While We Are On The Topic Of Drag Queens Today…

Violence directed at us is world wide.

Drag Queen Story Hour host Aida H Dee threatened with a ‘mallet through the skull’

Pink News UK

By Amelia Hansford

April 21, 2023

Drag Queen Story Hour host Aida H Dee has shamed those who “refuse to accept and understand us” after receiving a violent death threat.

The drag artist posted a chilling screenshot of a message they received to their Instagram on Friday (21 April), writing that they wished to show it as a sign of the “painful” abuse they and so many other drag performers experience.

The message, from an individual using the name ‘Jenny’, read: “How are you still breathing? I seriously hope someone puts a mallet through your skull, you ugly pervert. Leave the kids alone.”

Aida H Dee said in their post that the message was just one of the reasons why Pride is still a vital part of the fight towards LGBTQ+ equality.

[…]

Far-right protestors have tried to disrupt Aida’s events on several occasions, from a chaotic clash between pro and anti-LGBTQ+ activists in Oxfordshire to homophobic rhetoric spewed by right-wing activists in Colchester.

“The hateful message I received is just one example of the challenges faced by our community,” Aida continued. “It is a distressing reminder that there are still people who refuse to accept and understand us.

BBC reported that,

“For the first time ever, I do feel worried about doing some gigs,” says former Drag Race UK contestant Crystal. “I worry about protests and who's going to be filming me, and who's going to be trying to twist what I'm doing for an agenda.”

That is just what the conservatives want, to drive us back in the closet.

In another Pink News article…

Anti-drag protester who accused drag queen of ‘grooming children’ convicted of hate crimes

An anti-drag campaigner who was part of a protest outside North Walsham Library against a Drag Queen Story Time has been convicted of hate crimes.

By Chantelle Billson

April 18, 2023

Christopher Mitchell, a welder who lives in Caister-on-Sea, has been sentenced to a 12-month community order.

He is required to carry out 20 rehabilitation days and 150 hours of unpaid work, and has been ordered to pay a fine of £1,500, Eastern Daily Press reported. 

The conviction follows the 33-year-old taking part in a protest in August 2022 alongside other anti-drag activists, which saw North Walsham Library’s story time event by drag queen ‘Auntie’ Titania Trust cancelled. 

Appearing at Great Yarmouth Magistrates Court on 12 April, Mitchell, who represented himself, denied sending threats, but had earlier pleaded guilty to two charges of sending malicious communications. 

The animosity is spreading via social media and conservative organizations around the world.

---

So how did we get here, that Drag Queens are the new villains?

The first thing you have to remember is that the right-wing conservatives believe we chose to be trans, or gay or lesbian.

How drag queens got dragged into politics

CBS News

By Roman Feeser

April 11, 2023

Last month in Nashville, widely regarded as the entertainment capital of the South, Tennessee lawmakers passed a law that bans one class of entertainer: "male and female impersonators," otherwise known as drag performers. However, a day before the nation's first anti-drag law was set to take effect, a federal judge temporarily blocked it for violating the First Amendment.

But where did this all start? How did drag queens get dragged into politics? For that, we turn to the city of Jackson, Tennessee.

Knoxille Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Democrat (who was almost expelled for breaking House rules on conduct and decorum after joining a protest following a school shooting), has been vocal about her opposition to the drag performer bill. 

"I'm curious how many drag shows you've been to, and I'm curious, why targeting this?" she asked the Tennessee state Senate back in February. "Because I'm thinking about a place where men wear tights: in WWE wrestling, and one third of the audience, at least, is children. But somehow someone dressing up and dancing is the problem?"

Once again they think that it is a choice.

On the issue of banning drag performances, she said, "If the rationale is to protect children from being sexually abused, that is not going to be helpful in this instance. Making laws specific to drag performances is not necessary. The majority of drag performances can be done in ways that are not obscene." Jeglic added, "We have no research evidence to suggest that children being exposed to people dressed in different clothing increases their risk for long-term psychological consequences or childhood sexual abuse."

Therefore in their minds anything drag or LGBTQ+ is child abuse. So even me standing in a checkout would be questioned.

Rep. Johnson said, "Clearly what we're talking about is people's freedom of expression. And the reality is, our freedom of expression is stronger than their power to criminalize people." 

These laws will be challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court for violating their First Amendment rights and with this Supreme Court it is a crap shoot.

---

Update 3:30 PM

'Hollywood Koko is famous’: Koko Da Doll remembered at candlelight vigil

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By DeAsia Paige

April 23, 2023

In the parking lot of Holmes Plaza in southwest Atlanta on Saturday night, mourners holding candles and pink and gold balloons filled the corner. Some people immediately burst into tears as they approached the crowd. Some yelled in anger. And others stoically looked at the scene as if they were still processing why they were there in the first place.

But the hurricane of emotions became more congruent as everyone danced and rapped along to “Bulletproof” by Rasheeda Williams aka Scooter aka Hollywood Koko aka Koko Da Doll, the 35-year-old Black trans woman who died at that exact location last week.

Family and friends held a vigil for Williams on Saturday night to not only demand justice for Williams’ death but to remind everyone of why she was an undeniable star.

[…]

Williams is the second Black trans woman who was shot and killed this month in Atlanta. Ashley Burton, a 37-year-old hairstylist, died on April 11 at the City Park Atlanta apartments.

 

Massachusetts's Town Ban Drag Queens

We in the Northeast think we are not like the Republican south and that it can’t happen here but it did.

North Brookfield Select Board rescinds permit for drag show, with chair calling it inappropriate

Mass Live

By Kiernan Dunlop

April 20, 2023

After initially granting a community group permission to have a pride event, the North Brookfield Board of Selectmen rescinded the permit on the grounds that a planned drag show during the event constituted adult entertainment.

The ACLU of Massachusetts is now calling on the board to reconsider its decision and allow the Rural Justice Network to host its “Small Town Pride” event with the planned drag performance, according to press statement from the organization calling the board’s decision unconstitutional.

“We call on North Brookfield and all communities in Massachusetts to recognize that discrimination against those who choose to express themselves through drag is inconsistent with our state and federal constitutions and basic democratic principles,” Ruth Bourquin, senior and managing attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: Drag is a creative celebration of LGBTQ+ culture, and the government has no right to censor LGBTQ+ people and expression.”

[…]

His motion passed in a two-to-one vote, with board member Elizabeth Brooke Canada casting the dissenting vote.

Hate can grow anywhere!

Do you want to guess which party the Chairman belongs to?

They totally ignore the Constitution. The law and order party doesn’t care about the law and do you want to be that they have ever even seen a drag show?

Canada disagreed with Petraitis.

