Those of us on my side are probably desensitized with how many times conservatives reveal themselves to be hypocrites. They do it so much that it's lost the shock value necessary to get people motivated. But the solution, as difficult as it sounds, is to not give in. Particularly in the case of the awful school shooting which took place in Nashville on Monday. Too many of these things have happened and we know the main reason why. It's the easy ability in this country for folks to get guns, even the guns which go way beyond self-protection.
And no matter how many times school shootings happen, it doesn't seem that Congress is going to do anything about it. Their priorities are in the wrong place as this video of Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett proves. He's all for acting against drag shows, but when it comes to school shootings, his opinion changes on an embarrassing level.
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett on drag queens vs mass shootings. This demonstrates perfectly the complete moral rot of Tennessee politicians.
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) March 28, 2023
Drag: "We're not going to put up with it.
Mass shootings: "We're not gonna fix it."pic.twitter.com/e6lCpEE5YK
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| NC Lt Gov Mark Robinson |
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| Jared Woodfill |
In 2016, former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill received an urgent warning about Paul Pressler, his longtime law partner and a Southern Baptist leader. In an email, a 25-year-old attorney from Woodfill’s Houston firm said he’d recently gone to lunch with Pressler, who told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch.Woodfill — an outspoken anti-gay politician and prominent conservative activist who’d just played a key role defeating an equal rights ordinance for LGBTQ Houstonians — responded to the young man’s request for help with shock and indignation. “This 85-year-old man has never made any inappropriate comments or actions toward me or any one I know of,” he wrote of Pressler at the time.But new court records show that wasn’t true.In recent sworn testimony, Woodfill said he’d known since 2004 of an allegation that Pressler had sexually abused a child. Woodfill learned of those claims, he said, during mediation of an assault lawsuit filed against Pressler that he helped quietly settle for nearly a half-million dollars at the time. Despite his knowledge of the accusation, Woodfill continued to work with Pressler for nearly a decade — leaning on Pressler’s name and reputation to bolster their firm, Woodfill & Pressler LLP.
Rather than pay him a salary, Woodfill testified, the firm provided Pressler a string of employees to serve as personal assistants, most of them young men who typically worked out of his River Oaks mansion. Two have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.Woodfill led the Harris County Republican Party from 2002 to 2014 and has for years been at the helm of anti-LGBTQ and other hardline conservative movements in Houston and Texas. In 2015, amid tense debate over a Houston equal rights ordinance that would have made LGBTQ workplace discrimination illegal, he and well-known GOP power broker Steven Hotze co-led a campaign that, among other things, said the measure would allow children to be sexually groomed and abused in bathrooms, paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars in opposition advertisements and compared the gay rights movement to Nazis.
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| I'd rather have drag queens around kids than this guy. |
The video below speaks for itself. Folks need to leave drag queens alone and worry about the folks claiming that kids need protection from drag queens.
Observe the contrast between the vicious hate outside today’s Drag Story Hour, and the love and positivity inside. Awful that the families were exposed to it on their way in. Thank you @NewYorkStateAG for hosting this reading event at @LGBTCenterNYC today! pic.twitter.com/uy22dmw5L0
— Erik Bottcher (@ebottcher) March 20, 2023
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| A Utah parent is demanding that the Bible be banned from school libraries in accordance to a new state law banning pornographic materials in schools. The parent submitted eight pages of Bible verses to back up their claim. |
In all honesty, the parent has a point based upon the law. The Bible is a wonderful book but it is also chock full of sex and extreme violence:
From The Salt Lake City Tribune:
Frustrated by the books being removed from school libraries, a Utah parent says there’s one that hasn’t been challenged yet, but that they believe should be, for being “one of the most sex-ridden books around.” So they’ve submitted a request for their school district in Davis County to now review the Bible for any inappropriate content.“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.” The code cited is the Utah law passed in 2022 to ban any books containing “pornographic or indecent” content from Utah schools, both in libraries and in the classroom. It came after outcry from conservative parents groups, who have been pushing to have titles removed.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the parent, who remains unidentified for privacy reasons, submitted their challenge on Dec. 11 along with an eight-page list of passages from the Bible that they found to be offensive and worth reviewing.. . . “Get this PORN out of our schools,” the parent wrote. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk.”
