'Bigots move from 'recruit' to 'groomer' card against LGBTQ community' & other Fri midday news briefs

The anti-LGBTQ industry used to accuse us of 'recruiting' children. Now the word is 'grooming.'

“Grooming” Is Republicans’ Cruel New Buzzword for Targeting Trans Kids

‘Grooming’ narratives return to the forefront of anti-LGBTQ2S+ campaigns 

Unoriginal but effective. We always fight these lies and beat them. 

Hate group ADF to review Hanover Virginia School Board education policy - The Alliance Defending Freedom has defended sterilizing trans people and putting people in jail simply for being LGBTQ. Oh this was smart (sarcasm) 

Related posts - Information on the Alliance Defending Freedom from SPLC and Media Matters for America: 

ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM - SPLC report. 

The extremism of anti-LGBTQ powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom - Media Matters report.

Anti-LGBTQ industry relying on fake expert to amplify medical anti-transgender lies

The anti-LGBTQ industry is relying on 'professionals' such as Michelle Cretella to give out false information about trans people.

Like I've shown many times, when it comes to gay men, the anti-LGBTQ industry generally amplifies false experts in their attacks. A recent article in the American Family Association's American Family News shows how this tactic is being used against the transgender community.

The article Christian doc: Biden's 'mimicking' of lies endangering kids cites a physician by the name of Michelle to criticize President Biden's support of transgender Americans:

Biden, a long-time supporter of transgenderism, went so far as to mention it in his State of the Union message on March 1. Specifically, he used the occasion to promote the Equality Act, which has lost support even among Republicans who had backed it. 

 . . . Dr. Michelle Cretella of Advocates Protecting Youth tells AFN that she's convinced the president was simply mimicking what others are saying. "He's just parroting the lies of many public institutions that really are placing children at grave physical risk. No child is born in the wrong body," she argues. Cretella says the president proclaimed his support despite the growing evidence that transgender treatments are dangerous, irreversible, and divisive. 

"When someone like President Biden stands up there and actually gives credence to the lie that children could be trapped in the wrong body, that's psychological abuse," she states. In a recent interview, Cretella – a past president of the American College of Pediatricians – made the same charge against educators. School staff who encourage a transgender self-identification, she said, are "guilty of psychological abuse" for putting children at risk for embarking on a medical path that includes such long-term consequences as permanent sterility, depression, impaired memory, strokes, and heart attacks.

There are two things you should know about Cretella. 

First of all, the group she led as past president, the American College of Pediatricians,  has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a fringe anti-LGBTQ hate group that masquerades as the premier U.S. association of pediatricians to push anti-LGBTQ junk science, primarily via far-right conservative media and filing amicus briefs in cases related to gay adoption and marriage equality.​ ACPeds opposes adoption by LGBTQ couples, links homosexuality to pedophilia, endorses so-called reparative or sexual orientation conversion therapy for homosexual youth, believes transgender people have a mental illness and has called transgender health care for youth child abuse.

In 2017, Cretella herself was called out by the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) for a piece she wrote criticizing trans health care. SAHM said that the argument she made was based on medical omissions, circumstantial facts, hateful interpretation and peripheral context: 

Earlier this month, the Adolescent Health News Roundup, compiled by Multiview and distributed by SAHM, included the article “I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse”. While SAHM welcomes opposing views and tries to include other perspectives in its weekly digest of news culled from around the internet, SAHM does not condone misinformation and hurtful, ideological opinion, not rooted in science or evidence-based medicine. 

The above-referenced article does not meet these standards and was included as “news” in error. It not only promotes a biased agenda, but does so with outright disregard for the facts. We sincerely apologize for including this alongside legitimate news stories and are currently revising our procedures to ensure this does not happen again.

SAHM refuted all of the points Cretella made in her piece and showed how she may have deliberately played loose with the facts. It also ended its piece with words Cretella and the entire anti-LGBTQ industry should take to heart:

One cannot claim to be an unbiased medical professional writing for the greater good when one’s entire article is predicated upon gender dysphoria as a choice. It is time to listen to our young people and help them be who they are.

(Editor's note -  SAHM's refutation deserves a read and a save for more than one reason. I have no doubt that Cretella's distortions have been copied by other transphobic groups and personalities. One thing about the anti-LGBTQ industry which I know for certain is their constant repeating of  the same lies and cherry-picked points.)

'Hate group leader Tony Perkins links LGBTQ people with 'rebellion against God' and 'demonic spirits' (again)' & other Thur midday news briefs

 

Tony Perkins Says ‘LGBT Is the Zenith of Man’s Rebellion Against God’ - We can always count on Tony Perkins for good old fashioned homophobia. 

Speaking of which, how can we forget when Perkins called us pawns of the devil in 2011:

 

In other news

For Too Many Straight, Cisgender Parents, Queer Is Their Worst Fear - This is true. They are scared of us. 

Disney workers stage daily walkouts to protest ‘Don’t Say Gay’ and demand protections for LGBT+ staff - Disney, you are in a doghouse. 

 How you can help LGBTQ Ukrainians right now - Amen.

After attempting to erase LGBTQ mentions in schools and trying to jail affirming parents of trans kids, what is next for the anti-LGBTQ industry?

I'm wondering whether or not people will be smart enough to connect the transphobic drama in Texas, the 'Don't Say Gay' bill debacle in Florida and the several other instances of LGBGTQ Americans being targeted and undermined via the governmental and legislative process this year.