“I don’t think it’s adult entertainment ... it’s freedom of expression,” Canada said. “I’ve been to these events. I’ve never seen anything that’s been unsavory to anybody and I trust that our police force would enforce anything that’s unlawful or adult in nature.”

[…]

Vice Chairman John Tripp sided with Petraitis saying he didn’t see how a drag performance could be family-friendly.

Well there is one unbiased Board member.

Spectrum News had this to say about the drag show,

“The show we were planning for Small Town Pride this year was very, very kid friendly," Bovenzi said. "The drag performers were to perform Disney songs in their first set, and the second set was going to be pride anthems with no swears or vulgar lyrics to drive home a point of love and acceptance either way.”

And now that the ACLU is bring legal actions the Board is having second thoughts.

As of Thursday, the drag show remains canceled, but the ACLU is calling on the Board of Selectmen to reconsider their decision, which they claim is unconstitutional.

What About Our Rights!

Have you heard of a little thing called the First Amendment? It says something to the effect the government cannot stop you from speaking.

Pride parade in Florida cancelled, Pridefest becomes 21+ only

“Gov. DeSantis & politicians are imposing their personal beliefs on Floridians by punishing businesses that support the LGBTQ+ community”

The Los Angeles Blade

By Brody Levesque

April 20, 2023

The organizers and group that operates the LGBTQ+ Pridefest and the Pride parade announced Wednesday that in anticipation of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing Senate Bill 1438 (SB 1438), which effectively that grants state agencies the power to target LGBTQ+ friendly businesses and events, Pridefest will only be accessible to residents 21-years-old or older.

The announcement also notified the greater Treasure Coast community that the Pride parade was cancelled. In a statement the Pride Alliance of the Treasure Coast said:

“As all of you know, the political climate that we are currently in has us all very concerned for our community. After multiple meetings with city officials, it is with a heavy heart that Pride Alliance of the Treasure Coast has to announce that this weekend’s Pridefest will now be a 21 and older event. The city has decided that with the likelihood that the Governor will sign the latest bill into effect this evening, that we will need to be on the side of caution and has required us to make this necessary change. We are obviously upset and dishearten that it has come to this. We also regret to announce that we will have to cancel our plans to bring back our beloved parade.

[…]

Out former state representative Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-District 49), who is currently running for a state Senate seat to represent the Orlando area, tweeted: “SB 1438 hasn’t even been signed into law, yet city officials are CANCELING pride parades + drag performances. The bill DOES NOT ban drag or pride. But it relies on vague language and harsh penalties to instill fear that inevitably leads to self-censorship– that was their goal.”

What do you expect? They are scared sh*tless down there, the fear by businesses in losing their licenses is restraining our free speech and right of assembly.

Brandon Wolf, the Press Secretary for the largest state-wide LGBTQ+ equality and human rights advocacy group Equality Florida, in a text with the Blade noted: “These are the intended chilling effects of DeSantis’ slate of hate legislation. Just as the Don’t Say LGBTQ law didn’t direct school districts to rip down rainbow stickers, this bill does not ban drag or pride. But it uses vague language and threats to induce self-censorship.”

AP News wrote…

The legislation, which awaits the governor’s signature, would allow the state to revoke the food and beverage licenses of businesses that admit children to adult performances. The DeSantis administration has moved to pull the liquor license of a Miami hotel that hosted a Christmas drag show, alleging children were present during “lewd” displays.

The Republicans don’t that they are trampling our rights with these made-up cries of “saving our children.”

They lie and create an aura that drag is somehow vulgar and I also blame the media. Many of the media stations show video of drag queens bumping and grinding at adult shows not what goes on at Pride events. The Republicans are hoping that the Trump Court will find in their favor, which is a likely outcome since they are overturning decades old court rulings.

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Whole World Is Watching!

… To Republican lawmakers they are ready to censure a Democratic legislator for what she said.

Montana GOP caucus calls for censure of legislature’s only openly transgender member

The Hill

By Brooke Migdon

April 19, 2023

A group of Republicans in the Montana legislature have called for the immediate censure of Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr — the state’s first and only openly transgender legislator — after she told lawmakers on Tuesday that there will be “blood on your hands” if a bill to ban minors from accessing gender-affirming health care is approved by the state House.

“If you are forcing a trans child to go through puberty when they are trans, that is tantamount to torture. This body should be ashamed,” Zephyr said Tuesday during a floor debate over amendments to Montana’s Senate Bill 99, a wide-reaching bill that would prevent medical professionals from administering gender-affirming health care to transgender youths under 18.

“If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” Zephyr said. 

Responding to Zephyr during Tuesday’s floor debate, Montana House Majority Leader Sue Vinton (R) said the legislature will “not be shamed by anyone in this chamber. We are better than that.”

Pardon me while I stop laughing over the Majority Leader’s comment “not be shamed by anyone in this chamber. We are better than that.” If the shoe fits!

The Montana Freedom Caucus, a coalition of state House and Senate Republicans, called for the immediate censure of Zephyr, in a statement posted to the group’s social media late Tuesday. The group said she attempted to shame members of the legislature by using “inappropriate and uncalled-for language” during Tuesday’s floor debate.

“This kind of hateful rhetoric from an elected official is exactly why tragedies such as the Covenant Christian School shooting in Nashville occurred,” the group wrote in its statement, referring to a mass shooting in Tennessee last month that left six people dead, including three 9-year-old students.

Stop gaslighting!

After years of anti-trans legislation you are trying to lay the blame on us! After calling for our extermination and criminalizing us you think saying that “you have blood on your hand”s inflammatory?

The Montana Freedom Caucus in its statement also repeatedly misgendered Zephyr by referring to her using male pronouns.

Of course for the Republicans they don’t see that as being disrespectful of another legislator?

AP reported that,

A group of conservative Republican lawmakers in Montana deliberately misgendered a transgender colleague in demanding that she be censured for language she used on the floor while speaking against a bill that would ban gender-affirming medical care for children.

The Montana Freedom Caucus posted its demand on Twitter Tuesday evening — on letterhead bearing the names of 21 lawmakers — arguing that Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr should be punished “for trying to shame the Montana legislative body and by using inappropriate and uncalled-for language during a floor debate.”

The caucus called for a “commitment to civil discourse,” while misgendering Zephyr in the same sentence. The caucus also misgendered Zephyr in the Tweet.

The Republicans are so blind that they don’t even see that what they are accusing her of doing they are doing the same thing but in Aces.

“The language used by the so-called Freedom Caucus, including the intentional and repeated misgendering of Rep. Zephyr, is blatantly disrespectful and the farthest thing imaginable from the ‘commitment to civil discourse’ that these letter writers demand,” House Minority Leader Kim Abbott said in a statement. “I find it incredibly ironic that these legislators are making demands of others that they refuse to abide by themselves.”