The eight-page list starts with passages from Genesis that mention sex, alcohol, nudity, rape and incest. A quote from Genesis 19:8 reads: “See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish.”Genesis 19:35-36 adds: “Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.”The other citations highlight similar themes, including passages mentioning “whoredom” and “breasts” and “fornication.”
“There was a purpose to the bill and this kind of stuff, it’s very unfortunate,” he said. “There are any number of studies that directly link sexualization and hyper-sexualization with sexual exploitation and abuse. Certainly, those are things we don’t want in schools.”“For people to minimize that and to make a mockery of it is very sad,” Ivory added.
So many conservatives who shout "let kids be kids" and "parents should raise their kids, not the government" are basic hypocrites. All of their prattle is a smokescreen to cover up their prejudices and attempts to undermine the lives and rights of transgender Americans. Their actions against this community belies both their mantras.
If they actually believed in letting kids be kids and letting parents raise their own kids, they would heed the words of Jennifer Koslow. She is a Florida parent and the mother of a trans child. Legislation proposed in Florida against gender-affirming healthcare would do her family great harm.
She makes her case in The Tallahassee Democrat
I am the parent of a transgender child. I should have the fundamental right to determine what is in the best interests of my child's health and education. HB 1421 & SB 254 that ban gender-affirming medical care for minors (and put conditions on medical care for adults), HB 1403/SB 1580, "Protections of Medical Conscience," and HB 1223/HB 1069/SB 1320, which expands legislation related to Educational Institutions and Instruction Requirements will all have the same impact. They undermine my parental authority.My family, and no family I know, has ever made a medical decision regarding their transgender child without consulting a team of physicians. Having gender dysphoria is not being "confused." It is a condition where a person's feelings about their body are out of alignment with the physical traits of their body. For some (but not all), gender dysphoria creates extreme distress.Thirty years of data on puberty blockers tell us that this is a safe medication to temporarily pause puberty. As transgender children become adolescents, gradually taking gender-affirming hormones is only done as an informed decision for them and their parents. HB 1421 & SB 254 undermines a parent's fundamental right to make medical decisions for their child in consultation with their physicians.
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| Former FL legislator Joe Harding |
I posted about the hypocrisy of former FL GOP state legislator Joe Harding last year when this first went down. The follow-up is an appropriate reminder.
From Raw Story
Joe Harding, the now-former Florida Republican lawmaker who authored the extremist “Don’t Say Gay” bill could face up to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday afternoon to federal felony fraud charges in a scheme to obtain $150,000 in COVID-19 relief funds, according to Florida Politics‘ publisher Peter Scorsch.Harding, 35, was a construction project manager who started his own lawn care company. He quickly became a right-wing darling after his anti-LGBTQ legislation, officially the Parental Rights in Education Act, was embraced by Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed it into law. Harding was charged in a December federal indictment with six counts of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements in his plot to obtain $150,000 in COVID funds. He resigned from the legislature the following day. He originally pled not guilty.After Harding was charged and resigned, Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, responded via social media, saying: “So much harm to students, parents and teachers because of his raw political ambitions. He slandered entire communities and trafficked in lie after lie that has emboldened violent bigotry. He will have his day in court but his legacy is already a despicable one.”
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| FL Gov Ron DeSantis is trying to take away the liquor license of the theater who hosted this drag show even though undercover investigators said no lewd acts were performed. |
No doubt, LGBTQ folks are going to be all blase about this news. But can you really blame us? It follows a steady pattern of events which always repeats itself like a time loop in a Twilight Zone episode.
