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| Charlie Kirk |
Just something short to put things in perspective. How ridiculous is the new Tennessee law which bans drag in the presence of minors and public places? If this the pro wrestling segment below, taped in 1992 in Tennessee took place today, Jerry Lawler (a pro wrestling legend in the state) could be charged with a felony
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| Chloe Cole is the anti-LGBTQ industry's latest willing patsy against LGBTQ equality and safety. |
Earlier last week, I posted about the now refuted claim of "whistleblower" Jamie Reed against a St. Louis transgender center. On the heels of that comes a "lawsuit" whose goal seems to be not winning but creating an incentive to justify more anti-trans laws across the country.
California teenager Chloe Cole has become something of a star in the movement to deny treatments to transgender youth. She has given testimony or made public statements in support of anti-treatment bills in Florida, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Idaho and North Dakota; appeared on Fox News; and shared a Washington platform with right-wing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). That’s useful for you to know in assessing Cole’s latest moment in the spotlight: her filing of a lawsuit against the giant Kaiser Permanente healthcare system.. . .The context of Cole’s lawsuit bears close scrutiny. It’s part of a concerted right-wing attack on LGBTQ rights, in which the health of transgender youth is exploited as a pretext for bans on gender-affirming care. It resembles the right-wing attack on abortion rights, another movement that cynically masquerades as an effort to improve healthcare but actually exposes millions of Americans to injury and death for strictly partisan purposes.. . . Cole is one of a handful of self-described detransitioners who have been flown around the country by anti-transgender activists to speak in favor of treatment bans. Their presentations aim to convince legislators that second thoughts are common among transgender patients, as though to suggest that gender-affirming treatment is a sham.
Cole’s legal complaint incorporates what seem to be misleading or inaccurate descriptions of developments in the gender dysphoria treatment field. The complaint states that “negative results” from the use of puberty blockers and hormones “caused” the shutdowns of a transgender clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1979 and Britain’s Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service more recently.Neither assertion is quite accurate.The Johns Hopkins clinic was closed by the hospital’s chief of psychiatry, Paul R. McHugh, on ideological and religious grounds; a devout Catholic, McHugh opposed gender reassignment treatments in principle and maintained, as he put it in a 2016 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, that “‘sex change’ is biologically impossible.” Johns Hopkins shed McHugh’s four-decades-old judgments and reestablished its gender identity clinic in 2017.Tavistock has not been shut down, though it is slated for closure by Britain’s National Health Service later this year. Its problems were not related to the medical issues with the treatments themselves, but rather with its being overwhemed, as Britain’s lone treatment center, by a torrent of new gender dysphoria cases. The NHS plans to replace Tavistock with several regional centers to improve access for all such patients.Cole’s complaint also describes the conclusion of a 2011 Swedish study it cites as having found that “transition treatment does not improve long-term mental health for transgender individuals.” That’s not what the study concluded, however.
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| Chaya Raichik |
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| Under a Missouri bill, learning about these LGBTQ historical figures could be banned in schools. |
When it comes to undermining LGBTQ people, Republicans have a talent for making their positions sound reasonable at first. But they always go too far and the masks drop. We are then left with what was there all along - hysterically raging bigotry.
From NBC News:
Missouri lawmakers argued Wednesday over a bill that would ban most LGBTQ education subjects for all grades in the state’s public schools. The proposal is modeled after a Florida education law passed last year, touted by supporters as protecting “parent’s rights” and dubbed by opponents as a “ Don’t Say Gay ” law.The Missouri bill debated in a state House committee hearing would ban K-12 public school staff from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation. The Florida law only prohibits teaching those subjects from kindergarten through third grade, although any lessons on those topics for students of any grade are also banned if they are not age-appropriate.“Exposure to such topics is inappropriate for children, creating confusion which may then cause doubt in their identities,” said Rep. Ann Kelley, a former teacher and the Republican sponsor of the Missouri bill. “It is not the place of the school to indoctrinate our children by exposing them to gender and sexual identity curriculums and courses.”
