Gender

A federal judge in Texas known for a ruling that attempted to ban a widely-used abortion drug is citing an extremist anti-LGBTQ group in his ruling allowing a ban on drag shows to stay in place.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney for an anti-LGBTQ conservative Christian legal organization, and a member of the Federalist Society, in his 26-page ruling dated Thursday cited the “About” page of Gays Against Groomers to claim, “it’s unclear how drag shows unmistakably communicate advocacy for LGBT rights.”

Judge Kacsmaryk, appointed by Donald Trump twice before finally assuming office in 2019, suggests the First Amendment does not provide for freedom of expression for drag shows, calls drag “sexualized conduct,” and says it is “more regulable” because “children are in the audience.”

READ MORE: ‘The Public Deserves to Know’: Abortion Pill Banning Judge Redacted Details About Millions of Dollars in His Stock Portfolio

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern adds, “Kacsmaryk’s conclusion that drag is probably NOT protected by the First Amendment conflicts with decisions from Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Montana which held that drag is constitutionally protected expression. It also bristles with undisguised hostility toward LGBTQ people.”

Calling the judge “a proud Christian nationalist who flatly refuses to apply binding Supreme Court precedent when it conflicts with his extremist far-right beliefs,” Stern at Slate writes that Kacsmaryk ruled drag “may be outlawed to protect ‘the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.’ In short, he concluded that drag fails to convey a message, while explaining all the reasons why he’s offended by the message it conveys.”

Stern does not let Kacsmaryk off the hook there.

“From almost any other judge, the ruling in Spectrum WT v. Wendler would be a shocking rejection of basic free speech principles; from Kacsmaryk, it’s par for the course. This is, after all, the judge who sought to ban medication abortion nationwide, restricted minors’ access to birth control, seize control over border policy to exclude asylum-seekers, and flouted recent precedent protecting LGBTQ+ equality,” Stern says.

READ MORE: Far-Right Judge Under Fire for Failing to Disclose Interviews on Civil Rights – but LGBTQ Community Had Warned Senators

“He is also poised to bankrupt Planned Parenthood by compelling them to pay a $1.8 billion penalty on truly ludicrous grounds. And he is not the only Trump-appointed judge substituting his reactionary beliefs for legal analysis. We have reached a point where these lawless decisions are not only predictable but inevitable, and they show no sign of stopping: Their authors are still just settling into a decadeslong service in the federal judiciary.”

West Texas A&M University President Walter V. Wendler penned the letter that sparked the lawsuit.

Titled, “A Harmless Drag Show? No Such Thing,” Wendler wrote: “I believe every human being is created in the image of God and, therefore, a person of dignity. Being created in God’s image is the basis of Natural Law. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, prisoners of the culture of their time as are we, declared the Creator’s origin as the foundational fiber in the fabric of our nation as they breathed life into it. Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not.”

Journalist Chris Geidner concludes, “It’s an extremely biased ruling by a judge who has established that he does not care about being overturned — even by the most conservative appeals court in the nation.”

READ MORE: ‘Corruption of the Highest Order’: Experts ‘Sickened’ at ‘Definitely Bought’ Clarence Thomas and His ‘Pay to Play’ Lifestyle

Back in 1914, the ultimate capitalist CEO, Henry Ford, made an argument that liberals, progressives and union leaders are still echoing in 2023. Ford said, in essence, that workers needed a living wage in order to afford the products he was producing.

Ford's argument still rings true at a time when a wide variety of workers fear that artificial intelligence (AI) will make them unemployed.

In an article published by Business Insider on September 11, reporter Ed Zitron argues that if AI should put anyone out of work, it's CEOs.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"From writers and teachers to bankers and lawyers, most jobs seem ripe to be replaced by artificial intelligence — with one notable exception," Zitron explains. "The only job that seems to be safe from the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tech is, oddly enough, the most expensive and easily automated role: CEO."

The journalist continues, "Chief executives have recently spent a lot of time threatening to replace their lazy, entitled and unproductive workers with AI, but they never seem to face the same level of scrutiny other employees do. Look a little closer, though, and it becomes clear that the role of the modern CEO is not only broken, as I've pointed out before, but it could easily be done by the technology we have now."

Zitron goes on to note that CEOs typically "make over 300 times more than the average worker" despite not being an "actual contributor to a company's bottom line." CEOs, he writes, operate based on "spreadsheets" that are "fed to them by consultants" yet lack a "real understanding of the business."

"The solution is fairly simple: We must hold CEOs accountable in the same way that we do their employees or dissolve the role entirely," Zitron emphasizes. "A chief executive must meaningfully contribute in a way that is measurable and delivers clear value for the company. Failing that, I would argue that the opaque role of the CEO should be the first one to be replaced by artificial intelligence."

READ MORE:Waves of strikes rippling across the US seem big, but the total number of Americans walking off the job remains historically low

Read Business Insider's full article at this link.

A Texas judge on Friday temporarily blocked state Republican-backed legislation that was set to ban "gender-affirming care for most minors" beginning September 1, CNN reports.

"We are invigorated by the court's decision to protect and uphold the rights of trans youth, their families, and health care providers in Texas," Alex Sheldon, executive director at the LGBTQ+ health advocacy group GLMA said, according to the report.

CNN reports:

Senate Bill 14, signed in to law by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in June, bars health care providers from providing gender transition surgeries, puberty blocking medication or hormone therapies to those under 18 in Texas, with violators at risk of losing their licenses.

The law makes minor exceptions for children who had begun receiving non-surgical gender-affirming care before June 1 and underwent 12 or more sessions of mental health counseling or psychotherapy six months prior to beginning prescription drug care. Transgender youth to whom those exceptions apply can continue their care but must 'wean' off from the treatment with the help of their doctor.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

According to the report, District Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel said the law "'likely violates' three different sections of the Texas Constitution, including 'the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children."

Furthermore, Hexsel "wrote in the temporary injunction issued Friday that the law would result in 'the loss of access to safe, effective, and medically necessary treatment for transgender adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria.'

READ MORE: Texas AG’s probe into trans care is based on illegal release of kids’ medical records: report

CNN's full report is available at this link.

Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron hopes to unseat Democrat Andy Bashear as the Bluegrass State's next governor, but "his office is fielding serious employee complaints describing 'hostile,' 'cruel,' 'threatening,' and 'demeaning' treatment from senior officials" that contains "allegations that one unit director took 'zoomed in' photos of a detective's breast," The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger reports.

Despite "multiple resignations" amongst staff, "Cameron's office has taken little if any action in response to the complaints, which The Daily Beast received from a public records request," Sollenberger writes.

"The one outlier appears to have been the case of the inappropriate photos, in which an investigation found in February that the woman’s supervisor 'should be reprimanded' for public intoxication. The office investigated her claims, but appears to have taken no action on her other six allegations," Sollenberger continues. "The woman who brought that complaint—an active-duty detective employed in the office of the attorney general (OAG)—is suing Cameron and his office for employment discrimination, hostile work conditions, and workers' compensation retaliation, according to filings in Franklin County district court."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Beyond that, Sollenberger reveals a pattern of "relentless" abusive behavior occurring under Cameron's watch, including accounts that "two top Cameron officials—Deputy AG Vic Maddox and deputy solicitor general for criminal appeals Jeffrey A. Cross—are accused of routine mistreatment."

