Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
The 30-second ad from the Progress Action Fund (PAF) depicts a white-haired man in a suit sitting inside a bathroom stall. A young girl trying to use the bathroom then opens the stall door and screams upon seeing him.
“I’m your Republican Congressman,” he tells her in a raspy voice. “Now that we’re in charge, I’m checking to make sure there’s no trans people in the wrong bathroom.”
The girl responds, “Bathrooms are private. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“I won the last election, and this is my priority,” the Congressman replies. And in perhaps the most powerful moment, the ad ends with a close-up of the generic Republican’s face as he creepily says, “Now let’s make sure you’re really a girl.”
The ad will air on television in both Texas and Ohio as part of a broader $1 million ad buy.
“Americans want their elected officials to lower gas prices and end the war in Iran, not follow them into the f–king restroom,” Progress Action Fund executive director Joe Jacobson said in a statement. “Republicans are creepy as hell. Democrats need to grow a spine and call Republicans out for their creepy fetish of monitoring children’s bathrooms.”
Personally, I think the ad - which is being praised for its directness - should air in more places around the country.
A school sign makes fun of Donald Trump's lie that schools are conducting transgender surgeries on children.
How desperate is Donald Trump to change the possible huge defeat of Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections? So desperate that he is falling back on his lies about the trans community which some say helped him win in 2024.
At a recent rally in Georgia, Trump claimed that schools in six states are secretly conducting trans surgeries on children.
At a rally in Georgia on Friday, he said, “We got critical race theory and transgender mutilization (sic) insanity out of our schools. I mean, we have five states where your child goes off to school as Tim and comes back as Tammy, three or four days later. It’s true. And teachers make – somebody makes a decision. Can you imagine? ‘Goodbye, Timmy. I love you so much. I’ll see you later.’ And you say, ‘Where’s my son? My son is in the hospital.’ Can you imagine? Can you imagine? They don’t even need approval. It’s sick. You’ll have five – I think Minnesota and some others – I think it’s five or six states. You know that, right?”
CNN factchecked this claim and found it to be . . . wait for it . . . a lie.
There is no state in which schools would not need parental approval to send a child to a hospital for elective surgery. And just like in 2024, experts in gender identity care told CNN that they do not know of a single case in which a US school had secretly sent a child away for gender surgery.
The White House itself couldn’t provide one example proving Trump’s claim. Five conservative organizations we contacted in search of any examples did not respond.
The CNN article goes into more detail as to why this claim is a lie. I would suggest that folks read it.
This is not the first time this year that Trump has told wild stories about the trans community. In August, he claimed that hospitals were performing "reverse" trans surgeries at his orders. Of course, that comment was called out for the bullshit it is:
Adrian Shanker, who served in the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for health policy and senior adviser on LGBTQI+ health equity at the Department of Health and Human Services, tells The Advocate that Trump’s confusion demonstrates why politicians should not make personal medical decisions
.
“I don’t really know what President Trump means by reverse surgeries, but the reality is that he should leave medical decision-making up to the patient and their providers to discuss what medical care is right for a certain patient,” Shanker says. “These kinds of decisions really don’t have room for politicians in the middle of that conversation.”
Trump’s “wild statement,” Shanker says, is evidence that politicians do not belong in the “patient-provider dyad.”
Trump and the Republican wasted the two years they had full power. They did nothing for the American people except making our lives more difficult by not doing anything about high prices, inflation, or the poor economy. And then there is that unnecessary war Trump got us into with Iran; the war presently going on with no end in sight.
Eager to change the subject and scare Americans into giving them another two years in power, they are pulling ugly rabbits out of dark hats by labeling Democrats as communists and - as seen here - conjuring up the image of transgender boogeyman eager to snatch up children and do surgeries on them.
We've seen them do stuff like this before and the fact that the president of the United States is telling an absolutely ludicrous lie to what seems to be a desensitized public and press could be seen as shocking.
But is it?
People are constantly asking why their fellow Americans put up with Trump. Why do they bend over backwards to support or make excuses for his lies?
The answer is easy, you dummies.
