All Things LGBTQ+ (2 Viewers)

[Farb]

Didn't really see a place for this so I thought I would start a thread about all things LGBTQ since this is a pretty hot topic in our culture right now

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/sup...y-that-refuses-to-work-with-lgbt-couples.html

• The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a unanimous defeat to LGBT couples in a high-profile case over whether Philadelphia could refuse to contract with a Roman Catholic adoption agency that says its religious beliefs prevent it from working with same-sex foster parents.
• Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in an opinion for a majority of the court that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment by refusing to contract with Catholic Social Services once it learned that the organization would not certify same-sex couples for adoption.

I will admit, I was hopeful for this decision by the SCOTUS but I was surprised by the unanimous decision.

While I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with same sex couples adopting and raising children (I actually think it is a good thing as it not an abortion) but I also did not want to see the state force a religious institution to bend to a societal norm.

 

[MT15]

Should certain rulings not be made due to how people might misinterpret them?

I can’t answer for anyone else, but I do think that SCOTUS should consider during a decision whether there will be widespread practices due to their decision that are harmful. Obviously they don’t consider it because we’ve seen a lot of harm come from their decisions lately. And I do think they realize the harm that will be done, but they don’t care. All they care about is pushing their radical ideology on this country while they have their chance to do so.

 

[SaintForLife]

Just because you’re not paying attention to what people you agree with are trying to do to LGBTQ people doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Read what Optimus posted.

Maybe I missed it. Which post of his are you talking about?

 

[MT15]

Maybe I missed it. Which post of his are you talking about?

#4835. We also have a member here who disclosed their child is on testosterone and that has greatly improved their child’s mental health. These laws are going to force bad outcomes on people, similarly to the way anti-abortion laws are causing bad medical outcomes.

 

[coldseat]

Should certain rulings not be made due to how people might misinterpret them?

That ruling shouldn't have been made because it legalized discrimination, which is what is happening.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Even before she was fired this month amid a scandal over suggesting students should sing a song about rainbows, Wisconsin teacher Melissa Tempel had her concerns that the School District of Waukesha might not be the place for her.

Ms Tempel, who is half-Korean and teaches elementary school dual-language immersion classes, says her childhood experiences and research into race and education made her put a special emphasis on making all children feel welcome.

“I knew what it felt like to be different and to have that strange veil of, you don’t quite fit in here,” she told The Independent. “So I’ve always been very empathetic to other people who might be experiencing marginalisation.”

However, with each passing year at Heyer Elementary School, which sits in a conservative part of the state, she felt school officials seeming to go out of their way to make pupils feel less welcome……

In March, Ms Tempel started discussing with her fellow teachers what song her first graders should sing at an upcoming spring concert. One of her colleagues suggested a Miley Cyrus-Dolly Parton duet called “Rainbowland,” a song with an inclusive message and lyrics like “Wouldn’t it be nice to live in paradise / Where we’re free to be exactly who we are.”

School officials rejected the suggestion, later saying that they worried the song would be associated with explicit lyrics and images from Cyrus’s other work.

Ms Tempel found the rejection somewhat baffling, but since she hadn’t suggested the song in the first place, and because she had plenty else to do as a teacher, she didn’t voice these concerns with the administration at first.

She did, however, post about it on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that month, which touched off the firestorm that ultimately cost her her job.

“My first graders were so excited to sing Rainbowland for our spring concert but it has been vetoed by our administration,” she wrote, tagging the school district, Parton, Cyrus, and the Department of Justice’s civil rights division. “When will it end?”

“I was trying to raise awareness,” she said of the tweet. “Look at how ridiculous this controversial content policy has become. What’s going to be next?”

She said was amazed that a school district would be worried about a song with a message as “innocent and beautiful” as “Rainbowland.”

