From The Associated Press:
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Tuesday signed into law a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors. When the ink dried, South Carolina became the 25th state to restrict or ban such care for minors. The governor announced the signing on social media and said he would hold a ceremonial bill signing next week. The law bars health professionals from performing gender-transition surgeries, prescribing puberty blockers and overseeing hormone treatments for patients under 18.
. . .As the bill advanced in the General Assembly, doctors and parents testified before House and Senate committees that people younger than 18 do not receive gender-transition surgeries in South Carolina and that hormone treatments begin only after extensive consultation with health professionals. They said the treatments can be lifesaving, allowing young transgender people to live more fulfilling lives. Research has shown that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal behavior when forced to live as the sex they were assigned at birth.
Supporters of the bill have cited their own unpublished evidence that puberty blockers increase self-harm and can be irreversible.
To be more specific To be more specific, over 40 physicians, parents and kids testified against this bill. Only one person testified for it - a representative from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is a group which pushed anti-LGBTQ group across the country. And what's worse, he didn't even bother to show up in person. He testified via video.
If anything, this nonsense proves yet again how Republicans and conservatives weaponize the claim of protecting children to in actuality havoc to the LGBTQ community. According to the Campaign for Southern Equality, the new law also:
Prohibits public funds and Medicaid from being used to cover the cost of transition-related healthcare for transgender people of any age – which could result in providers of gender-affirming care who receive public funds to restrict care, and would impact transgender people insured through the state employee healthcare plan.
Encourages school professionals to “out” students to their parents if they ask to go by a different name or pronouns, potentially before they are ready to share.
And according to LGBTQ Nation, the law runs counter to what majority of South Carolinians said about the issue in March poll:
A March 2024 poll found that 71% of South Carolina voters felt that the government should not intervene in LGBTQ gender-affirming healthcare decisions that regard individuals under the age of 18.
The Campaign for Southern Equality has information available for those impacted by this law:
With H.4624 immediately in effect, advocates have launched resources to support families navigating this challenging period. Families of transgender youth in South Carolina are now eligible to apply for support from the Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project (STYEP), a regional project of the Campaign for Southern Equality, led in partnership in SC with We Are Family, Uplift Outreach Center, and the Harriet Hancock Center.
The project helps transgender youth whose access to gender-affirming care has been disrupted by government policies. Through STYEP, families can receive accurate information about H.4624; patient navigation to identify out-of-state gender-affirming care providers; and emergency grants of $500 for immediate needs, including travel, medication, and other logistics. Families can request support at www.southernequality.org/SCResources.
Transgender adults who may be impacted by H.4624 should contact the Campaign for Southern Equality’s informational hotline, which is available at https://southernequality.org/SCHealthcareHelp/
I'm as shocked as you, but a win is a win. The Supreme Court chose the safety of our LGBTQ children over fear tactics and general nonsense. At least for now
The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid backed by a conservative Christian legal group to challenge a Maryland school district's policy against informing parents if their children identify as transgender or gender nonconforming. The justices turned away an appeal by three parents with children attending public schools in the Washington suburb of Montgomery County of a lower court's ruling holding that they lacked the necessary legal standing to challenge the policy. The plaintiffs are represented by the Virginia-based National Legal Foundation.
The issue of transgender rights has become a flashpoint in the U.S. culture wars. As part of this, conservative litigants and parents groups have filed lawsuits in various U.S. jurisdictions challenging school policies that seek to respect requests by transgender students to not "out" them to their parents without their consent.
The policy at issue, adopted by the Montgomery County Board of Education for the 2020-2021 school year, permitted schools to develop gender support plans for students to ensure they "feel comfortable expressing their gender identity." The policy directs school personnel to help transgender and gender nonconforming students create a plan that addresses their preferred pronouns, names and bathrooms, and bars staff from informing parents of those plans without a student's consent.
The Los Angeles Blade posted the following about the failed lawsuit:
Three parents of students in the school district in suburban Maryland outside of D.C., — none of whom have trans or gender non-confirming children — filed the lawsuit. A judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last August dismissed the case. The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.
