Tuesday, April 01, 2025

'Fox News pundit mocks co-host for criticizing illegal deportation of 'gay barber'' & other Tue/Wed news briefs

Fox News pundit Jesse Watters


Jesse Watters Mocks Co-Host For Criticizing Deportation of Innocent Man: ‘You’ve Been Talking About This Gay Barber For Weeks’ - There is something seriously wrong with America and it's Fox News. Trump is merely a symptom. If it weren't for Fox News, Trump probably wouldn't have been seen as a serious presidential candidate. Trump will one day go on his way, but as long as Fox News exists, this country will have ugly division problems. And the saddest thing is that probably everyone in the national news and on Capitol Hill knows this. 


 A Mississippi cafe made a discount for straight couples only. Now, other restaurants are hitting back - Good for the other restaurants to strike back at this madness. 

Out gay figure skaters win two medals at 2025 world championships, with one making history - "It was largely a success for the six out LGBTQ figure skaters at this weekend’s world championships in Boston, with one athlete helping his country win a medal for the first time in 31 years." 

UNC Charlotte researcher’s grant cut for focusing on LGBTQ health, she says - Trying shut down our ability to improve our lives and health.

Monday, March 31, 2025

'Video - The Trump/Putin 'Spicegirls' duet you didn't know you needed' & other Mon/Tue news briefs

 
One of the main things which will get us through this turbulent period is comedy. And satire. Viciously on-point satire. This above video hits all of the spots.

 In other news:


These 26 LGBTQ college basketball players and 62 coaches have been out while competing - I am ALWAYS going to amplify stories like this one because I remember a time when the knowledge of this was dangerous to said players and coaches. I'm going to keep reminding folks about our past, so they don't take what we have for granted. 

Gay Chicago firefighters, on TV and in real life, focus on their jobs - "An interview with the actor playing a gay firefighter on “Chicago Fire” raises the question: What’s it like for actual gay firefighters on the Chicago Fire Department?" 

Transgender people are about 1% of the U.S. population. Yet they're a political lightning rod.- Because they are one percent of the population and folks see them as easy scapegoats. 

‘Agatha All Along,’ ‘Baby Reindeer’ and Cynthia Erivo Win Top Prizes at 2025 GLAAD Media Awards - Congratulations to all of the recipients (also, I will scandalously but unashamedly use this moment to remind y'all that this blog was nominated seven times for a GLAAD award and actually won one in 2017).


Video above from PoliticsJOE.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Marjorie Taylor Greene makes a bigoted fool of herself during PBS, NPR hearing

Marjorie Taylor Greene

On Wednesday, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene held a public hearing in which she tried to put forth the argument that PBS and NPR should be defunded. In interviews before the meeting and statements during the meeting, Greene pushed the claim that PBS in particular should be defunded because it supposedly uses drag queens to groom children into thinking that they are transgender. It's a ludicrous belief to normal people, but we are also talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene, a woman who made strange claims in the past about "Jewish space lasers." 

The hearing was ridiculous, of course. Luckily though all of the attention in the beltway is focused on the war plans leak scandal which has gripped the Trump Administration for the last few days. That's not to say that MTG''s hearing didn't have its moments. One is below when Greene showed her "proof" regarding her claims about PBS and drag queens supposedly grooming kids. It's a video of a drag queen singing:

By the way, according to a Daily Beast article, the video did not air on PBS. In the same article, the drag queen in the video, who was also smeared as child predator by Greene, had this to say: 

 Lil Miss Hot Mess, the stage name of performer Harris Kornstein, told the Daily Beast in a statement that Greene’s “political bullying” amounted to censorship. Greene attacked PBS CEO Paula Kerger on Wednesday over a digital segment featuring Lil Miss Hot Mess reading her book The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, though Kerger said the segment did not air on PBS. “While she claims to promote liberty, in reality, she just wants to tell us all what to think and do,” the performer said in a statement. “That’s not freedom, that’s fascism.” 

 “Greene’s attempts to defund PBS and NPR are the worst form of censorship, reflecting both her own ignorance and the Republican party’s authoritarian impulses,” she said. “The reality is that communities all over the country – including in her own district – deserve access to educational public media that reflects the diversity and creativity that makes our world beautiful.” 

But what if the segment had aired on PBS?  What was wrong with it? There was nothing obscene or sexual in general about it, except for in the bigoted minds of Greene and people like her. No matter what LGBTQ people do, they will always see us in a prejudicial light because they refuse to see us as anything else other than their stereotypical objects of derision. And that is their problem, not ours. 

