Thursday, July 13, 2023

Casey DeSantis channeling Anita Bryant in sad attempt to save husband's flailing presidential campaign

Florida activist and former state legislator Carlos Guillermo Smith got it right with this tweet about how the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign is attempting to use his wife Casey as a political asset. 

And how it's actually not a good look.



 In the 1970s, Anita Bryant became infamous with her attacks on the LGBTQ community. She was probably the first who recognized how homophobia disguised as Christian faith can be a devasting political tool. And she used it with abandon.  She made horribly inaccurate claims about how gays are recruiting children and then used her "Christian beliefs" to shield herself from accusations of bigotry. It was successful for her at first, but her crusade eventually destroyed her career and marriage. 

Mrs. DeSantis is obviously copying Bryant's modus operandi of scapegoating LGBTQ people, even down to the 'recruiting' narrative. While I certainly don't wish ruin for the DeSantis marriage, I sincerely hope this desperate shift from Ron DeSantis to his wife as sort of fiercely protective "grizzly mother" helps to wreck his flailing presidential campaign.

It certainly appears so.


'Hair product line severs relationship with Michigan hair stylist after she bans trans and queer customers' & other Thur midday news briefs.



Traverse City salon fallout: Hair product line drops salon after anti-transgender post - This is what's called 'consequences culture.' She doesn't want to serve trans or queer clients. A beauty product line has refused to supply to her. The end. 

Michigan AG: Salon Owner’s Refusal of Service to Transgender Clients Unacceptable - And it gets better (or worse) depending on who you're rooting for. 

Trial over Alabama transgender care ban for minors delayed until 2024 - Meanwhile that awful law cannot be enforced.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

'How dare you!' - Fired up mom brings the smoke in school board meeting to protect LGBTQ students from bad policies

Don't let the right fool you with their false narratives about fired up parents supposedly being solely on their side. LGBTQ kids have parents too and they don't need any astroturfed groups to manufacture the fire for them. They bring their own, like this mother recently did in front of the Wilson School Board in Tennessee as she defended not only her child, but other LGBTQ students, from bigoted school board policies.

'Rollout for South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's anti-LGBTQ whistleblower hotline is hot mess' & other Wed midday news briefs

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is having problems. And she deserves those problems.





Supreme Court’s Anti-LGBTQ Ruling Has Already Incited Discrimination - Yes it has. BUT the subject in question WILL learn TODAY. 

Michigan Salon Owner Refuses to Serve LGBTQ+ Community Because of ‘Pedophiles’ - More details about the above news brief. As I said, she is learning the hard way even as we speak.

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

The grift is real: Kid Rock still sells Bud Light even after helping to start boycott

It has always been a grift. From The Daily Beast by the way of JoeMyGod:

After Bud Light’s brief partnership with a transgender influencer sparked right-wing outrage, Kid Rock established himself as one of the brand’s strongest critics. But CNN’s recent visit to his signature bar in Nashville— Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock ‘n’ Roll Steakhouse—told a different story. “Despite the online bravado, and talk of a boycott, Bud Light was available when CNN stopped in recently,” CNN reporter Ryan Young said in a segment that aired Tuesday morning. “It is not clear if the ban had been lifted or if there ever had been one to begin with.” The visit by CNN comes after some patrons had posted on social media about spotting Bud Light at the bar. After Bud Light sent free beer to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Kid Rock filmed himself shooting up a case of the iconic beer. 

 This really isn't a new development. Newsweek reported the same thing last week: 

 Despite his vocal opposition to Bud Light, Kid Rock's Tennessee bar is still selling the beer, according to a Newsweek source. Kid Rock was one of the first to publicly dismiss Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev, filming a video of himself shooting crates of the drink with an assault rifle after the brand sent transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney a personalized beer can.

 This reaction made it surprising to some when it was claimed in June that the Kid Rock's Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N' Roll Steakhouse was still selling Bud Light. another social media user seemed to dismiss this with a viral video, saying it wasn't sold there, but a source has come forward to Newsweek, showing pictures of Bud Light being sold and drunk at Kid Rock's establishment. 