In response to a question from a committee member, Kelley said she assumes that under her bill, educators would be banned from explaining the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage.“It seems like the things that you want to prohibit are targeted to one particular group that you find disfavorable,” Republican Rep. Phil Christofanelli told Kelley.
Democratic Rep. Ian Mackey, a former teacher who is gay, asked Kelley if him “being gay in the classroom” and not hiding that from students would be limited under her bill.“Did you ever inform your students on your beliefs?” Kelley asked Mackey. “They did know I was gay,” Mackey said. “They would see my wedding ring and they would ask about it, and I would say I have a husband.”A committee vote on the bill was not scheduled as of Wednesday afternoon.
Will wonders ever cease?
From The Georgia Recorder:
A watered-down version of a bill opponents called Georgia’s version of “Don’t Say Gay” legislation appears dead in the water after failing in a crucial Senate committee Wednesday. The first version of the bill would have restricted schools, camp counselors and other authority figures from answering children’s questions about gender identity or sexual orientation.
The latest version would have required all local boards of education to develop a policy for dealing with parental involvement and child privacy related to issues of gender identity. It also would have required all private schools or camps that planned to instruct children on issues of gender identity to get parental signatures first, with exemptions for religious schools or camps. A violation could have led to withholding of funds for a public school or loss of accreditation for a private school.. . .Even the Georgia Baptist Convention opposed the bill. Lobbyist Mike Griffin said he appreciates the goal of encouraging parental involvement. “However, we have heard from many folks including our legal partners and activists from around the state on this issue with this bill, and we believe that this bill has dramatic unintended consequences for parental rights and for children in public schools as well,” he said. “Those concerns have not all been addressed, and so as it stands, we’re concerned with this bill, although we certainly share the motivation of the sponsors.”Members of the Republican-controlled committee appeared to feel the same way. A motion to table the bill passed nearly unanimously, with Majority Leader Steve Gooch of Dahlonega the only one opposed.
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| Michael Knowles |
Recently, Daily Wire host (and failed actor) Michael Knowles said transgenderism should be "banned." His comments caught a lot of deserved criticisms. Many pointed out that dehumanizing people by labeling them as abstract concepts makes it disturbingly easy to do them harm.
In other words, folks pointed out that Knowles was implying genocide.
Knowles certainly didn't take the criticism well. In another video, he tried to "explain" what he meant but proceeded to dig deeper into the hole he made for himself. So deep in fact that he figuratively hit a sewer line which spewed its contents all over him.
To summarize his long-winded tangent - he said you can't commit genocide against trans people because "they aren't a legitimate category of being."
In another chilling rant about the 1.6 million trans Americans, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles says that "there can't be a genocide" of trans people because "It's not a legitimate category of being... They're laboring under a delusion. And so we need to correct that delusion." pic.twitter.com/9BmrmZjWGR
— Ari Drennen (@AriDrennen) February 28, 2023
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| Tenn Gov Bill Lee wants to sign bill into law which automatically make drag illegal to be performed in front of minors. But a high school picture of him in drag contradicts his anti-drag narrative. |
The Tennessee state legislature just passed a bill which would categorize drag as sexually explicit and thus make it illegal to be performed on public property and in front of minors. Supporters of the bill claim that it is to keep children from being "sexualized." Opponents point out that the bill automatically categorizes drag performances and drag queens as sexually explicit even if they are g-rated, such as the Drag Queen Story Hour event.
Tennessee Gov Bill Lee said that he will sign the bill into law. But there is an irony to the situation.
He's appeared in drag before. And in high school.
From Independent UK via AOL:
An image appearing to show Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in drag in 1977 has surfaced as the state looks set to impose a new anti-drag law. “As Tennessee moves forward to ban drag, enjoy a high school yearbook picture of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in drag (Franklin High yearbook 1977, page 165),” a Reddit user wrote in a post on the subreddit Political Humor, sharing a picture of what seems to be Mr Lee in a photo above the caption “Hard Luck Woman”.The image was widely shared on social media with users arguing that Republicans are hypocrites on the issue, mentioning that more recent images also depict New York Republican Representative George Santos in drag as the party attempts to utilise the issue in the so-called culture war.Democrat Christopher Hale wrote on Twitter: “Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is set to sign a bill that bans and criminalizes drag across the Volunteer State. Under this law, Governor Lee himself would face prosecution and jail time for his decision to dress up as a ‘hard luck woman’ in high school. Nice legs though!”