One more thing of note which took place during MTG's hearing is how Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett called Greene out to her face. Ms. Crockett broke it down rather nicely.


 

Monday, March 24, 2025

Federal judge says 'NO' to Texas A&M's attempt to ban drag shows on campus

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against Texas A&M University's attempt to ban drag shows on campus.

From The Advocate:

A federal judge has struck down Texas A&M's ban on drag shows, determining it to be a violation of the First Amendment. Motivated by Donald Trump's executive order denying the existence of trans people, the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents voted to ban drag performances across all 11 campuses earlier this month, claiming that the art form was somehow “offensive” and “inconsistent" with the “core values of its universities, including the value of respect for others.” 

 The Board of Regents vote cancelled a performance of "Draggieland" (a combination of “Drag” and “Aggieland”), an award-winning student-hosted show that has been performed annually since 2020. In response, the Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed a lawsuit against the university. “Texas A&M, like any public university, has the utmost duty to respect the First Amendment rights of students,” 

FIRE Supervising Senior Attorney JT Morris said in a statement. “As public officials, they can’t banish speech from campus just because it offends them, any more than they could shut down a political rally or a Christmas pageant.”

 . . . “Today is a resounding victory for the First Amendment at public universities in Texas,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with FIRE who argued before the district court. “The court reaffirmed that state university officials cannot block student expression they claim is offensive. State officials should stop trying to score political points at the expense of students’ First Amendment rights.” 

 The students' March 27 performance will go on as scheduled, which the Queer Empowerment Council said they are "overjoyed" by.

My guess is that the somewhat muted response from a lot of the opponents of drag shows means that the war on drag queens which gripped the nation for a number of years is pretty much over. Many of those "won't someone please think of the children" types have gotten bored with or tired of raising hell against drag and have moved on to other objects to rage-bait about.

But like that Japanese soldier who became famous for not knowing that World War 2 was over, there is still a contingent of folks raging on Twitter.

Editor's note - This drag show will be held on a college campus and geared to an adult audience. Judge Rosenhal mentioned this in her ruling. You know how certain people are, unfortunately. They think everything about LGBTQ culture has a goal of "grooming" or "recruiting" children. That in itself doesn't make any sense. If we could recruit, we'd go after adults with money. At least I would.

Anyway:

Thursday, March 20, 2025

'Does MAGA have a child grooming problem? (Just asking questions)' & other Thur/Fri news briefs

Ricci Wynne (seen here on the right being interviewed by Tucker Carlson) has become the latest MAGA member in trouble for a sex abuse scandal.


MAGA Influencer And Fox News Guest Indicted On Child Sex Abuse Charges - We really need to start a serious conversation about how some people accuse drag queens and trans Americans of sexually grooming kids while ignoring the groomers in their own camp. 


More details about this conversation:

Just asking questions . . . 

 In other news 

LGBTQ+ asylum seeker ‘forcibly removed’ from US, sent to El Salvador - Trump continues to cause havoc. We told people this would happen.



Ban on conversion ‘therapy’ to be reconsidered by Supreme Court. Here’s what the discredited practice that tries to change LGBTQ youth is like - As we wait on the SCOTUS hearing, here is a reminder of what this false therapy was actually about - causing a lot of pain.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Appeals court strikes down Ohio's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, citing parental rights and calling out healthcare discrimination



Good news courtesy of The Associated Press:

Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is unconstitutional and must be permanently blocked from being enforced, a three-judge panel of appellate judges ruled Tuesday. The law also banned trans women and girls from participating in female sports. The state’s Republican attorney general vowed an immediate appeal. 

On Tuesday, the state’s 10th District Court of Appeals reversed a decision made last summer to allow the law to go into effect after a judge found it “reasonably limits parents’ rights.” The law bans counseling, gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy for minors, unless they are already receiving such therapies and a doctor deems it risky to stop. 

 The litigation was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio and the global law firm Goodwin, who argued the law not only denies health care to transgender children and teens, but specifically discriminates against them accessing it. 

 The court agreed and cited a number of flaws in the lower court’s reasoning. Judge Carly Edelstein wrote in the ruling that the Ohio law does not outlaw identical drugs when they’re used for other reasons, only when they’re used for gender transitioning, which makes it discriminatory. She also said that a prescription ban is not a reasonable exercise of the state’s police power when it is weighed against the rights of parents to care for their children. 

