 |
| 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 It is misleading and inaccurate as it comes from outdated DSM-4 criteria and decades-old data.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claims from the former studies pop up and are presented as factual when they are over a decade old, are dramatically outdated, and use standards that are not even in use anymore.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.
 |
| FL Gov Ron DeSantis |
 |
| 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.
 |
| Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally |
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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
 |
| 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.
 |
| Chaya Raichik |
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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
 |
| 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
