The board has plans to review how certain books or materials are defined as "objectionable," the paper said, which opens the door for other content to be removed.

Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg both championed burning the books that have been removed.

"I think we should throw those books in a fire," Abuismail said. Meanwhile, Twigg said he wanted to "see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff."

Hmm… where have we seen book burning before?

Book burnings have a dark history linked to censorship and repressive regimes, and are often associated with Nazi Germany. Infamous Nazi book burnings in 1933 targeted thousands of books deemed "un-German," including the works of Jewish authors like like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, as well as banned American writers like Ernest Hemingway.

They know no bounds to their hate,

Last month, Youngkin ran a campaign ad featuring a local mother, Laura Murphy, who fought to get Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's "Beloved" removed from her son's AP English curriculum back in 2013 (her son was a senior at the time). Murphy referred to the book, which was about slavery in the US and won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, as "some of the most explicit material you can imagine."

The students at one high school had enough of meddling parents and do-gooders.

Students strike back after books removed from school libraries in Kansas City Northland

Kansas City Star

By Robert A. Cronkleton

November 10, 2021

Students in Kansas City’s Northland have launched a petition aimed at stopping area school districts from pulling books from their high school’s libraries in response to an outcry from a parent’s group.

The Students against banning books in NKC District petition, organized by Northland Student Association, had garnered 782 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.

It is in response to the North Kansas City School District pulling two books from the shelves that The Northland Parent Association has deemed inappropriate for students because of its sexual or violent content.

“NKC Schools became aware of concerns over two books available in our high schools’ libraries,” the district said in a statement. “The books in question were pulled from each of our four high schools while the district conducts a review of processes pertaining to book selection, check-out, and review.

“NKC Schools provides a variety of books for students and strives for a diverse and engaging collection. We always appreciate and encourage community feedback as the families we serve are valuable partners in student success.”

The students know better where this is leading, banning books and talk of burning books.

This brings back memories of Anita Bryant and her "Save Our Children" campaign of the sixties and seventies.

Miami Debate Over Rights of Homosexuals Directs Wide Attention to a National Issue
By B. Drummond Ayres Jr. Special to The New York Times
May 10, 1977


MIAMI, May 9—A dispute over rights for homosexuals, building locally for the last several months, is focusing attention on a national issue.

As far as the Miami area is concerned, the argument will he settled on June 7, when residents vote to repeal or uphold a county ordinance that bars discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing and public accommodations.

But both sides in the fight have vowed to continue the struggle elsewhere in the country, whatever the outcome of the Miami referendum. National committees are being organized and fund drives are under way in “gay” bars and fundamentalist churches from here to San Francisco.

The Republicans want to drag us back to the time of “Father Knows Best” where the father was king and everyone was subservient to the wife place was in the kitchen and pregnant, homosexuals were in the closet, and Blacks knew their place.

There is a word for that… fascism.

The Republicans brought us McCarthyism ("Have you now or ever have been a "Homosexual") and "Save Our Children" and now they are bring back book burnings.

I Don’t Know Why? They Tried To Correct Me, But That Didn't Work

They tried to “correct” me but it didn’t work.

Their “corrections” made it worst.

It is in nature, you see monkeys and other primates do it, it is not something we made up to be “different.”

No one know why I am like this, but I know it is real.

It makes life so much harder, it is the little things that get to you.

But all my life I knew that I was left handed, the nuns used to whack my knuckles and as a results I have horrible handwriting. I don’t know which hand to write with so my writing looks like chicken scratches. (Ha! I bet you thought that I was talking about gender dysphoria)

When you are sitting at a table eating you are always bumping elbows, when you want to use a pair of scissors you have to use your right hand (But it worked out at work great! My scissors kept on walking and I had to hunt down the tech who took them, but one day I got a bright idea that stopped the scissors thefts. I got a pair of left handed scissors and no one borrowed them again. Hee, hee!).

World wide about ten percent of us are sinister, no one knows why, it is just a fact that some people are left handed.

Did you know that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to be left handed? I didn’t know either until I was collecting signatures for the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill at a True Colors conference and I noticed that many were signing the petition with their left hand. It was really noticeable, it was like 3 or 4 in a row were left handed. So like any good engineer I researched it.

Left-handedness in homosexual men and women: neuroendocrine implications

PubMed

Abstract

Although numerous researchers have hypothesized a biological factor in the etiology of homosexuality, there is a lack of empirical evidence. Previous investigations did not focus on behavioral functions of the brain. Using neuropsychological testing, we found an increased incidence of left-hand preference (defined as non-consistent right-hand preference) in a group of 32 homosexual women. A trend in the same direction was found in a group of 38 homosexual men…

McCormick CM, Witelson SF, Kingstone E. Left-handedness in homosexual men and women: neuroendocrine implications. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 1990;15(1):69-76. doi: 10.1016/0306-4530(90)90048-e. PMID: 2367617.

