Trump Treasury pick Scott Bessent could become highest-ranking openly LGBTQ+ person in US history

The Pink Palace (Wikimedia Commons)

Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina with his husband and family, could become first Senate-approved LGBTQ+ member in a Republican cabinet.

Trump Treasury pick Scott Bessent could become highest-ranking openly LGBTQ+ person in US history

Anti-trans activists release database flagging hospitals providing youth gender-affirming care [State Policy Network]

Do No Harm, a coalition of anti-trans doctors, nurses, and medical professionals, released a database of all the hospitals and medical centers in the U.S. that provide gender-affirming care for trans youth today.

Anti-trans activists release database flagging hospitals providing youth gender-affirming care

Wait until they find out about this!

Related:

Meet the influential new player on transgender health bills

The organization’s executive director, Kristina Rasmussen, previously was chief of staff to former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, and served as president of the Illinois Policy Institute [State Policy Network], a conservative think tank, according to her LinkedIn profile.

It won a $250,000 award last year called the Gregor Peterson Prize. Its previous recipients include the Center for American Liberty, led by Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who advised former President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and who is representing Cole in her lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente over gender-transition treatments she now says she regrets. The prize was announced in December at a summit held by the American Legislative Exchange Council [State Policy Network], a prominent provider of conservative model legislation.

Document: Atlas Network

Capitalism, Transphobia, and Racism to Blame for Controversy around Olympic Boxers + Notes

Capitalism, Transphobia, and Racism to Blame for Controversy around Olympic Boxers

No restrictions exist for people with other genetic advantages, such as a limit on basketball or volleyball players in the 99th percentile for height, or people like Michael Phelps who have double-jointed ankles and unusually long arms. For reference, intersex women (i.e. people assigned female at birth but with abnormal hormone levels or chromosomes other than xx) make up about 1.7 percent of all women, whereas women at least six feet tall make up only 0.5 percent of all women, yet this didn’t prevent the U.S. women’s basketball team from filling up 2/3rds of their roster with women who have this rare genetic advantage.

The Tokyo Olympics three years later saw the participation of two intersex Namibian runners, Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi. While both had previously found success in the 400m and 800m races, they opted to compete in the 200m to avoid having to artificially reduce testosterone. Mboma won silver in the event, while Masilingi placed sixth. World Athletics responded by tightening its rules again, setting a testosterone threshold of 2.5 nmol/L for all events. Mboma and Masilingi complied with the regulations by taking testosterone blockers, which significantly reduced their running speed, and thus neither qualified for the Paris Games in 2024.

Related:

Testosterone:

Normal measurements for these tests:

  • Male: 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL) or 10 to 35 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L)
  • Female: 15 to 70 ng/dL or 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L

LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Now at 7.6%

Cis boys get gender-affirming surgeries more often than trans minors

Republicans Pump Brakes on KOSA After Realizing It Could Censor Them Too 🤭

from the always-think-of-how-your-worst-enemy-will-use-this-law dept

For a while, we’ve been pointing out how terrible KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) is. Our main concern is that the bill would fundamentally lead to the suppression of all kinds of speech. That’s because the “duty of care” provision, while limited, would allow officials (mostly at the FTC, which can get partisan) to argue that certain types of results were due to a design failure, and companies would seek to suppress content, rather than face the potential liability.

Republicans Pump Brakes on KOSA After Realizing It Could Censor Them Too

How JD Vance went from thinking he was gay and changing his name twice to being an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance’s journey from a troubled childhood in Appalachia to the halls of the U.S. Senate to being former President Donald Trump’s running mate has been the subject of much ink, yet his contradictory stance on LGBTQ+ rights is coming under scrutiny. Vance’s memoirHillbilly Elegy, contains a revealing anecdote about his childhood belief that he was gay. Influenced by a preacher’s condemnation of homosexuality, young Vance feared he was destined for hell simply because he disliked girls and cherished his friendship with another boy.

How JD Vance went from thinking he was gay and changing his name twice to being an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist

Related:

JD Vance betrayed his trans friend — and they have receipts

JD Vance’s trans ex-friend has a message for trans youth

    LGBTQ community sounds alarm bells over Vance

    LGBTQ community sounds alarm bells over Vance

    In addition to a history of anti-LGBTQ statements, the Ohio Republican is the primary sponsor of at least two pieces of federal legislation threatening to sharply roll back transgender rights, including one proposal that aims to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors nationwide. 

    That bill, the Senate version of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) Protect Children’s Innocence Act, would charge health care providers who violate it with a Class C felony, punishable by more than a decade in prison. It would also prevent institutions of higher education from providing instruction about gender-affirming care and cut funding for health plans that cover treatment.

    Related:

    Cis boys get gender-affirming surgeries more often than trans minors

    Transgender kids rarely get gender-affirming surgeries — in fact, cisgender children are much more likely to get them, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

    Neoreactionaries

    ‘Gay furry hackers’ steal data from right-wing think tank in massive anti-Project 2025 cyber attack

    A collective of “gay furry hackers” has claimed credit for hacking into the Heritage Foundation in opposition to its right-wing political and social proposals for next year, known as Project 2025.

    ‘Gay furry hackers’ steal data from right-wing think tank in massive anti-Project 2025 cyber attack

    Related:

    Gay furry hackers leak data of transphobic pastor & far-right news network

    Almeda Sperry to Emma Goldman, 1912

    Almeda Sperry to Emma Goldman, 1912, by Jonathan Ned Katz

    These letters suggest that some kind of active sexual relationship did occur between the two women. There is also no doubt about the character and intensity of Sperry’s feelings, so strongly and unambiguously expressed. The letters indicate that Goldman returned Sperry’s affection, though with less passion and desperate need than Sperry felt.

    In one undated, and atypically puritanical statement, Sperry tells Goldman:

    Never mind about not feeling as I do. I find restraint to be purifying. Realization is hell for it is satisfying and degenerating.

    In another undated letter Sperry writes to Goldman:

    God how I dream of you! You say that you would like to have me near you always if you were a man, or if you felt as I do. Dearest, I would not if I could. I would soon die…. the thought of distance adds to my terrible pain–so pleasurable. I want no calm friendships. The thoughts of annihilation used to appeal to me. Today they do not. …

    The letters do suggest that Goldman in her personal relations with Sperry had come close to that tabooed homosexual activity which she early and publicly defended in lectures, to the chagrin of even her unconventional anarchist comrades. The writings of Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Almeda Sperry suggest that at least some American anarchists were, at an early date, more than usually tolerant and open-minded about homosexuality.

    Related:

    The Letters

    Read More »