Fascism Watch for 27 November 2023: Clearing out the queue on anti-LGBTQ warfare

I haven’t had time to breathe. Here’s a dump of all the stories that I should’ve consolidated into an essay. They all matter and it’s just overwhelming.

UP FRONT:

• An analysis by one of the people paying the most attention, Erin in the Morning: Looking To 2024: What’s Next In The Fight Over Trans Rights In America.
• Assigned writes about anti-trans being a loser for Republicans in 2023 and 2024, but The New Normal on Trans Rights is Unacceptable.
• Finally, Law Dork writes about the anti-LGBTQ cases coming to the new, fuck-precedent-we-do-what-we-want US Supreme Court.

THOUGHT POLICE AMONGST THE STUDENT BODY: Her students reported her for a lesson on race. Can she trust them again? This is what the Republican MAGAts want.

LIES, LIES, LIES:

• Anti-LGBTQ fake science is spreading in Singapore – and yeah, it’s imported from the US.
• No, Trans Hormone Therapy Does Not “Increase Heart Disease By 95%”
• The Right is Desperate to Keep Lies About Artemis Langford Afloat.
• Vivek Ramaswamy Turns Stigma Against Mental Illness On Trans Youth.
• Chloe Cole Knows She’s Lying About Sterilization.
• Daily Signal Calls Puberty Blocking Implant “Transgender Surgery”.
• Gender Ideology Does Not Exist: A relentless campaign to refer to the existence of transgender people as if they were a faceless “ideology” continues to gain steam, even though, when you look closely there’s no ideology to be found.
• Tenn. vaccine chief, fired after promoting COVID shots, gets $150K settlement
• Tory pledge to ‘kick woke out of science’ put under the microscope

WE’RE NOT EXEMPT: National culture wars on race, LGBTQ+ rights come to [Washington State] schools. We have our own Moms4Liberty cult chapters too.

YOU THINK THEY WON’T GO THERE?

• House Speaker Mike Johnson ‘applauded’ idea of making gay sex illegal.
• Adult’s Transition Decision Portrayed as Scandal by Anti-Trans Right.
• Tories announce plan to ban trans trans women from female hospital wards.
• There Are Now Tests That Can Detect If Someone Took Abortion Pills.

CALIFORNIA: You still think they won’t go there? Oh, they’ll go there: School board president Sonja Shaw linked to lobbyists who support state executions for gays. Also, a loud (and violent) anti-LGBT movement group in California, Leave Our Kids Alone, is neck-deep in anti-semitism and Qanon: Leave Our Kids Alone’s Narek Palyan suggests “Jews did 9/11”. They also, like many other chapters, like to quote Hitler.

FLORIDA: You still think they won’t go there? Florida school district declares books with LBGTQ+ “characters and themes cannot exist.” Naturally. No Longer About Kids: Florida Judge Allows Trans Adult Ban For Large Swaths Of Care. Also naturally, that was always the point. After that, it’ll be lesbians and gays. (see also: Florida judge allows restrictions on adult transgender care to take effect. See also: Forced Out: The Electrical Engineer / Anti-Trans Laws in Florida Forced a Woman to Quit Her Dream Job with NASA.)

INDIANA: Indiana school ready to pay Paul Clement’s firm $200K to defend anti-trans bathroom ban

IOWA, but really, the New York Times: Both Sidesing Anti-Trans Repression: the NYT Sinks to Absurd New Depths (refugees fleeing Iowa vs. an older couple retiring to Missouri.)

KANSAS: Forced Outing Becomes Law in Kansas. Yes, adults, too.

MISSOURI: A flamethrower and comments about book burning ignite a political firestorm in Missouri. GOP state rep says he’d love to burn books. Andrew Bailey Sues Southampton Youth Clinic, Claims Substandard Care (because they give care to trans youth).

OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma judge declines to block felony ban on gender-affirming care. Longer analysis here.

PENNSYLVANIA: Remember, the rule is: make up something about your enemies, then hate your enemies for it. This one’s all about their decades-long “queers are pedophiles who want to rape your children [optional: and give them AIDS] to turn them gay” newtype blood libel: GOP Aide Sobs As She Claims LGBTQ+ People Are ‘Training’ Kids To Use Butt Plugs

TENNESSEE: This town banned Pride because of drag. Now they’re getting sued for restricting free speech.
The town even has an ordinance that bans “acts of homosexuality” as “indecent behavior.”

TEXAS: These Are the Right-Wing Ideologues Taking Over School Boards. Also, Report: Houston hate crimes against transgender people spiked in 2022.