Addressing proponents’ arguments that minors are not in a position to understand the long-term impacts such procedures could have on their lives, the judge said that, while they may not be, their parents are. “Thus, in considering whether the H.B. 68 ban is reasonable, it is necessary to keep in mind that the law recognizes the maturity, experience, and capacity of parents to make difficult judgments and act in their children’s best interest,” she wrote. 

 

The irony of this ruling is how it's partly based on the argument that it is parents who should decide what's best for their children when it comes to healthcare. Parental rights are an argument generally used by conservative and right-wing groups as a way to undermine the rights of LGBTQ students.

Erin Reed has a very thorough view of the ruling.

Monday, March 17, 2025

'Court kicks Florida mom's deceptive anti-trans case to the curb' & other Mon/Tue news briefs



Attention-seeking mom loses anti-trans appeal - The Trump Administration is using Florida mom January Littlejohn's story to justify its attack on the rights of transgender Americans. Florida Gov Ron DeSantis used her story as a justification for his now muted 'Don't Say Gay' law. While Littlejohn was invited to Trump's address before Congress last week, a court ruled against her 

From LGBTQNation: 

 A federal appeals court this week upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit brought by January Littlejohn against her child’s school district in Tallahassee. In 2022, Littlejohn sued the Leon County School District and staff members at Deer Lake Middle School for allowing her 13-year-old child to use they/them pronouns and go by the “masculine” nickname “J” without their express permission. 

 . . . The U.S. District Court dismissed the case for the Northern District of Florida in December 2022. The school officials named in the case “did not force the Littlejohns’ child to do anything at all,” Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in this week’s decision. “And perhaps most importantly, defendants did not act with intent to injure. To the contrary, they sought to help the child.” 

 “Even if the Littlejohns felt that defendants’ efforts to help their child were misguided or wrong, the mere fact that the school officials acted contrary to the Littlejohns’ wishes does not mean that their conduct ‘shocks the conscience’ in a constitutional sense,” Rosenbaum wrote.

 In a concurring opinion, Judge Kevin C. Newsom said he considered the actions taken by the school district officials “shameful.” But the question at hand, he wrote, was “whether it was unconstitutional.” 

 According to a post I published in 2022, the narrative that the school did all of this without Littlejohn's knowledge or permission isn't accurate. The following is from the post: 

CNN did a fact check and discovered, according to emails, that Mrs. Littlejohn knew full well what was going on. In fact, she was the one who notified the school about her trans son:

CNN obtained emails that show Littlejohn wrote the school in 2020 and notified a teacher that her child wanted to change pronouns. Contrary to the governor's portrayal of the story, Littlejohn also wrote that she would not stop her child from using preferred pronouns or name of choice at school. Littlejohn references these emails in her lawsuit against the school and they were reported by the Tallahassee Democrat in November. 

 . . In an August 27, 2020, email to a teacher, Littlejohn stated, in part, "This has been an incredibly difficult situation for our family and her father and I are trying to be as supportive as we can. She is currently identifying as non-binary. She would like to go by the new name [redacted] and prefers the pronouns they/them. We have not changed her name at home yet, but I told her if she wants to go by the name [redacted] with her teachers, I won't stop her." 

The teacher thanked Littlejohn and asked if she should share with other teachers. Littlejohn explained it was difficult and confusing, and went on to write, "Whatever you think is best or [redacted] can handle it herself." In another email the same day, Littlejohn told the teacher, "This gender situation has thrown us for a loop. I sincerely appreciate your support. I'm going to let her take the lead on this."

According to CNN, Littlejohn filed a lawsuit against the school because she claimed that after this email, the school went behind her and her husband's back and created a Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Student Support Plan with the child. She also claimed that she was denied access to information.

However, the school district spokesperson said the following:

"From the moment Mrs. Littlejohn first emailed her child's teacher to inform our staff of the situation, this has been handled together in partnership with clear communication. We understand that outside entities have now become involved, but the family clearly instructed the school staff via email to allow their child to 'take the lead on this' and to do 'whatever you think is the best,' " Chris Petley, Leon County Schools communications coordinator, said in a statement to CNN.

In other news briefs:

BREAKING: Trump administration announces end to gender-affirming care for transgender veterans - An act of animus which I hope will be challenged in the courts. 

How to gird your gay loins for Trump's tariffs - We are also going to be affected by Trump's tariffs.