The whole world is watching how the Republicans are manipulative, throwing out party members who don’t toe the party line, planting their own party members in-place of the voters choice, changing elections rules in their favor, and attacking LGBTQ+ community. People are starting to recognize their tyranny.

Their attacks on our rights is a toll on us and the Republicans don't even care what they are doing to us...

Zephyr said Tuesday that lawmakers and the governor had received a letter from an emergency room physician who said a transgender teenager cited the legislature’s actions as the reason for their suicide attempt. “My state doesn’t want me,” the doctor reported the patient as having said.

---

And file this under if you can’t win… cheat!

Also from Montana

Montana Republicans aim to change election rules — for one key Senate race

The Hill

By Al Weaver

April 9, 2023

Republicans in Montana are trying to change the rules for next year’s Senate primary to make it easier to defeat Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and win back the Senate majority.

A bill moving through the statehouse in Helena would change the structure of the election from the party primary system currently in place to a jungle primary in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party. The move would essentially box out Libertarian candidates.

The thinking among Republicans is that this would, theoretically, push those would-be third-party voters toward the GOP candidate and give the party a leg up against Tester, the three-term Senate Democrat who they are pining to take down this year. 

Perhaps most galling to Democrats is the provision that the law would sunset in 2025 and not be applicable to congressional races — meaning that it would only affect Tester’s race. The bill passed the state Senate on Tuesday and is expected to pass the state House, which is controlled by a GOP supermajority, in the coming weeks.

This is right out of the Republican’s playbook of dirty politics.

---

A follow-up on the two Tennessee legislators who were kicked out of the legislature and were reinstated.

Karma? Tennessee Republican Who Voted To Expel Tennessee 3 Resigns In Disgrace

Tennessee GOP lawmaker Scotty Campbell who voted to expel Black lawmakers resigns over ethics violations.

The Root

By Jessica Washington

April 21, 2023

Two weeks ago, Republican State Representative Scotty Campbell joined the crusade to get rid of the “Tennessee Three” for joining a gun control protest on the House floor. But as is so often the case in politics, it turns out his hands were far from clean.

On Thursday, Rep. Campbell resigned after it was revealed that he had violated the legislature’s workplace discrimination and harassment policy. The report itself doesn’t go into details. But Local news station WTVF reported that Campbell was found guilty of “sexually harassing at least one legislative intern, likely two, by an ethics subcommittee acting in secret.”

What’s even more bizarre about this case is that the ethics committee found that Campbell violated the ethics policy on March 29th. Campbell voted to expel the two Black lawmakers, Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, and Rep. Gloria Johnson (who ultimately kept her seat), on April 6th. That means he knew that he had violated the state legislature discrimination and harassment policy when he cast a vote to expel the three members for violating House decorum. It also means, that it’s likely House Speaker Cameron Sexton (who the letter was addressed to), saw the findings before he led the charge to oust Jones and Pearson. Sexton has not clarified when he first saw the letter.

Just another typical Republican "good old boys."

Saturday 9: I Won't Be the One to Let Go

Sam’s Saturday 9: I Won't Be the One to Let Go (2002)

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

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

1) Barbra Streisand begins by singing about dreams and wishes. What are you wishing for this morning?

Get my health back, I get out of breath just by walking to the mailbox by the street.

2) Barry Manilow sings that "anytime you need me, you'll know where I am." If a friend needs you, what's the best way to reach you (text, phone call, email, knock on the front door ...)?

Email or landline. The worst is a text, next worst is the cell phone.

3) Both of this week's artists are from Brooklyn. In addition to Barry and Barbra, Brooklyn is home to Coney Island, where America's first roller coaster debuted in 1884. Do you enjoy amusement park rides? If yes, do you have a favorite?

Nope. Not since I was a teenager, now it will throw my back out.

4) Barbra and her husband, actor James Brolin, have lived in the same Malibu home for more than 25 years. How long have you been in your current residence? Do you think you'll be moving anytime soon?

Nope, I hope that I will be able to live at my house until I croak and pushing up daisies.

5) Barry Manilow once lived in luxurious Bel Air. His neighbors were former President and Mrs. Reagan. At first he thought it would be great to have the Reagans nearby but quickly changed his mind because he disliked the Secret Service helicopters flying overhead. Tell us about one of your neighbors. (No pressure; we don't expect to hear about historic figures.)

He is a dozy. He is a MAGA. Need I say anything more? He has three Trump flags flying, and when Obama was president he had on his mailbox a picturethe with President Obama being urinated on. Needless to say I avoid him.

6) As a teenager, Barbra worked as a switchboard operator. Her job consisted of connecting calls by inserting phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. As telephoning became automated, these jobs were phased out and by 1983, the switchboard operator was obsolete. Can you think of another occupation that used to be common but doesn't exist anymore?

Toll booth ticket taker. Now it is all electronic, i just got a $1.00 bill from Massachusetts.

7) Loyal Fanilows can subscribe to ManilowTV. For $9.95/month, fans can watch exclusive content, like interviews and concert performances. Do you more often watch live broadcast TV or streamed content?

Neither. I am on a kick right now watching train videos from the cab.

8) In 2002, the year this recording was released, the Sears Wish Book offered seven different collectible Barbies. According to Mattel, the doll's manufacturer, there are more than 100,000 Barbie collectors all over the world. Do you collect anything?

Bills.

9) Random question: Are you exclusively an online/ATM bank customer, or do you often go into the branch and interact with a teller?

I go to either the drive-thru or go inside. I like to interact with the teller, many of them know me by name.

 

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 Have Been Thinking…

And you know that is dangerous.

[Editorial]

I read a lot of news media and over time I have come to realize the importance of education and what their end game is. The book banning gives a hint along with the “Don’t Say Gay” laws that bans anything LGBTQ+.

By banning anything LGBTQ+ they are teaching children who are LGBTQ+ that they are somehow “bad” something filthy and not to talk about. It also teaches the straight students that it is okay to pick on people who are different from them.

People who have a different skin color can’t talk about slavery and that keeps the truth from coming out.

People who have a different religion must be shunned. They are going to hell.

*****

The other thing that noticed is that most of the conservatives think being LGBTQ+ is a choice and I think that is the key to understanding them. They use terms like “grooming,” “lifestyle,” and "trans youth contagion" which denotes a choice. In an article on ABC News from 2010 got it right.

Being Gay a 'Lifestyle' Choice, Like Alcoholism? Politics of Homosexuality Flare in 2010 Campaign

Ken Buck says being gay a choice, likening it to alcoholism.

By Devin Dwyer

October 18, 2010

When Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck was pressed Sunday to explain his belief that being gay is a "lifestyle" choice, he compared it to alcoholism.