From VICE:
A nonprofit-run theater in Orlando is reportedly at risk of losing its liquor license, the latest attack in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s war on drag shows, which he’s called “sexualized” entertainment. And the complaint from a state agency was filed even after Florida’s own undercover police said in a report that they did “not witness any lewd acts” during a December drag show.
The Plaza Live theater in Orlando hosted a performance of a show called “A Drag Queen Christmas” on Dec. 28. Agents from the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation were in attendance and took photos and videos of the performance and photos of three minors who were accompanied by their parents, the Miami Herald reported Monday.
But those cops did not actually find that the theater was in violation of the law. “Besides some of the outfits being provocative [bikinis and short shorts], agents did not witness any lewd acts such as exposure of genital organs,” according to a report by the agents obtained by the Miami Herald. “The performers did not have any physical contact while performing to the rhythm of the music with any patrons.”
There was a sign posted outside the venue saying that while entry was not restricted to minors, “please be advised that some may think the context is not appropriate for under 18,” according to the Herald.
The Tampa Bay Times said that even though the complaint by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation claims that several decency laws were broken, no criminal charges have been filed. The Times said the case is being looked at as a license-compliance matter. And that's led to some people labeling actions against the Plaza as a "set-up" for DeSantis who is supposedly considering a 2024 presidential run.
According to the Times:
In the adult-entertainment industry, obscene acts generally include touching, sexual manipulation, or exposing an erection — none of which happened at the Plaza Live or any of the other venues targeted by the state over similar allegations since last summer. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former Democratic state legislator from Orlando, said the report from state agents proves that the “moral panic” about drag shows is a “hoax.”
Equality Florida, an LGBTQ organization in Florida, told Business Insider that DeSantis is attacking the LGBTQ community to make a name for himself in anticipation of his possible presidential run:
"He is weaponizing state agencies, sending investigators to harass small business and performers, then discarding the reports of agents when it doesn't fit his agenda," the group said, adding, "Free states don't wield the power of government to punish small businesses for respecting the right of parents to determine what entertainment is best for their families."
The pattern I mentioned at the beginning of the post - mimicked by this incident - is as follows:
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| Mr. 'transgenderism must be eradicated' Michael Knowles (right) once played a gay twink in a movie. He wasn't that good. |
There are quite a few trans activists working against this outbreak of anti-trans legislation. They aren't as well known as they should be, but their work is outstanding.
One such person is Erin Reed, an independent reporter who has been following anti-trans legislation around the country via her substack and Twitter address. She also breaks down the deliberate inaccuracies pushed against the trans community by the anti-LGBTQ industry.
Such as the false claim that 80% of trans youth detransition:
One of the most common myths heard in anti-trans hearings is that most trans kids will desist if they are allowed to go through puberty. Sometimes specific numbers are given, such as 80% of trans kids desist. This statistic has been cited as low as 60% and as high as 99% in various legislatures. In Montana, a representative used this statistic to justify passing a medical ban. The Heritage Foundation has also pushed this myth. Nearly every hearing on this topic includes this myth. The desistance myth is one of the most persistent falsehoods and has been used against the trans community for decades. It is misleading and inaccurate as it comes from outdated DSM-4 criteria and decades-old data. Newer studies show that 97.5% of transgender youth are persistent in their gender identities. Let's examine how this falsehood originated, how it is misused, and what current research reveals about the rarity of desistence and detransition.
Among trans youth, desistance and detransition rates are incredibly low. The most recent study in the prestigious journal Pediatrics, one of the only studies that use modern criteria, showed that 97.5% of trans youth continue to identify as trans on a 5 year follow-up. The sample size was also larger than all previous sample sizes of this population: 317 youth. Anti-trans gender affirming care bans often start off with a list of “legislative findings” that seek to “state the science” around gender affirming care. In this list of findings, you might be surprised to see that the later studies are nowhere to be found, but the claims from the former studies pop up and are presented as factual when they are over a decade old, are dramatically outdated, and use standards that are not even in use anymore.
