'A week in escalating anti-LGBTQ violence' & other Thur midday news briefs

Doxxed Doctors, Library Bomb Threats, and Attacks on Pride Centers: A Week in Escalating Anti-LGBTQ Violence​ - No joke. I have never seen anything like this. 

The LGBTQ-owned bookstore that rallied a community - But as you can see, we are fighting back in our own way. 

GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker says trans kids won’t go to heaven - Georgia, please don't send this guy to Washington.

Watch Pete Buttigieg's Devastating Takedown of Fla.'s Ron DeSantis - Ouch.

LGBTQ-friendly church OK with getting Southern Baptist boot - You're better off without them.

'A Drag Queen In Ever Classroom' - the funniest political ad of the 2022 midterms

Mid-term elections are zanier than presidential elections. This year is no different and in fact probably the strangest you will ever see. The GOP looks like they may gain control of the House, but not the Senate and not the majority of state governorships.

You see, they have a problem. In a midterm in which they are supposed to totally wreck the Democratic party, their base have picked bizarre candidates, some who can't campaign their way out of a paper bag. Case in point, Tudor Dixon, former actress who appeared in some very awful horror movies including one in which depicted women being urinated on by male zombies, is trying to portray herself as the upstanding opposite of current Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

It's presently not.working because she is way behind the polls. I wonder why . . . 

New ad from MAGA MI Gov candidate Tudor Dixon says Gretchen Whitmer wants “a Drag Queen in every classroom.” pic.twitter.com/7tyqrT5RXg

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) September 28, 2022

Maybe it's just me, but a drag queen in every classroom doesn't sound bad at all.

'Drag performer sues right-wing blogger over indecent exposure claims' & other Wed midday news briefs

Drag Performer Sues Right-Wing Blogger Over Indecent Exposure Claims​- It's about time someone stepped up. I hope he wins. It will send a message to those folks lying about drag performers. 

LGBTQ people are protesting in Harlem as Columbia University tries to buy their neighborhood - Good story. 

LGBTQ Italians on alert as right-wing alliance triumphs in election - Meanwhile, fascism is popular again in Italy. And it doesn't bode well for LGBTQ Italians. 

One in three Republicans say they don't want more LGBTQ people in Congress: poll - They will get over it.

Thousands of VA high school students walk out of school in protest of Gov Youngkin's anti-LGBTQ policy

On Tuesday, Virginia high school students sent a message to Governor Glenn Youngkin. They are not in favor of his policy which rolls back the rights of LGBTQ students. 

From The Daily Beast:

Thousands of Virginia students walked out of school Tuesday to protest anti-LGBTQ policies introduced by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, with more than 90 schools participating. The new school policies, unveiled in early September, require parents to sign off on names, pronouns or gender identities not aligned with students’ official records, and otherwise requires them to be referred to by their biological sex, potentially preventing them from using facilities or programs of their preferred gender.

 The policies are a walk back from the previous administration’s guidelines, which allowed students to identify without “any substantiating evidence.” “While students exercise their free speech today, we’d note that these policies state that students should be treated with compassion and schools should be free from bullying and harassment,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in a statement.

In addition to the walk-out, students were very vocal about the damage Youngkin's policy would cause:

 “We decided to hold these walkouts as kind of a way to ... disrupt schools and essentially have students be aware of what’s going on,” said Natasha Sanghvi, a high school senior and member of the Pride Liberation Project, which helped organize the resistance effort. 

 Sanghvi said the existing, more permissive state policies, which were adopted under former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam's administration, had been powerful in helping students feel affirmed in their identities at school. The new ones made public earlier this month, she said, have the potential to harm “every single queer student in the state of Virginia.”

'Trolls trying to review bomb upcoming gay romantic comedy' & other Tues midday news briefs

Trolls are trying to review bomb his gay rom-com & Billy Eichner has a solution - Those folks don't want us to have anything.

Right-wing media fearmonger against new clinical recommendations for gender-affirming medical care - You can always set your watch to it. 

Hatred for Queer Community on Display at Rally in Dearborn​ - THIS is sad. Keep fighting, y'all. 

Parents Confused, Outraged About Ohio School's Letter Regarding LGBTQ+ Policies - THIS, on the other hand, is good.

Cuba legalizes same-sex marriage in historic referendum - WOW! Good for Cuba!

Twitter accounts - some run by gays - chase profit by smearing entire LGBTQ community

These twitter sites, supposedly from LGBTQ people, have sprung up on Twitter. All sharing lies about the LGBTQ community (especially the transgender community) and other far right narratives.

The above sites are a part of a huge coalition taking aim at the LGBTQ community. Specifically, there are now Twitter accounts which spread lies and fear about the LGBTQ community for the sake of profit. And some of these accounts are allegedly run by LGBTQ people.

We know about Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Grooming and what they do to profit from scaring gullible people about the LGBTQ community. , 

The three above sites were recently created and mimic the narrative of the original Gays Against Groomers site. They claim that they are run by members of the LGBTQ community who think that we have supposedly gone too far and are now a danger to America, particularly children.

What they are doing is spreading LGBTQ lies for the sake of clout and profit. It's the social media version of Anita Bryant and the vast majority of it is simply vile:

But what makes these folks more dangerous is that they claim to be members of the LGBTQ community. That gives them more credibility than someone like Franklin Graham or Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Their narrative is "what we are saying is not homophobic because we are members of the community and we see that the religious right is correct about the gay community."

What makes them even more dangerous are the connections they have. Tucker Carlson  and other Fox News pundits, as well as other far right networks,  have more than once amplified their message.

Lastly, there are real world repercussions to what these accounts spew. People have been targeted and threatened after being falsely accused of being pedophiles. Several children's hospitals had to contend with bomb threats because these sites and other right-wing pundits falsely claimed that they were giving transgender kids hysterectomies. Two weeks ago, a woman was arrested for threatening to blow up  the Boston Children's Hospital.

It's some sad bullshit but also par for the course. Exploiting fear is a vice which no group in the world escapes. Every group has at least a few people in it willing to lie and stab their own in the back, front or wherever if the result is lots of media attention and profit.

Yes, I said profit.

The original Gays Against Groomers tweet address directs you to a webpage (which I am not sharing) where you can buy overpriced swag, i.e. clothing with the Gays Against Groomers logo. OR you can give donations. 

And of course you can join the mailing groups or the Twitter accounts where you can be shown all sorts of lascivious, immoral, and absolutely dirty things LGBTQ people and our allies are allegedly doing to children  It doesn't even matters if these charges are the results of comments taken out of context or given false context. It doesn't matter if these charges are extreme misrepresentation of events or even photos deliberately doctored.

All that matters is keeping the clout and the money coming.  And for that, these accounts are willing shock, sicken, anger, or whatever else is needed to pick the pockets.

Update - G.A.G.newyork -  @G_A_G_NY  sent me the following tweet. It was after he or she tried to convince me that the Twitter account is comprised of gay folks. If you're going to pretend to be gay, at least use current catchphrases. I mean who says "slay" anymore?

'School board candidate offends LGBTQ and Jewish community by using Pride flag as Nazi symbol' & other Mon midday news briefs

Simply tacky.

School board candidate uses Pride flag as a hated Nazi symbol - Geez, what a jackass. 

Trump’s Embrace of QAnon Realizes the Dream of the Religious Right - Classic case of be careful what you wish for, my friends. 

Evelyn Rios Stafford made trans history in Arkansas. She’s not finished yet. - Another SHERO. 

How beauty standards for LGBTQ people impact body image, mental health - Something else the community needs to converse about.