👀 WATCH: “Do you remember dressing in drag in 1977? Is it only illegal when gay people do it?” @GovBillLee didn’t appreciate that we printed out the FRANKLIN HIGH YEARBOOK PHOTO — but did not deny it’s him. Meanwhile he’s about to make drag a felony by signing an absurd law.🤔 pic.twitter.com/C7YQcQyis3
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 27, 2023
Those of us who've tracked anti-LGBTQ lies over the years have seen this happen numerous times - anecdotal stories about kids being harmed in some way by LGBTQ culture turning out to be completely false.
From Mississippi Today on Friday:
Sen. Joey Fillingane, defending a controversial bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans minors, said on the Senate floor Tuesday he’d recently spoken with a Hattiesburg-based plastic surgeon who told him he’d performed gender-confirmation surgery on 17-year-old trans kids. That plastic surgeon, contacted Wednesday by Mississippi Today, says he didn’t tell Fillingane that and wants the senator to recant his statement.. . . Fillingane presented the bill to the Senate. He took many by surprise when he said he’d talked to “plastic surgeons in Hattiesburg” who told him they had “on occasion” performed gender-confirmation surgeries on 17-year-olds with parental consent.. . . Dr. Paul Talbot, who founded the Plastic Surgery Center of Hattiesburg in 1998, told Mississippi Today he is the surgeon Fillingane talked to. He recalled the recent conversation with Fillingane — which took place after the men ran into each other at Revolution Fitness in Hattiesburg — differently. “It was a two-minute conversation,” Talbot said. “I was on one elliptical, he was on the other.” While they were exercising, Talbot said he told Fillingane he has taken on trans adults as clients but has never performed surgery on trans kids. “I’ve never done anybody (trans) under the age of 18,” Talbot told Mississippi Today. “He must’ve misheard that because no, we’ve never done that. Never had someone ask me under 18 to do it.”
The gender binary is not as clear-cut as some Mississippians might think, Talbot said. He thinks of cosmetic procedures for cis people as on the same spectrum as those for trans people. “Typically once you have them draped out in the operating room ready to do surgery, I couldn’t tell if it’s a boy or girl lying on the table,” he said.
There’s no difference, he said, when it comes to the actual procedure: A mastectomy for a cis woman is performed exactly the same way as “top surgery” on a trans man. Still, in Mississippi and across the country, trans people face more barriers in obtaining the same procedures that cis people can get with little questions asked.
When folks attack the LGBTQ community and our rights, it's always under the guise of some hysterical notion that anything about our culture will harm children. This recent hysteria about banning drag in public places is just the latest in a very long history of people masking their own ignorance and fears about LGBTQ people behind the lie that children need to be saved from us.
Republicans in Kentucky are working on a bill which would ban drag shows within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, and homes. A main target of this bill is the popular event known as Drag Queen Story Hour in which drag queens read children's books to kids and their parents in public libraries. For years, those on the right have spun nefarious and false claims about the event in unsuccessful attempts to do away with it. Seeing that they couldn't dent the event's popularity, they are now attempting to legislate their will on people.
I think this moment in the tweet below not only underscores the inanity of that particular bill, also but this entire crusade of fear:
Kentucky State Sen. Stephen Meredith (R) says that drag queens reading books to students could lead to bringing “prostitutes to school to talk about career day” and showing “XXX movies under the guise of art appreciation.” pic.twitter.com/5wEfOR4SU5
— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) February 23, 2023
It's a temporary injunction, but it is still a victory for trans kids wanting to play sports. At least for now.