Legal briefs describe "an office out of control, streaked with fear and suspicion, where workers are routinely degraded and supervisors not only ignore the complaints but are often at the center of them," Sollenberger says. "One complaint, submitted by an attorney in Cameron's office, noted that Cross treated workers in a 'demeaning, unprofessional manner' and would 'pit employees against each other,' sowing internal mistrust. Cross' tactics, this attorney claimed, had caused 'numerous attorneys and administrative staff members' to resign or retire. A separate complaint, which the OAG's then-communications director filed against Maddox this spring, cites gender discrimination against women, conflict with another top official, 'sabotage' of official duties, and 'threatening/intimidating/humiliating behavior.'"

After the communications director alleged that Maddox "'had been threatening, demeaning, intimidating, humiliating, and highly disrespectful' to her, and displayed 'favoritism' by 'promoting men over roles assigned to women,'" Cameron "called her personally," Sollenberger explains.

Although Cameron "apologized on behalf of Vic and urged" her "not to quit," Sollenberger notes, "It's unclear if Cameron took any disciplinary action against Maddox" because "Maddox remains the deputy AG."

READ MORE: 'Taxation without full representation': Kentucky journalist questions McConnell’s 'mental fortitude'

View Sollenberger's article at this link (subscription required).

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, currently polling 40 points behind GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, in a rare TIME magazine interview refused to answer a reporter’s question about what he would do if one of his three children were LGBTQ – but he did spend time promoting his parents’ rights platform.

“I think we were viewed, really from Day One, as the candidate that had the strong record on the issues important to parents,” the Florida Republican told TIME’s national political correspondent Molly Ball in a 30-minute interview at the Iowa State Fair published Wednesday.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, currently polling 40 points behind GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, in a rare TIME magazine interview refused to answer a reporter’s question about what he would do if one of his three children were LGBTQ – but he did spend time promoting his parents’ rights platform.

“I think we were viewed, really from Day One, as the candidate that had the strong record on the issues important to parents,” the Florida Republican told TIME’s national political correspondent Molly Ball in a 30-minute interview at the Iowa State Fair published Wednesday,

“’It has been an issue, really, from the beginning,’ he says of the ‘parents’ rights’ agenda that has been central to his struggling presidential candidacy. ‘And so I do think we’ve tapped into that, and we’ll continue to do it.'”

Parents’ rights is the latest conservative code word for “family values,” as TIME’s national political correspondent Molly Ball notes.

READ MORE: ‘We’re Gonna Start Slitting Throats on Day One’: DeSantis Makes New Deep State Pledge in Campaign Reboot

But it really was really a platform the Florida governor grabbed after it proved to be a winning issue for Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin in what had been a “long-shot” gubernatorial battle. Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s infamous gaffe on parents’ rights gave new life to the Republican political novice’s campaign in September of 2021, just weeks before the election and just weeks after DeSantis announced he would run for re-election.

“As governor of Florida, DeSantis says, education policy is part of his purview, but it’s also personal,” Ball writes in her TIME interview.

DeSantis told her, “I also just see it through the lens of a dad of a six, five and three-year-old.”

“We understand some of the things that parents are concerned about and that parents are going through. And that impacts how we view these policies, particularly when it goes to things like parents’ rights to be involved in the education.”

Ball writes, “Framing it all a crusade for ‘parents’ rights’ is a neat trick politically, highlighting a throwback, traditionalist view of what used to be termed ‘family values,’ but with a very 2023 culture-war spin.”

READ MORE: DeSantis Boots Campaign Manager, Replaces With Conservative Aide Behind Governor’s Top Far-Right Policies

“Kids should be kids—there shouldn’t be an agenda,” DeSantis told Ball. “I didn’t feel like there was an agenda when I was growing up.”

Despite DeSantis’ claim that kids should be allowed to be kids, he and his wife Casey DeSantis have very publicly included their children in the campaign.

Ball reports, “I ask DeSantis about the rights of parents of trans children, who are being prevented by the state from accessing the medical care they may believe is in their kids’ best interest. He points to the ongoing debate over transgender treatment in Europe, where some experts have recently been moving away from a purely affirmative approach, arguing that the state has an interest in preventing ‘sterilizing children at age 13 or 14′ or performing sex-change surgery on minors.”

DeSantis’ remarks do not appear to be representative of heath care options for minors in the U.S., based on a May report from The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Factcheck.org.

DeSantis continued his remarks against appropriate medical support of transgender youth.

“As a parent right now, I can’t take my six-year-old daughter and get her a tattoo, even if I want to do that,” he told Ball. “You don’t have the right to do things that are going to be destructive to kids. I think that some of these parents are being told by physicians who are making a lot of money off this that you have to do this, otherwise your kid can end up doing something like commit suicide. I think that they get bullied into thinking this is the right decision.”

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis: I Would Have Loved to Hang Out With Jesus and His Disciples – America Needs More God

LGBTQ youth suffer far higher rates of suicide ideation and suicide attempts than their non-LGBTQ counterparts.

A May, 2022 NPR report titled, “Nearly half of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide, survey finds,” specifically mentions DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.

Ball also reports DeSantis shut down her question about the possibility of his children being LGBTQ and what he would do.

She writes, “when I ask how he’ll respond if one of his children turns out to be gay or trans, his eyes flash momentarily, and he swiftly shuts down the question. ‘Well, my children are my children,’ DeSantis says. ‘We’ll leave that—we’ll leave that between my wife and I.'”

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is promoting legislation he says would codify the right to pray in public schools, which already exists, in the hope of drawing “people into more empathy and kindness.”

In an interview with local Florida ABC affiliate WEAR on Monday the Florida Republican warned the “far-left gender ideology and divisive race ideology that we’ve seen in other parts of the country has really permeated the school system.”

“I think that more space for prayer for students in schools is probably better than creating more space for, you know, the next pansexual poetry hour in Portland,” he added, warning about “degenerate content.”

Gaetz, who is under a House Ethics Committee investigation “focused on allegations that he may have engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use or other misconduct,” said from personal experience he believes in the power of prayer.

“I think that in my own experiences and the experiences I’ve observed, prayer creates a sense that there is something bigger than one’s self and it draws people into more empathy and kindness,” he told WEAR.

READ MORE: Trump Next Week: ‘Major’ News Conference, GOP Debate, Arraignment on 13 Felony Charges Including RICO

The pro-Trump Florida Republican announced his intent to file the legislation in July at the far-right Turning Point Action conference in July.

“God’s reach does not stop at the schoolhouse gates,” he said, co-opting a famous 1969 Supreme Court decision that found students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

He promised, “in the coming days, I will introduce a national prayer in school law so that in every classroom in America, there will be time for students to pray if they choose. And you know what? This beautiful new Supreme Court that Trump gave us just might uphold a constitutional law like that, based on the values that this country was built on.”

During that same speech Gaetz also denigrated “the left” and transgender people.

“Are you ready not just to endure the left but to confront them in the battle space of discourse? The left’s ideas, their platforms, their candidates, heck, even some of their women just grow more sterile with every self-loathing iteration,” Congressman Gaetz told supporters before attacking transgender people. “Everything right now is so dead and boring and lame and trans – heck, even the trans want to change.”

Last week, as the Pensacola News Journal reported, Gaetz also claimed, “Our country’s education policy forbids students and faculty from praying while endlessly promoting degenerate LGBT and anti-white propaganda.”