The far-right has gotten the country all up in arms with their attacks on drag queens. Just as they claimed about gays in the past, they are accusing drag queens and drag shows of 'sexualizing' kids. They also claim that drag queens are convincing kids that they are transgender.
It's ridiculous, being ridiculous has nothing to do with it. Nor does lack of truth. It's all about exploiting people's prejudices and religious beliefs in order to create a narrative justifying anti-LGBTQ laws, ordinances, and actions. And as we see, it has been fairly successful across the country with states like Tennessee and Kentucky attempting to pass laws falsely designating drag performances as adult-oriented and restricting them from being performed in public places and in front of kids.
But like with all fights against intolerant and powerful apparatuses, those being picked on develop ways of fighting which are cutting and to the point. On Twitter, folks have spread the hashtag Not A Drag Queen. The purpose is to point out that while the far right accuse drag queens of 'sexualizing' kids, they are ignoring the actual predators (yes I am talking to you Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Groomers). Even those who may be in their ranks. And they have a lot to work from.
Several tweets are as follows:
Consider the above video as sort of an entertainment break from fighting the anti-LGBTQ industry during this so-called culture war. In the old days, comedian Bob Hope used to travel overseas to entertain our fighting troops. While we don't have Bob Hope, we do have Randy Rainbow. He helped get us through the Trump years and while I hope we don't get into a situation in which we really need him (i.e. Ron DeSantis getting elected as president), there is still an endless stream of political hackery he can call out.
In this video he calls out perennial liar and gay Republican Congressman George Santos using songs 'Jolly Holiday' from movie Mary Poppins and 'Georgie Girl' by the Seekers.
Admit it. You knew this match was coming.
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| FL Gov Ron DeSantis |
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| Michael Knowles |
Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles claims that he was unfairly accused of calling for the "eradication" of trans people. Granted, he said "trangenderism" must be eradicated, but he also said that trans people aren't real.
I doubt his latest attack on the trans community will help his case.
From Media Matters:
MICHAEL KNOWLES (HOST): This is demonic stuff. Really demonic stuff. And I made this point -- I got in trouble with our publicists over at Media Matters because I said that the -- the attacks on man's sexual nature and sexual difference and complementarity are demonic. And they are. And they go back throughout all of history, throughout some of the earliest depictions of demons. Even one of the most prominent depictions of demons comes from an artist Éliphas Lévi, who was an occultist who did a depiction of Baphomet. If you just think, what's a demon look like? You're probably thinking of this picture. And this picture is of a weird goat head with horns, and then one arm looks like a man's arm, and then one arm looks like a woman's arm. And it's got breasts, a female upper body, then a male lower body. And it's a trans depiction. It's a depiction of a man and a woman, kind of, blended together in this grotesque way.
And what's written on the arms - two words, solve coagula, which means to break apart and to put back together. And this is a slogan that crops up frequently in the occult. Break everything down, put it back together in this really grotesque, weird, unnatural sort of way. It is no coincidence that these depictions are what we see in this highly, highly dangerous ideology. It is no coincidence that when you attack this ideology -- I've gone after so many different leftist views, leftist hobby horses, leftist ideologies -- and you get pushback. If you defend the Second Amendment, you get pushback. If you push back on critical race theory, you -- you get some angry people sending you messages. Nothing comes close to when you push back against the transgender agenda. The images that people send you, the threats that people make against you. It's exactly what that woman described. And it is demonic. The whole thing is demonic.
What the hell is he talking about?
I've known types like Michael Knowles while attending college. They like to hear themselves talk as a show of their so-called intellectual prowess. But as time goes by, they sound less intelligent and more like the cartoon character Brainy Smurf.