The message got the attention of school officials, who launched an investigation and put the teacher on leave. In the meantime, Ms Tempel says she was hit with hate online, with commenters accusing her of being a “groomer,” a term, as The Independent has reported, which conservatives across the country have adopted and used to attack LBGT+ people and their allies.……

Wisconsin teacher fired over Miley Cyrus rainbow song: ‘It’s really scary’

A teacher’s tweet questioning why her school rejected a Miley Cyrus song about rainbows spiraled into a larger conversation about free speech and diversity in public education, Josh Marcus reports

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

This was a good read
================


Every day, there’s a new, terrible development from those attempting to restrict trans life. From laws in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia that are denying trans-related healthcare to minors (and in some cases, adults), to federal laws restricting trans inclusion in sports, to a law in Tennessee that’s expected to be replicated in other states, which would charge publishers with a class 3 felony for publishing books for children that they deem “obscene” (which probably means having queer- and trans-related content, in their eyes), one doesn’t have to look far to see the actions of those who would bar trans people from public life, or any kind of life.


At the center of a lot of the LGBTQIA+ debates have been books that introduce young people to the ideas of queerness and transness. These books have been banned in some states, taken off library shelves in others, decried by rightwing pundits who think teaching children about natural variations in life such as transness is “corrupting” them.

As all this goes on, I walk into work every day and commission books for young people that might help keep queer and trans children alive.

I am a transgender person, and I’ve known this since I was five years old. In the absence of books or media or openly lived lives that normalized who I was, I went into the closet for nearly 25 years, only coming out as transgender when I was nearly 30.

What I would have given for a book that taught me (and the people who raised me) that I wasn’t an aberration, that there were people like me all over the world and all throughout time. Every day, I strive to bring books into the world that will give children like I was the knowledge that they are not alone, that what they are is not wrong, and that they will be accepted.

Some of the kids’ books I’ve helped bring into the world since starting my job with Jessica Kingsley Publishers as an editor of gender and sexuality books are Cassandra Corrigan’s The Gender Book, which introduces children to the idea of various genders, and the same author’s My Culture, My Gender, Me, which shows that genders beyond the binary are not a “fad” based in the US, but a worldwide phenomenon that crosses borders and cultures.

A driving factor in the books I commission is that they are books that would have helped me as a trans child. These are books that explain difficult concepts to both children and the adults reading to them – books that spread knowledge and understanding, a vital thing for trans kids, the adults who raise them, and kids who want to grow up to be accepting adults.

Some people call the work the authors of these books and I do part of the “culture wars”, and there is a sense, every day that I go into my job, that I am fighting back against the forces of ignorance and hate that would have us all sequestered from one another, mistrustful and filled with disdain. I don’t buy into the idea that what our authors and I do is an attempt to “brainwash” children.…….

I’m a trans person who edits children’s books. The culture wars engulfs me on all sides | Alex DiFrancesco

Editors like me are accused of ‘brainwashing’ children. But I simply strive to bring books into the world that let trans children know they aren’t alone

www.theguardian.com

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[LA - L.A.]

What are you thoughts and opinions regarding that?

 

[Farb]

Do we all agree now that life altering procedures and medication are being given to minors for the sake of 'gender affirming care'?

I know for a long time, the opinion by those that support this was that it was not happening to minors. Just want to be sure we all agree that it is indeed.

 

[Farb]

I think it’s a Christian private school. But still - she’s been there for 19 years, evidently they were happy with her performance in the classroom. She isn’t accused of doing anything wrong during her job, she didn’t do anything illegal on her own time.

This is just pure bigotry.

Were there children present at hamburger marys or whatever the venue was called? If so, tat is illegal in Texas and she being a teacher should have known better. Personal accountability.

Now if this was at an a bar like drag shows always have been up until 3 years ago and she went, then she will be a very rich woman when she sue the school to oblivion (unless she signed a code of conduct when employed by the private school).

 

[Farb]

I can’t answer for anyone else, but I do think that SCOTUS should consider during a decision whether there will be widespread practices due to their decision that are harmful. Obviously they don’t consider it because we’ve seen a lot of harm come from their decisions lately. And I do think they realize the harm that will be done, but they don’t care. All they care about is pushing their radical ideology on this country while they have their chance to do so.

expose kids to drag shows/sex changes vs don't expose kids to those things is considered radical ideology of the 2. That is clown world.

 

[Farb]

That ruling shouldn't have been made because it legalized discrimination, which is what is happening.

who does it discriminate against?

 

[coldseat]

who does it discriminate against?

If I went to that nonexistent web designers office and asked for a website for my gay wedding, I'd be told "No" because my lifestyle is sinful and Jesus doesn't approve. So it would be me and other LGBTQ people who are discriminated against. You already knew that.