VIRGINIA: Parents who want Youngkin’s transgender policies enacted sue the Virginia Beach school board

CANADA: Moe says Saskatchewan to use notwithstanding clause over school pronoun policy. This is so they can do culture warrior shit against trans kids. They did in fact do this (it passed the legislature) and now they’re looking for more ways to hurt queer people. See also It’s called the ‘1 Million March 4 Children.’ But who are they really fighting for? Apparently insurrection: ‘Save the Children Convoy’ Leaders Plotted to Capture Police and MPs at Secret Meetings, Participants Allege.

CHECHNYA: ‘Nobody is safe in Chechnya’: Life of torture survivor accused of being gay at risk, activists say

NIGERIA: Mass arrests target LGBTQ+ people in Nigeria while abuses against them are ignored, activists say

A GUIDE: Understanding the Anti-Trans Parent Movement And Recognizing the “Concerned Parent” Trope. Someone else’s essay.

ANOTHER GUIDE: Dax Shepard Podcast Ep Reveals How Uninformed Even Many Trans Allies Are, and it’s a problem.

ESSAYS AND LONGER STORIES:

• At the Vote Pray Stand Summit, Christian Parents and Their “Rights” Take Center Stage.
• This Seattle author wrote a memoir for LGBTQ youth. Now it’s being banned.
• On Reading the Atlantic While Trans.
• Where Is There to Go?” He Needs Gender-Affirming Surgery, but His State Is Fighting to Deny Coverage.
• Refusing to Censor Myself.
• F. L. “Bubba” Copeland, Our Sibling Who Never Was. (See also: Another casualty in America’s war on LGBTQ+ people)

Finally: THE NO-GO STATES LIST.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Fascism Watch for 2023/11/27: Clearing the Docket, Part 2

Remember how Mike Johnson wants LGBT people to be illegal? It’s not just us: Jewish family fled hometown after Mike Johnson warned of ‘enemy’ to the gospel: report. See also Eye of the bedeviler, an essay on how he gets a pass for this shit and Jeremiah Wright is still being published for lesser criticisms. He’s a bog-standard American evangelical fundamentalist and that means everything that always means, and the Republican Party gave him power.

If you’ve missed this: Mike Davis wants to cage kids, put Trump enemies in a ‘gulag.’ He could be our next Attorney General.

Let’s talk Twitter and Elon Musk. Elon Musk provides yet another platform for far-right attacks, endorsing a version of the Great Replacement white supremacist conspiracy theory as absolute truth. He’s also suing people for correctly pointing this out, and showing how ads are placed next to neo-Nazi and Hitler-worshipping accounts, as would expect from such an absolute defender of free speech. He even admits they’re right and Musk Twitter actually does this, and yet, he’s suing anyway because it’s bad of them to say it. And premium subscribers to Elon Musk’s service have been repeatedly pushing the racist Great Replacement theory, just like Elon himself.

That is, after all, why he bought it. I remind you: he owns the system and rigs it to his will. “Staying and fighting” isn’t a thing.

Pleasantly, Yet more advertisers are fleeing Twitter after Elon Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theory. Particularly if you’re a customer of any of these companies, you should write them supporting their decision to drop ads. Investors are acting (in a good way for once), so you should too.

If Paris Hilton can walk away, ordinary people can too.

(The Russian propaganda machine loves him, by the way. Similarly to how they love Tucker Carlson.)

Law Dork writes in longer form about the “perilousness of this moment” in history. You can see it in so many ways, but particularly the way Republicans disregard election results even when they acknowledge them as valid. The way Election mail threats across the PNW prompt new look at protections heading into 2024. The way a Fox host suggests that the answer to divisions is war, not voting. The way the Judge on Trump NY Fraud Case Receives ‘Serious and Credible’ Death Threats From MAGA. The way they just tell you what they’re going to do and people still support them, like Trump’s Recipe for a Shockingly Raw Power Grab.

The way they mock and jeer if you ask about their attempt to overturn the last election.

(See also: The culprits are all around us. See also also: the attacks on democracy are getting worse.)

The way they want mass death and disease. See also: CDC Advised To Weaken Infection Protections As Mysterious Pneumonia Brews Overseas, as RFK Jr. comes ‘home’ to his anti-vaccine group, commits to ‘a break’ for U.S. infectious disease research. (He makes a lot of money from these lies.) If you vote for this guy, you’re going to get him or Trump, and a lot more plagues. (Once again: vaccines work. They work well. Even against Long Covid.)

Vaccine Scientist Warns Antiscience Conspiracies Have Become a Deadly, Organized Movement. Well, he’s not wrong.

I’m so far behind, so the rest is a bit of a list.

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