"I think that birth has an influence over [it], like [with] alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically you have a choice," he told David Gregory on "Meet the Press." Buck was quick to add, however, that he's no "biologist."

Buck's view -- the underpinning for conservative opposition to broader civil rights for gays and lesbians -- is hardly new. But his comments are the latest this election season to stir up national debate and draw criticism for perpetuating prejudice against gays.

Earlier this month, New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino said he does not want his children "to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option -- it isn't." 

[…]

"When a politician makes public remarks that seem to degrade or devalue a group of people, then he or she is potentially sanctioning a view that says some Americans are inherently less valuable as citizens than others," said Vanderbilt University professor Vanessa Beasley, an expert in political rhetoric.

When you stop and think for a moment it all makes sense. That is where all their hate comes from, they actually think we recruit people.

And it all comes back to education.

They don’t want anything about us in the classroom because the students might learn that being LGBTQ+ is not a choice but an inborn characteristic.

[/Editorial]

How Many Times Have You Heard…

[Editorial]

That Gender Confirming Surgery is new?

Do you remember Lili Elbe? She was the trans woman who had GCS back in 1930 at the Dresden Municipal Women's Clinic. They even made a movie about her, “The Danish Girl.”

Further back in time…

Have you heard of Chevalier D’Eon who was a master spy for the French king? She was was a French 

diplomat, soldier, and spy active in the mid to late 1700s.

Then let us not forget that one of our sixth presidents defended a trans person back in the 1770s, the case of Gray vs. Pitts. Assault and Battery.

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin lived in the 1800s and wrote as George Sand and went around Paris dressed as a man (We do not know for sure if Dupin was trans or not because back then there was no words like transgender.)

Then we have Dr Alan Hart who lived here in Connecticut also back in the late 1800s. Dr Hart lead the research of tuberculosis, heading mass x-ray programs for the State Health Department in Connecticut!

And how can we forget Christine Jorgensen who had GCS back in 1950! There are many who are still alive that knew her and she was on many TV shows and lectured around the world about being trans. 

We have been around since the first days of recorded history, some even say we are in the Bible. The Republicans want to create the lie that we are a new phenomenon just “created” recently but that is far from the truth. They want to think that it is a new epidemic taking the country by storm, they do that so they can say that they are “Saving the Children” when in reality they are destroying people’s lives.

“The answer to the problem must not lie in sleeping pills and suicides that look like accidents, or in jail sentences, but rather in life and freedom to live it.”

Christine Jorgensen

[/Editorial]

4/20 @ 4:20

Those who know me know that I indulge in the evil weed.

In the late sixties and early seventies it was everywhere… you could smell the weed when you walked down the dorm hallways, you could smell it in the parks, at the concerts, in the parking lot of McDonald’s, on the lawn of the state capitol.

I went from going up back allies to score to walking into a store and trying to decide if I want Indica or Sativa, or if I want pre-rolled or flowers.

Now stores are having specials for today.

- '420' DEALS - ONE DAY ONLY

DOLLAR MENU - select premium eighths and prepolls - for $1 (limit 2 per person)

BOGO DEALS

BOGO $15 off al Moxey Mints

BOGO $10 off all Betty’s Eddies

BOGO $10 off COAST Gummies

BOGO for $.01 Hazy OG & Hazelnut Cream Blunts

I wondered how marijuana legalization by political parties so I asked Google’s Bard,

As of March 8, 2023, 18 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana. Of these, 5 are represented by Republican governors and 13 are represented by Democratic governors.

The Republican-governed states that have legalized recreational marijuana are:

• Alaska
• Montana
• South Dakota
• Wyoming

The Democratic-governed states that have legalized recreational marijuana are:

• California
• Colorado
• Illinois
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• New York
• Oregon
• Vermont
• Washington

It is important to note that the partisan affiliation of a state's governor does not necessarily reflect the views of the state's voters on the issue of marijuana legalization. For example, in South Dakota, voters approved a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana in November 2020, but the Republican-controlled state legislature has refused to implement the measure.

Overall, the trend of marijuana legalization is bipartisan. As more and more states legalize marijuana, it is likely that we will see even more Republican-governed states follow suit.

I wonder what was the range for possession of marijuana so I asked Bard again: it goes from perfectly legal to Florida where one ounce of marijuana is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $6,000.

However, it is still illegal under federal law which results in having to use cash instead of a credit card which means that you have to carry around large amounts of cash.

I leave you Panama Red by the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

There Is No Crying In Baseball!*

And there is no two sides in our health care.

There is no debate over the medical treatment for us, every medical and mental healthcare association supports our healthcare.

With trans health care, ‘There are not two sides to the story’

Two New Hampshire health care providers talk about what the media gets wrong when it comes to covering care for transgender youths.

Boston Globe 

April 18, 2023

An attempt to ban gender affirming care for trans kids in New Hampshire was defeated in March. But providers are still seeing the fallout, even though the proposal failed.

[…]

Transgender kids are paying attention, and there are studies showing that their lives are on the line. Trans youth have higher rates of suicide and depression than young people overall, and gender affirming care has been shown to improve mental health and decrease suicidal ideation.

[…]

I spoke with pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Frances Lim-Liberty and Jessica Smith, an endocrinology nurse practitioner, who work at the pediatric and adolescent transgender health program at Dartmouth Health.

The right-wing conservatives are trying to label the healthcare that we receive as “experimental” and near having been done before. I think that the Republicans are not elephants because they have an awful short memory… they can’t even remember back to the 1950s that they so love. Do you remember Christine Jorgensen? She had Gender Confirming Surgery back in 1950 and she was called the “Blonde Beauty" by the press.

The Boston Globe had a companion article on the interview of the doctors.

Lim-Liberty and Smith addressed the most-common myths surrounding trans health care, how this care helps young people, and how terrified patients are of losing access to it.

Q: You say there’s no lower age limit about when you’ll start seeing patients at the clinics. When it comes to families with younger children, why are they seeking care?

Lim-Liberty: Many have questions. They want to know how to support their kids. They are seeking therapists and mental health specialists who understand childhood and gender identity development.

We spend a lot of time counseling. The biggest gender affirming medical care we provide is guiding the family to resources, answering questions about puberty, where to find gender neutral clothing, where to find an understanding hairdresser. We have support groups, and a library with books and educational guides. We’re trying to fill the gaps.

[…]

Q: How do you talk to parents who might not understand gender affirming health care?

Smith: Usually those kids are really hurting by the time they see us. We try to engage parents by bringing in the mental health team and talking about the importance of treatment and what that’s going to look like. When we have a young person struggling with distress related to gender dysphoria, we have to treat that in the same way we treat any other medical diagnosis. Outcomes are good.