Watch Gaetz’s remarks below or at this link.

Many of the state laws that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touts as major policy wins are being challenged in the courts, Axios reported.

The lawsuits target DeSantis' policies on abortion, trans rights, drag shows, and gender and race discussions in classrooms.

"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has cast himself as a Trump-likeconservative who's better at getting things done, but many of the state laws DeSantis touts as his biggest accomplishments are on hold, mired in court challenges," the outlet reported. "The big picture: DeSantis and his state are facing a swarm of lawsuits challenging his policies aimed at abortion, trans rights, drag shows, voting by felons, discussion of racial issues in schools and more."

The court challenges come as DeSantis' struggles in the polls against Donald Trump has him rebooting his campaign."

DeSantis' presidential campaign dismissed the court challenges, saying that "activists seek to use the court system to enact their agenda by judicial fiat because their agenda did not succeed at the ballot box."

"Ron DeSantis has the most accomplished conservative record of any candidate in the race," the campaign said in a statement.

Editor's note: This story has been changed to include additional clarifying language.

Thrice-indicted former President Donald Trump's domination of the 2024 Republican presidential primary field remains, and new polling suggests that a key reason is increased displeasure among GOP voters toward right-wing culture wars. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, has championed limits on what can be taught in public schools, opposed to LGBTQ+ equality, and engaged in an economic spat with The Walt Disney Company as principal rallying cries of his White House campaign. But according toNew York Times correspondent Jonathan Weisman, that approach is failing.

"Attacks on 'wokeness' may be losing their punch," Weisman reported on Sunday. "The term has become a quick way for candidates to flash their conservative credentials, but battling 'woke' may have less political potency than they think. Though conservative voters might be irked at modern liberalism, successive New York Times/Siena College polls of Republican voters nationally and then in Iowa found that candidates were unlikely to win votes by narrowly focusing on rooting out left-wing ideology in schools, media, culture and business."

Rather, Weisman explained that "Republican voters are showing a 'hands off' libertarian streak in economics, and a clear preference for messages about 'law and order' in the nation's cities and at its borders."

READ MORE: 'What a joke': Newsom spox pans DeSantis’ debate proposal as evidence of 'insecurity and ineptitude'

Weisman recalled that in June, Trump said in Iowa that 'I don't like the term 'woke'" and that 'it's just a term they use — half the people can't even define it, they don't know what it is.'"

Weisman found that "the Times' polls suggest Mr. Trump may be right. Social issues like gay rights and once-obscure jargon like 'woke' may not be having the effect many Republicans had hoped."

Weisman noted that "when presented with the choice between two hypothetical Republican candidates" in the Times/Sienna Collegesurvey, "only 24 percent of national Republican voters opted for 'a candidate who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology in our schools, media and culture' over 'a candidate who focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border.'"

Furthermore, Weisman continued, "around 65 percent said they would choose the law and order candidate," while "among those 65 and older, often the most likely age bracket to vote, only 17 percent signed on to the 'anti-woke' crusade. Those numbers were nearly identical in Iowa, where the first ballots for the Republican nominee will be cast on Jan. 15."

READ MORE: DeSantis’ 'hostile' laws have 'been absolutely devastating' to Florida’s convention business: report

View Weisman's analysis at this link (subscription required).

The Texas drag ban is the subject of a new lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Texas on Wednesday. The ban is due to take effect next month.

Senate Bill 12 was passed by the state Senate and House on May 29, and signed into law by Republican Governor Greg Abbott on June 18. The law bans “sexually oriented performances” on public property or in the presence of anyone under 18 years old. However, the bill’s definition of “sexually oriented performances” includes “the exhibition of sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics.” Those who violate the law could be sentenced to a year in jail and fined as much as $10,000.

An earlier draft of the bill contained language directly referring to drag, including explicitly banning “state funding to municipal libraries that host drag story hours or otherwise host events where persons presenting as the opposite sex read books to children for entertainment,” according to KUT-FM.

Read More: Drag Queen Story Hour Interrupted by Neo-Nazis Seen in Terrifying Video

Though the explicit anti-drag language was removed, the suit says the law “unconstitutionally singles out drag performances as a disfavored form of expression.”

“In its zeal to target drag, the Legislature also passed a bill so yawning in scope that it criminalizes and restricts an enormous swath of constitutionally protected activity, including theater, ballet, comedy, and even cheerleading,” the lawsuit reads.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of two LGBTQ non-profit organizations, The Woodlands Pride, Inc. and Abilene Pride Alliance; two drag entertainment production companies, Extragrams, LLC and 360 Queen Entertainment LLC; and a drag queen, Brigitte Bandit. The suit names Interim Attorney General Angela Colmenero, as well as a number of local officials. Governor Abbott is not named.

The law is similar to other drag bans that have passed in other states, which have also faced similar legal challenges. However, critics say the Texas drag ban goes even further, potentially banning artwork depicting the nude form, according to the Austin American-Statesman. For example, Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, in which the titular goddess is depicted nude upon a clamshell, could hypothetically be challenged.

A federal judge ruled Tennessee’s drag ban violated the First Amendment, calling the ordinance “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.” In Florida, another federal judge blocked a similar law, saying it would likely run counter to the right to freedom of speech.

Travis County Attorney Delia Garza, one of the named defendants, told KUT-FM she appreciated the lawsuit, and hopes it will “bring some clarity to a law that has constitutional concerns.”

“I continue to hope that in the name of true public safety, our state leaders will one day focus on actual public safety threats, like gun violence, instead of legislation like SB12 which will have little to no effect on the day to day operations of a community and its public safety needs,” Garza continued.

Federal Judge Brian Morris has placed a temporary hold on a Montana law he said "likely will disproportionately harm not only drag performers, but any person who falls outside traditional gender and identity norms," CNN reports.

Per CNN, the law passed by Montana Republican Governor Greg Gianforte earlier this year bans minors "from attending 'sexually oriented shows,' including "so-called drag story hours, which the law defines as events hosted 'by a drag queen or drag king who reads children's books and engages in other learning activities with minor children present.'"

House Bill 359 "also bans public 'sexually oriented performances' – including any involving 'removal or simulated removal of clothing in a sexual manner' – seen by people under the age of 18," according to the report.

READ MORE: 'Let her speak!' 7 arrested in protest over Montana GOP’s silencing of trans lawmaker

The judge's decision comes after "Montana Pride asked the judge earlier this month for an immediate order because the city of Helena had denied its request for a permit for its events, some of which include drag performers, that are scheduled to start Sunday."

Backing the organization, Morris contends "nothing in the record currently before the Court indicates that speech and expression associated with Montana Pride has harmed minors or any other community members."

CNN reports the ruling will prevent "Montana's Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen from enforcing the measure, which is among other restrictive laws targeting drag performers enacted in GOP-led states, while the court considers whether to issue a longer lasting preliminary injunction."

Furthermore, according to the report, "other plaintiffs in the case include a transgender indigenous author, Adria Jawort, who said a talk she was scheduled to give at a public library in Butte-Silver Bow last month was canceled because the librarian informed her, 'It is too much of a legal risk to have a transgendered person in the library.'"

READ MORE: 'The worst anti-trans bill I have ever seen': GOP-led state houses are ramping up efforts to gut LGBTQ+ rights

State Republican lawmakers have spent much of their time this year passing anti-transgender laws, which the state's only trans lawmaker, Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D) says have resulted in suicide.

In an April hearing regarding Republican-backed anti-trans legislation, the Democratic lawmaker told her GOP colleagues, "When I rose up and said, 'There is blood on your hands,' I was not being hyperbolic.'"

READ MORE: 'Not being hyperbolic': Montana Democrat says GOP-backed anti-trans bills have led to suicide

CNN's full report is available at this link.

Right-wing group Moms for Liberty was recently hit with an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) complaint probing "whether Moms for Liberty is a political educational organization," The Guardian reports.

Per The Guardian, the eight-page complaint filed against the "extremist" group by a Michigan attorney "alleges that the rightwing organization is in violation of its 501(c)4 non-profit status," and also questions "if Moms for Liberty is an action organization, raising questions about its participation in political campaigns and active recruitment of school board candidates."

University of Pittsburgh Associate Professor of Law Phillip Hackney told the news outlet he doesn't believe the complaint will go far, but "said he does think the complaint is correct in bringing up the group's intervention in political campaigns."

READ MORE: Top Democrats ignorant of 'extremist' Moms for Liberty despite warnings the group is dangerous

The Guardian reports:

IRS investigations into a 501(c)4 like Moms for Liberty would be 'heavily fact intensive', Hackney said, with an agent reviewing materials and going back and forth with attorneys for 18 months. The IRS has a statute of limitations to complete an investigation within three years, he said. If the group's status is revoked after that time, it probably would not owe back taxes but would reorganize as a taxable, private organization with even less transparency and no prohibitions on political campaigning.

The complaint obtained by the news outlet states, "The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. However, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity."

The document also emphasizes, "It would be a permissible educational purpose if there were advocating to remove gender discussions from classrooms and schools if there was a balanced presentation of benefits and drawbacks of using a person's preferred pronouns, supporting LGBTQ youth, impacts on children of being 'exposed' to LGBTQ supportive environments. There is not."

During a segment of MSNBC's Inside with Jen Psaki earlier this month, Psaki exposed the group in a scathing report, noting, "As for their claim that they are just a group of concerned, nonpartisan moms who happen to care about liberty, consider this: One of the founders, who's name is notably emitted from its website, is a current Republican school board member, who is married to the now-chairman of the Florida Republican Party. In 2021, he told The Washington Post, "I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year old females involved with the Republican Party. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me."

READ MORE: 'May not be what you think': Jen Psaki exposes 'unapologetically extreme' Moms for Liberty group

The Guardian's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

Former United States Labor Secretary and Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley Robert Reich on Tuesday laid out the parallels between the anti-LGBTQ+ policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and those of former President Donald Trump's Republican Party.

Putin signed a law on Monday banning gender-affirming care that also "annuls marriages in which one person has 'changed gender' and bars transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents," The Guardian reported.

In less than three minutes, Reich detailed how little daylight exists when Putin's legislation and GOP proposals are compared.

READ MORE: 'Horrifying': Oklahoma Republicans draft bill to criminalize gender-affirming care for individuals under 26

"Why do Putin and the Republican Party sound so much alike? Simple. Their culture wars have similar agendas. Both are trying to distract attention from the economic looting by their respective oligarchies," Reich began.

"Vladimir Putin has been blasting so-called cancel culture," Reich said. "This was his third cancel culture rant in recent months. It's the same imaginary crisis that Trump and the GOP have been ranting about for several years. The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed."

Reich noted that "Tucker Carlson, one of Fox News's most infamous personalities accuses liberals of trying to cancel all sorts of things because if it could happen to Dr. Seuss, it might happen to you. Dr. Seuss went from being a beloved childhood author to worse than Hitler in just a matter of days last fall."

Reich recalled that "Putin argued that teaching children about different gender identities was quote, 'On the verge of a crime against humanity.' Putin's fixation on LGBTQ people is also echoed on the American right. Republican state legislators are attacking trans people and restricting discussion of gender and sexual orientation in schools and in Texas."

READ MORE: 'This is about protecting children': Gun control foe Greg Abbott will sign ban on gender-affirming care

Reich continued, "While Putin's MO has been to fuel Russian ethnic pride and nationalism, America's right-wing has been fueling white nationalism. To conclude from all of this that authoritarians think alike misses a deeper truth. Putin, Trump, Carlson, and America's right-wing have been promoting the same narrative for the same reason. Manufacturing fears of 'the other' to distract from where all the wealth and power have gone — all the way to the top."

Reich added, "Remember, Putin was put into power by a Russian oligarchy, made fabulously rich by siphoning off and privatizing the wealth of the former Soviet Union. Likewise, Trump and the radical right in America have been bankrolled by an American oligarchy, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, Rebecca Mercer, Peter Thiel, and other billionaires. Sowing racism, homophobia, and transphobia creates life-or-death dangers for many people in our society. For both Putin and the American right, it serves to divert attention from the economic plunder by the ultra-rich."

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: Tennessee appeals court allows gender-affirming care ban to take effect

View The Guardian's analysis here.

Exactly one day before U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision in what has been called an “entirely hypothetical make-believe” case pitting conservative Christian beliefs masked as First Amendment speech against the rights of LGBTQ people to exist equally in the marketplaces of both commerce and ideas, a bombshell report revealed one critical fact in the case turned out to be false.

Apparently, so is a second one.

That first false “fact” – a claim in court documents that a San Francisco man, a graphic designer, years ago had reached out to the plaintiff, a Colorado Christian woman, to ask her to design among other items a wedding website for him and his soon-to-be husband, was almost certainly a lie. The man was and is married, to a woman, when the alleged inquiry came in, and had never even heard of the Christian designer, much less crossed state lines and his own Rolodex and personal skill set to ask her to create a wedding website she allegedly had never before even advertised, much less constructed.

The bombshell news on June 29 came via a report by Melissa Gira Grant at The New Republic.

And now, Melissa Gira Grant has more news – more proof of a possible fraudulent claim before the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention all the lower courts that sided with the State of Colorado, and not the Christian designer, Lorie Smith (photo), who allegedly had one request for a same-sex wedding website while allegedly having never created any wedding website at all.

“So,” Grant said on social media Tuesday afternoon, “the Colorado website designer in the fake same-sex wedding website case, 303 Creative, it turns out, had made a wedding website, before filing her legal challenge.”

READ MORE: GOP Congressman Admits ‘Most of What We Do Is Bad’ as McCarthy’s Republicans Push for Federal Government Shutdown

Over at The New Republic, the subhead reads: “An archive shows that the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case did once design a wedding website, contrary to what her lawyers presented during her legal challenge.”

Boom.

“The destination wedding website looks uncontroversial enough. The thumbnail preview of the site shows the happy couple’s names in teal and purple type, a mostly out-of-focus photo of a wedding dress trailing on a sandy beach and a couple’s bare feet, and a date and a location in Mexico,” Grant writes.

“In 2015, a web designer named Lorie Smith featured the wedding website in her portfolio of recent work—you can still access an archived copy of Smith’s site on the Wayback Machine. But you won’t find the wedding website in Smith’s live online portfolio anymore. The page detailing her role in the wedding website’s creation was removed some time before she filed a legal challenge—one that claimed she was unable to enter the wedding website business because Colorado’s anti-discrimination law would compel her to create same-sex wedding websites. The wedding website Smith made before she filed her case—and highlighted in a portfolio on her own site—is being reported for the first time in The New Republic.”

Smith’s legal team, the right-wing Christian nationalist Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups, insists The New Republic’s reporting is simply a “media smear.”

READ MORE: ‘Ghouls’: Fox News Blasted for Declaring Jews ‘Survived’ the Holocaust by Being ‘Useful’

But facts are facts.

The U.S. Supreme Court took a case with what are now two “incorrect” pieces of information, and made a decision that, as the ADF suggests on its website, affects every person in the United States. Not only did the Supreme Court make a landmark decision on, at best, a faulty case, one that some legal experts have made clear it should never have even agreed to review, so did every lower court that ruled against Smith.

Responding to The New Republic’s latest bombshell report, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern writes, “Lorie Smith and her lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom repeatedly told the Supreme Court that she had never, ever made a wedding website, because she was afraid a same-sex couple might then request her services. That was a lie.”

“The wedding website that Lorie Smith DID make was scrubbed from the internet, though some of it can still be seen via the Wayback Machine,” he adds, pointing to TNR’s reporting.

Alex Aronson former Chief Counsel, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Senate Judiciary Committee, writes: “Evidence continues to mount that the anti-LGBTQ extremist group Alliance Defending Freedom committed a fraud on the Supreme Court in its cooked-up 303 Creative case.”

Drexel University Professor of Law David S. Cohen states simply, “Apparently nothing about this case was true.”

NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins sums it all up: “This case continues to absolutely reek and nothing is being done about it.”

The highly anticipated live-action film starring Margot Robbie is an attempt to redeem the problematic toy. But it’s really just an expensive ad campaign for an outdated doll.

A few months ago, my two sons, aged 10 and 15, told me they were excited to see the new Barbie film. I was surprised. They are not interested in dolls, and, in spite of Barbie being the top-selling doll in the world, they were not very familiar with the iconic toy until they saw an online trailer of the live-action feature film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Although I had played with a much-loved Barbie doll as a child, I had grown up to hate everything the doll stood for: dangerously unattainable beauty standards, the deliberate vapidity of femininity and feminism, and the centering of whiteness.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

But, the clever marketing of the new film has people of all demographics eager to see it: “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you,” proclaimed the trailer. There should have been an addendum: “If you’re indifferent because you have no idea who or what Barbie is, this movie is also for you.” Because, ultimately the film is a giant commercial for an outdated toy. Its interminably long marketing campaign helped generate breathless anticipation for months.

Launched in 1959 and conceived by Ruth Handler, one of the co-founders of Mattel, Barbie was modeled on a German doll named Bild Lilli, marketed to adult men as a sort of gag gift. According to Brennan Kilbane, writing in Allure, “Bild Lilli was a single-panel comic character in a German tabloid—a sweet, ditzy, curvy figment of the male imagination, frequently losing her clothes and enjoying the company of men. Each punch line hinged on Bild Lilli’s hotness, her horniness, or her lack of common sense. When a police officer informed Bild Lilli that the two-piece swimsuit she was wearing was in violation of decency laws, she responded earnestly, ‘Which piece do you want me to take off?’”

Handler wanted to market an “adult” doll to little girls because the prevalent dolls of her time were either baby dolls or else they had, in her words, “flat chests, big bellies, and squatty legs—they were built like overweight 6- or 8-year-olds.” Apparently, Handler, who appears in the film as a wise elderly grandmother played by Rhea Perlman, felt that a doll with impossibly frail wrists and a thin waist was a more suitable aspiration.

Vox’s Constance Grady put it best, saying, “The plastic body little girls are given to practice being grown-up with is the same as the plastic body grown men hang from the rearview mirrors of their cars as a dirty joke,” referring to the Bild Lilli dolls. This point is especially disturbing when, as Grady also pointed out, the first commercial for the doll featured a girl singing “Someday I’m gonna be exactly like you… Barbie, beautiful Barbie, I’ll make believe that I am you.”

The doll has always been tone-deaf. A few years after it was launched, just as second-wave feminism was gaining ground, Mattel released Slumber Party Barbie, who “came with pink pajamas, a pink scale set at 110 lbs, and a diet book on how to lose weight, with only one instruction: DON’T EAT!”

Since then, the doll’s history has been marked by a constant tug-of-war as it has attempted to market misogyny to a world whose women are tired of being trodden upon. The film is a similar mess of contradictions, and as Andi Zeisler wrote in a New York Times op-ed, it is “one that acknowledges and embraces that weirdness under the vigilant gaze of a corporate chaperone.” Zeisler admitted how she didn’t realize that “the film’s narrative would essentially serve as a Mattel redemption arc,” turning her as a viewer into, “an unwitting Barbie P.R. booster.”

Now, just as Mattel managed to reinvent a male fantasy as a girl’s toy, the new Barbie movie is reinventing the doll as a universally beloved character in our imagination. Forget product placement—the insidious insertion of branded products into films and television shows as a sly form of advertising—the Barbie movie is one giant advertisement, the inaugural creation of Mattel Films. Rather than creating new characters to tell a story and then milking the profits from the resulting merchandise—as is the traditional marketing ploy popularized by films such as Toy Story—Mattel has followed in the footsteps of companies such as Lego and its popular 2015 Lego Movie.

There has been little mention of this as problematic within the slew of glowing reviews of the film. Is this to be the future of film? Indeed, filmmaker J.J. Abrams is working on a new Hot Wheels film.

Audiences are supposed to overlook the ethical conundrums presented by the Barbie film in part because the film’s creator, Greta Gerwig, apparently identifies as a feminist. But, she’s hardly a critic of the doll and its regressive representation. According to the film’s costume designer Jacqueline Durran, “Greta really liked… [the outfits in the film that had an ’80s aesthetic because] they chimed with the date of the Barbies that she used to play with… She was a great Barbie fan.”

Additionally, because the film validates the various criticisms leveled at the doll over the years, audiences are expected to embrace this bizarre brand-turned-film as entertainment. “The role comes with a lot of baggage. But with that comes a lot of exciting ways to attack it,” said Robbie, who was one of the initiators of the project and who stars as the main (white, blonde) Barbie protagonist (there are many other Barbies in supporting roles) in the film. But the film doesn’t truly attack Barbie’s baggage. The opening scene of the film, showcased in its first trailer, was a nod to the deeply problematic original Barbie, with Robbie appearing in the same black-and-white striped bathing suit worn by the first version of the dolls to hit store shelves in 1959.

In spite of the film’s clever marketing as a universal project, it does not challenge Barbie’s main function as a dress-up doll. Durran told British Vogue, “Barbie really is interlinked with fashion, because how you play with her is by dressing her,” and that aspect remains central in the film.

Audiences are being encouraged to wear the doll’s signature Pepto-Bismol pink to theaters—the same color associated with gender stereotyping of girls from birth into adulthood. It’s not enough anymore for little girls to aspire to Barbie’s standards; “Barbie will certainly strike a chord with adult women—even more so than with young girls,” explained a Harper’s Bazaar shopping guide for what to wear to the film.

One “trend expert” explained the push to wear pink to People Magazine, saying, “[w]ith many nostalgic for simpler, sunnier, and more carefree times, it only makes sense that this ’80s-inspired, unapologetically pink aesthetic is taking center stage as the ‘it’ style of the summer.”

So effective is the film’s branding campaign that there is now a massive social media fashion trend called #Barbiecore on TikTok garnering hundreds of millions of views for posts created by young women influencers heavily caking their faces with makeup to look like the doll, wearing pink tulle, batting fake eyelashes, and pursing plump glittery lips coyly. Their posts are tagged with the recognizable Barbie logo, fulfilling Mattel’s wildest marketing dreams while setting women back decades. This is apparently the new face of feminism.

The criticism that the film is a blow to feminism is not overblown. The Barbie movie has popularized the horrific-sounding label of “bimbo feminism” (really!). “Instead of abandoning femininity to succeed in a patriarchal society, bimbo feminism embraces femininity while supporting women’s advancement,” wrote Harriet Fletcher in the Conversation. In other words, women are supposed to attain career success while also shaping themselves to fit the male gaze.

There persists a belief that Barbie is indeed a feminist icon in spite of Mattel steering clear of embracing the f-word. Robbie Brenner, head of Mattel Films, has decided that his company’s film is “the ultimate female-empowerment movie.” This disturbing state of discourse on feminism is the direct result of relying on corporate America to define women’s rights and status. While America Ferrera’s character as a real-life woman struggling with the pressures of patriarchy is the film’s most refreshing and powerful aspect, she remains relegated to a supporting role.

Even the ridiculous right-wing backlash to the film, casting it as “anti-man,” is being touted as a measure of the film’s feminism. If it’s pissing off the misogynist incels, surely it’s on the feminist track, claim the film’s defenders. “[I]t’s not a Barbie doll that threatens women’s rights, opportunities, and safety—it’s the patriarchy,” wrote Fletcher in the Conversation. Really, though, both are true, just to different extents.

When I was about 8 or 9, my immigrant parents bought me a Barbie doll. They were proud to be able to (barely) afford a pricey Western toy for their daughter. My Barbie was blonde and blue-eyed, and I happily played with her for years, well before I ever met a blond, blue-eyed person in real life. My doll set the standard for feminine beauty—one that was out of reach of a brown-skinned, dark-haired kid like me whose body type was chubby in contrast to my Barbie, but typical for my age and size. In 2016, Mattel attempted to diversify the doll’s body types. But “curvy” Barbie was still thinner than most real-life women.

Defenders of the film also point to its racially diverse casting and its embrace of varying body types. After all, Issa Rae plays a Black Barbie, Simu Liu is cast as an Asian Ken, and Nicola Coughlan is a gorgeous plus-size version of the doll. But, as Kilbane explained in Allure, “The Barbieverse distinguishes between two Barbies. There’s Barbie ‘the icon,’ or ‘brand,’ who can be blonde and short, or Black and svelte, or Frida Kahlo and white. There’s Barbie ‘the character,’ who is exactly who you’re thinking of, and will be played by Margot Robbie.”

Unlike Disney’s recent reboot of The Little Mermaid, which actually dared to reimagine the central character as a young Black woman played by Halle Bailey, Barbie—the “real” Barbie—will remain white, blonde, skinny, and conventionally pretty, the ultimate aspiration. The rest of us are part of the supporting cast, as per usual.

Even though Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz said, “It’s not about making movies so that we can go and sell more toys,” that’s a misleading claim. Toy company executives are hoping that the movie renews interest in dolls to the tune of billions of dollars. It is an attempt to redeem Barbie and its problematic history so that people will go out and buy the doll. Ultimately the clearest description of the film—enjoyable and thought-provoking as it is—is that it is a $145 million ad campaign for a toy that should have faded away years ago.

AUTHOR BIO: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.

Editor's note Sept. 24, 2023: The New York Times on Sunday reported it "found no evidence" to back up the claim that Ron DeSantis played a role in force-feeding Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to the Times, "An examination of military records and interviews with detainees’ lawyers and service members who served at the same time as Mr. DeSantis found no evidence to back up the claims."

"Instead, nearly all of those interviewed dismissed the story as highly improbable."

Hosted by correspondent Seb Walker, The Guantanamo Candidate "features interviews with former prisoners and a former Naval staff sergeant-turned-Gitmo whistleblower who overlapped with DeSantis. All three allege inhumane treatment at the hands of the U.S. government, with the detainees directly implicating DeSantis—at the time, a junior-level military legal adviser—in approving and overseeing brutal measures," Sollenberger explained.

"These former prisoners alleged that DeSantis watched forced-feedings, a cruel and degrading practice that a United Nations investigation into the controversial offshore prison concluded was torture in February 2006. This was the month before DeSantis arrived, per his military records," according to Sollenberger.

READ MORE: 'They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us': Harris torches Florida’s new 'anti-woke' education standards

If Showtime's decision to ax the movie right after DeSantis entered the race for the White House seems fishy, what it would have revealed could have been even more so.

For instance, Sollenberger expounded, "VICE contextualizes its investigation as a counterpoint to DeSantis' inclination to present his military record as a political strength, and draws attention to his evolving narrative about his Gitmo stint. in a scene from Florida's 2018 gubernatorial debate, DeSantis boasted that he wasn’t at home with his family during Christmas of 2006. 'I was in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at the Terrorist Detention Facility… not as a detainee, as an officer.'"

The film "then presents a clip from DeSantis' 2022 'Top Gun' campaign ad, where he lectured hypothetical recruits about 'today's training evolution: dog fighting—taking on the corporate media,'" Sollenberger found, adding that "the documentary contrasts DeSantis' account with those of two anonymous ex-prisoners, whom the transcript indicated were not represented in the flesh; their claims were delivered in 'voice notes.'"

Overall, The Guantanamo Candidate paints DeSantis' Guantanamo tenure as "a brutal point in the prison's history."

READ MORE: College overtaken by DeSantis allies faces 'ridiculously high' job openings as faculty flee

Sollenberger's full report continues at this link (subscription required).

A San Bernardino County, California school board president, Sonja Shaw, acknowledging a political grudge, grew angered and agitated in front of parents and students attending a school board meeting Thursday, kicking the State Superintendent of Public Instruction out after publicly berating him, accusing him of “proposing things that pervert children,” “blackmail,” and yelling at him that he had supported her opponent for election.

Superintendent Tony Thurmond was at a podium for public speakers at a meeting of the Chino Valley Unified School District school board to weigh in on a controversial proposed policy. If passed, teachers would be required to notify parents within three days, in writing, if their child identifies as transgender or gender non-conforming, asks to be called by a name that does not match school records or their birth certificate, is involved in violence, or talks about suicide, the Daily Bulletin reports.

The proposed policy would also require schools to “notify parents if their child seeks to change their name or pronouns or asks for access to gender-based sports, bathrooms or changing rooms that do not match their assigned gender at birth.”

Speaking at the meeting, Thurmond warned the policy may “not only fall outside of the laws that respect privacy and safety for our students, but may put our students at risk because they may not be in homes where they can be safe –”

His microphone was then cut off without warning.

READ MORE: Trump Promotes Threatening Video: ‘We Are Going to Do Things to You That Have Never Been Done Before’

Shaw then said “time,” three times as Thurmond tried to finish his remarks, according to video (below).

“And I learned something from the previous board president,” Shaw interjected, before raising her voice and ordering students who cheered for Thurmond: “Guys, be respectful.”

“I am going to do a point of order, which I learned from a previous board president,” Shaw continued. “Tony Thurman, I appreciate you being here, tremendously. But here’s the problem. We’re here because of people like you.”

“You’re in Sacramento, proposing things that pervert children,” Shaw shouted, as the students continued to cheer the state superintendent, before she aired her personal political grievances.

“You had a chance to come and talk to me, Tony. By all means you had a chance to come talk to me. Why was it so important for you to walk with my opponent?” Shaw demanded to know. “You are the very reason why we’re in this.”

After being called out by name, Thurmond reproached the podium and attempted to be recognized.

“May I have, as a point of order, as the board –” Thurmond began before Shaw interrupted him.

“This is not your meeting,” she snapped. “You may have a seat because if I did that to you in Sacramento, you would not accept it,” she shouted.

READ MORE: Democrat Destroys GOP’s Whistleblowers Claims of 2020 Political Interference: ‘Joe Biden Was Not the President’

“Please sit,” she added.

“Can I get a point of order?” Thurmond again asked.

“You’re not gonna blackmail us!” said Shaw, shouting again. “You already sent us a blackmailing letter on previous things, you will not bully us here in Chino. Please seat,” Shaw shouted, as Thurmond continued to ask to be recognized.

“We’re gonna take a five-minute break,” Shaw announced before standing up and leaving the room.

The video then shows law enforcement agents speaking with Thurmond.

“They should find a more balanced way to show their respect for private rights that doesn’t trample on the safety and the rights of our students,” Thurmond later told KTVU, while Shaw told the station, “We think he is a danger to our students.”

In the end, the proposed policy passed by a 4-1 vote, and Thurmond was “was led away by security officers to shouts of ‘kick him out.'”

Later on social media Thurmond said, “Tonight I went to a school board meeting to stand up for LGBTQ+ students who invited me to join them as they spoke out against a radical new policy that threatens their safety. When done speaking,the board president verbally attacked me an instructed the police to remove me.”

“I don’t mind being thrown out of a board meeting by extremists. I can take the heat — it’s part of the job. What I can’t accept is the mistreatment of vulnerable students whose privacy is being taken away,” he continued.

READ MORE: Judge Delivers Serious Smackdown in Rejecting Trump Request for New Trial in E. Jean Carroll Case

“I ask — if I am forcibly removed from a public school board meeting as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, how are everyday parents and students in Chino Valley Unified supposed to have their voices heard?” Thurmond added.

Watch video of the meeting and KTVU’s report below or at this link.

A newly passed ban on gender-affirming care in Russia, if approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is expected to threaten many lives, The Daily Beast reports.

The Beast spoke with a handful of Russian citizens whose "health might be ruined" if the law moves forward.

Milana Romanova, 18, " who was in the process of transition" when the bill was passed, told the news outlet she has "no doubt Putin will pass the law. "This is Russia, and then none of us will have any access to professional medical help and society will know it's OK to eliminate us," she said.

READ MORE: Louisiana GOP overrides governor’s veto of 'needlessly' harmful gender-affirming care ban: report

The Beast reports:

Until recently, Russians wishing to legally change their gender had to interact with psychiatrists, municipal authorities, draft officers and sometimes judges. But there was a legal route to transition. On Monday, Russian transgender people’s closed chat on Telegram for over 1,000 Russian trans people was bubbling with updates on which psychiatrist to run to get the most-desirable F-64 certificate, a diagnose of 'transsexualism.' Then, based on that certificate, one could get a passport changed.

Romanova told the news outlet the new law will "only encourage more violence and more transgender people will attempt to commit suicide."

The Beast further notes:

Even before the new law, Russian transgender people have been victims of violence. A group of thugs attacked two young transgender people, Melody and her friend, when they walked home in the city of Yekaterinburg in 2016. 'They beat us terribly. I still have a scar on my face, but my friend had many more scars; a few days later she walked out of the window on the 16th floor,' Melody, who now lives in the Netherlands, told The Daily Beast.

"'I thought I would have to cope with 'normality,' stop the transition—but no laws, no pressure could break my nature. I knew I could only be happy as the woman I am," she said.

READ MORE: Hate group: Ted Cruz should support Uganda’s 'Kill the Gays' law like in 'the American Colonies'

In 2022 Melody was living with her boyfriend in the Tula region of Russia until "last December," when they "made a decision that I move to Amsterdam and he would join me later. But upon my arrival in Holland I received a phone call: my boyfriend was stabbed to death in the town of Aleksin. I look back and see only repressions, fear and threats."

Openly gay filmmaker Nikita Loyk produced Incurable Me — "about horrific cases of Russian conversion therapy, recently premiered in Lisbon and Amsterdam," according to The Beast.

Loyk said, "The new law obliges every district clinic to hire a sexologist and treat teens; this law is a carte blanche for violence, and a license to kill for all sorts of thugs. After I released my film, I received many letters from LGBTQ people in Russia. One guy said: 'Help me, they kidnapped my boyfriend and took him for conversion therapy. First, domestic violence was decriminalized in Russia and now nobody seems to care if transgender people will survive.'"

Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin added, "This is a part of an ideology aimed at erasing trans people, and this is true in the US as well as Russia. This is also the same kind of ideology that also drives the anti-LGBTQ legislation and bills in Uganda and other countries in Africa. Governments are claiming to protect 'youth' or 'traditional families,' while ignoring the fact that gender-affirming care and legal gender recognition that respect people's identities save lives and improve the quality of life immensely for trans people that have access to them."

Now, while roaming Moscow, Romanova compares herself to "a Jew in Berlin during the World War II," saying, "This law is an invitation to kill us all, there is only one way to survive—to leave the country; I wish I had money to travel to one of the most transgender-friendly countries like the Netherlands. Western countries should make the immigration procedure easier for Russian transgender people—we are the most vulnerable group here. The discrimination we face threatens our lives."

READ MORE: Trans rights, anti-trans laws, and the American imagination

The Daily Beast's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

Days after Louisiana Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards vetoed a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, state Republicans voted to override the governor's decision Tuesday, CNN reports.

Edwards wrote in his letter vetoing HB 648 July 1, "It is unfathomable to think that in my last few months serving as governor of this state that I would sign into law a bill that categorically denies health care for children and families based on propaganda and misinformation generated by national interest groups. I assessed the need for this bill based on Louisiana data and facts and read every word of this bill multiple times to determine if there was any possible merit to this bill. There is not."

CNN reports the legislation "would bar those under 18 in Louisiana from receiving gender-affirming surgeries, puberty blocking medications and hormone treatments, and punishes health care professionals that provide them with the revocation of their license for a minimum of two years."

READ MORE: 'Unfathomable': Louisiana Republican-backed anti-LGBTQ bills vetoed by Democratic governor

According to the report, "Major medical associations say that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria – a psychological distress that may result when a person's gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align, according to the American Psychiatric Association."

Although the veto was reversed by Republican lawmakers, "not all Republicans" back the legislation, including State Senator Fred Mills (R-LA), who said, I've always in my heart of hearts, believed that a decision should be made by a patient and a physician," CNN reports.

"This is extreme government overreach and a direct threat to the civil liberties and constitutional rights of all Louisianans," American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Louisiana said. "We condemn today's override of HB648, and we will never stop fighting to protect the rights of transgender youth and their families."

