The GOP Is Ramping Up Its Anti-Gay Jihad

Across the country Republican legislators - including here in Virginia - are ramping up their efforts to stigmatize and erase LGBT students and individuals, often under the smoke screen of "parental rights" even though some evangelical and far right parents pose a severe danger to their LGBT children.  LGBT youth continue to make up roughly 40% of homeless youth, typically because they are thrown out by their parents or find living in Christofascists homes too disturbing and/or violent.  The mind set is that children are chattel property of their parents and the best interests of the welfare of children and youthis subordinate to parental property rights.  Not surprisingly, Texas is in the forefront of demonizing gays and is seeking passage of its own "don't say gay: law in the upcoming legislative session.  But Texas is not alone in the jihad against LGBT students and individuals. At least 10 other states  to enact anti-LGBT legislation this year with zero regard to the damage done to LGBT youth and individuals.  Many of the bills label homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” despite medical and mental health knowledge to the contrary.  We are simply deemed disposable and something that needs to disappear regardless of the damage done or suicides that will be prompted.  The Texas Tribune looks at the anti-LGBT efforts in Texas:

Two bills that would ban classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in Texas public schools before certain grade levels are poised to receive top Republican backing in this year’s legislative session. But critics warn that the legislation could further marginalize LGBTQ students and families while exposing teachers to potential legal threats.

The two bills — authored by Reps. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, and Jared Patterson, R-Frisco — closely resemble legislation out of Florida that critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law. House Bill 631 and House Bill 1155 are among a flurry of anti-LGBTQ legislation awaiting lawmakers when they return to the Capitol on Tuesday.

Their proposals would also prohibit lessons on sexuality and gender identity at any grade level if they are “not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.” Patterson’s bill doesn’t define what is appropriate for various age groups. Toth’s bill requires the lessons to align with state standards but doesn’t specify which standards.

Like Florida’s law, the two Texas bills don’t explicitly ban the use of the word “gay” in schools. The bills’ authors also maintain that the legislation would protect “parental rights” by allowing parents to more directly control what their children learn in school, including the existence of different sexual orientations and gender identities. . . . parents must review and sign off on any health-related services.”

Critics of the legislation argue that the bills’ vague nature would suppress discussion related to LGBTQ issues and representation.

“The reality is that everybody has a gender identity and sexual orientation; avoiding those conversations is incredibly difficult,” Adri Pérez, an organizing director with Texas Freedom Network, told The Texas Tribune. “What it becomes is a tool to be leveraged specifically against LGBTQIA+ people, because what stands out is not the people who fit in but the people who are being specifically targeted and attacked as being different.”

The bills come amid a political environment in which LGBTQ people are seeing increased hostility. Texas Republican lawmakers this session are backing legislation targeting gender-affirming care for trans youth and drag shows. The state GOP’s official party platform explicitly opposes “efforts to validate transgender identity.” It also labels homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” even though most people have “little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation,” according to the American Psychological Association.

Texas, as noted, is hardly the only state where Republicans are seeking to erase LGBT individuals and/or make our lives more of a living hell - all to pander to the ugliest elements of the GOP base and GOP primary voters.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot which quotes my friend Cathy Renna looks at this largr war against LGBT individuals.  Here are highlights:

After a midterm election and record flow of anti-transgender legislation last year, Republican state lawmakers this year are zeroing in on questions of bodily autonomy with new proposals to limit gender-affirming health care . . . . More than two dozen bills seeking to restrict transgender health care access have been introduced across 11 states — Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia — for the legislative sessions beginning in early 2023.

Bills targeting other facets of trans livelihood have been filed in many of the same states and are expected in several others with GOP majorities.

Gender-affirming health care providers and parents of trans youths are the primary targets of these bills, many of which seek to criminalize helping a trans child obtain what doctors and psychologists widely consider “medically necessary care.”

[S]tatehouses where Republicans expanded their margins in the midterms will likely double down on anti-trans legislation this year and reintroduce some of the more drastic measures that didn’t pass in previous sessions.

Of the 35 anti-LGBTQ bills already introduced in Texas, three would classify providing gender-affirming care to minors as a form of child abuse, following a directive last year from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that ordered child welfare agents to open abuse investigations into parents who let their children receive gender-affirming care.

In Tennessee, the GOP-controlled legislature announced after Election Day that its first priority would be to ban medical providers from altering a child’s hormones or performing surgeries that enable them to present as a gender different from their sex. The pre-filed bill would replace present law with more stringent restrictions.

Legislation pre-filed this week in Republican-controlled Oklahoma, which passed restrictions last year on trans participation in sports and school bathroom usage, seeks to ban gender-affirming care for patients under age 26 and block it from being covered under the state’s Medicaid program.

Cathy Renna, spokesperson for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said she views these bills as the product of “a permissible climate of hate,” driven by disinformation and fearmongering, that made anti-LGBTQ rhetoric more palatable in the years since former President Donald Trump’s election in 2016.

“We have politicians, celebrities and just folks in our communities who were given permission under Trump to kind of pick that scab and do and say harmful things without consequence,” Renna said. “It unleashed a nightmare Pandora’s box of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism.”

“When you look at the last few years,” she said of the LGBTQ community, “we feel like we’re under attack in a way that we have not for decades.”

Meanwhile, Democrats in some states are taking a more aggressive approach to transgender health protections.

A new California law, effective as of Jan. 1, shields families of transgender youth from criminal prosecution if they travel to California for gender-affirming health procedures, such as surgeries or hormone therapy, from states that ban such treatments for minors.