Lim-Liberty: The most important part is sorting out the myths they’ve heard, and the biases that they hold.

So unlike the picture that the Republicans try to paint, the first treatment that a child receives is counseling. Not hormones. Not puberty blockers, but therapy.

Q: There’s a lot of talk about puberty blockers. What are they and when are they used?

Smith: There’s a big spread of disinformation about puberty blockers. Folks who have an anti-trans agenda are trying to use this as a scare tactic to say we are harming young people and that’s absolutely false.

Puberty blockers have been used in pediatric endocrinology for decades to treat precocious puberty so there is a very good amount of data demonstrating safety and efficacy. We use puberty blockers to pause puberty for young people who are exploring their gender identity.

These are completely reversible medications. If a young person wants to stop the blocker and go through their natal puberty, we can do that safely with no bad outcomes. If somebody decides to transition from a puberty blocker to gender affirming hormone therapy, we can also do that.

Lim-Liberty: There’s lots of studies showing positive impacts on mental health: dropping depression rates, dropping suicidality and suicidal ideation. Jess and I experience that every day when we’re in the transgender clinic. We see these kids change, we see them blossom, we see them become the people that they talk about wanting to become at that first visit. We see them go from being reserved and quiet to being interested in activities or opening up about something they really like.

But the right-wing Republicans do want to hear that, it doesn’t fit their narrative. They want people to believe that the first thing that happens to a child questioning their gender is to shoot them up with hormones and puberty blockers.

This is a tried and true medical approach that has been developed over decades even before Christine Jorgensen had her surgery, back all the way to the 1920s with Lili Elbe.

***

*Can you tell that I just watched “A League of There Own” the other night.

Yeah, But He One Of Our Guys!

[Editorial]

The Republicans have a code… Thou shall not go against another party member.

Case in Point #1

Representative Sontos, what has the House Ethics Committee done about him?

Case in Point #2

Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose trips paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow and all we heard from the Republicans were crickets.

Case in Point #3

Justice Clarence Thomas failed reportedly has been claiming thousands of dollars annually from a shuttered real estate firm and all we heard from the Republicans were crickets.

Case in Point #4

Republicans voted near-unanimously to weaken ethical oversight in Congress.

Robert Reich wrote,

The Republican party new ideology:

1) Power is only legitimate if Republicans wield it

2) Power must be acquired by any means necessary

3) The party is accountable to no one once it has it

[/Editorial]

---

Update to The Tearing Down Of Public Schools

As many of you know, I do not like school vouchers, well Time came out yesterday with an article about vouchers.

How School Voucher Programs Hurt Students

By Joshua Cowen

In recent months, state legislatures across the country have broadened efforts to subsidize private school tuition with taxpayer dollars. New proposals for these programs—collectively called school vouchers—have appeared in more than a dozen states and passed as major priorities for Republican governors like Kim Reynolds in Iowa and Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas. Since 2021, Arizona, Florida, Utah and West Virginia have also created or expanded voucher plans. Meanwhile, a handful states like Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Wisconsin have run voucher programs for years. But do school vouchers actually work? We need to focus on what research shows, and what that means for kids moving forward.

As an analyst who has studied these and other forms of school choice for nearly two decades, I’m in a good position to give an answer. And based on data from existing voucher programs, the answer is almost unambiguously negative.

Let’s start with who benefits. First and foremost, the answer is: existing private school students. Small, pilot voucher programs with income limits have been around since the early 1990s, but over the last decade they have expanded to larger statewide initiatives with few if any income-eligibility requirements. Florida just passed its version of such a universal voucher program, following Arizona’s passage in the fall of 2022. In Arizona, more than 75% of initial voucher applicants had never been in public school—either because they were new kindergartners or already in private school before getting a voucher. That’s a problem because many voucher advocates market these plans as ways to improve educational opportunities for public school children.

All the vouchers is widen the “haves and have-nots.” 

What explains these extraordinarily large voucher-induced declines? Aren’t private schools supposed to be elite educational opportunities? When it comes to private schools accepting voucher payments, the answer is clearly no. That’s because elite private schools with strong academics and large endowments often decline to participate in voucher plans. Instead the typical voucher school is a financially distressed, sub-prime private provider often jumping at the chance for a tax bailout to stay open a few extra years.

Vouchers are designed to drive down public schools. And that leads me to what I is the reason why the Republicans like the voucher program… it can discriminate.

And it’s not just the academic results that call into question any rhetoric around opportunities created by vouchers. Private schools can decline to admit children for any reason. One example of that is tied to the latest culture wars around LGBTQ youth, and strengthened in current voucher legislation. In Florida, a voucher-funded school made national news last summer when it banned LGBTQ children. In Indiana, pre-pandemic estimates showed that more than $16 million in taxpayer funding had already gone to voucher schools with explicit anti-LGBTQ admissions rules.

Voucher schools also rarely enroll children with special academic needs. Special education children tend to need more resources than vouchers provide, which can be a problem in public schools too. But public schools are at least obliged under federal law to enroll and assist special needs children—something private schools can and do avoid.

And they is why conservatives like them, the can get around the ADA and the non-discrimination laws.

The Down Low

GOP: passes anti-LGBTQ laws.

LGBTQ: fight back

GOP: accuses LGBTQ people of being combative

All across the nation the Republicans and passing these horrible anti-LGBTQ ignoring what medical people are saying. Passing laws that violate the Constitution with no qualms. Throwing out duly elected officials. Censoring party members that don’t tow the party line.

But tell me, what are the Republicans going to do about;

The price of gas?

What are they going do about Medicare?

What are they going to do about Social Security?

Balancing the budget, what are they going to cut? Are they going to cut taxes on the rich or raise the ta taxes for the rich?

We already know what they are going to do about abortions.

We already know what they are going to do about us.

Their agenda is not in helping the people but in punishing the LGBTQ+ community because we just want to survive. But that is too much for the Republicans they want make an example of us.

Stop and think for a second, what were the NAZI doing in the 1930s? The exact same thing that they did with the Jews, the disabled, the Romani, and us in the LGBTQ+ community.

Did you know that in Germany back then they shut down gay nightclubs, sound familiar?

Russia and Hungary have passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws just like the ones the Republicans have passed.

The Worrying Regression Of LGBT Rights In Eastern Europe

Radio Free Europe

By Tony Wesolowsky

December 23, 2021

From physical attacks to online abuse and legislative setbacks, the LBGT community in Central and Eastern Europe had little to cheer about in 2021.

Populist governments in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere were able to exploit frustrations and fears, some stoked by church leaders, some by the grinding COVID-19 pandemic, to push through anti-LGBT legislation.

It was, however, part of a wider trend over a wider swath of Europe, argues Evelyne Paradis, executive director of the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe).