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| Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally |
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| Oscar winners for 'Best Director,' Daniel Scheinert (left) and Daniel Kwan (right). |
With all that happened at the Oscars on Sunday night (no comment), I am a little miffed that the following moment didn't catch as much attention as it should have. The motion picture Everything Everywhere All At Once was the huge winner with seven wins, including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and Best Picture. It also won Best Director for the duo of Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. While accepting the award for Best Director, Scheinert snuck in this short but very valid comment about children and drag. It's a reminder of how the anti-drag hysteria perpetrated by conservatives and wannabe social media influencers is a lot nonsense over nothing.
“Specifically my mom and dad ... thank you for not squashing my creativity when I was ... dressing in drag as a kid, which is a threat to NOBODY.” - Daniel Scheinert, accepting the Best Director #Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All At Once”
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@K_JeanPierre) March 13, 2023
pic.twitter.com/ccLZm0HoCl
One of Tennessee’s top GOP lawmakers has supported some of the red state’s most anti-LGBTQ bills—all while positively engaging with gay and trans content creators on Instagram.On Wednesday, the Tennessee Holler broke news that Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally has used his verified Instagram account to comment on a young gay Tennessee man’s thirst traps. McNally responded to several posts from performer Franklyn McClur with heart, fire, and clap emojis, and left comments like “Super Look Finn” and “You need to be on dancing with the stars.” On one image of McClur’s butt, McNally’s account wrote, “Finn, you can turn a rainy day into rainbows and sunshine!”
Again: As the @TNGOP attempts to legislate trans people out of existence, a collage of @ltgovmcnally *liking* posts by a trans woman, commenting on how beautiful she is, etc… it wasn’t just Franklyn. #RandyRandy #SlateOfHate 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ pic.twitter.com/Y9BYgjVTnJ
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) March 9, 2023
. . . McNally’s team spoke of the lieutenant governor’s love of social media. “As anyone in Tennessee politics knows, Lt. Governor McNally is a prolific social media commenter,” McNally spokesperson Adam Kleinheider told VICE News in a statement. “He takes great pains to view every post he can and frequently posts encouraging things to many of his followers. Does he always use the proper emoji at the proper time? Maybe not. But he enjoys interacting with constituents and Tennesseans of all religions, backgrounds, and orientations on social media. He has no intention of stopping.”“Trying to imply something sinister or inappropriate about a great-grandfather’s use of social media says more about the mind of the left-wing operative making the implication than it does about Randy McNally,” Kleinheider added about the 79-year-old politician.
Editor's note - Republicans in Congress are going to introduce a national ban on trans athletes. No doubt it's their way of introducing other anti-trans legislation. And of course the Democrats will be fighting against them every step of the way. I am reposting this piece I published in 2021 about how USA Today article pointed out that arguments pushed to ban trans athletes are based upon lies and mischaracterizations. It underscores not only how the anti-LGBTQ industry lies but also how short memories are very detrimental to the fight for LGBTQ equality.
In an exceptional piece of journalism, The USA Today took a look at the efforts and groups behind statewide attempts to ban trans athletes and found a lot of lies and misrepresentation.
It shouldn't surprise those of us in the know because every effort by religious right groups to denigrate LGBTQ people or deny us rights has been a smorgasbord of cherry-pickings, distortions, and out-and-out lies. Exposing the anti-LGBTQ industry and calling out their history of lies is how this blog made a name for itself since 2006.
In the spirit of all of that, I simply have to say that The USA Today article, Conservatives want to ban transgender athletes from girls sports. Their evidence is shaky by Rachel Axon and Brent Schrotenboer is a goddamn masterpiece worthy of a Pulitzer.
Yes, it's that good. I'm going to post snippets of it and highly suggest that folks read and share the entire article.