 And that article made reference to a June tweet proving the same thing:

In other words, this is hardly a new or shocking development. If anything, it underscores just how lazy and overpaid some members of the American media are. Most likely very few will note this stunning degree of hypocrisy because the Bud Light controversy has run its course. It's no longer a hot item for the media to waste time with frivolous debates about the trans community (but talking to very few members of the trans community) while convincing themselves that they doing hard hitting work. 

Cut them some slack. They're practically bending over backwards to justify to themselves the embarrassingly large paychecks they receive year after year. The real shame is that this newest revelation would create a fruitful discussion about how people can easily be manipulated into a frenzy over something as irrelevant as a little beer campaign featuring a transgender woman. And also about how it has led to more vilification against trans Americans. 

But I doubt anyone is going to talk about that.

The only person who probably gained from all of this this is Kid Rock. He got an obscenely large amount of attention by helping to usher a boycott against a beer which he continued to sell during said boycott. He's probably laughing at all of the trouble he caused. 

Then again, knowing Kid Rock, he's probably doing this to us all:

'Did Ron DeSantis's anti-LGBTQ ad backfire against his presidential campaign?' & other Tue midday news briefs



A narrative seems to be forming that Ron DeSantis's recent anti-LGBTQ ad backfired against him. Badly.



In other news: 

Casey DeSantis has been declared “America’s Karen” & we’ve never heard a more fitting nickname - Mrs. DeSantis taking a leading position in her husband's presidential campaign doesn't seem to be working. 


Monday, July 10, 2023

Federal court says school district can't restrict 11-year-old trans girl from using girls' bathroom

 


A victory in Wisconsin underscores just how ugly attacks against the trans community are. 


From NBC News:

A federal judge has blocked a Wisconsin school district from requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth while a lawsuit plays out against the school. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman said Thursday that the Mukwonago Area School District must allow a transgender student to use facilities that align with their gender identity, temporarily blocking a policy approved last month by the school board, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 
The order comes in a lawsuit brought anonymously by an 11-year-old transgender student and her mother. The judge ruled that the school’s policy was causing emotional and mental harm to the student, who was described as a boy at birth but has identified as a girl since she was three years old.

 It's an 11-year-old child. Why is a policy attempting to force her to use the boys' bathroom necessary? Who is she hurting? From the way some people behave about this sort of thing, one would thing she was doing something other than normal bodily functions. Headlines from far-right publication prove that point by attempting to paint a lurid picture:

Gateway Pundit:

Clinton-Appointed Liberal Judge Rules Wisconsin School Must Let Trans-Identifying Biological Male Students Use Girls’ Restroom


Wisconsin School District Must Let Trans-Identifying Student Use Girls’ Restroom, Federal Judge Orders

But even The Daily Wire, in spite of its headline, lends credence to questioning why such a policy banning trans kids from using restrooms of their gender identity is necessary:

The judge’s decision blocks the district from keeping the 11-year-old boy out of the girls’ bathroom. The temporary restraining order states that the boy has been using the girls’ bathroom since he was in third grade and is entering sixth grade. The boy is reportedly currently attending summer school and was told by school district staff that he must use either the boys’ bathroom or a gender-neutral option. The restraining order also says the boy is suffering “emotional and mental harms” due to the bathroom policy.
 
Since the trans girl was already using the girls' restroom since third grade, what would be the harming with allowing her to use it now? It's doubtful many folks reading publications like The Daily Wire or The Gateway Pundit would get past those headlines with an objective mind intact.

Unfortunately, when it comes to trans issues - particularly trans issues involving kids - the simplicity which is usually there is always ignored by the right and their readers. It's all about exploiting people's fears about predators attacking kids in places where they are vulnerable.  That in itself is a justified fear, but in the worldview of the right, trans kids aren't seen as vulnerable. In fact, they would like these kids not to be seen at all.  

This is because their visibility makes it difficult for grifting outfits like The Daily Wire and The Gateway Pundit and the transphobes they feed off of to forget that when we talk about protecting children, that also means trans children.