SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
drag bans
DeSantis Signs 'Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History'
"The nation should be on high alert. We are all Floridians as DeSantis seeks to export this blueprint of authoritarianism to the rest of the country," warned one activist in anticipation of the governor's likely presidential run.
May 17, 2023
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed a bundle of bills targeting transgender people that one activist condemned as "the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history."
Surrounded by children at Cambridge Christian School in Tampa, DeSantis—a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate—signed H.B. 1069, which expands the so-called "Don't Say Gay or Trans" law to prohibit educators from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K-12.
Also sometimes called the "Don't Say They" law, the legislation prohibits transgender students and staff from sharing updated preferred pronouns with each other.
\u201cDeSantis just signed the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history.\n\nA bathroom ban will result in many arrests in months to come.\n\nA care ban targets 80% of adult care.\n\nThey are getting little coverage.\n\nSubscribe to support my work.\n\nhttps://t.co/njmIfLHKcy\u201d— Erin Reed (@Erin Reed) 1684342317
DeSantis also signed S.B. 254, which bans gender-affirming care—which many trans people and doctors have called "lifesaving"—for minors, while prohibiting nurse practitioners from providing such healthcare to adults. Physicians who violate the law are subject to criminal charges.
Meanwhile, adults seeking gender-affirming care must obtain written permission from the Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine—whose members are appointed by the governor and have been inimical to transgender healthcare.
The law also grants state courts the power to seize children "if the child has been subjected to or is threatened with being subjected to sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures."
Dr. Marci Bowers, president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, said in a statement that S.B 254 "has created a chilling effect on the medical community by inserting politics into healthcare."
"Let me be clear, the medical community is united in endorsing gender-affirming care as safe, effective, and necessary care," she asserted. "Healthcare providers follow best practices based on science and research, and there's no place for misinformation or extreme ideology in our work."
"Florida politicians are acting in direct contradiction to decades of research that show the mental and physical health benefits of gender-affirming care," Bowers added. "Decisions about healthcare, including gender-affirming care, must remain between a healthcare provider and their patient, without political interference."
\u201cRon DeSantis just signed into law a GOP-backed ban on medical care for transgender youth.\n\nDeSantis and Florida Republicans went a step further, also requiring transgender ADULTS to obtain written consent from two oversight boards whose members are appointed by DeSantis.\u201d— Kyle Griffin (@Kyle Griffin) 1684345823
Another bill signed by DeSantis, S.B. 1438, bans minors from attending "adult live performances" like drag shows. The measure has led to the cancellation or scaling back of events including Treasure Coast Pridefest in Port St. Lucie.
"The most troubling bill, though," wrote activist Erin Reed, "is a ban on transgender people in bathrooms that comes with criminal charges and jail sentences."
The law, H.B. 1521, empowers cisgender people to order transgender people to leave publicly available restrooms—in places including airports, sports arenas, convention centers, beaches, parks, and public and even private healthcare and educational institutions—or face criminal trespass charges that could result in up to a year behind bars for those who refuse to comply. Transgender people in Florida are likely to be jailed in facilities that don't match their gender identity, exposing them to serious risk of sexual assault and other crimes.
\u201cEven if you are not travelling to Florida you may be affected. Tampa, Orlando, and Miami international airports are among the busiest in the country and they would be subject to the bathroom ban. If you stop for a layover in an airport, you could be affected by this.\u201d— Alejandra Caraballo (@Alejandra Caraballo) 1684342548
Reed said the law "will effectively give second-class citizen status to transgender people in Florida."
Other critics pointed to recent incidents in which trans people have been harassed while using restrooms.
\u201cTransphobia eventually becomes this: harassing random strangers in the bathroom and getting yourself heated bc you believe, from your visual observation, that it's possible to know someone's gender just by looking at them.\u201d— Gabrielle Alexa Noel \ud83d\udc98 (@Gabrielle Alexa Noel \ud83d\udc98) 1683741412
During Wednesday's signing ceremony, DeSantis proclaimed, "What we've said in Florida is we are going to remain a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy."
However, LGBTQ+ advocates condemned the new laws.
"This is an all-out attack on freedom," said Joe Saunders, senior political director at Equality Florida, refuting DeSantis' claim that he governors "the freest state" in the nation.