The victory comes a week after another victory in Maryland. That particular one had to do with LGBTQ+ curriculum and what I think was an attempted abuse of the opt-out policy.
Again, from The Los Angeles Blade:
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled a group of Montgomery County parents cannot “opt out” their children from classes in which lessons or books on LGBTQ-related topics are taught. The parents filed their lawsuit in May 2023.
An American Civil Liberties Union press release notes the lawsuit challenges Montgomery County Public Schools’ policy that “mandates the inclusion of literature with LGBTQ+ characters as part of the ELA (English and Language Arts) curriculum, aiming to promote understanding and acceptance among students.”
“Although the district originally allowed parents to opt their children out of some ELA lessons, it rescinded the opt-out policy because the number of requests grew too difficult to manage, student absenteeism soared, and it created a stigmatizing environment for students who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQ family members, undermining the purpose of the inclusivity requirement,” said the ACLU.
Opt-out policies have been generally used for sex education, but in recent times some parents - backed by conservative groups - have been attempted to weaponize them against anything regarding a mention of LGBTQ people in classrooms. In this case, the parents were objecting to age-appropriate books for pre-kindergartners and elementary schools simply because the books contained LGBTQ characters.
According to Reuters:
At issue was a set of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks that the board in 2022 approved for use in Montgomery County Public Schools’ curriculum. Those books included “Pride Puppy!” an alphabet book by Robin Stevenson about a dog who gets lost amid a Pride parade, and “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope,” a story by Jodie Patterson about her transgender son’s experience.
Parents could originally opt children out of reading the books, but the board abandoned the opt-out option with the 2023-2024 school year, prompting the lawsuit.
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| According to a report, Moms for Liberty founder Bridget Ziegler would get her husband to go in search of women they could engage in threesomes with. Her instructions included "Don't come home until your dick is wet." |
The sex scandal involving Moms For Liberty founder Bridget Ziegler and her husband Christian is heating up again.
From Florida Politics:
Ousted Republican Party of Florida Chair Christian Ziegler acknowledged in court he kept numerous videos of sexual partners besides his wife. The revelation come during a hearing on a now-closed investigation as the former politician as he and wife Bridget, a Sarasota County School Board member, seek to keep further details of their sex life private. The couple has sued the Sarasota Police Department and 12th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office to stop the further release of his personal data.
Sarasota Police have copies of much of the videos Christian Ziegler references as part of some 30,000 videos downloaded from Ziegler’s iPhone last year. Authorities obtained the entire contents after serving a search warrant connected to an investigation whether Ziegler raped a woman or filmed a sexual encounter without permission.
Ziegler was never arrested, with police ultimately concluding that sex with the Sarasota woman leveling the accusation was “likely consensual” and prosecutors ultimately determining they lacked evidence to pursue a video voyeurism charge. Communications from the phone confirmed multiple encounters between Ziegler and the woman dating back years, including threesomes with Bridget. Now wait a minute.
Hold your shock because it gets more detailed. Apparently when she was not busy accusing schools, teachers, books, and LGBTQ folks of "sexually grooming" children, Mrs. Ziegler was allegedly coordinating threesomes with her husband by getting him to prowl bars, take pictures of women, and then send her the photos. That's from a report obtained by The Florida Trident:
The report, obtained by the Florida Trident and authored by Sarasota police Det. Angela Cox, recounts how Christian Ziegler went “on the prowl” in bars for women to bring home to Bridget, a Sarasota County School Board member who has backed a number of anti-LGBTQ measures at both the state and local level, for threesome encounters. While at the bars, Christian would surreptitiously photograph prospective women and text the photos to Bridget for approval, according to the report.
Investigators found “numerous sexual videos” on Christian Ziegler’s phone involving the couple and other women, according to Cox’s report. The detective noted that it wasn’t clear if the women in the videos knew they were being recorded or not. “There were numerous text messages between Bridget and Christian where they are on the prowl for a female and Bridget is directing him to numerous different bars in search of a female that they are both interested in,” Cox wrote of the Ziegler phone contents.
“During these conversations Christian is secretly taking photographs of women in the bars and sending them to Bridget asking her if she wants this one or that one. Bridget is telling him to pretend to take pictures of his beer, so they don’t see him taking pictures of them. She tells him ‘Don’t come home until your dick is wet.’”
I'm the last person to moralize (although taking pictures of anyone for the alleged purposes stated in the article is tacky as hell), so this isn't about sex. It's about hypocrisy of an extreme level. As much as I hate to generalize, there is something to the claim that if you "scratch" a far-right conservative moralizer, you're bound to find a sex fiend. It amazes me how certain folk gripe about society's decaying moral, accuse schools and books of sexually grooming children, or scapegoat LGBTQ people and culture while secretly engaging conduct in which would make my hair turn white. It would be funny if it didn't piss me off when I consider how many innocent people - especially school administrators and teachers - were branded as pedophiles and groomers. Or how many LGBTQ kids lost access to vital resources.
It's really not funny at all.
Hat tip to JoeMyGod
Another week, another court victory for transgender Americans and this one comes with a hefty price tag for those who sought to discriminate against her.
From The Associated Press
A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that a Georgia county illegally discriminated against a sheriff’s deputy by failing to pay for her gender-affirming surgery. In its ruling Monday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it was tasked with determining whether a health insurance provider can be held liable under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for denying coverage for a procedure because an employee is transgender.
The three-judge panel decided in a 2-1 vote that it can and that the lower court had ruled correctly. Houston County Sgt. Anna Lange, an investigator for the Houston County sheriff’s office, had sued Sheriff Cullen Talton and the county in 2019 after she was denied coverage.
. . .U.S. District Court Judge Marc Treadwell ruled in 2022 that the county’s refusal to cover Lange’s prescribed gender-affirmation surgery amounted to illegal sex discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Treadwell’s order cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision finding that a Michigan funeral home could not fire an employee for being transgender.
The judge ordered the county’s insurance plan to pay for the surgery and Lange eventually underwent the procedure. A jury awarded Lange $60,000 in damages in 2022. The county sought to undo Treadwell’s order and the damage award.
According to LGBTQ Nation, the county spent $1.2 million in legal fees when the surgery would have only been $10,000. Oh well. That's what the county gets. Some people aren't content unless they learn the hard way.
And I'm here for it.
A bill that would have expanded Alabama’s “Don’t Say Gay” law died on the final day of the 2024 regular session. HB 130, sponsored by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, would have extended Alabama’s prohibition on discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to fifth grade to kindergarten to eighth grade. It also would have banned flags or other insignia indicating gender identity or sexual orientation. Butler said in a Friday phone interview that he didn’t know what the issues were in the final days of the session but said there was a filibuster in the Senate “which is not uncommon.”
Alabama public school teachers are already prohibited from leading discussions on LGBTQ+ identities through fifth grade. The new legislation, H.B. 130, would extend that restriction through 12th grade. The bill would also remove a line from existing law stating that teachers cannot discuss LGBTQ+ identities “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” and completely ban such discussions. Opponents of the bill said that it would force LGBTQ+ students and staff to go back into the closet in schools since the law was vague about what discussions, exactly, would be restricted.. . . Some of the confusion about the bill was discussed in the Alabama Senate, where state Sen. Larry Strutts (R) asked whether it would apply to bumper stickers on cars in school parking lots. Butler replied that school property doesn’t include parking lots.“The property is not the parking lot?” Stutts asked. “Well, we’re talking about the actual building,” Butler replied. Butler later told reporters that the concern was “ridiculous” but admitted that confusion around the bill may have prevented it from passing.
Butler also reportedly tried to add an amendment – which failed – specifically stating that the state’s Space Camp may not teach children about LGBTQ+ issues. The amendment was issued in reaction to the revelation that a single employee of the Huntsville Space Camp is transgender. The revelation angered a slew of parents and politicians who called for the employee to be fired.
