Franklin Graham commits 'sin of omission' while amplifying story of trans teen removed from her parents' home

Franklin Graham

There is a case brewing in Indiana regarding a trans teen and her parents and it may go before the Supreme Court.

From Yahoo News:

Mary and Jeremy Cox are devout Christians who believe children should be raised based on their sex at birth, and the use of pronouns or names inconsistent with their biological sex is both immoral and harmful. But the Anderson couple clashed with their teenager, who is a transgender girl. The family's dispute that started with the Indiana Department of Child Services over care of the teen is now the focus of a case that could go before the U.S. Supreme Court.

 At issue, according to the Coxes' petition asking the court to take their case, is whether they have the right to raise their children how they see fit — and whether a court order keeping them from talking to their children about their beliefs on sex and gender violates their free speech rights.

 The case touches on some of the most controversial issues in Indiana, where conservative lawmakers have passed legislation targeting transgender rights, and LGBTQ+ advocates have turned to the courts to challenge some of those laws. The issue of parental rights has also gained political momentum, particularly among Republicans over the last few years, focusing on issues such as vaccination requirements, school curricula and gender-affirming care for transgender youth. 

 Naturally a case like this is going to get the anti-LGBTQ industry hopping. Certain conservatives are already amplifying the situation via their channels. 

Conservatives such as Franklin Graham:

A Christian couple's son was removed from their home by CPS because they refused to affirm his gender confusion. Pray for Mary & Jeremy Cox as they fight to protect other families & the @IndianaFamily Institute as they support their legal battle. https://t.co/Ol2QkB69XF

— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) December 19, 2023

In his tweet, Graham omitted a very crucial part of the story. The teen was removed because the conflict between she and her parents caused her to have an eating disorder.

At the heart of the case is the rift between the Coxes and the teenage child over gender identity — and an Indiana court's decision to remove her from her parents' custody partly because of a severe eating disorder that could get worse if she's returned home, where she felt unsafe, according to court records. 

 

"A disagreement between parents and a child is not a reason to remove a child from the home," the Indiana Court of Appeals said in its 2022 ruling that kept in place a Madison County judge's decision to remove the teen, identified in court records as A.C., from her parents' home. 

But the appeals court added: "This is an extreme case where Child has reacted to a disagreement with the Parents by developing an eating disorder and self-isolating, which seriously endangers Child's physical, emotional, and mental well-being."

Graham is obviously more interested in scoring points in his culture war than giving the complete story and demonstrating genuine concern, particularly to the trans teen caught in the middle.

Hat tip to Assigned Media.

'Here is what the LGBTQ community won in 2023' & other Tue midday news briefs

For LGBTQ+ Rights, 2023 Was a Year of Fighting. Here’s What We Won​ - And we are still here and standing. 

From drag bans to sports restrictions, 75 anti-LGBTQ bills have become law in 2023 - But it was a hell of a year.

LGBTQ community reacts to Pope Francis saying priests can bless same sex unions - This is causing some huge shockwaves. 

LGBTQ+ Groups to North Carolina School District: State's 'Don't Say Gay' Law Is Discrimination - No kidding. 

Eviction, threats and suicidal thoughts: Uganda's LGBTQ community endures trying year - The struggle is universal.

Conservative Scrooges gin up the hatred for First Lady Jill Biden's Christmas video

The right-wing ecosystem feeds off of hate and resentment so why should Christmas be any different for them than any other time of the year? 

A bit of magic, wonder, and joy brought to you by the talented tappers of Dorrance Dance, performing their playful interpretation of The Nutcracker Suite.

Enjoy! 💕 pic.twitter.com/qXtCm4t37o

— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) December 13, 2023

Personally, I liked the video. However, the usual suspects used it as another opportunity to attack President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.

From Media Matters:

Right-wing media immediately began attacking the Biden White House’s Christmas celebration after First Lady Jill Biden posted a video to social media showing a tap dance company performing among the White House decorations in costumes meant to represent the holiday classic The Nutcracker. Many of the objections from conservatives seemingly criticized the inclusion of Black performers as evidence of “wokeness” or diversity, equity, and inclusion programs undermining holiday tradition, or claimed that the dance company itself is “anti-white.” 

These bizarre attacks follow more than a decade of “War on Christmas” coverage from right-wing media, which claimed that Democrats would ban observances of the holiday and wove together isolated Christmas anecdotes to stoke outrage that they often covered over much more newsworthy events, including actual wars. 