Grace Waggoner told lawmakers in February 2020 that her team had lost the first state tournament game it had played in decades to an opponent with a transgender player. She blamed an “unfair” Arizona Interscholastic Association policy that allows students to join teams consistent with their gender identity after going through a review. Waggoner offered few details on the athlete’s impact on the game, but bill sponsor Rep. Nancy Barto accepted it as evidence of a problem in her state.. . The game Waggoner referenced in her testimony turned out to be a state tournament play-in game in 2019 that Scottsdale Christian Academy lost to Heritage Academy, 16-6. Heritage Academy coach Steve LaDrigue said his team did not have a transgender player. What Waggoner didn’t say is that she’s the daughter of Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom – a conservative, legal nonprofit that has pushed transgender sports bans in states across the nation. When pressed for details about the game, an ADF spokesperson said in an email, “The widespread understanding on the team – including the coach, parents, and players – was that the athlete was male.” LaDrigue guesses the suspicion fell on the team’s catcher, his daughter, because she has short hair.
Across the nation, state lawmakers supporting transgender athlete bans have painted a picture that girls sports teams will be overrun by athletes with insurmountable physical advantages. But a USA TODAY investigation of the lobbying effort shows that narrative has been built on vague examples that have been overstated or are untrue, and lawmakers have accepted them as fact with little effort to verify their accuracy. The more than 70 bills lawmakers have offered in at least 36 states would suggest a bigger problem facing girls sports, but that didn’t check out either.Instead, USA TODAY could find few transgender athletes participating and even fewer complaints about them. In South Dakota, the sponsor of a bill said a transgender girl who played basketball was “consistently scoring 25 points above females” in high school and that the Sioux Falls district alone had three transgender athletes competing in 2019. But the state association responsible for approving participation of transgender athletes says only one transgender girl has competed since 2013, and she was an average athlete who didn’t live in Sioux Falls.
During a discussion at the influential Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Milstead joined former Southern Utah University runner Linnea Saltz to speak about the issue – and Saltz referred to a transgender athlete who has gained mythic status among supporters of these bills. June Eastwood, a University of Montana runner, became the first openly transgender cross-country runner in major college sports in 2019-20 after undergoing hormone therapy for a year to suppress testosterone, as required by NCAA rules. But bill proponents often exaggerate Eastwood’s accomplishments or take them out of context.
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| Marjorie Taylor Greene obsesses about 'gyrating drag queens' |
"Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene made a fool out of herself in the halls of Congress" is an evergreen statement. This particular time, however, is extra special. On Tuesday, she proposed a nationwide ban on gender-affirming therapy for trans kids (don't worry cause it's not going anywhere for now).
Gotta love Marjorie!
— Stranger Than Fiction News (@justnotthenews) March 7, 2023
Marjorie Taylor Greene: "We have had enough with drag queen shows in elementary schools & middle schools and high schools. We have had enough of drag queens gyrating.. God made all of us. Male & female, in his image.. And god doesn't make mistakes." pic.twitter.com/8SDp2WHotT
From Raw Story
While proposing a new nationwide ban on gender-affirming care for minors, the conspiracy theory-promoting Georgia congresswoman accused transgender Americans of being part of a sinister plot to sexualize American children. "We have had enough with drag queen shows in elementary schools and middle schools and high schools!" she raged. "We have had enough of drag queens gyrating in front of children and the public square! These groomers and child predators must be stopped because they are sexualizing children for profit in a multibillion dollar medical industry that looks to grow and grow!" Greene then claimed that the entire concept of being transgender went against the Bible on the grounds that God's design of human beings was purportedly infallible.
So, if I were to follow Greene's bizarre and psychotically warped implication, "gyrating drag queens" are part of a plot to "sexualize kids" into thinking that they are transgender. After the "sexualizing," they are then ripe to be victimized via irreparable surgeries by a soulless and greedy medical industry for billions.
I would make a wisecrack about getting a cut of the proceeds, but instead I can't help wondering what the f@k were those people in Georgia smoking when they voted Greene into office?
Seriously though, we should ask ourselves how many other folks on her side of the aisle have the same mindset even if they aren't voicing it as vigorously or as insanely as Greene.
