According to a recent Gallup analysis, nearly one in ten U.S. adults now identifies as LGBTQ+, a significant increase driven by the younger generation and bisexual women. Additionally, 1.3% of all respondents identified as transgender, a notable rise from 0.6% in 2020.
Magic: The Gathering YouTuber Brian Lewis, known as Tolarian Community College, recently raised over half a million dollars for Trans Lifeline, a peer-led crisis hotline for transgender individuals. The fundraising event, which took place over the weekend, featured various Magic-related giveaways, with donations of $4 granting participants chances to win items ranging from cards to art prints and accessories. This year’s drive, which ended February 15th, was the most successful to date, raising over $564,000.
Frances Thompson, a Black transgender woman, testified before Congress in 1866 about the Memphis Race Massacre, where she was assaulted by a White mob. Her testimony played a significant role in the ratification of the 14th Amendment. However, a decade later, Thompson was outed as transgender, arrested for cross-dressing, and forced to work in an all-male chain gang.
To the American people, we ask you to reaffirm your commitment to individual rights and to the project of equality under the law that is written into the US Constitution and that has animated the best nature of the USA since its founding.
Reject efforts to desensitize you to violence against other Americans, whether that violence is legal, social, or physical. To protect trans people and the Constitution, and to prevent the hardening of a genocidal process that will eventually impact every single American, it is critical that you loudly resist the normalization of anti-trans talking points and make your voice heard against efforts to marginalize and erase the trans community.
This can mean many things – writing a letter to your representatives, organizing your community to flood your representatives with phone calls, or supporting and engaging with organizations that protect LGBTQ+ rights. Talking to family and friends is also important. Autocratic states need to control language or they will fall. Keep talking.
“Why weren’t and aren’t institutions, hospitals, leaders, individuals, speaking out more against this attack on a group of people who are one of the smallest, most vulnerable populations in the country?
Gessen: So I think there are two reasons: To stand up to an attack, you have to have language and ideas to counter the attack. And that language and those ideas on any kind of scale would have come from the Democratic presidential campaign, which they didn’t.
The Democrats had chosen consciously not to engage with Trump’s anti-trans baiting. Somehow willing it away, or thinking that if they don’t say anything too pro-trans it will go unnoticed that he is trans-baiting them. It’s a strategy that has never worked but the Democrats keep stepping into over and over again.”
He does confirm the general idea that pre-modern Europe and Middle East had no idea of homosexuality as we understand it (as an inborn sexual orientation). It was the act that concern them, not any kind of preference, and what was considered intolerable was a man being the receptive partner during intercourse.
However, he argues that the bans in Leviticus is actually addressing the active partner, because he was breaking the very social rules that upheld the implicit hierarchy of power. This violation of the social order creates a feeling of disgust. The heterosexual “ick” following the idea of same-sex sex was rationalized and codified in the law. There is no rational basis for the ban at all.
“We’re in really uncertain, scary times, and I think that there’s a tendency to get quiet, and now is not the time to get quiet. Now is the time to get loud and speak up in support of your friends and your family members,” Williamson told the audience at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theater to applause.
Williamson — a gay multihypenate known for creating another beloved queer found-family TV show, EastSiders — stressed how advocacy for the transgender community is particularly essential right now. (In its first month in power, the Trump administration made erasing and demonizing trans people a key part of its policy, targeting them in schools, the military, prisons, and beyond.)
The Labour Party has apparently reaffirmed its commitment to updating the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) despite reports suggesting the pledge had been abandoned. Labour’s manifesto promised to modernize, simplify, and reform the GRA, aiming to remove indignities for trans people while maintaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a specialist doctor.
Recent reports claimed that the government planned to drop these commitments, citing unnamed sources who expected the plans to “go away” and labeled gender issues as a “can of worms.” However, Angela Eagle, Minister for Border Security and Asylum, has refuted these claims, stating that there had been no change in Labour’s plans. She emphasized that the manifesto commitments remain part of the government’s program.
NYT: “This is a campaign in which cruelty and humiliation seem to be the fundamental point”” But we have to ask: Why on earth did the New York Times allow so many transphobes to publish their toxic stew in the newspaper?
Today’s video: The state of Trans Rights in Trump’s America
“The state of Trans Rights in Trump’s America” video by Council of Geeks explores the impact of President Donald Trump’s policies on transgender individuals. The video delves into the rollback of protections and rights that were previously granted to transgender people under previous administrations.
The video discusses the executive orders signed by Trump, which ban transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports at federally funded schools and redefine sex strictly as male or female at birth. These policies have led to increased discrimination and stigmatization of transgender individuals, making it difficult for them to access necessary services and support.
The current Trump policies are clearly aiming at erasing trans people from existence, making it impossible for civil servants, teachers and researchers to even refer to them with meaningful terms.
Council of Geeks emphasizes the importance of resilience and solidarity within the transgender community. The video concludes by urging viewers to support transgender rights organizations and to stay informed about the ongoing struggles faced by the transgender community.
A Dutch LGBTQ ally and activist hopes to turn the Netherlands into a haven for transgender refugees from the US. He asks people to provide stories he can use to pressure Dutch and European politicians. He is also looking for ideas about how to make it easier for trans Americans to get access to European countries.