 

[MT15]

Do we all agree now that life altering procedures and medication are being given to minors for the sake of 'gender affirming care'?

I know for a long time, the opinion by those that support this was that it was not happening to minors. Just want to be sure we all agree that it is indeed.

For a very few, a handful. And it’s none of my business nor of your business either.

 

[MT15]

expose kids to drag shows/sex changes vs don't expose kids to those things is considered radical ideology of the 2. That is clown world.

You are an authoritarian, period. This is the actual opposite of a libertarian. You have turned your entire ideology around to follow an authoritarian movement, thus indicating you really don’t have a moral code, but are malleable to whatever winds blow your way.

You want to control everyone’s actions according to your own religious beliefs. You aren’t interested in anyone else’s POV. You don’t want to learn anything. You just want to push your far right wing ideology and religion on others and feel superior to those who don’t think like you do. Of course this is all my opinion, I’d love to be wrong, but I don’t think I am.

Now, you’re free to have your own ideas, free to think everyone except you is going straight to hell, free to even say whatever lies you want. Free to raise your children according to your own worldview. But you are not entitled to rule other‘s lives. You are not entitled to come between parents and their children when it comes to accepted medical care for that child, and you’re sure as hell not entitled to tell other people what kind of medical care they can have or not have. This is supposed to be a free country, and you cannot rule others.

Your side won’t win, America won’t become a theocracy. We will still be free. We‘ve all seen the plot, we see what you want, and we won’t accept that version of America.

 

[Optimus Prime]

So, the right has expressed outrage at M&Ms, Barbie, Chick Fil A, Target and many more

And the rage always seems to dissipate (or rather migrate to the latest outrage) with little to no effect at all

Why was the anger against Bud Light different and much more '''effective"?

The only thing I can think of is maybe there was more of a sense of betrayal "Bud light is our beer! how could they do this!"

Other than that, I've got nothing
======================================================================

The scale of the conservative backlash against Bud Light was revealed on Thursday when owner Anheuser-Busch InBev reported a sharp drop in US revenue over the past three months.

The world’s largest brewer saw its second-quarter revenue in the US – its largest market – drop 10.5% after a rightwing backlash over a partnership with a transgender influencer led to a sales drop. Operating profits dropped nearly 30%.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/29/dylan-mulvaney-bud-light-transgender
Despite the fall in its US revenue, the company still managed to report a rise in global profits, attributed to price increases and growth in sales outside the US.

Anheuser-Busch has been struggling with the Bud Light brand after it partnered with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a sponsored Instagram post in April. The post caused uproar among conservatives on social media, who started boycotting the brand. In protest, conservatives posted videos of themselves throwing away or, in one case, shooting up cases of the beer.

Besides Bud Light, companies from Target to Disney to Cracker Barrel have seen conservative uproar in recent months as part of a broader backlash against “woke” corporations. Typically social media backlashes are short-lived and do not have much impact on a company’s bottom line, but the strength behind the Bud Light backlash has been acute.

Amid the backlash, Bud Light put two marketing executives, including its vice-president of marketing, on leave. Brendan Whitworth, chief executive of Anheuser-Busch, said in an April statement that the company “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people”...............

Bud Light brewer reports sharp drop in US revenue after rightwing backlash

Anheuser-Busch InBev revenue fell 10.5% in last three months following controversy over partnership with trans influencer

www.theguardian.com

 

[SystemShock]

So, the right has expressed outrage at M&Ms, Barbie, Chick Fil A, Target and many more

And the rage always seems to dissipate (or rather migrate to the latest outrage) with little to no effect at all

Why was the anger against Bud Light different and much more '''effective"?

The only thing I can think of is maybe there was more of a sense of betrayal "Bud light is our beer! how could they do this!"

Other than that, I've got nothing

I think you got it right. I did something similar with Pepsi. I was a Pepsi drinker since childhood. In the mid 00's, while friends of mine were being laid off and their jobs given to people in India, some of them even forced to train their Indian replacements, and with the very real and latent possibility that it could happen to me, Pepsi hired an Indian woman as CEO. I threw away the last Pepsi 6-pack in my fridge and started drinking Coke, Have not touched a Pepsi ever since.

 

[MT15]

They are really ridiculous about this gender stuff. FL says you cannot even discuss gender roles in AP Psych.