It's because the power and prestige of the presidency. When members of his cabinet figuratively bend at the knee in meetings with him or when Franklin Graham debases his own alleged religious integrity by ignoring Trump's lies while overinflating his nonexistent virtues, it's not because they are devoted followers of Donald Trump. It's not because they love him. They are drooling, power-hungry sycophants eager to curry his favor for what he can dole out from his position as (ugh) leader of the free world.
Whether it be basic access for an article, a prestigious job in government, conservative judges, being photographed with him, publicity from being around him, or at the very least an inflated sense of self-esteem because you support him, the key to Trump's power isn't Trump. It's simply the old story about the lure of power.
Still, it's a sad realization that Americans gave virtually unlimited power to a geriatric moron. It's an even sadder contemplation that many of these same Americans are willing to make every lie he tells, every error he makes, and every death he causes look like the miracles of Jesus as long as they can feed off of his undeserving presidential teat.
It all proves that voting is not only the power we have, but also the power we give. That's something we should remember.
On October 17, Famously Hot SC Pride hosted its annual festival in downtown Columbia SC where LGBTQ folks and our allies enjoyed a day of fun, fellowship, and family. As usual, I had a good time and brought back pictures. No one should ever accuse me of being a professional photographer, but I enjoy taking pictures of pride events.
LGBTQ people are unfortunately inundated with stories about how our Pride events are exercises in lewd behavior where we run around naked and perform graphic sex acts in front of children. I don't know anything about that, and I have yet to see anything like that in the 20+ years I have attended and helped to organize Pride events in South Carolina. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen (in other places), just I don't where any of that happens and frankly, I don't care. These pictures below represent the LGBTQ community I am a part of, love, and will fight for with every breath of my body.
Because the LGBTQ community in general (and that includes ALL of us) is WORTH fighting for.
Usually, I am not one for trigger warnings, but a huge exception needs to be made for this one, particularly for my transgender brothers and sisters. The proper word to use for this caller to Isaiah Martin's show is psychotic. Martin can usually tear conservative Republican talking points to shreds, but I think he was left a little speechless over the caller's tirade.
Maybe the word "psychotic" was too polite of a word to describe the caller.
How about rabidly unhinged and basically stupid. What else can one call this man as he raged about transgender men using the women's restrooms (he didn't know the difference between trans men and trans women) or how the thought of a trans person using the restroom (which he described in very graphic terms) next to his three-year-old daughter (his direct quote was "his three-year-old f%king daughter.") scares him. And let's not forget when he mentions the 36 occasions which he can pull up proving that trans men use the women's restrooms (he continues to get trans men and trans women mixed up.)
On one hand, the interaction is funny. This man is nothing more than a guinea pig. He's the proverbial drooling dog of the Pavlovian experiment conditioned to see trans predators in the corners of every public restroom as if they are mythical monsters waiting in ponds to snatch children who venture to close to water's edge. On the other, it's both sad and scary when one realizes that this man is the type to attack trans women for simply using the restroom.
And then there is the question that so many in the comments section of the tweet asked:
Why would he allow his three-year-old daughter to use a public restroom by herself?
The right-wing social media ecosystem did their work to spread a lie about James Talarico's mental health. But then the lie was exposed, leaving them scrambling to backtrack.
I have my fingers crossed regarding the upcoming mid-term election because I refuse to take anything for granted. One thing is for sure at least right now - Trump and the Republicans are running scared and fearing a huge blue wave.
That is evidenced by an ugly rumor their ecosystem spread about one of the Democratic candidates giving them the vapors. It was a rumor which delightfully backfired.
The possible MVP of the midterms is James Talarico, the Democratic senatorial candidate for Texas. He has led the controversial and corrupt state attorney general Ken Paxton in the polls, and it has the MAGA influencers worried. So worried in fact that they recently started a rumor that Talarico took an absence from the campaign because of a mental health episode and checked himself into a mental health center in Ohio. They were full speed in pushing the lie until it blew up in their faces:
Over just a few days, it went from an admitted rumor; to some like former Los Angeles GOP mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt claiming they had actual sources; to winks and nods from Talarico’s GOP opponent Ken Paxton and President Donald Trump; to right-wing sites covering the still-baseless claims; to some attempted independent journalism that has been repeatedly promoted by Elon Musk.