Certain comments included:

Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller: “This is a crime against Christmas.” [Twitter/X, 12/14/23] 

 Newsmax host Eric Bolling said, “The Biden family has perverted just about every single one of our institutions. Christmas is inevitably on their list, too.” Bolling lamented that this interpretation of The Nutcracker is “garish, and replete with tasteless perversions,” calling it “avant-garde and beyond woke,” and saying: “Nothing is sacred. Nothing is normal.” [Newsmax, Eric Bolling The Balance, 12/14/23]

 . . . On Fox Business’ The Bottom Line, guest Monica Crowley attacked the Biden administration for choosing “a radical, left-wing, basically communist activist dance group to do this video for Christmas. …. Nothing screams ‘happy holidays’ like ‘defund the police.’” Co-host Dagen McDowell added, “We can assume, Monica, that Joe Biden and company agree with this group's platform. It has to be the reason they picked them.” [Fox Business, The Bottom Line with Dagen and Duffy, 12/14/23]

 

In all honesty, who are some of these folks to criticize any Christmas celebration for not being wholesome or being perverted. Bolling was fired from Fox News for sending unsolicited pictures of genitalia to several female co-workers and Crowley is probably still bitter because she didn't get a prime gig in the Trump Administration after it was discovered that she plagiarized a large number of passages for her Ph.D. dissertation. As for Miller, well he's so evil that he probably cried at the end of The Wizard of Oz because Dorothy successfully got home. Even members of his own family can't stand him.

None of these folks are exactly the type you'd want to invite over for holiday cheer. All they know how to do is rage farm, i.e. exploit the prejudices and grievances of supporters for engagement or social status.  

Amanda Marcotte of Salon magazine put it best.

Biden's haters dug up a statement of anti-racism from the troupe's leader, Michelle Dorrance, and held it out as some kind of gotcha. But they gotcha'd themselves, by dragging that subtext right into the daylight. Racism and homophobia are obviously what's fueling this tantrum. Getting outraged over an anti-racist statement is an unwitting admission of what they can't say out loud. (Well, most, anyway. There were a few MAGA types who flatly stated their objection: "This is gay as hell.") All the coded language about "weird" and "classless" and "smut" was just a thin veil over the real grievance: The people MAGA hates were up in the White House having a good time. 

Anti-LGBTQ activist Christopher Rufo latest conservative done in by 'receipts'

Christopher Rufo

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo recently threatened legal action against the Southern Poverty Center for a report it put out about junk science used against the LGBTQ community. 

According to The Advocate:

The comprehensive study, “Combating Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Informative Narratives,” or Project CAPTAIN, revealed during a press conference on Tuesday, details the concerted efforts of these groups to undermine LGBTQ+ rights through the manipulation of scientific realities, particularly when it comes to gender-affirming care and the health care needs for transgender people. R.G. Cravens, lead editor and author of the report, highlighted the alarming trend of using pseudoscience to target these groups. 

 “The gender-affirming care model… represents a global medical consensus. But the attempts to undermine it that we detail in this report are manufactured,” Cravens explained. “If the pseudoscience goes unchallenged… it has real life and often life-threatening consequences for trans and nonbinary people.” The report identifies over 60 groups, including familiar names like the Alliance Defending Freedom and lesser-known entities such as the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine. It uncovers the connections between these groups and their strategies to influence public policy and opinion. 

 “This report is pretty groundbreaking in how we’re able to look at these connections and help expose all of the groups that are at the center of this moral panic that we’re seeing,” Emerson Hodges, a research analyst at SPLC, said. “This report was ultimately designed to help provide details on pseudoscience and has become a tool to help us map out the far-right and their attempts to manipulate public opinion and advance anti-LGBT policies.” 

 

It is a good report which I encourage folks to read and share. Rufo voiced anger about it in a tweet Wednesday.

As seen by this tweet exchange, Rufo got support from conservative colleagues and various right-wing tweeters as he went through his Joan of Arc act. But Rufo is playing petty game of 'exact wording.' New York Times contributor Ben Ryan called it out:

Christopher Rufo @realchrisrufo has threatened legal action against @SPLCenter for, he said, falsely claiming that he used the phrase "stop grooming our kids" in the context of gender identity. But Rufo has suggested that "schools are 'grooming' kids into gender ideology."

Rufo… pic.twitter.com/pmDnkNCR3Y

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) December 14, 2023

And of course, I have to get a little piece of the action. 

In June of last year, I published a post revealing how Rufo encouraged supporters to claim that 'trans strippers' were coming into schools. The post included the following tweets.

While Rufo may not have called anyone a groomer, per se, he has more than once implied it. And when he agrees with the claim that he has never used groomer rhetoric, he is lying. As seen in the above examples, he has on more than one occasion dealt in false tropes and blatant mischaracterizations of LGBTQ culture to imply that we are 'grooming' kids. 

And just in case you missed it, here is another example:

' Massachusetts sues neo-nazis after they target Drag Queen Story Hours' & other Wed midday news briefs

Massachusetts Sues Neo-Nazis After They Target Drag Queen Story Hours​ - Good. Stick it to them.

Florida school board votes for Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler to resign - Don't get too happy. The vote is nonbinding. She doesn't have to resign if she doesn't want to. BUT it still doesn't look good for her. She has to face the public and her fellow board members at every meeting should she not resign. 

Hulu documentary follows Iowa natives who fled state after LGBTQ+ legislation - Very much needed.

OutKick host says cyclist who defended trans competitors “is an absolute disgrace, and she has nothing to be proud of” - Simply trashy attack. These people don't care about any athletes. It's all about fueling the outrage.