Are you getting where I am heading with this?

When I do diversity training I get asked a lot if gender dysphoria is real? What causes it? And I answer with asking the class, who is left-handed. Those who raised their hand I ask when did you decide that you wanted to be left-handed? Why are you left-handed? The class quickly get the message that we don’t know the answer to many questions of why we are the way we are.

A New Children’s Book

At first I thought it was Calvin & Hobbs but it is just “Calvin.”

‘Calvin’ children’s book gives transgender youth a superhero
Boston Globe
By Dana Gerber
November 8, 2021


What’s in a name? For Calvin — the transgender boy at the center of Vanessa and JR Ford’s new children’s book — everything.

“Calvin,” which will be released by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers on Nov. 9, follows the titular character as he prepares for his first day of school since coming out to his family and socially transitioning to match his gender identity. This involves picking out his new name, buying new clothes, and getting a haircut — all with his family by his side.

“This book is a love letter to the support networks that a trans child can have,” said Vanessa Ford. “We just wanted the opportunity to show how radiant and beautiful trans youth are when they are supported by all around them.”

Their child is trans so they know what they are writing about.

In the book, Calvin is preoccupied by what ifs: What if his family doesn’t believe him when he comes out? What if his classmates don’t use his preferred pronouns?

“The book itself really focuses on Calvin’s internal thoughts and stressors,” said JR. “We didn’t want to necessarily focus on bullying or any type of real trauma that we’ve seen trans people and trans kids go through.”

We need superheros!

For the children who struggling with gender dysphoria having roll models and books about how they feel is very important. The only roll models that I had growing up was Milton Berle and Flip Wilson, and movies “Psycho” and “Dressed to Kill.” If you snuck in to the library and looked up transsexual you would find “deviant,” “perversion,” and on and on.

“This book comes at a time that hopefully will get people to see that trans kids are just like any other kid — that they are special and unique and beautiful and radiant and all those amazing things,” Vanessa said. “Just like Calvin is.”

The book is coming out when the “Do-Gooders” are ripping LGBTQ+ books off the library sleves. The Trumpsters

Waukee schools pull LGBT books from library shelves after parents express concerns
Des Moines Register
By Sarah Kay LeBlanc
November 9, 2021


The Waukee School District has pulled books off its library shelves after parents complained that the books had exposed their students to inappropriate content.
[…]
Parent Courtney Collier also brought up concerns with books containing same-sex relationships in the board's Oct. 11 meeting. She said her 10-year-old told her that a book about a boy discovering he was gay was brought up as a suggested reading item during a library class.

This is not just a local happening but the conservatives are pulling books all over the country.

"Gender Queer" has also been removed from some school libraries in Texas and Virginia and been the subject of recent school board debate in states including Illinois, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

I find this ironic that the articles are on the anniversary Kristallnacht. Lets stop and think for a moment what political party burned the books? Hint: it was on May 10, 1933.

The censorship has not gone unnoticed around the world.

In Texas and beyond, conservatives take culture wars to classrooms
France24
August 11, 2021


Conservatives in Texas and several other states have declared war on the teaching of books aimed at sensitizing students to racism and gender identity issues, saying they wrongly inflict feelings of guilt on white and non-LGBTQ students.

In one direct result of the campaign, a school district west of Houston last month temporarily withdrew copies of a book that explains the unintentional "micro-aggressions" an African-American child suffers because of the color of his or her skin.
[…]
They "will pop up everywhere in the future, especially in urban areas where there is a conservative push at the state level but where local politics tend to be more Democratic," Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told AFP.

And wherever it goes chaos follows board of education and town meetings are becoming shouting matches.

Conservatives have also lodged angry protests against the teaching of "critical race theory," an academic approach to studying ways in which racism infuses US legal systems and institutions in often subtle ways.

Protests broadly targeting so-called "woke" culture -- a term used to describe awareness of race- or gender-based injustices -- have led to the banning of books seen to include racial stereotypes.

The Texas Library Association has pushed back against what it called "a substantial increase in censorship activity in Texas.”
[…]
And the Texas State Teachers Association has denounced what it called a "witch hunt," following passage by the state legislature of a law that sets specific guidelines for the teaching of racial and sexual inequalities.

Why is this happening now?

May 10, 1933, Nazi-dominated
student groups carried out
public burnings of books
they claimed were “un-German.”

The answer is simple… The Republicans want to rally their base and generate enough anger for them to go out an vote. They want to make LGBTQ+ an issue in the 2022 elections. They don’t want to talk about Jan. 6, they don’t want to talk about “Rebuild America.” They don’t want to talk about the lead water pipes poisoning Americans. They want distract people with their boggymen, Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ+ books, they are like “The Great OZ” who hides behind a curtain.

Hopefully Calvin will not get yanked from the library selves and our children will still have their role model.

~~~~~~~~~

Update 11:15

In an editorial in the Kansas City Star about questioning a Republican congressman sexuality they wrote:

Questioning Hawley’s masculinity is an ugly, odd and ineffective way to respond to someone who’s arguing for a return to old-fashioned, world-dominating, women-subjecting, good-old-days manhood.

These throwback attacks feed into the homophobia that progressives are fighting every day.

To do this is to inadvertently join our junior senator in seeming to pine for 1950s-style notions of what a man should be. Do we really want the retro-sexual comeback?

Where We Are Today.

[RANT]

Empty selves.

Gas prices through the roof.

Computer chip shortages.

The list is endless and the question is how did we get here?

~~~~~~~

I think that the problem goes all the way back to the late seventies and early eighties. 

The Hardware and Sliver cities.

New Britain was wall to wall factories and Meriden was the home of dozens of silver smiths but now they are a faction of their former selves. Why?

I don’t think that it was any one thing but a combination of events, one I believe was stripping power from the stockholders of companies. At one time individuals stockholders could challenge the Board of Directors that was changed in the early eighties and also slashing the power of the unions. As a result companies were bottom-lined. Everything became about profits.

Before then it was company towns, companies felt a responsibility to the community, you could work your way up though the company if you wanted to. Then it became the search for cheep labor… down south the company went, then to Mexico, then to China.