"Free states don't strip parents of the right to make healthcare decisions for their children. Free states don't ban books, censor curriculum, or muzzle free speech," Saunders continued. "DeSantis doesn't see freedom as a value worth defending, he sees it as a campaign slogan in his bid for the White House. And he is setting freedom—and Florida's reputation—ablaze in his desperation to win the GOP nomination."
\u201cSo - in #Florida, asking someone to wear a flimsy mask to possibly reduce the severity of a pandemic was a gross assault on personal freedoms. Banning medical care due to uninformed bigotry is A-OK. Right. Got it. #bullshit https://t.co/uJh2HBMva8\u201d— Ed the Sock (@Ed the Sock) 1684352280
"The nation should be on high alert," Saunders added. "We are all Floridians as DeSantis seeks to export this blueprint of authoritarianism to the rest of the country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Texas GOP's Top Anti-Groomer Crusader Resigns Over Sexual Misconduct With Teenage Aide
The lawmaker was facing an expulsion hearing after an internal investigation found he had furnished a 19-year-old staffer with alcohol and later tried to intimidate her into silence about what transpired and their relationship.
May 08, 2023
Republican State Rep. Bryan Slaton of Texas resigned his seat Monday in order to avoid a public expulsion hearing after an investigation determined one of the party's loudest voices promoting the baseless threat of "groomers" in the LGBTQ+ community had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 19-year-old member of his staff that included furnishing her with alcohol.
As the Texas Tribunenotes:
Pressure had mounted on the Royse City Republican to resign since Saturday, when the House General Investigative Committee released a 16-page report finding Slaton had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with his aide. The committee of three Republicans and two Democrats recommended that Slaton be the first state representative expelled from the body since 1927.
In a statement, GOP state chair Matt Rinaldi said, "The Republican Party of Texas commends the Texas House for responding swiftly and appropriately to the reprehensible actions of Representative Slaton" and that the "misconduct described in the General Investigative Committee Report should never be tolerated and is proper grounds for expulsion."
The Tribune detailed how the committee's investigative report also "alleged that after Slaton and the woman had unprotected sex in the early hours of April 1, Slaton drove her home, and she later went to a drugstore to purchase Plan B medication to prevent a pregnancy. Slaton, a staunch abortion opponent, later tried to intimidate the woman and her friends into not speaking about the incident, the report said."
While at least one political observer noted Slaton's resignation came "without an apology" for his conduct, others were quick to note that Slaton has been one of the GOP's most aggressive promoters of the "grooming" conspiracy theory that equates LGBTQ+ community members and drag show performers with pedophilia.
\u201cThere it is. Texas Republican Rep. Bryan Slaton\u2014who engaged in sexual relationship with a teenage intern\u2014has announced that he resigning from office, albeit without an apology.\n\nSlaton has led the charge against "grooming" of minors in Texas.\u201d— Sawyer Hackett (@Sawyer Hackett) 1683569870
According toVice reporting from last month when the allegations against Slaton first emerged:
Slaton, who is 45 years old, has spent more than a year denouncing all-ages drag performances, and last month he introduced a bill to ban drag shows from having kids in attendance.
"In the wake of these erotic drag performances sweeping our state, I committed last year to filing legislation that would stop this disgusting practice in the presence of children," he said in a statement announcing the bill.
"The State has a duty to protect kids from being sexually exploited, and HB 4129 is the most comprehensive bill to stop the sexualization of kids by these performances," he continued.
Slaton has previously blasted an all-ages drag show as a "grooming event."
"This is just going to the grooming, the sexualization of our children,” he said last summer. “This comes down to decency, morality and ethics, and children should not be the object of your sexualization, your desires."
An expulsion hearing was scheduled in the Texas State House on Tuesday, but Slaton's resignation arrived first.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'See You in Court,' Say Rights Groups After Tennessee Bans Care for Trans Youth
"We will not allow this dangerous law to stand," the ACLU and Lambda Legal vowed after Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the gender-affirming healthcare ban into law.
Mar 02, 2023
A trio of civil rights groups on Thursday said they will sue after Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ignored pleas from human rights and health experts and signed a bill banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth—a move that came on the same day the governor also approved legislation criminalizing public drag shows.
Under S.B. 1—introduced by state Sen. Jack Johnson (R-23), the same lawmaker behind the public drag ban—transgender minors undergoing hormone therapy or taking prescribed puberty blockers as of July 1, 2023 will be cut off from such care in Tennessee after March 31, 2024. Trans youth not receiving gender-affirming care by July 1 will be barred from doing so in the state.