From ABC News:
Transgender athletes in West Virginia can compete in female school sports while an appeal is heard on a state law banning their participation, a divided federal appeals panel ruled Wednesday. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to reinstate a preliminary injunction, sought by the American Civil Liberties Union. The 2021 law signed by Republican Gov. Jim Justice applies to middle and high schools, as well as colleges.Last month a federal judge dissolved the preliminary injunction, which he had issued in July 2021. The judge also ruled the law did not violate Title IX, the landmark gender equity legislation of 1972.. . . More than a dozen states have passed laws banning or restricting transgender athletes' participation in sports based on the premise that they have an unfair competitive advantage, despite a lack of widespread cases. The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, which oversees scholastic sports, said when the suit was filed that it had not received any complaints about transgender athletes on girls' teams.
Related post - BUSTED! USA Today article makes strong case that attempts to ban trans athletes are based on lies and misrepresentations
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| Jonathan Majors |
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| 'And Tango Makes Three' is the latest of book banning |
This nonsense about "protecting kids" by banning books is going to continue until folks recognize just stupid it is. And I hope that we are getting very close to that level.
From wuwf 881 - NPR for Florida's Great Northwest
The Escambia County School Board voted to remove three books from school libraries last night in a meeting that ran over four hours. The books in question had already gone through the district’s committee review process and had been voted unanimously to stay on the shelves in school libraries. But multiple challenges brought the books into an appeal process.In a packed room, dozens of parents and concerned citizens spoke about the books which include “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George Johnson, “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and “When Aiden Became a Brother” by Kyle Lukoff.Indeed, all three books discussed in Monday’s special meeting dealt with LGBTQ themes and characters. None of the books were part of classroom curriculum but were offered in age-appropriate libraries for students to read at will.
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| Michigan Republican chose Kristina Karamo as their state leader. |
And you thought you had problems? I'd wager that few of your problems are bigger than that of Michigan Republicans. After an electoral wipeout which saw them lose power in the 2020, the state party is going to a strange place for leadership.
From USA Today:
Kristina Karamo, a Republican who has made unsubstantiated allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election and has yet to concede her 14-point loss in the 2022 Michigan election for secretary of state, was elected chair of the Michigan Republican Party Saturday.Karamo defeated unsuccessful GOP attorney general candidate Matt DePerno of Kalamazoo, a fellow election denier who was endorsed in the party chair race by Trump. Karamo had 58% of the vote on the third – and final – ballot at the state convention. DePerno had 42%."We will not betray you; we will not lie to you," Karamo said in a brief victory speech as convention delegates were hustled out of the Lansing Center. The cash-strapped state party had only paid to rent the hall until late afternoon. Officials extended the arrangement until 8 p.m., but told delegates they had to leave quickly after the third ballot.. . . Karamo's election as chair signals the party leadership's shift to nearly full alignment with Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) messaging. Many longtime party stalwarts stayed away from Saturday's convention, unhappy with the party's direction. Long considered an organizational and fundraising juggernaut, the Michigan Republican Party took a historic shellacking in the November election, losing every statewide office and losing control of the Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years.
CNN reported that Karamo criticized schools for teaching children about LGBTQ parents, and quoted her saying in one episode: “There is no such thing as a person with two mommies and two daddies. That is just factually incorrect.” The outlet also quoted her in another episode saying of two same-sex parents: “No, it's the parent and their homosexual lover. That's what's going on.”Heartland Signal reported that on one episode of her podcast, “Karamo declares that she understands that same sex attraction ‘in and of itself is unnatural’” and “ranted about schools teaching LGBTQ issues and transgender youth acceptance. She referred to teaching those topics as ‘Satan … trying to get children while they’re small,’ and said, ‘the education system is being used as a tool to push sexual sin.’”
We have some good news out of Virginia about the anti-trans bills state Republicans have been attempting to make into law.
From The Advocate:
Thursday, Virginia Senate Democrats mustered a bipartisan effort to kill an anti-trans bill put forth and passed by the Republican-controlled state House. Legislators voted down a bill that banned transgender athletes of all ages from participating in sports teams aligned with their gender identity from kindergarten through college, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
During a Thursday morning committee meeting, the legislation was defeated 10-5, with Republican Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant of Henrico County voting with the Democratic majority.