Then the Japanese came out with just-in-time deliveries and the American companies embraced it but with an American twist. The American twist was a global supply chain.

~~~~~~~

What did we lose with moving companies around like chess pieces on a board… tribal knowledge.

Where I worked for 28 years one of our suppliers of precision resistors moved their plant to Mexico in the eighties and then we started to run into problems with their products, they changed in value.

We had to suspend the product line until we found out why the values were changing. After lengthy discussions with the supplier we learned that they moved the product line to Mexico and that the new factor missed a step.

Fast forward to the year that we were bought out and the new company shifted our product line to one of their suppliers. I was called down there to fix their problem.

After a sleepless night in a motel next to the airport I was in a nine o’clock meeting with our new VP of engineering, their vendor, and me. I was sitting there with my eyes close listening to the debate between the Vps about the resistors drifting out of spec. I opened one eye and asked my counter point from their circuit board vendor… “Who was the manufacture of the resistor?”

Guess who the manufacturer of the resistor was? Yup, the same one we had the problem with.

That is the tribal knowledge that was lost. It took me a couple of seconds to recognize the problem which cost the company a month of downtime and millions of dollars to identify the problem we have solved years before.

The company that bought us out, shut down our factory, laid off the engineering staff and hired temps ended up two billion dollars in debt went bankrupt because of the decisions their executives made. The executives walked away counting their money, laughing all the way to the bank while the stockholders used their stock certificates to wallpaper their walls with them. I was lucky, the federally insured retirement accounts were protected and I didn’t lose my retirement plans.

Now we see the results of a global supply chain and just-in-time deliveries, the whole global network has collapsed.

[/RANT]

Fear!

Fear the trans athlete to dominate the high school sports. Fear the trans student using the bathrooms. , That is the message that the Republicans are pushing this election seasons.

Do transgender athletes have a competitive advantage over cisgender athletes?
Among the many questions surrounding this topic, one has risen to the top - do transgender girls actually have an advantage over cisgender girls in athletics?
CBS8
By Steve Price
November 8, 2021


As transgender people continue their fight to be accepted for who they are, more states are taking action to stand in their way. According to the ACLU, 31 states have considered bills this year that would ban transgender youth from competing in school sports.

At Verify, we've received a lot of questions on this topic. Specifically - whether transgender girls actually have an advantage over cisgender girls in athletics as some of these bills claim.

So let's start with what makes a cisgender person different from a transgender person. A cisgender person is someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth. A transgender person's gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. Supporters of the bills argue testosterone levels in trans women give them competitive advantages - including speed and strength.
[…]
According to Dr. Turban, there aren't many transgender athletes across high school, college and professional sports... so data comparing their athletic performance with cisgender athletes is limited.

“It's not zero, but it's not a lot,” Dr. Turban said. “And people will search far and wide to find an example of this being a problem.”
[…]
He says supporters of anti-trans legislation often point to the 2019 Connecticut state track championship. During the meet - two transgender girls, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, finished first and second in the women's 55-meter race. Following the meet, three cisgender girls, including third-place finisher Chelsea Mitchell, filed a lawsuit over the trans girls' eligibility to race. But a year later, in the 2020 state championship, Mitchell beat Miller to win the championship.

The Republicans and their ally Alliance Defending Freedom lost their case and are now appealing the case. The Hartford Courant reported back in April,

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny has dismissed on procedural grounds a lawsuit filed in federal court against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which sought to halt transgender female athletes from participating in girls high school sports in Connecticut, but the plaintiffs say they will appeal the ruling.

Well now the case is before the Appeal’s court. The CBS8 article goes on to say,

But Dr. Tim Roberts, a researcher on the study, says there's more to this story. He agrees that when the trans women were first beginning hormone treatments, they outperformed cisgender women in tests that included push-ups, sit-ups and running, but by their second year on hormone therapy that was no longer the case.

“The performance of the transgender women was indistinguishable from the performance of the average cis woman in the Air Force,” Dr. Roberts said.

He believes his research was misrepresented in the legislation.

“They're cherry-picking the one number that agrees with their pre-existing notions and using it as an excuse to do a lot of other things,” he said.

And the article ends with…

So we can Verify, the claim that transgender women have a competitive advantage over cisgender women in sports is inconclusive due to a lack of scientific data at this time. But medical experts do know that participating in sports has many positive benefits and they fear banning transgender children from youth sports will have a negative impact.

Only about 5 percent of the high school athletes go on to college sports!

High school sports is not about college scholarships but rather learning leadership skills, working together, and building life long friendships.

---

The right to privacy.

Our right to privacy seems to go out the window when it involves trans people. When did it become okay to video people in the bathroom?

‘Help protect me’: Classmates secretly recorded video of student who is transgender
WSOC TV
By Ken Lemon
November 9, 2021


CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — Classmates reportedly secretly recorded video of a student who is transgender in a boy’s restroom at Burns High School in Cleveland County and posted it to social media.

“I was floored,” Clay Sentell told Channel 9.

The 16-year-old student said friends saw the videos posted on Snapchat. One video showed Sentell washing his hands. The male students who recorded the videos also showed the junior wearing high heels while in the bathroom.

“I felt like my privacy was invaded. I was terrified,” Sentell told reporter Ken Lemon.
[…]
Sentell’s mother, Annie Sentell, said her son told her about the videos last Tuesday. Annie Sentell said she emailed the principal multiple times with no response. She said last Thursday she emailed that she was going to show up at the office on Friday morning.

In Connecticut that would have been a felony. In Connecticut it is a felony to record someone where they have a right to expect privacy.

The video recording should be considered a hate crime because it creates fear,

“It’s made me feel nervous,” Clay Sentell said. “It’s made me feel scared. It’s made me feel upset but regardless of all that, I’m still going to love them.”

I think that the student who videoed them should be made to clean out the bathrooms in high school for a year, the principal should be fired and I hope that the Sentell’s win their lawsuit.

It's A Jungle Out There

That was the opening line in the theme song to the TV show Monk and it is, we should beware when we go out. There are a lot of people out there who hate our guts.

Three men arrested in attack on transgender woman at Corvallis 7-Eleven, police say
The Oregonian/OregonLive
By Jack Forrest
November 04, 2021


Corvallis police have arrested three men suspected of assaulting a transgender woman while she was working at a 7-Eleven convenience store last month, officials said.

Riley Westbrooks of Myrtle Creek and Dylan Guido of Roseburg, both 21, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of first-degree bias crime and third-degree assault. Kyle Rackley of Sutherlin, 22, also was arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault.

Crimes of bias or hate crimes, affect not only the target of violence but also the whole community.

A community reacts to alleged bias crime in Corvallis
Albany Democrat-Herald
By Joanna Mann
November 5, 2021


Local LGBTQ+ groups in Corvallis are still reeling from an assault police have labeled a bias crime at the 7-Eleven at 746 NW Kings Blvd. on Oct. 24 during which homophobic and transphobic slurs were allegedly directed at the victim.

Dharmakrishna Mirza, a transgender woman of color who lives in Corvallis, said although arrests have been made in connection with the incident, it is still a really difficult time in the transgender community.

“Through these kinds of incidents we see a lot of performative solidarity from OSU and various organizations,” Mirza said. “But what we don’t see is tangible commitments to our communities to keep us safe.”

She added that Corvallis is seen as an accepting and inclusive area for the LGBTQ+ community, but in her daily reality, she hears about violence and other instances of transphobia quite often.

That is what makes these crimes so much more horrendous is that it affects every LGBTQ+ in making them feel less safe in going out, it makes us wary of going out in public.

When we read about violence directed at us we think “hate crime” but proving a hate crime is much harder unless the perpetrator/s use hate speech it becomes a lot harder to prove because it goes to motive.

Using derogatory words are not a hate crime because it is protected by the First Amendment, there was a case at UConn a few years ago where a bunch of white drunk students were using the “N” word. They were arrested on hate crime charges but the charges were dropped because they didn’t threaten or didn’t assault anyone.

It rises above the First Amendment if they threaten violence or do violence like starting to push you.