Tennessee joins Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah in outlawing or restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth—and, in the case of Alabama, anyone under age 19. Federal judges have blocked Alabama and Arkansas from implementing their bans. Meanwhile this year, at least 24 states have introduced legislation to prohibit or restrict such care.
Lambda Legal—which along with the ACLU and ACLU of Tennessee announced its intent to sue—accused Lee and Republican lawmakers of "taking away the freedom of families of transgender youth to seek critical healthcare" and "putting the government in charge of making vital decisions traditionally reserved to parents in Tennessee."
"They've chosen fearmongering, misrepresentations, intimidation, and extremist politics over the rights of families and the lives of transgender youth in Tennessee."
"We will not allow this dangerous law to stand," the groups said in a joint statement. "Certain politicians and Gov. Lee have made no secret of their intent to discriminate against youth who are transgender or their willful ignorance about the lifesaving healthcare they seek to ban."
"Instead, they've chosen fearmongering, misrepresentations, intimidation, and extremist politics over the rights of families and the lives of transgender youth in Tennessee," the groups added. "We are dedicated to overturning this unconstitutional law and are confident the state will find itself completely incapable of defending it in court. We want transgender youth to know they are not alone and this fight is not over."
\u201cBREAKING: Tennessee Governor Bill Lee just signed into law a ban on all forms of gender-affirming care for trans people under 18. We're suing.\n\nTennessee \u2014 we'll see you in court.\u201d— ACLU (@ACLU) 1677791360
Ivy Hill, director of gender justice for the Campaign for Southern Equality, said in a statement after the bill passed that "my heart is breaking for transgender youth all across the country and throughout the South."
"We've known for years that it's never been easy to access gender-affirming care in states like Tennessee and the passage of this bill will only make it harder," they added. "But the trans and queer community across the South will do what we've always done: come together, support each other, and chart new systems that help people live authentic, thriving lives where they know they are loved and supported."
Dr. Allison Stiles, a Memphis physician, said that "this bill, I feel, was born out of fearmongering—out of false rhetoric that we are doing sex-change operations on our children."
"The hate has grown, and we now have a bill that could get parents arrested for taking their gender-dysphoric child to the physician, and their physicians for taking care of them," she asserted.
"There are at least four human beings that I have touched with my hands who are this side of the grave because of the gender-affirming care."
"Just to throw in a little science here... there are four independent aspects to our sexuality," Stiles added. "Our genetics—which could be XX, XO, XY, XXY, XYY—there is our outward appearance, our gender identity, and our sexual preference. The XX and XY fetus are identical, actually, until six weeks of gestation."
Proponents of gender-affirming care noted it saves lives.
"There are at least four human beings that I have touched with my hands who are this side of the grave because of the gender-affirming care," Rev. Dawn Bennett of the Table Nashville, a faith group that centers the LGBTQ+ community, recently asserted.
\u201cAny person at risk of being affected by these restrictions on gender-affirming care should reach out to https://t.co/79KIQtz5zD or https://t.co/zp5TRXGsU3.\u201d— ACLU of Tennessee (@ACLU of Tennessee) 1677795133
According to the ACLU, Republican lawmakers in more than 20 states are trying to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth—and in some cases, even adults.
Lee also signed a bill on Thursday making Tennessee the first state to criminalize public drag shows. The governor signed the measure amid allegations of hypocrisy following the revelation that he dressed in drag at least once while in high school in the 1970s.
"Drag is not a threat to anyone. It makes no sense to be criminalizing or vilifying drag in 2023," Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, a professor of culture and gender studies at the University of Michigan who has performed in drag, told the Associated Press.
"It is a space where people explore their identities," La Fountain-Stokes continued. "But it is also a place where people simply make a living. Drag is a job. Drag is a legitimate artistic expression that brings people together, that entertains, that allows certain individuals to explore who they are and allows all of us to have a very nice time. So it makes literally no sense for legislators, for people in government, to try to ban drag."
\u201c@TheTNHoller @GovBillLee I wonder if he was a minor when he dressed in drag? If so, how did his parents allow it?\u201d— The Tennessee Holler (@The Tennessee Holler) 1677531691
Other GOP-run states—including Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, and Oklahoma—are considering similar drag bans.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular