The letter argues that the bill “would make our kids less safe, not more safe,” since the bill would grant state attorneys general the power to determine what content is “unsafe” for children.

“These are the same attorneys general that are actively working to ban gender affirming health care that saves kids’ lives, criminalize drag performances, and label families that accept our children as ‘groomers’ and ‘child abusers,’” the letter reads.

The letter concludes with a plea to “abandon KOSA, which is deeply flawed and faces overwhelming opposition from human rights, LGBTQ, racial justice, and civil liberties organizations.”

KOSA has bipartisan support, including from some Democrats who usually support LGBTQ rights. But it's not to late to stop it, we're just going to have to make some noise.

https://www.stopkosa.com/ makes it easy to contact your lawmakers if you’re in the US.

Hello, it's what the title says. I feel like this can't go on like this, i don't have real friends and that's purely because of me not feeling like showing who i really am in front of others. I'm surrounded by people whom I wouldn't want to even talk to, because they are bigoted or merely ignorant. Instead, I think that by coming out I can get more chances to meet new people with whom I could feel comfortable talking to about my passions and ideas without being afraid to reveal my sexuality. This could also be a way to sort through the people i know around me and understand which one deserves sticking with me and which not. But this could be a bit dangerous, not to the level of risking being beaten up (maybe) but there is the risk of being marginalized by those around me, but then again if this could help me find real friends then maybe it's kinda worth it. What do you think about this? Has it ever happened to you that you wanted to come out but were afraid of the consequences?

Lauren @lauren_eileen99 always support the 3 G's the girls the gays and the goths

A North Carolina policy that denies state employees coverage for gender-affirming care has been on hold pending appeal. For one transgender worker still awaiting surgery, the anxiety is “like somebody has got their hands around my neck.”

Key takeaway from the article for me was this paragraph:

"The stark reality is now inescapable: legislations targeting the medical care of transgender adults have taken root, despite the claims of anti-trans activists that they are trying to “protect children” with these laws. Florida's new provisions represent the first significant restrictions on trans adult care to fully materialize."

Hi, I just want to share with everyone about how my day was made. :D While I was at the gas station today someone came up to me and complimented my outfit and my jewellery. Small things like this can LITERALLY make someone's day considering all the bs and bigotry that queer ppl receive. Being kind to others and having love in your heart can be the flowers that bloom out of the ashes of the old, corrupt, bigoted, world.

Stay safe comrades, an remember you're loved no matter who you are <3.

I came across this recently and thought it was a super interesting and thorough examination of "the closet" or "coming out" of it.

Hello Beehaw,

I have recently witnessed a few worrisome incidents of online bullying and harassment towards transgender individuals. It was incredibly uncomfortable to witness. My attempts to show kindness to the bullying victim were met with measured hostility. The victims of these attacks were targeted individuals.

Beehaw, I am asking for your help to build up my online toolkit, so I can better prepare myself to be an ally. I want to know - How can I help? What can this random internet person do to show that somebody out there cares? What should I try to be careful of?

Article is from 2018. The man charged with her death has now been sentenced with eight years for the second-degree murder charge and two years for the felony firearm charge.

Archive.org link

On December 7th, Kelly Stough, a 36-year-old black transgender woman from Detroit, was shot and killed in the city’s Palmer Park neighborhood. On Monday, Albert Weathers, a 46-year-old preacher, was charged in her murder.

The Wayne County prosecutor’s office charged Weathers with the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and open murder, a designation that allows the prosecutors to decide on a degree of murder or manslaughter as more information about the case becomes available. Prosecutors said they will bring evidence that the fact that Stough was transgender was a factor in her murder.

Stough, who also went by the name Keanna Mattel, was at least the 26th trans person murdered in the United States in 2018, according to a running tally kept by the Human Rights Watch.

“I want people to know that because she was transgender doesn’t mean that she was not loved, that she was not cared for,” Jessica Chantae Stough, Kelly’s mother, told NBC News. “She has a family who cared about her, who loved her and I want them to know that transgender ladies — expressly those of color — they’re just not throwaways; people care about them.”

Stough was an aspiring fashion designer and well-known in Detroit’s ballroom dance scene. She was also an outspoken advocate for her community, speaking out against the violence facing trans people, and especially trans women of color. “The police are unaware with our struggle so they have no sympathy for us,” she told the Guardian in 2015 after the murder of 20-year-old trans woman Amber Monroe in Palmer Park — the same neighborhood where Stough was killed three years later.

There were 29 recorded murders of trans people in 2017, making it the deadliest year on record for trans people in the U.S., and 2018’s numbers show that the threat is not letting up. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) tracks homicides of LGBTQ people, and put out a report last year showing that trans women of color are at greater risk of being killed in hate crimes than any other group, and that the rates of these murders have been steadily rising for the last several years.

“Abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be tolerated,” says Laura Palumbo, communications director for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, which partners with the NCAVP. “In 2019 we need more efforts to promote the visibility of transgender individuals in our communities and to strengthen efforts to combat anti-trans violence in order to protect everyone’s dignity and safety.”

“Police need to build trust with the transgender community by effectively investigating hate crimes and by treating transgender individuals with dignity and respect,” she says. “Responsible media coverage can bring visibility to the staggering rates of violence, discrimination and inequity faced by the transgender community.”

A special prosecutor has been assigned to Weathers’ case, from the Fair Michigan Justice Project, which is collaboration between the Prosecutor’s Office and Fair Michigan Foundation, an LGBTQ advocacy organization. Fair Michigan President Dana Nessel said in a press release about Stough’s murder, “This case reflects the excessive brutality that members of Detroit’s transgender community constantly face. We thank the Detroit Police Department for their efforts to investigate the facts of this tragic crime.”