On the risk of sounding like a paranoid conspiracy theorist, I refuse to believe that these things sprang up spontaneously. These legislative and governmental processes are too meticulously crafted. Certain groups and persons took the utmost care in creating these bills with the goal of undermining LGBTQ rights.  It's certainly something to think about, as is their possible next step. Whoever they may be, my guess is that these folks won't stop with trying to erase mentions of LGBTQ people in elementary schools or trying to take trans kids away from their affirming parents. 

Perhaps this, maybe:

For the luckily uninitiated, this is Terry Schilling, head of a group called the Americans Principles Project. And as so many of us know, when any right-wing group comes on the scene with a name bragging about how pro-American or pro-morality it is,  LGBTQ folks just gained another enemy.

Terry and his group have been busy, if he is to be believed. Recently, he was bragging about how his group was instrumental in getting Abbott to issue his transphobic directive. In fact, Schilling claimed that his group spent $750,000 on the effort

“We put together a $750,000 grassroots advocacy campaign with the War Room support, and we put pressure on him right before the election,” Schilling said. “It wasn’t a coincidence that he did this. And Abbott basically instructed all of his state agencies to treat this as child abuse, and it’s now criminal to do this.” 

 Abbott, a champion of the conservative movement, has been accused of not being right wing enough by the Republican Party’s extreme fringes. Such attacks escalated ahead of Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which Abbott easily won. In Schilling’s telling, Abbott has been insufficiently harsh on the LGBTQ community.

 Under Schilling’s leadership, APP—a religious-right organization that has made discriminating against trans kids its main endeavor—launched a Texas state chapter last year and targeted Abbott and other Republicans for not going far enough with the anti-trans legislation they passed. In February, APP released two ads attacking Abbott for failing to “protect our children.”

So if Schilling is to be believed, Texas families with trans children have literally been fearing knocks on their doors because of him. But it's not just about trans people. According to Media Matters, Schilling made the following remark about gay men

“Am I really a snowflake for not wanting to explain butt sex to my kids?”

I suspect that Schilling and his group will be appearing on a future SPLC listing of anti-LGBTQ hate groups. But for now,  I would pay at least a little attention to his attack on LGBTQ people who realize after they have entered heterosexual marriages that they need to be honest with themselves and their families.

Don't be surprised if what he wrote ends up in a less hysterical form on some state legislative bill.

'Trans Texans sick being called 'child abusers' take their fight to the governor's mansion' & other Wed midday news briefs

Trans Texans sick of being called “child abusers” take their fight to the governor’s mansion - Keep it up, y'all! Don't stop standing up for yourselves!

Disney Dissent Looks To Grow Over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ As LGBTQ+ Staff Plan Walkouts Starting Today​ - Karma continues for Disney. It needs to do the right thing. 

Alabama Is Steps Away From Making Gender-Affirming Care a Felony - These folks may have meant all of this as a mid-term election strategy but it is spiraling out of their control. It's going to blow up in their faces It doesn't mean we should just sit in anticipation that it happens. We need to do all we can to make it happen. And that means getting the word out about what these insane bills will actually do. 

Mark Rylance reveals how a crappy homophobic action flick almost made him quit movies for good - Those types of movies are never a good idea. Sounds like a movie made in the 80s with John Hurt and Ryan O'Neal called 'Partners.' It too was a disaster.

Sen. Marco Rubio is the latest under harsh spotlight because of Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill debacle

After using the shooting tragedy at the Pulse nightclub to portray himself as an LGBTQ ally, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is using the 'Don't Say Gay' bill to abandon that position.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio seems to the latest figure revealed to be nakedly dishonest because the state's 'Don't Say Gay' bill debacle.  We've already seen how the Florida GOP legislators - Governor DeSantis included - have lied and deceived to get the bill passed. And we've seen how the Disney Corporation unsuccessfully tried to avoid taking a stand against the bill even though it passes itself off as an LGBTQ-friendly corporation.

According to The American Independent, we are seeing why Sen. Rubio's support of the bill is equally problematic:

In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) advised his fellow Christian conservatives to show tolerance toward LGBTQ people. Six years later, Rubio has made an about-face and is supporting Florida's attacks on LGBTQ rights. In the aftermath of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead, Rubio won reelection in part by claiming to be an ally for the LGBTQ community. But as he seeks a third Senate term in 2022, Rubio is no longer pretending to support the rights of LGBTQ Floridians.

. . . On Monday, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned that the Florida bill "sends a signal to LGBTQ+ youth that they are not fully accepted." In response, Rubio tweeted on Tuesday that Murthy "argues that schools should be having discussions with children from 5 to 8 years old about sexual orientation & gender identity." Just 14 minutes later, Rubio posted a Bible quote from the Book of Isaiah about Sodom and Gomorrah — two ancient cities that LGBTQ rights opponents often cite to condemn same-sex relationships: "Hear the word of the LORD, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah!"

According to the American Independent article (which should get a full reading), Rubio's support or disapproval of LGBTQ issues seems to be like a tennis ball during a furious Wimbledon championship match. He's either all about 'tolerance'  or Biblical condemnation all depending on the political winds.

'Here is an LGBTQ connection to all 68 teams in the NCAA men's basketball tournament' & other Tue midday news briefs

Here is an LGBTQ connection to all 68 teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament - Every one. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis levels scathing attack against Disney - The bill has passed the Florida legislature, Ronnie. Why don't you sign it instead of whining about 'wokeness.' 

GOP Attacks on Trans Girls Were Never Just About Sports​ - No it wasn't and it bears repeating. 

Hilarious, Inclusive Sitcom Abbott Elementary Renewed For Season Two - This show is hilarious and deserves more attention.