When the bill passed the lower chamber of Virginia's legislature last week, the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement critical of the bill's advancement. "In a coordinated push led by national anti-LGBTQ+ groups, which deployed vintage discriminatory tropes, politicians in state houses across the country introduced a record 315 discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2022," HRC wrote.
"The majority of the discriminatory bills targeted the transgender and non-binary community, with the majority targeting children receiving the brunt of discriminatory legislation. Anti-transgender legislation took several forms, including bills aimed to prevent transgender youth from playing school sports consistent with their gender identity and bills to prevent transgender and non-binary youth from receiving life-saving, medically-necessary gender-affirming healthcare."
Equality Virginia cheered the news that transgender rights were being upheld in the state. "
After this morning's Senate Ed & Health Committee, we can officially say that all 12 anti-trans bills are DEAD!" Equality Virginia tweeted. They noted that in Virginia, Republicans put forth three gender-affirming care bills, four bills that would out students to parents involuntarily, and five transgender sports ban bills — all of them failed.
.Just a reminder that those pervert who power won't yield without a fight. The struggle for equality and the right to self-determination isn't supposed to be easy. The first step in winning is not allowing yourself to be run over.
Always fight. If not for yourself, then for the younger ones and those who have less capacity to fight.
Former VP Mike Pence sent out this tweet earlier on Wednesday:
According to The Advocate:
He spoke at the downtown event as GOP presidential candidates are beginning to throw in their hats for 2024, with Nikki Haley announcing her run this week. Former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy in November.“The truth is the average American today is being dragged into a left-wing culture war that’s invaded our schools, our colleges, and our workplace,” Pence lamented. “Every day we’re told that we must not only tolerate the left’s obsessions with race and sex and gender, but we must earnestly and enthusiastically participate or face severe consequences. And nowhere is the problem more severe or the need for leadership more urgent than in our public school classrooms,” the conservative Christian former vice president warned.Pence has yet to declare himself a candidate despite traveling the country and releasing a new book a few months ago. After his Minneapolis appearance, Pence was on his way to Iowa, which remains the first stop for Republicans in the presidential race.
“My fight is on the separation of powers. My fight against the DOJ subpoena very simply is on defending the prerogatives that I had as president of the Senate to preside over the Joint Session of Congress on January 6,” Pence told reporters in Minneapolis. “For me this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand and I stand on the Constitution of the United States,” he added.. . . Sources previously told CNN that Pence will raise claims under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which protects legislators from certain law enforcement actions if the conduct in question is linked to their legislative duty. Pence is expected to point to the role he played, when he was vice president, as president of the Senate. In that role, he presided over Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results on January 6.
“I’m a skeptic,” said Neil Eggleston, who served as White House counsel under President Obama. “Although the Constitution gives the vice president a role in vote counting, the Constitution does not make the vice president a senator. Senators are defined in Article One. The vice president is not a senator. And I read the speech and debate clause as only applying to senators and representatives. … I don’t think the language of the Constitution permits any other reading.”
Editor's note - working on a personal project so just news briefs tonight
Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills in 2023 Already Surpassed Amount Proposed in Entirety of 2022 - It's been war these past two years. But we know HOW to win wars.
At first I didn't want to post this but I decided otherwise because I felt it was necessary.
I think a lot of us don't understand the plight of transgender Americans as they are hit with an onslaught of bills attempting to erase their basic gender-affirming care and their very lives. This onslaught are attacks on their dignity and person. Republican and their cohorts behind these efforts aren't even attempting their basic hatred anymore.
Decorum flew entirely out the window Monday, as Arkansas senators insulted, attacked and silenced transgender people and their supporters who’d shown up at the Capitol in hopes of stopping yet another bill targeting LGBTQ+ youth. Republican lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, all of them white men, compared gender-affirming care to frontal lobotomies and child abuse. They dismissed testimony from doctors and therapists, and suggested lawmakers are the ones who know best when it comes to medical decisions. Freshman Sen. Matt McKee (R-Pearcy) made it all quite personal when he asked a transgender pharmacist who came to testify against the bill if she has a penis.