By Sunday afternoon, a pair of right-wing influencers shared audio of what they said was a call with a mental health center in Ohio seemingly confirming that Talarico had just been released from its facility.
. . . The story then exploded on the right. But it just as quickly fell apart.
The Bulwark and others obtained the full phone call showing the apparent employee had previously and repeatedly flatly denied any record of Talarico being at the facility. She only said the above quote after being unable to locate any records for a person who told her Talarico was her cousin and had been staying there.
The timeline didn’t even match up. The influencer said the call was placed on Saturday evening, so that would mean Talarico would have been discharged Saturday evening. But Talarico had already appeared publicly in Texas the night before and did so again on Saturday night.
The mental health center, called the Lindner Center of Hope, has now denied Talarico was ever there: “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.”
Talarico says he has never even been to Ohio.
The article goes on to point out which MAGA Republicans are either deleting their tweets, backtracking, or staying firm in an attempt to pick some sense out of the nonsense they started.
Then there are the attacks on transgender Americans. In spite of the fact that Americans are more concerned with affordability, healthcare, Trump's war with Iran, and other vital issues, Republicans are hoping visions of spooky transgender predators will get reap them as much success as it was claimed to have done in the 2024 elections.
With the help of Elon Musk, who has thus far spent $100 million (that's right - ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS) on anti-trans ads targeting Democrats, Republicans are trying very hard to distract voters from Trump's dismal record and their above and beyond the call of duty acquiesces to his madness.
Let me break down their attempts in three columns:
Failure - With the help of Soren Aldaco, an anti-trans activist, Republicans ran an ad accusing Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democratic senatorial candidate, of supporting trans surgery for minors. That attempt blew up in their faces when the certain facts - seen below - came out about Aldaco.
Maybe mixed success, but still tacky:
Donald Trump shared this absolutely ridiculous ad attacking South Carolina senatorial candidate Annie Andrews, while mocking her as "Annie 'Trannie' Andrews." Andrews responded back with an ad of her own, vocalizing anti-trans tropes:
“So I want you to hear me loud and clear: I don’t support biological men playing women’s sports and I don’t support — and haven’t ever performed — gender surgery for minors,” Andrews says.
Trump's attack was the latest in a barrage of anti-trans nonsense thrown at Andrews by ads from her opponent and the current Republican Senator Darlene Graham. The ad can be seen as a possible mixed success because it made Andrews respond in a way which affirmed anti-trans tropes and have gotten some of her supporters angry with her. Trust me when I say this because I am a South Carolinian and we are knee deep in this mess. Time will tell if Andrews' attempt to distance herself hurts her campaign.
Coming across as desperate:
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is running this inane anti-trans ad in a bid to attract Spanish speaking voters.
Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is targeting Spanish-speaking voters with an AI-generated ad that shows a caricature of a trans girl playing soccer against high school girls.
. . . The ad is airing in Spanish, but the New York Post shared an English-language version. It appears to be entirely AI-generated, and it opens with a father kissing his high school-aged daughter on the forehead at a soccer game before she runs to the field. The father asks, “Who is that?”
“New starter,” a man says without even looking up from his phone. “Last week she declared herself a girl.”
The player, portrayed as a cis man with a mustache who appears to be around 30, is shown pushing the high school girls around on the field. While this person is supposed to represent a high school-age trans girl, the AI portrayal looks so much like a cis man that even the Post described the character as “a transgender man” twice.
“Who allowed this?” the father, who is now inexplicably standing in the middle of the field, asks as dramatic music plays.
“That? That was me,” AI-generated Becerra, who is also in the middle of the soccer field, responds. The name “Xavier Becerra” appears on the screen, even though this isn’t a clip of Becerra. “I fought for boys to play in girls’ sports, and I’ll keep doing it as governor.”
“What if they get hurt?” the father asks.
“Sorry,” AI Becerra says, smiling.
Hilton's ad can be seen as desperate because, as the article points out, Becerra is leading Hilton by double digits.
October is LGBTQ History Month and on an annual basis, Equality Forum spotlights 31 iconic figures of LGBTQ history. This year is no different, but I think the choices will be seen as controversial, particularly a former president of the United States and a senator who was assaulted on the Congressional floor because his stance against slavery.
In light of efforts by the Trump Administration and their allies to erase LGBTQ history, videos like this are vital to our community.
A Republican group is running a political ad featuring anti-trans activist Soren Aldaco. The ad accuses U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown of supporting trans surgery for minors and implies that Aldaco's transition was somehow Brown's fault. As seen by the graphic courtesy of a news report from ABC affiliate WEWS, the ad is highly deceptive on both accusations.
In the 2024 election, scapegoating trans people, particularly trans children, was deemed a winning issue for the Republican party.
Two years later people are slowly finding out that responding positively to spooky Republican ads about trans athletes, trans prisoners, or "trans surgeries for minors" didn't do anything to improve their healthcare, bring down prices, bring back jobs, or keep us out of war. This means conjuring up images of transgender boogeymen for the 2026 midterms doesn't seem to be having the same impact it did in 2024.
But Republicans continue go about this course of action and in Ohio, they just got publicly called out for lying
A reelection advertisement created by a Republican super PAC in support of Ohio Senator Jon Husted misleads viewers into thinking that a young person’s gender transition was somehow Democratic opponent Sherrod Brown’s fault due to failed state-level policies. There’s only one problem: the person in the ad is not from Ohio and was a legal adult when she transitioned.
On September 24, the Senate Leadership Fund, which bills itself as the “only outside organization solely dedicated to protecting and expanding the Republican Senate Majority,” debuted the ad, “Sherrod Brown Does Whatever Extremists Demand,” aimed at linking the Ohio Democrat with gender-affirming care for minors, an ongoing wedge issue in the upcoming midterm elections.
In the ad, 23-year-old Texan Soren Aldaco states that after a “20-minute meeting,” doctors told her parents that she was transgender, which led to “hormone shots” and a “botched double mastectomy,” which caused her “years of trauma.” She claims in the video that the surgery happened when she was a child.
After telling her story, Aldaco then links her personal situation to Brown’s alleged pro-trans policies, saying that Brown “supports sex change surgery for minors” and “admitted he would never oppose it.”
Aldaco closes the ad by saying that Brown does “whatever extremists demand,” including “anything to hold onto power.”
According to them, ABC affiliate WEWSand Politifact revealed that the ad is a highly deceptive. WEWS ran a news segment about it (see graphic above.) Politifact posted a segment about it.
When contacted by PolitiFact about the 2026 ad, Senate Leadership Fund spokesperson Chris Gustafson cited Brown’s July 19, 2023, interview with WSYX-TV in Columbus, Ohio. That was also the sole source cited in the group’s 2024 ad, and in its other 2026 Ohio ads.
The segment discussed legislation backed by then-Sen. JD Vance, the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which Brown opposed. The measure would have made it a felony for doctors to provide surgery or prescribe puberty blockers to anyone younger than 18.
In the interview, Brown said, “A child’s health care decisions are between them, their parents, their families, their doctors — not politicians. I will never agree with anybody that wants to bring politics into the family situation with health care, period.’”
Gustafson said this means Brown “does not support any limitations on transgender or gender-affirming procedures on children.”
The wording of the 2026 ad goes further than the 2024 ad, which also mentioned “puberty blockers.” Nothing in Brown’s remarks to WSYX shows that he would force surgery on anyone.
The ad remains up on Youtube and in response, Brown ran his own ad:
#OHSen: Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) is up on TV with this response spot on the trans issue --
Warren from Johnstown to camera:
"Here they go again, those same attacks against Sherrod Brown"
Mary from Granville:
"With everything going on, that's what they're talking about?"
Mike from Richwood:
"In Ohio, it's against the law to perform transgender surgeries on kids. That's right, it's illegal"