"Poland and Hungary are not anomalies. In the past year, we've seen increased political repression against LGBT people, a stark rise in socioeconomic hardship, and the spreading of LGBT-phobic hatred on the streets and online across the region," Paradis told RFE/RL in e-mailed comments.

The conservatives all around the globe are attacking us! We are their scapegoats, we are their root of all evil. Just like the 1930s. They need something to stir up the rabble against us.

They ignored the referendum of the voters, NPR wrote in August of last year,

"The people of Kansas have spoken," said Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for the group. "They think that abortion should be safe, legal and accessible in the state of Kansas."

[…]

Republican state Sen. Molly Baumgardner, who supported sending the amendment to voters, said abortion opponents will need to look at new restrictions to try to decrease the number of abortions in the state.

"The defeat this evening is disappointing," she said. "That struggle for truth, and the struggle for life, is going to continue in the state of Kansas."

In Kentucky the people also spoke up, the BBC reported,

The result here follows three other pro-choice victories in this year's midterm elections: Vermont, Michigan and California have all enshrined the right to abortion in their constitution.

However, in Kentucky the result won't automatically reverse the state's current legislation, which almost entirely prohibits abortion.

We know best, not the voters!

In Ohio and Missouri Republicans tried to make it harder to pass a constitutional amendments in those states after a rash of failed amendments in other states.

The answer to counter this is the ballot box we have to turn out like we have never done before. Our lives depend upon it.

They don’t want to represent they want to rule!

They know better than the voters.

---

A snowballs chance in hell!

I just got an email from Lambda Legal about a new bill that has just been introduced…

“As the Supreme Court gets ready possibly to expand even further the ability of businesses to use religion to discriminate, the federal RFRA law absolutely needs this fix.” 

Today, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) re-introduced the Do No Harm Act, a long-overdue correction to the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which amends the law to clarify that it does not permit the use of religion to discriminate, impose religious beliefs, deny others specified goods or services, or inflict dignitary or other harm on others. Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer issued the following statement: 

“Since long before the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement even started, our communities, women, and other marginalized groups have been targeted by religion-based condemnation and restriction of equal opportunities. In recent years, too many of those who oppose the equality and inclusion of LGBTQ+ people have misused religion in their demands for exemptions from rules that should protect everyone at work, at school, in medical offices, and in social services.

[…]

“We today are awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis, where a Colorado website designer wants a free speech right to advertise her intent to discriminate and then to refuse service to same-sex couples. As the Supreme Court gets ready possibly to expand even further the ability of businesses to shun LGBTQ+ people in the commercial marketplace, it spotlights the ongoing problem of  religious divisions in public life. Misinterpretation of the federal RFRA law is a big part of that problem and why it absolutely needs this fix. Congress never intended RFRA to become, perversely, a tool for imposing religious orthodoxy and discrimination. The Do No Harm Act is an urgently needed course correction. 

“For those who hold dear the religious freedom concepts that inspired our Constitution’s framers, this bill should be a welcome reaffirmation of the do-no-harm-to-others principle that motivated passage of RFRA in the first place back in 1993. The fast-growing movement of those misusing religion for discrimination shows the urgent need for Congress to reaffirm that principle by passing this bill.”

On Rep. Bobby Scott government webpage he writes…

“When Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, it was intended to protect religious exercise—not to erode civil rights under the guise of religious freedom.  Regrettably, we have seen RFRA repeatedly used to attack civil rights protections, deny access to health care, and allow discrimination in federal contracts and programs,” said Ranking Member Scott. “The Do No Harm Act simply provides that RFRA cannot be used to limit access to health care, deny services supported by taxpayer dollars, or undermine the Civil Rights Act or other anti-discrimination protections.  Congress must take this critical step to ensure no one can weaponize religious freedom to erode our fundamental civil and legal rights.”

“The right to practice one’s religion should not come at the cost of depriving others of their civil rights,” said Sen. Booker. “That is why I am proud to join my colleagues in reintroducing the Do No Harm Act, which would protect religious freedom and ensure no one can weaponize it to deny others access to health care, government-funded services, and protections under the Civil Rights Act.”

“An honest application of a civil rights law doesn’t infringe on the civil rights of others, and doesn’t pit one group’s rights against the legitimate rights of another’s. The Do No Harm Act protects the original intent of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and corrects the courts’ misguided interpretations that have allowed the religious rights of some to be used to undermine the civil rights of others,” said Rep. Cohen, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.

“Your freedom to exercise your religion does not give you the right to violate your fellow Americans’ basic equal rights,” said Rep. Raskin. “The Do No Harm Act makes an essential clarification to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, prohibiting weaponization of the law by bad-faith actors who want to redefine freedom of religious conscience as license to discriminate. I’m grateful to my House and Senate partners in this effort who recognize that freedom from discrimination is foundational to both equality and religious liberty itself.”

Okay everyone. Raise your hand if you think that the Republicans will vote for this bill?

The Middle Tennessee State University wrote this about the law,

Congress adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 to override the Supreme Court decision in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990) and provide greater protection under the First Amendment free exercise clause.

[…]

In Smith, the Court upheld a decision by an Oregon state agency to deny unemployment benefits to two Native Americans who were dismissed from drug counseling jobs because they had tested positive for peyote, a hallucinogenic drug. Both men had ingested the drug in a Native American religious ceremony.

And out of that law that was passed for well intended purpose the courts have ruled that the law nullifies the anti-discrimination laws.

Titles VII & IX

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces, among other statutes,

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Title IX states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Then we have Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Title VI and Race, Color and National Origin Discrimination

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

That is the law!

You cannot discriminate. Period.

Now wouldn’t you like to know what discrimination is? How to prevent it? What to do if it happens?

However, the states of Florida, Texas, and other Republican states don’t want you to know anything about Title IX.

GOP states targeting diversity, equity efforts in higher ed

AP News

By David A. Lieb

April 17, 2023

Frustrated by college diversity initiatives he says are “fomenting radical and toxic divisions,” Texas state Rep. Carl Tepper set out to put an end to diversity, equity and inclusion offices in higher education.

The freshman Republican lawmaker filed a bill to ban such offices. Three months later, he filed a new version of the legislation doing the same thing. The difference? Tepper switched the wording to align with a new model bill developed by the Manhattan Institute and Goldwater Institute, a pair of conservative think tanks based in New York and Arizona, respectively.

Republican lawmakers in at least a dozen states have proposed more than 30 bills this year targeting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education, an Associated Press analysis found using the bill-tracking software Plural. The measures have become the latest flashpoint in a cultural battle involving race, ethnicity and gender that has been amplified by prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, potential rivals for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.

Now keep in mind that… it is a federal law. The states are putting schools and colleges between a rock and a hard place.