I would have some very choice words to say. To her credit though, the pharmacist refused allow this humiliating question to throw her off. She handled herself rather well in spite of the circumstances.
Arkansas State Senator Matt McKee is a disgusting horrible man who does not deserve to be a state senator and this question he asks proves he has poor judgement on top of being #transphobic #arkansas #senmattmckee #TransRightsAreHumanRights #Equality pic.twitter.com/8D4pkyP3Ya
— Lance J. Gosnell (@lancejgosnell) February 13, 2023
Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the bill made it out of the hearing:
The bill being discussed (and eventually passed Monday morning, with only the one Democrat at the meeting voting against it) is Senate Bill 199 to open up doctors who provide gender-affirming care to youth to significant new loopholes and additional malpractice liabilities far beyond the standard for doctors in other fields.
It's ironic that these people who claim that they are "protecting children" won't treat their adult constituents with basic dignity and respect.
Some words are worth repeating and some videos are worth reposting. We are unfortunately living in a time in which certain attempting to erase the intersection between Black and LGBTQ history. They will not succeed.
Walsh claims that his actions are all about saving children from "mutilation." In reality, he has created a successful business model built upon fear and scientific distortions hiding behind a flimsy veneer of "common sense."
People like Walsh are always troublesome but eventually amusing to watch. You get angry watching the havoc they create and the lives they disrupt. Sooner or later, though, they always get some sort of comeuppance because their egos blind them to their limitations. For Walsh, this took place on Thursday during a legislative hearing on an anti-trans bill in Tennessee.
🏳️⚧️ WATCH: “YOU HAVE NO MEDICAL BACKGROUND, CORRECT?”
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 9, 2023
Using his own words, TN Dems @VoteBo @JRClemmons @CalebHemmer grill Matt Walsh about the #TransYouthHealthCareBan his fearmongering pushed @WilliamLamberth @SenJohnson @GovBillLee to prioritize this session (over kids’ lives) pic.twitter.com/4DYEKZsQMV
This video was highly embarrassing for Walsh's brand and he knows it. Subsequently, he has been posting tweets of other parts of the hearing in an attempt to claim that he actually got the best of the Democrats. One tweet features a video of Walsh supposedly creating awkward silence from the panel by asking an inane question. In reality, the silence was because Walsh broke the protocol by interjecting that nonsense when they were asking him questions. Perhaps he was channeling Mellissa Carone, the woman who became a comical meme sensation after the 2020 election hearing in Michigan.
Like I said before, people like Matt Walsh are always amusing to watch as they climb a peak of relevancy to the point in which their egos cause the bottom to drop from under them. Unfortunately, while Matt's present humiliation underscores his dishonesty, people are still being led to believe the worst about trans Americans and the healthcare they need to survive. They are still seen by people like Walsh as a commodity for wealth and influence. Trans Americans, particularly our trans kids, continue to be bombarded by messages that people hate them and want them dead simply for attempting to be their authentic selves.
Taking all of that into account, the situation becomes less amusing and instead, increasingly infuriating.
Hat tip to The Tennessee Holler
Two disastrous anti-LGBTQ bills pass in NC and VA state houses. However, all may not be lost. Both have a very good chance of being ultimately defeated. However, they are still an indication of what we are facing this year in state legislatures:
North Carolina senate passes “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would out trans kids to their families |
| Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez |
She even had a little bit of "reading" left for the Republican Party for its part in the smearing of LGBTQ Americans.
Thank you @AOC for calling out @Twitter for supporting Chaya Raichik / Libs of TikTok even after incitement of threats against Boston Children’s Hospital by wielding misinformation — & calling the GOP “the party that cannot pick on anybody their own size”. pic.twitter.com/YBLyCARwmz
— Michael O’Brien, MD (@DrOBrienMD) February 8, 2023
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| Jaimee Mitchell, 'founder' of Gays Against Groomers |