The report notes, "Doctors who began providing such drug or hormone therapy to a minor before January 1, 2024, are allowed to continue providing care through December 1, 2024, if they determine that 'immediately terminating the minor's use of the drug or hormone would cause harm to the minor."

In a statement following the override, Edwards condemned the law as "a bill that needlessly harms a very small population of vulnerable children, their families, and their health care professionals."

READ MORE: This far-right hate group is 'lurking behind efforts' to 'roll back' LGBTQ and abortion rights: report

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Republican lawmakers across the country have continued working towards limiting abortion access as much as possible.

The latest move, according to The New York Times, on Thursday, July 13, House members "voted 221 to 213 to overturn a Pentagon policy guaranteeing abortion access to service members regardless of where they are stationed, with Republicans propelling it to passage over near-unanimous Democratic opposition."

The Times reports the vote was also in support of banning transgender health care, as well as limiting diversity training for military personnel, which delayed the passing of House defense policy legislation, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

READ MORE: 'What’s next, rainbow uniforms?' House Republican wants to defund the Pentagon over Pride celebrations

Before the House eventually passed the bill Friday evening, according to CNN, after "heated exchanges on the floor" over the restrictive reproductive healthcare aspect of the legislation, MSNBC Deadline White House host Nicole Wallace interviewed Marine veteran Amy McGrath regarding her thoughts on the policy.

"First of all, it's an unprecedented move by Republicans to insert this right-wing ideological agenda into our military and into our national security," McGrath said. "What the Republicans just voted on is they want to ban women in the military from being able to cross state lines, and leave their bases and go and get reproductive healthcare in a state where they can get what they need. That's what the Republicans voted for yesterday. It's ludicrous. And frankly, it is a slap in the face to every woman in the military — people who put their lives on the line."

The veteran continued, "And the military entrusted me to fly a $70 million jet into combat with thousands of pounds of bombs at my fingertips, and now the Republicans don't want to trust women in the military, people like me, to be able to control their own reproductive healthcare decisions. That's where we're at in this country right now. It's outrageous."

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Why the abortion 'debate' among Republicans is a total farce: journalist

READ MORE: 'Abortion and immigration' could make or break GOP in 'volatile' 2024 House races

The New York Times' full report is available at this link (subscription required). CNN's report is here.

State attorneys general are charged with ensuring laws within their borders are enforced. Occasionally they may join together, for example, to sue a manufacturer who has violated multiple state laws, or even join an amicus brief laying out their positions on matters before the U.S. Supreme Court.

But increasing Republican state attorneys general are working across their own state lines in attempts to impose their own state laws and more on residents of other states – or the entire nation.

Tennessee’s Republican attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, was appointed in September of 2022 by the state Supreme Court.

Since then, Skrmetti has been actively attacking abortion rights, transgender children’s health care, drag shows, firearms regulations, corporate diversity programs, a Florida school’s policy on a transgender student’s privacy, and the decision by credit card companies to separately classify gun purchases, to name a few issues.

READ MORE: GOP Senators and Right-Wingers Freak Out Over Biden Ordering 3000 Reservists to Ready for Possible Deployment to Europe

He or his office have also accessed the medical records of transgender people.

Earlier this week anchor Rachel Maddow took a look into Skrmetti “demanding and obtaining the private medical records of trans people in Tennessee as Republicans look for ways to make the lives of trans people miserable,” MSNBC reported.

Just yesterday, Skrmetti headed a coalition of 13 Republican state attorneys general “warning the nation’s largest companies — many of which have diversity and equity programs — they could face legal action for using race-based policies,” Tennessee Lookout reported. The sharply-worded letter “put Fortune 100 companies on notice they could be hit with legal action for violating the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which put an end to using race as a basis for admitting students to college.”

“If your company previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry, that discriminatory path is now definitively closed,” the letter states. “Your company must overcome its underlying bias and treat all employees, all applicants, and all contractors equally, without regard for race.”

READ MORE: ‘Restore the Sanctity of Life’: Pence Supports Forcing Women to Carry Non-Viable Fetuses to Term

But even before that, Skrmetti has been exceptionally active in waging his culture war battles, inside and across state lines.

In January, “Skrmetti and 17 other attorneys general filed their amicus brief in the Western District of Texas in the case of Carter v. McDonough in support of the plaintiff, Stephanie Carter, a Veterans Administration nurse who opposes” a rule “allowing taxpayer-funded abortions and abortion counseling for veterans and beneficiaries,” Tennessee Lookout reported.

In February, Skrmetti joined with nearly two dozen other states in “backing a lawsuit that would remove the abortion pill from throughout the United States after more than two decades, eliminating the option even in states where abortion access remains legal.” In other words, a nationwide ban on a popular form of medical abortion. That case, Tennessee Lookout reported, was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal group that recently won the highly-controversial Supreme Court case last month involving a web designer who said Colorado’s non-discrimination law blocked her from being able to design wedding websites only for different-sex couples.

The following month, “Skrmetti sent letters to Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid seeking confirmation that they will not sell or dispense mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug, in Tennessee,” Chattanoogan.com reported.

Also in March, Skrmetti joined 20 other Republican state attorneys general in a letter sent to asset managers, “suggesting they are breaching their fiduciary duties in their handling of environmental or social issues,” Reuters reported, namely, taking into consideration “ESG” – environmental, social, and governance factors in financial decisions. That was followed in June when Skrmetti “demanded ten major asset managers provide information over how they seek to tackle climate change, as part of an investigation into potential breaches of consumer law.”

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Last week in a press release Skrmetti bragged that he was joining 24 other states to challenge new EPA regulations on gasoline-powered automobile emissions. He is claiming the regulations are “unlawful” and “threaten national security.” Skrmetti also claims the regulations “would forcibly phase out gas-powered vehicles and restructure the automobile industry around electric vehicles (EVs) at a breakneck pace.”

Late last month Skrmetti appealed a federal court ruling that found Tennessee’s ban on drag shows violated the U.S. Constitution, ABC24 reported. In a statement Skrmetti suggested the language of the Tennessee law was similar to that of laws that prevent “grooming kids with pornography.”

Even before many of these actions, some voiced concerns.

Attorney and former Democratic county chairman Michael Lottman in an op-ed asked, “How do nationwide lawsuits Attorney General Skrmetti joined help Tennessee?”

Noting that “Skrmetti’s predecessor, Herbert Slatery, had frequently taken advantage of his position to impose his personal political opinions upon lawsuits and people in other jurisdictions,” Lottman criticized Skrmetti’s decision to sign on to the brief supporting a Veterans Administration nurse trying to prevent abortion services at her Texas hospital, “for both religious and medical reasons,” Lottman noted.

He also pointed out that “in January, The Tennessean reported that Skrmetti had joined three other non-Tennessee court cases, including a nakedly political, challenge to President Biden’s plan for unscrambling the disastrous situation at the U.S.’s southern border.”

“More recently, Skrmetti teamed up with two dozen other A.G.’s in a letter to Yelp,” Lottman continued, “challenging Yelp’s decision to warn consumers that the so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ around the country ‘may provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.'”

In May, the GOP-majority Tennessee state legislature added millions of dollars to Attorney General Skrmetti’s budget to help him continue this work.

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