Welcome to the first of hopefully many regular posts of news for, of, and about the LGBTQIA+ community. A lot of it is transgender-centric right now, but that's because of things going on in politics. I do promise more when it happens.
But just to show how bad the US Government is (we'll get to the UK in a moment), let's just note that
a judge had to issue a ruling that the Federal government couldn't take funding for school lunches from
all of Maine because of
two trans kids in sports in the state.
The Bad News
Looking over the last week, let's start with April 16, and
this post from fight or flight about the recent UK Supreme Court decision, where they declared that even with a Gender Recognition Certificate, trans women are not legally considered women. I also want to highlight
Pallas Athena's comment as excellent as well.
The next day, the UK Equalities and Human Rights Commission head, Baroness Kishwer Falkner,
said that the National Health Service would be pushed to update their rules on single-sex spaces, while
Dolores Umbridge prototype horrid harridan J. K. Rowling celebrated the ruling in way that us in the US would recognize as similar to the late
and deeply unlamented Rush Limbaugh, after giving £70,000 to the group behind it. Meanwhile, Health Minister Karin Smyth says that
has stated the Tories should apologize for their pro-trans stance under Theresa May, showing she's delusional.
Reportedly, US Vice President
and enthusast for eyeliner and furniture J. D. Vance is
pushing the UK to repeal LGBTQIA+ anti-hate-speech laws as part of negotiations in trade deals.
The UK conservative press was its usual restrained and thoughtful self, and continues to provide proof I should
not have an orbital laser cannon or comet driver.
On April 17,
Trump administration's HHS removed gender dysphoria from the protected list of disabilities, thus disagreeing from such radical scientific works such as the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the standard for psychological and psychiatric care.
The HHS has also
launched a snitch form for health providers who give gender affirming care to minors (for now; wait for it to update for everyone).
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that State would not place a freeze on PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) even as USAID was being dismantled. However, it has not been restored and reactivated as promised (who could have expected that?). And so, on April 17,
a group of activists stacked 200 mock coffins in front of the State Department's offices to protest this.
The Good News
The case of
Orr v. Trump has paused with a temporary restraining order allowing the plaintiff - and only the plaintiff - to get a passport with their legal gender present. It is expected that a final order to push all pending passport orders will
result in whining from President Yamface and his sycophanty corps rapid appeals from the Federal government.
Karina Ødegård, a member of Norway's Green Party and on-trrack to be Norway's first transgender person in their parlianment,
has stated they feel that Norway should be offering asylum for US trans people (And I would expect our UK siblings as well), comparing it to 1930s Germany under the Nazis. Norway
supported transfer refugees from the LGBTQIA+ community in a three year program in 2020.
If you have comments about the nature of this post, I would like to direct you to place them
in this MetaTalk post instead of in the post itself. While you're there, may I suggest you read this
frankly astonishingly excellent comment in the thread by our new friend Seven Deadly Gins, and think about it before filing any complaints?
Please leave this post to be a discussion about the news. I will be threadsitting and doing reports and flagging, despite my personal distaste for it. If you have any other issues, please refer to
this comment by moderator Brandon Blatcher in that thread.