~~~~~~~

In the next article I mainly wanted to point out the headline in Pride Source…

8 Local and National Inspirational Transgender Leaders (Who Aren’t Caitlyn Jenner)

But the article has one glaring error, they say that Mara Keisling is the “founder and executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE)” she retired from NCTE this summer.

Ask Yourself Why…

Just about every totalitarian government is persecuting us?

Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and Russia all have passed or trying to anti-LGBTQ+ laws to force us back in the closet. And that doesn’t include middle-east, African, Asian, Southeast Asia, and Caribbean countries. Now we add another country, China.

China LGBT rights group shuts down amid hostile environment
AP News
By Huizhong Wu
November 5, 2021


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — An influential LGBT advocacy group in China that has spearheaded many of the legal cases pushing for greater rights is halting its work amid growing restrictions on social activism.

LGBT Rights Advocacy China announced it was ceasing all activities and shutting down its social media accounts in an announcement on social media Thursday.

“We are deeply regretful to tell everyone, Queer Advocacy Online will stop all of our work indefinitely,” the group said on WeChat, using the name of its social media account. It closed its accounts on WeChat and Weibo, two widely used platforms in China.

A member confirmed that all the group’s activities have been shut down. The member, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, declined to say why. Group founder Peng Yanzi did not respond to a request for comment.
[…]
The group mentioned they were in trouble a few months ago, said a 30-year-old LGBT activist who knows the group’s founders and who spoke on condition of anonymity. Lawyers who helped the group with cases had also stopped their work then.

Now ask yourself, do you see the same trend that is happening in other countries happening here?

Are the laws that the Republicans are have passed or are trying to pass following the world wide trend of anti-LGBTQ+ oppression?

Lawmaker wants Texas to allow people the option not to recognize marriage equality
State Rep. James White has just opened the door for Texas's Attorney General to decide whether the Supreme Court's ruling making marriage equality the law of the land has to be "recognized" by Texas citizens.
LGBTQ Nation
By Juwan J. Holmes
October 23, 2021


A state legislator in Texas has made a request to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and his office’s Opinions Committee, inquiring on their position regarding the Supreme Court of the United States’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country, including Texas.

Rep. James White (R) wrote a letter to Paxton, sent on October 19, requesting his opinion on the subject, “Whether Obergefell v. Hodges … requires private citizens to recognize homosexual marriages when the law of Texas continues to define marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman.”

White cites a phrase in the Constitution of Texas that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and another law in the state Family Code that read “A marriage between persons of the same sex or a civil union is contrary to the public policy of this state.” Both declarations, while still on the books, became unenforceable with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell.

Texas is not alone.

45 Republicans Voted to Keep Virginia’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban. They Refuse to Say Why.
Slate

By Elena Debre
April 23, 2021


The debate over same-sex marriage was muted—and made moot—in 2015, with the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. But, even with the ratification of same-sex unions written into national law, discrimination against them still remain ingrained in the GOP platform—and in 30 state constitutions.

Virginia’s state constitution holds one of the strictest same-sex marriage bans in the county. It is sweeping in scope, and has been compared to a Jim Crow law in a Washington Post Op-ed. In 2014, a federal district court found the law unconstitutional; a federal appeals court agreed, and later that year, the Supreme Court declined to review the decision, allowing same-sex couples in Virginia to marry. The ban itself has been unenforceable for seven years. Yet it remains in the state’s constitution, a reminder of when 57 percent of Virginians voted it into law in 2006.
[…]
Two bills were introduced in February of this year—one in the state Senate (SJ 270) and one in the state House (HJ 582)—to begin the process of repealing the invalidated ban on same-sex marriage in Virginia’s constitution. Both bills passed, but still faced significant opposition. Twelve Republicans voted against it in the Senate, and 33 Republicans voted “nay” in the House. Stripping this unconstitutional law from the Virginian constitution would not change anything straightaway, but it would ensure that same-sex couples’ marriages would remain intact should the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell. Yet a majority of Republican lawmakers in Virginia still voted against it. Perhaps these lawmakers want to nullify existing same-sex marriages and prohibit same-sex couples from marrying in the future; that, after all, is what the ban would require in the absence of a federal court order rendering it inoperable. It’s impossible to know for sure what these Republicans are thinking, though, as most of Virginia’s GOP lawmakers shroud their views on same-sex marriage in silence.