University of Missouri medical students have lobbied against the legislation, asserting it could jeopardize the school’s accreditation and prevent doctors from learning about unique circumstances affecting the health of people from various ethnic, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds.

“We’re not just hurting ourselves, we’re hurting patients if these bills get passed,” medical student Jay Devineni said.

You Know Where I Stand.

I am against vouchers, they skim off the cream and throw out those don’t fit their mold.

Plans for religious charter school, though rejected for now, are already pushing church-state debates into new territory

The Conversation

By Charles J. Russo

April 17, 2023

U.S. courts have long wrestled with the extent to which government funding can be used at private religious schools. School-choice advocates have won key cases at the Supreme Court in recent years, opening up more ways for public dollars to support faith-based education. But Oklahoma pushed the debate into unchartered territory this spring with a proposal for a school that would have been the first of its kind: a Catholic charter, primarily paid for by taxpayers.

On April 11, 2023, the five-person board responsible for approving Oklahoma charters unanimously voted to reject the proposal, due to concerns about its governance structure and plans for special education students, among other issues. However, it gave organizers 30 days to revise the proposal and try again.

Special education students are one of my concerns, private schools do not have to accept them.

Nevertheless, faith-based charters are likely to raise new headaches for their supporters, too. Charters are largely exempt from some state standards, but not all, and faith-based schools that converted into charters could be subject to greater government oversight about issues such as policies on LGBTQ+ students and staff – a longtime sticking point – or having to accept students with disabilities, just as all public schools do.

While this legal battle is just heating up, it has the potential to reshape public education as we have know it.

My concerns are:

1. Many private schools do not take special education students.
2. Many private schools do not take under-achievers.
3. Many private schools do not take LGBTQ+ students.
4. Many religions do not allow their parishioners go to schools of other religions.
5. Funding to public schools might be cut.
6. Private schools do not have to obey state and federal laws, for one thing their teachers do not have to meet state standards.

I am concerns that vouchers might be the beginning of the death of public schools.

---

Meanwhile down in Florida!

Florida vouchers raise concerns about testing, funding
A roundup of Florida education news from around the state
Tampa Bay Times
By Jeffrey S. Solochek
April 17, 2023

Lawmakers haven’t agreed on a budget to pay for them in advance of the July 1 start date.

[...]

The issue has local school district officials skittish as they await more details.

[…]

Some parents also have concerns about the new law, as it would add testing requirements to home school students who accept a voucher, Epoch Times reports.

I have concerns… what will happen if a parent got a check for $3000, how much of that would go for their child education when they are struggling to put food on the table.

Book challenges: The Escambia Book challenges: The Escambia County School Board has paused all challenged book reviews while awaiting more state guidance on laws governing book selection, the Pensacola News-Journal reports.

Campus diversity: Some graduating college seniors said they might not have come to Florida colleges and universities if they didn’t have diversity and equity programs, WMFE reports.

History lessons: Some Collier County families are criticizing their children’s middle school for airing a video on “Confederate History Month” during morning announcements, WBBH reports. The teacher who made the video, which cast the Civil War as the “war to prevent Southern independence,” is under investigation by the district.

There is no accountability!

They could teach that the Civil War was fought to stop the oppression of the northern states or that the Earth is only 3,000 years old and dinosaurs lived when humans were around.

The big question is why are the Republicans are pushing so hard for vouchers?

This Is What I Have Been Saying!

I have been calling at the anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation a pogrom and now there are others who see all these laws as a genocide of the LGBTQ community just like the 1930s in Germany.

Statement on the Genocidal Nature of the Gender Critical Movement’s Ideology and Practice

November 29, 2022

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention voices its concern over the growing number of laws introduced in the United States that target transgender individuals and the transgender community. Anti-trans hostility in the US has become a staple of the Republican Party’s election strategy and is clearly being used to stoke voters’ fears of a changing world by raising the specter of a malevolent polluting force tied to liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and democracy. The Lemkin Institute believes that the so-called “gender critical movement” that is behind these laws is a fascist movement furthering a specifically genocidal ideology that seeks the complete eradication of trans identity from the world.

The gender critical movement is a loose international affiliation of people and groups who promote far-right ideas that have gained a degree of centrist respectability through their purported defense of women. The movement alleges that people cannot determine their own sex or gender, and that the genitalia observed by doctors at birth are the final determinants of biological sex as well as the permanent markers of gender belonging. Focusing primarily on the imagined threat posed by transgender women, gender critical ideologues believe that transgender women are in fact men who are seeking to dominate cisgender women (women whose sense of self corresponds with their birth sex) by impersonating them and thereby gaining access to women’s bathrooms, women’s locker rooms, women’s sports teams, and other women’s spaces. They routinely accuse transgender people of being mentally ill and believe that the parents, family members, and medical professionals who support transgender people are commiting morally reprehensible acts against the transgender individuals (by nurturing their ‘illness’) and against society at large (by permitting dangerous people and ideas to take root).

The ideological constructions of transgender women promoted by gender critical ideologues are particularly genocidal. They share many features in common with other, better known, genocidal ideologies. Transgender women are represented as stealth border crossers who seek to defile the purity of cisgender women, much as Tutsi women were viewed in Hutu Power ideology and Jewish men in Nazi antisemitism. Trans people in general are framed as figures that threaten the wholeness of the patriarchal nuclear family as well as the strength and vitality of national communities, much in the way that ethnic and national targets of genocide are viewed as cosmic enemies of the perpetrator group. Like the religious targets of genocidal violence, trans people are often described as somehow polluted, sinful, or against God. They are blamed for a host of social problems that have nothing to do with them or with the free expression of their identities. The Lemkin Institute reminds readers that one of the first libraries to be burned under the National Socialists in Germany was the library and archive of Magnus Hirshfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, a groundbreaking research organization studying human sexuality and gender. The Nazis, like other genocidal groups, believed that national strength and existential power could only be achieved through an imposition of a strict gender binary within the racially-pure “national community.” A fundamentalist gender binary was a key feature of Nazi racial politics and genocide.

[…]

In the United States, the Republican Party has introduced a barrage of anti-transgender laws and policies in multiple states since 2016. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 286 anti-transgender bills introduced between January 1, 2021 and October 13, 2022. Most of the anti-trans bills that have been passed and signed into law across the country have to do with the eligibility of trans athletes to participate in school sports. Thankfully, many of the most dangerous bills have not been enacted into law (yet), including bill KS SB214 (Kansas Senate Bill 214), which criminalized gender reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapy for minors, and MO HB2086 (Missouri House Bill 2086), a bill that would prohibit a person from changing their gender marker on their birth certificate. All these laws seek to create a society that is hostile to the very idea of trans identity and in which it is impossible to live openly and legally as a trans person.