Conservatives angry because trans girl won an Irish dancing competition (I am not kidding)

Editor's note - Erin Reed is a trans journalist who has been covering legislative and public attacks on the trans community for some time now. I'd venture to say that her work is the best and I consider her as the go-to person for anyone needing to be educated about today's climate of transphobia and the basic bigotry it entails. I invite everyone to support her work. It's top notch.

An effective tactic of the anti-trans crowd is claiming that trans women hold an unfair advantage against cis women in athletic events. The claim relies on a combination of preconceived notions about male and female athletes, stereotypes about female trans athletes in general, and a concern by cis female athletes - and their parents - that they would be cheated out of wins and acclaim.

The tactic is so effective that transphobic folks are attempting to stretch it to fit any category. Even to the point of inanity

From Erin Reed:

On Dec. 3, a young transgender girl won her age category in the 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas Irish Dancing competition in Dallas, Texas. This means she will qualify to compete in the World Irish Dancing Competitions. For those who have been following transgender participation in other events, you can probably guess what happened next. Predictably, a slew of right-wing media articles dropped, claiming the 13-year-old girl had a “biological advantage” in competitive Irish dancing. Right-wing media personalities like Riley Gaines and major conservative outlets such as The Daily Wire and The Daily Signal decried her victory, claiming that she had a “biological advantage” in competitive Irish dancing. 

 Irish dancing is a style of dancing well suited for competition. It typically features quick and graceful foot movement combined with a rigid upper body. According to the Teelin School of Irish Dance, judges grade on things such as good timing, pointed toes, graceful and energetic movement, confidence, and pleasant affect. It is a competition where grace, poise, and technique matter. On that same note, supposed “natural advantages” of transgender competitors after transitioning do not appear to be relevant to participating. 

 . . .According to reports from the event, parents of girls who lost later discovered that the winner was transgender. These parents then reached out to conservative media outlets, claiming the transgender girl “cheated” by competing according to her gender identity. In an exclusive article from The Daily Signal, one parent expressed that the transgender girl's victory was so upsetting, it made her want to cry. Another adult competitor, who is also a legislative strategist for Conservative Women for America, Maggie McKneely, clearly outlined that a transitioning dancer would likely face disadvantages due to having to learn differences in the dance style, in an attempt to portray the girl’s participation as wrong. 

Erin pointed out how the various anti-trans activists, seeing an opportunity for a spotlight, all took their turn attacking the young girl. The links to their attacks can be pulled up via Erin's original article. She has them there for the sake of clarity. I refuse to allow those bullies to invade my space:

 Following the article’s publication, right wing conservatives took to twitter to attack the 13 year old girl. Riley Gaines, the swimmer who tied for 5th place with Lia Thomas and has used that event to lobby against transgender people in congress, stated that “a boy stole a qualifying spot for the upcoming World Championships in Irish dancing” and then urged people to sign a petition. Prisha Mosley, an anti-trans political detransitioner, thanked her for “bringing awareness and attention to these issues” and “the girls and families affected.” James Lindsay, who has been credited as one of the people responsible for the “groomer” slur towards LGBTQ+ people, said that “the trans menace in women’s sports is even showing up in Irish Dancing.” Colette Colfer, an anti-trans activist in Ireland, decried the girl’s participation and proclaimed, “Irish Dancing has fallen.” 

The trans girl is getting a lot of support, though. And that includes a petition which you can sign here.

'Conservatives blow up field trip misunderstanding into lawsuit against trans kids' & other Tue midday news briefs

CO: Conservative Parents Disrupted a Trans Girl’s Field Trip, But That Wasn’t Enough​ - Anatomy of a right-wing smear on trans children. As the article points out, the conservative ecosystem pushed up salacious inferences about sex and the possibility of sexual assault. What it may turn out to be was an innocent misunderstanding. However, thanks to conservative ecosystem and the anti-LGBTQ hate group the Alliance Defending Freedom, this has blown up into an ugly and needless lawsuit. This article points out how certain entities omitted a key part of the story (which was given by an area television news station): 

 In a statement to Crisis in the Classroom (CITC), JCPS (Jefferson County Public Schools) said "student safety is paramount and partnership with families is a priority." The district noted it is "still determining facts" as it was only "recently informed" of what allegedly occurred during the trip. "However, it appears that the student’s transgender status was not known when room assignments were made and our understanding is that as soon as their transgender identity was known, room assignments were adjusted," JCPS told CITC.

 Basically, this situation didn't warrant the controversy it is receiving except for how some people are salivating to use it against trans people, especially trans children. 

Drag queen & venue refuse to back down after bomb threat targets all-ages holiday brunch - Good. DO NOT back down. Not an inch. 

State Economies Suffer When Lawmakers Pass Anti-LGBTQ+, Anti-Abortion Laws: Study - If they are willing to pass these awful bills, then they should be willing to pay the price.

  'Maestro,' 'Rustin' and 'Nyad' score Golden Globe nods for portrayals of LGBTQ trailblazers - Award season has arrived.