The attorney for Weathers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a video recently published by the conservative group Family Policy Alliance, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture” should be among the top priorities of conservative lawmakers....

In the same minute-and-a-half video, Blackburn lauded the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, a bipartisan bill introduced in May that would allow parents to sue social media companies and other online platforms if they do not sufficiently shield children under the age of 13 from harmful content on their platforms. The measure was introduced by Blackburn and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and has been endorsed by President Joe Biden.

https://www.stopkosa.com/ makes it easy to contact your lawmakers if you're in the US. It's not too late to stop KOSS -- but we're going to have to make some noise!

Have you ever stepped on someone's foot? It happens. They might get angry, it's understandable. Just an accident, not your intention, but your fault nonetheless. Keep this in mind.

I'll be using transphobia in this conversation, because I'm here and the discussion that moved me to write, but I learned the concepts from talks about racism and it applies to many similar situations.

What I am doesn't matter right now. It's not about about me, right? I'll open up the most targetable part of myself though: my inner thoughts. Particularly my musings about gender, which are relatively recent (I'm 39). Nothing specific, just the possibility that they might be transphobic.

That idea was something I feared and worried about a lot. In open discussions, I'm always careful with my words, but I had private doubts for a long time that seemed ugly, plain and simple. Was I transphobic in the past? Most likely. Am I still transphobic on some level? I don't know. I don't want to be, and that's the point.

We are all living our lives the only way we know how to. Sometimes accidents happen, people get hurt, we make things right. Sometimes the way we live our lives mean that we are stepping on people by design. It might still not be our intention, it is still our fault and the fact it's not an accident anymore will mess with our minds when we realize that.

So, again, I don't want to be transphobic. That's not what I believe or how I live my life. Again, my intentions don't matter if what I do hurt or endanger others in any way. I believe I can only say I'm not transphobic if I do the work not to be. If I accept my thoughts, words and actions can be transphobic, and that they are mistakes to be corrected. Being transphobic is about how I can negatively affect trans people, regardless of how I see myself or believe I'm doing the right thing. It's about them, not me.

I ask that you look at the other person or group when you are in an argument, or just out in the world. See how your actions affect them. See if you care enough to do something about it. And, if you find out you don't want to change, try accepting who you are, accepting any disgust you might feel without reinterpreting yours or other people's reality.

edit: It was a mistake going with figurative language here in an discussion that intended to be inclusive. I know better. Also, I wanted people to see that the subject of the action is not always the important part. When there are victims, their point of view should be the one validated first, they should the ones we make sure are all right before we decide to seek punishment. And I don't know if this will help, but the imperfect parallel with racism that came to mind was societal racism.

There was a rather upsetting post recently that attracted a lot of apparently non-LGBT+ people with bad opinions. I'd like to remind everyone that "bee kind" includes not accepting, normalizing, and ignoring transphobic opinions and beliefs. We're all together in this.

Here are some bad opinions I saw:

1. "People need to be educated, and you're not going to change their minds by becoming hostile."

The first thing that's obviously wrong with this is that it makes the people targeted by LGBTphobia appear to the the ones who are "overreacting" or being "hysterical," but there's more...

Certainly, education needs to happen, and patience is a virtue. A valid example of reasonable education to expect would be "I go by they/them now." What education should not need to include on the part of the LGBT+ person is a defense of one's validity as a human or one's existence. Most people who think that it should point to examples like Daryl Davis, and I mean ... good for him, but that's not an example we all need to or even can/should follow. For many LGBT+ people, it can feel like a contant battle to live and be accepted. Expecting us to address every bad-faith argument or misguided belief on the part of LGBTphobes is ... honestly, that's just an offensive opinion in and of itself and very dismissive of reality.

2. "[Famous person] literally did the bare minimum to support gay people, so I doubt they're transphobic."

Okay, first of all, I can only facepalm so hard before it creates a black hole that consumes the fabric of reality, but you said patient education is a thing we should do, so here it is: There are many, many people who claim to be "allies" while only supporting select groups within the LGBT+ spectrum. The reason I put "allies" in quotation marks is that these people are not allies. We are all in this together. You can't be an ally for me, a cis gay person, without also supporting trans people. These are my siblings, my community too, and we should not tolerate it. Likewise, the LG people I've met who don't support the BT+ don't belong in this community. Full stop.

So no, supporting the LG is not really possible without supporting the BT+. Sorry, not sorry.

3. "They're from a different time."

Absolutely one of the worst arguments I've ever heard, and I say this as a Gen X-er. No. Just no. There has never been a time in my life that transphobia was acceptable. Perhaps it was sadly normalized in certain times and places, but it has never been okay. If anything, it's even more important to speak up in those times and places when and where bigotry is seen as "normal." It's even more important then to be an ally.

And my 80+ parents are not transphobic in the least. It's so easy to understand the basics of what it means to be trans that there is not even the shadow of an excuse.

I really don't think vapid and pointless arguments like those above should be allowed in a space that's supposed to be a safe and validating community. I understand some of these people may be well-meaning non-LGBT+ people, but it's exhausting having to address the gish gallop of absolute nonsensical attempts to make transphobia seem okay. It is NOT okay, and we shouldn't pretend that it is.

I even saw some people arguing that excluding trans people isn't transphobic. That's how unhinged some of these people are.

So TERFs and other transphobes stfu challenge 2023.

EDIT:

Thank you to everyone who responded with understanding. I think it had to be said. At first I wasn't sure it was my place since I'm not trans, but I know how exhausting it can be. They did the same thing to me back in the day. It's a silencing tactic. "Gish gallop" is the term that comes to mind.

But I've had a few ugly trolls in the thread behaving just as described in my post. I will report each and every one of you 💛

I'd like to remind anyone who takes issue with this rant to send your hot takes directly to my attorney where they belong. Thank you for your cooperation.