They also see it as based on lies, design to stir up animosity against us, stirring up bias crimes, and riling up their right-wing conservative base.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention points out that the gender critical movement is not about protecting women. It is about exacting control over the bodies of marginalized people and thrusting them outside of the community of moral obligation if they fail to conform to the norms of the gender that has been assigned to them by others. In other words, the gender critical movement seeks to control the deepest aspects of human experience and self-knowledge through genocidal aggressions against an historically marginalized and silenced community that has just begun to flourish and gain acceptance. The gender critical movement is a totalitarian and genocidal social force that targets not just transgender people, but also all the institutions of democracy that protect individual and collective human rights.

They equate it with what the US, Canada, and Australian did to the indigenous peoples, “kill the Indian, [and] save the man.” justifying the eradication of a culture.

The pogrom is not just an American phenomenal but a global genocide.

Drag Event Controversy In My Old Stomping Grounds

Up in Monroe Country New York where I went to college in Rochester just weasel out of a law suit over Drag Queens.

Pittsford relents on security fee for drag story hour

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

By Justin Murphy

April 12, 2023

The town of Pittsford on Wednesday backed down on a demand for $8,500 in additional security costs for a drag story hour at the town community center following protests from the New York Civil Liberties Union, state legislators and town residents.

The nonprofit organization holding the event, Pittsford CommUNITY, earlier decided to relocate to Book Culture, a bookstore in the village of Pittsford, in the face of the security fee, and it will remain there this Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m. There now will be another similar event at the community center next Sunday, April 23, also from 2 to 3 p.m.

Pittsford CommUNITY earlier this year reserved a room in the community center for an hourlong storytelling and children's event featuring three drag performers. After hearing from protesters, the town told the organization it would have to pay $8,500 for security and additional staffing due to "reasonable concerns for public safety."

That led to a heated community debate over the appropriateness of the event itself and also of the town's actions, including a remark by Supervisor Bill Smith that the organizers were "a group of people desperate to seek (victim status)."

Why did they back down?

Why? Because of a law suit, what else?

On April 9, attorneys from the NYCLU protested in writing to town leaders, calling the proposed fee a "prior restraint" — that is, a form of government censorship that blocks legally protected speech from occurring. They cited the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court case Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, in which a Georgia county was barred from increasing its event permit fee to cover anticipated security costs related to a white nationalist rally.

"The town’s imposition of the proposed fee here — which went from $0 to $8,518 — is explicitly based on the content of CommUNITY’s message and on the hostility of anticipated protests, and it is therefore squarely prohibited by Forsyth," the NYCLU lawyers wrote.

And the town knew they were in the wrong.

But the town in their temper tantrum banned all functions from town property. According to Rochester First.com,

“The public is no longer allowed to reserve the Port of Pittsford gazebo and other open community spaces; new rules effectively preclude their use by nonprofits such as Pittsford CommUNITY,” the group’s statement reads. “‘Reservation for events to be publicly promoted to the general public are not allowed’ has been added to the recreation center room use rules and the Pavillion reservation rules. Additionally the wording is subjective and can now cause people to be prohibited from future facility use for breaking any rules.”

You see they want to make it our fault that everything is banned, they knew that they couldn’t defend their position in court so they banned everybody from it. Just like a ten year old who takes all his marbles away if he couldn’t get his way.

The D&C goes on to write,

"It is disappointing to see the efforts of our own elected government leaders stifle free expression within our community and erode community members’ sense of belonging," they wrote. "While there have been complaints about the event — many based on ignorance and mischaracterization — permitting the event and protest of the event allows necessary dialogue to happen within households and communities in a way that displacing the event will not."

[…]

Pittsford CommUNITY has said it will provide its own security for the events, and the Monroe County Sheriff's Office plans to monitor from outside.

***********

Let me digress for a moment.

Back in my college days (Winter of 1974) I had a run in with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office set up a roadblock for me when I ran a yellow light at 2 AM. Yup, you read that right.

I can around a corner there were two police cars across the deserted country road. One of the deputies came sauntering up to my car and said, “Boy, the sheriff want to talk to you.” and that is when I got a lecture on what a yellow light means (Hint: It does not mean to speed up.).

In reality they just were looking for an excuse to bust an out-of- state college kid. Booze? Drugs? That funny weed. My car had 1) Connecticut plates, 2) Skies on top of the car (We were coming back from Bristol Mountain Ski Resort, 3) A college decal on the back window making me a prime suspect for boozes or drugs.

Translated: Pittsford and Monroe County is Republican territory. 

Do As I Say, Not As I Do.

How many times have you heard about Republicans doing dastardly deeds in the bathroom or in the their office. Well another anti-LGBTQ+ legislator got caught doing dastardly deeds to his intern.

Lawmaker who wants to ban kids from drag shows accused of ‘inappropriate relationship’ with intern

Pink News UK

By Danai Nesta Kupemba

April 12, 2023

A former pastor turned Republican lawmaker, who called for minors to be protected from “perverted” LGBTQ+ adults, has been accused of having an “inappropriate relationship” with an intern.

Texas state representative Bryan Slaton is under investigation for allegedly inviting a 19-year-old intern to his Austin apartment after 10pm on 31 March and offering her alcohol. In Texas, providing alcohol to a minor (under 21) is a misdemeanour, punishable by a $4,000 (approximately £3,200) maximum fine and up to a year in jail.

The complaint, obtained by The Texas Tribune, was reported to the House General Investigating Committee by a legislative staffer. The account was corroborated by another Capitol employee.

But we are the evil ones! We are supposedly who are not to be trusted with children!

The account in the Texas Tribune said,

Patrick Short, the attorney for Slaton, issued a statement Monday morning saying his firm is representing Slaton over a complaint, but provided few details. “We are aware of outrageous claims circulating online by second-tier media that make false claims against Representative Slaton,” Short said. “As a result, he has been advised to forward all inquiries in this matter—including any that may relate to a possible complaint—to his legal counsel.”

Short did not identify the specific claims — or media — he was referring to, and he declined to comment further when reached by the Tribune.

Yup, that is the Republican way… attack the media! Cast innuendos against everyone involved in the case. Now let us not forget that he was a pastors… who likes to romp with young girls in bed.

Slaton has been married to his current wife since 2017, and filed for divorce in April 2022, according to court filings. They agreed to cease the divorce in November. He is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. According to his website, he’s also worked as a youth pastor at numerous Southern Baptist churches in Texas.

He is known as one of the farthest-right members of the Texas House and a thorn in the side of his party’s leadership. He was first elected in 2021, defeating a longtime Republican incumbent he criticized as too moderate.

Yet he demonizes us in his “holier than thou” attitude.