And remember Virginia just elected an anti-LGBT governor.

States across U.S. still cling to outdated gay marriage bans
Same-sex marriage became the law of the land in 2015, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the constitutions and statutes of dozens of U.S. states.
NBC News
By Julie Moreau
February 18, 2020


[…]
Despite the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges making same-sex marriage the law of the land, most states still have outdated laws on their books like the ones Virginia just repealed.

Indiana is one of those states, though an attempt to remove its gay marriage ban was unsuccessful last month in the Republican-controlled state Legislature. In fact, GOP opposition to its removal derailed legislation seeking to raise the legal age to marry in the state from 15 to 18. An amendment had been added to the age-limit bill that sought to scrap the state’s 1997 law declaring: “Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female.”
[…]
In Florida, Democratic legislators have been trying for years to repeal the state’s ban — which says “marriage” means “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” — with no luck.

Ask yourself why haven’t they brought their laws and constitutions into line with the US Constitution? Why do they Republicans continue oppressing LGBTQ+ people?

Saturday 9: All I Have to Do Is Dream

Sam’s Saturday 9: All I Have to Do Is Dream (1958)

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

Unfamiliar with this week's song. Hear it here.

1) Did you dream last night?
I don’t remember, I don’t remember my dreams upon waking.

2) In this song, The Everly Brothers dream of kissing "lips of wine." Do you prefer red or white wine?
White, red wine if like a wild animal clawing to get out of my stomach.

3) In 1975, Rolling Stone ranked Phil and Don #1 on their list of the greatest duos of all time. Name another musical twosome.
Simon and Garfunkel, the Captain and Tennille, Sonny and Cher, Karen and Richard Carpenter, do you want me to keep going on?

4) Mike Love has acknowledged the influence The Everly Brothers had on The Beach Boys' harmonies. What's your favorite Beach Boys song?
Good Vibrations, runner up is Fun, Fun, Fun, and honorable mention is California Girls. They had so many hits it is hard to pick just one.

5) The pressure of touring took its toll on the Everly Brothers' personal relationship, and those stresses spilled onto the stage. They once had a fight in front their audience that ended with Phil smashing his guitar and storming off. Have you ever busted something in anger?
Sad to say, yes once and the straw that broke the camels back was when I open the refrigerator door the desert that took about an hour to make and I was chilling in the refrigerator slipped out of my hands and when all over the floor. I kicked the steel mixing bowl denting it into an oval. I sat down and cried.

6) One of Don's friends was author/storyteller Garrison Keillor and that's how the Everly Brothers came to perform on Keillor's radio program, A Prairie Home Companion. Do you often listen to the radio or to podcasts?
I listen to Sirius radio or to audiobooks.

7) The brothers chose to live in different cities and held opposite views on politics. Don said, "Everything is different about us, except when we sing." Do you have siblings? If so, are you more alike or different?
My brother is a lot like my father and my brother thinks that I am a lot like my mother.

8) In 1958, the year this song was a hit, Americans were doing the Cuban dance, the cha-cha-cha. Do you ever dance or sing when you're home alone?
Nope, because I don’t usually sing or dance.

9) Random question -- Do you believe we each get one true love?
I hope so.

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!

~~~~~~~~

I am on my way up to the Cape and then I have to clean out the refrigerator because the cottage was without power for five days last week do to the Nor'easter so I will not be able to approve your post until the afternoon and reply.

Puberty Blockers

There is a lot of false news about puberty blockers going around. One report says that bone density decreases in trans children that were on the blockers, but there is a major flaw in their research.

Refusing puberty blockers to trans young people is not justified by the evidence
The Lancet
By Damien W Riggs, Michelle Tollit, and Ashleigh Lin
September, 2021


We read with interest the Correspondences from Stella O’Malley and colleagues1 and Richard Armitage2 on the use of puberty blockers for transgender and gender diverse (trans) young people, and wish to address several of their comments, which we view as problematic.

O’Malley and colleagues1 assert that puberty blockers are “highly experimental”, and it is true that puberty blockers are not expressly licensed by relevant regulatory authorities, such as the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medical Association, for the treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents. However, what might be termed off-label use of medications is common in paediatrics, and the practice is not improper, illegal, or experimental.3 For example, 85% of more than 55 000 children admitted to paediatric intensive care units in the USA were treated with at least one off-label medication (the average number was 4·5), and these medications included neurological, antimicrobial, and cardiovascular drugs.4
[…]
Moreover, there is substantive evidence demonstrating that puberty blockers have beneficial effects on emotional and behavioural problems, and Armitage—by focusing only on suicidality—“ignores decades of use of and research about puberty blockers and hormone therapy,” as the The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health's Editorial5 explicitly warned against. For example, one study compared the psychological welfare of trans adolescents who had been treated with puberty blockers to that of trans adolescents who had not yet received treatment, and reported fewer emotional and behavioural problems in the treated group.8 A study of 55 young adults who had received gender affirming medical care—including puberty blockers—as adolescents reported psychological functioning and quality of life on par with that expected of cisgender peers.9 And a 22-year follow-up of an individual who received blockers in adolescence found no net negative physiological side-effects and significant net positive psychological effects.10 Taken together, these findings, alongside many others, substantiate the position that puberty blockers are effective in “decreasing depressive symptoms and suicidality, and improving affective and psychological functioning”.11

One of the things I noticed in the studies that conservatives cite is they compare trans children who just came off of the blockers to children 5 years past puberty and the studies find difference in bone density with a child just off of of the blockers. Of course there is a difference, one child had five years for their bones to develop while the trans child is just starting to develop their bones. If you wait until the trans child is 5 years on Cross Gender Hormones therapy you see that their bones show no difference between trans children and cis-children.

I’m Visible. Are You? Is That Good Or Bad?

You know that adage that when you know a trans person that it had to hate us, that being visible changes people minds about us. Well it seems to be working.

Exclusive: More Americans understand LGBTQ people, but visibility has 'double-edged sword', GLAAD report says
USA Today
By David Oliver
November 3, 2021


More and more people are identifying as members of the LGBTQ community. Increased visibility educates non-LGBTQ people, but it also comes with a purported price, according to GLAAD's annual Accelerating Acceptance Study out Wednesday.

The report found that 43% of non-LGBTQ people think gender is not exclusively male and female, up from 38% in 2020. And 81% of non-LGBTQ people anticipate nonbinary and transgender people will become as familiar in everyday life as gay and lesbian people have.

"Our community continues to grow, and we're seeing some growing acceptance of that," says Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD CEO. "We are seeing that the concept of gender, in terms of non-LGBTQ Americans, is evolving." A poll earlier this year found that 5.6% of adults in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ – a record.

But people are not all the way there. Among non-LGBTQ people, 45% admit they are confused by all the different terms to describe people in the LGBTQ community. Ellis says this requires education – the purpose of GLAAD's work.

But (You know there is always a “but.”)…

GLAAD's research also found that six in 10 people said they faced discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity – an increase of 13% from last year.

"That does bring up sort of the double-edged sword of visibility," Ellis says. "As our community continues to grow and become more visible, we're seeing greater acceptance in some areas, and then we are seeing these growing challenges for acceptance in others, which are then turning into discrimination and hate."

That is a BIG BUT. Hate crimes are increasing against us, discrimination against us is increasing. Conservatives hate people who are different; blacks, Muslims, immigrants, gays, trans people.

We still are the butt of people jokes.

A lack of acceptance of the transgender community has been on full display in recent weeks after Dave Chappelle's transphobic Netflix special.

Did you see? Dave Chappelle is accused of ‘punching down’ in 'The Closer.' How can comedy go up from here?

It attempted to juxtapose the pace of civil rights gained by LGBTQ people over those fought for by the Black community. Chappelle repeatedly focused on jokes that targeted the trans community, doubling down on criticism that his sets punch down on the most vulnerable.

We were made the villains in movies “Dress to Kill” and Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the butt of jokes comedians like Milton Berle and Flip Wilson and now Dave Chappelle.

Being visible has made us more friends and unfortunately more enemies, lets hope more friends than enemies.

Totalitarianism

Wikipedia says this about about Totalitarianism;

Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual opposition to the State and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control and regulation over public and private life.

In Texas they have passed laws…

• Banning abortion – control of private lives.
• Banned doctors from treating trans children – control of private lives.
• Banned trans students from sports – control of private lives.
• Banned discussing slavery – control of private lives.

And not they want to control what we read.

Texas Gov. Decries 'Pornography' In School Libraries As GOP Targets LGBTQ Books
Gov. Greg Abbott’s letter railing against “pornographic or obscene material” in school libraries follows state lawmakers targeting books by LGBTQ authors.
Huffpost
By Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
November 1, 2021


In another vague attack on what schools can and can’t teach in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott wrote a letter to the state association of school boards warning against “pornographic or obscene” books in school libraries.

While the letter did not provide any concrete examples of such books, it comes days after Republican state Rep. Jeff Carson demanded an investigation into “sexually explicit” books in school libraries that could violate “pornography and decency laws.” Carson explicitly named the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, an autobiographical comic by a nonbinary author.

Last week, the book was removed from one school library in the Keller, Texas, school district.

In an op-ed, Kobabe wrote about several districts across the country that had removed or challenged the book. The author condemned the “pornography” label as a “common accusation against work with themes of queer sexuality,” adding that “removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth.”

Texas is well on the way to becoming a totalitarian state, earlier in the year they passed restrictive voting reforms,

The hard-fought Texas voting bill is poised to become law. Here's what it does.
Senate Bill 1 would set new rules for voting by mail, boost protections for partisan poll watchers and roll back local voting initiatives meant to make it easier to vote, namely those championed by Harris County that were disproportionately used by voters of color.
Texas Tribune
By Alexa Ura
August 30, 2021


Though delayed in their quest, Texas Republicans are close to passing sweeping legislation to further restrict the state’s voting process and narrow local control of elections.

The Republican majorities in the House and Senate are expected to soon sign off on the final version of Senate Bill 1 and send it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature. They are setting new rules for voting by mail, boosting the role of partisan poll watchers and rolling back local initiatives meant to make it easier to vote — specifically those championed by Harris County that were disproportionately used by voters of color — while expanding access in more conservative, rural areas.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the most significant portions of the wide-ranging legislation expected to become law. It will go into effect three months after the special legislative session, kicking in before the 2022 primary elections.

Changes to the Texas election process in SB 1 include

• A ban on drive-thru voting
• New regulations for early voting hours, including a ban on 24-hour voting
• A ban on the distribution of mail-in ballot applications
• New ID requirements for voting by mail
• A correction process for mail-in voting
• Enhancing poll watcher protections
• Establishing monthly citizenship checks
• Creating new rules for voter assistance

Then they as if that wasn’t enough to insure dominance of the Republican party they redistricted to guarantee Republican control…

Explaining the Impact of Redistricting in Texas, Visually
When Texas Republicans revealed their new congressional map last month, our reporters and graphics editors used maps and data to examine the effects.
New York Times
By Sarah Bahr
October 18, 2021


Once a decade, the Texas legislature — or, more precisely, whatever party happens to be in power — has the chance to redraw the map of the state’s congressional districts. Redistricting, which is taking place all over the country, is a process that reconfigures electoral boundaries to make sure the changes in population are fairly apportioned to each district. Politicians will sometimes carve up states into oddly shaped districts designed to lock in or even expand their power in upcoming elections, a process known as gerrymandering.

In Texas, Republicans, as the majority party, have been in charge of redrawing the Texas map for the past 18 years. Reporting on redistricting can be an arcane business of looking into deals made by politicians behind closed doors.

Ask yourself when was that last time we saw a government controlling the population to this extent. What government attacked their citizens because of their religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity?

What government burned books that they labeled as being subversive?

I Haven’t Figured Them Out.

We now have one of the most conservative Supreme Court where they put “Religious Freedom” up on a pedestal but then they turn around and do this;

Supreme Court Allows Ruling in Favor of California Trans Man to Stand
This means Evan Minton's case against Mercy San Juan Medical Center — a hospital that denied him a hysterectomy — can go forward.
The Advocate
By Trudy Ring
November 2, 2021


The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear an appeal from a California Catholic hospital being sued over denial of care to a transgender man.

The high court’s action leaves intact the California Court of Appeal’s ruling that Evan Minton can go forward with his case against the hospital. Whether the hospital actually committed illegal discrimination has yet to be decided.

The court declined the case without comment, which is its usual practice. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch, all conservatives, said they would have taken the case.

When officials at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Catholic hospital near Sacramento, learned Minton was transgender, they canceled his scheduled hysterectomy shortly before it was to take place in 2016, calling it an “elective sterilization” that went against Catholic beliefs.
Oh how many time have we heard that; a religious affiliated hospital refusing to treat us? I know it one of my concerns, getting into a car accident and being refused treatment.

Hospitals are licensed by the state and they cannot discriminate but as more hospitals are bought up by religious organization they are claiming “religious freedom” to turn away LGBTQ+ patients and refusing to do abortions even of the mother’s life is in danger. I know of a case in Connecticut where a religious organization wanted to buy a rural hospital and they would not say if they would allow medically necessary abortions, the state blocked the sale.

A trial court ruled that delaying the procedure for three days did not constitute discrimination under the law, but the California Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling in 2019 that Minton had shown he has grounds for a lawsuit and that his case could go forward. Dignity/Mercy San Juan appealed to the Supreme Court, saying Minton’s suit “poses a profound threat to faith-based health care institutions’ ability to advance their healing ministries consistent with the teachings of their faith.”

I am stating to think that the line that is drawing is very close to overturning gender inclusive non-discrimination laws but does not want to cross it and throw out the laws altogether. Because I think they might foresee where if the say that you can discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community because of “religious freedom” then you can discriminate against unmarried couples, single mothers, and other religions.