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jp1
5-12-22, 1:25am
Back in 1980 when I was in sixth grade my elementary school had a "talent contest". One of my classmates decided to do a lipsync thing. They had a couple of friends holding up a beach towel as they danced to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. The towel was hiding the top half of their body from the audience but the bottom half of their body was in the bottom half of a yellow polka dot bikini. At the end of the song their friends dropped the towel and they made a shocked face and threw their hands up in the air. Of course the top half of their body was in the other half of the yellow polka dot bikini. The student body audience went nuts cheering at that point and my friend absolutely won the talent contest that day. You've probably figured out by now that my friend E, in his itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini was a guy. Doing drag in a sixth grade talent show. With his mom in the audience taking pictures. And everyone loved it. No freak outs from anyone from the school Principal on down to the youngest kindergartner and their parents. In florida today half the people in the room would probably have gone to jail.

Yppej
5-12-22, 5:22am
What a specious post. The law covers teachers providing instruction, not students, and grades 3 and under, not grade 6. But wallow in your false righteous indignation if it makes you feel good.

happystuff
5-12-22, 9:21am
Back in 1980 when I was in sixth grade my elementary school had a "talent contest". One of my classmates decided to do a lipsync thing. They had a couple of friends holding up a beach towel as they danced to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. The towel was hiding the top half of their body from the audience but the bottom half of their body was in the bottom half of a yellow polka dot bikini. At the end of the song their friends dropped the towel and they made a shocked face and threw their hands up in the air. Of course the top half of their body was in the other half of the yellow polka dot bikini. The student body audience went nuts cheering at that point and my friend absolutely won the talent contest that day. You've probably figured out by now that my friend E, in his itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini was a guy. Doing drag in a sixth grade talent show. With his mom in the audience taking pictures. And everyone loved it. No freak outs from anyone from the school Principal on down to the youngest kindergartner and their parents. In florida today half the people in the room would probably have gone to jail.

Cute story! Sounds like it probably ended up being a wonderful memory for your friend.

jp1
5-12-22, 9:02pm
What a specious post. The law covers teachers providing instruction, not students, and grades 3 and under, not grade 6. But wallow in your false righteous indignation if it makes you feel good.

You don't think some of the kids would go back to their classrooms and ask "Ms. Yppej, why was that boy dressed up like a girl? What's that about?" How would a florida teacher answer that question without running afoul of the law.

But I'm not surprised that you don't give a shit. You've made it abundantly clear that the only thing you give a shit about when it comes to other people is their right to exhale potentially deadly virus on anyone in their vicinity.

Alan
5-12-22, 9:06pm
You don't think some of the kids would go back to their classrooms and ask "Ms. Yppej, why was that boy dressed up like a girl? What's that about?" How would a florida teacher answer that question without running afoul of the law.

I think the teacher would be perfectly safe under Florida law to say "He was just pretending". What part of the law might lead you to believe otherwise?

jp1
5-12-22, 9:25pm
‘But Ms Yppej why would a guy want to pretend to be a girl? My mommy took me to drag queen hour at the library and he was pretending too. That’s just gross.’

The appropriate answer is ‘because some people enjoying pretending which is fine.’ But because of the vagueness of the law Ms Yppej is like to say something less positive, or at best less clear and more confusing in order to avoid risking any trouble with the law. No one with any sense would want to become the test case for figuring out what that stupid law actually does.

jp1
5-12-22, 9:41pm
Cute story! Sounds like it probably ended up being a wonderful memory for your friend.

He was a really nice guy. Definitely a bit of a clown but never mean to anyone in any way that I saw, just a big joker. Our elementary school was small (only 1 1/2 classes for each grade) so everyone was kind of/sort of friends with each other, but we were never close friends and in Jr High and Sr High, where there were a lot more people, didn't run in the same circles so I have no idea what became of him. When I told my older sister this story she was shocked. She had been in the same grade as E's older brother and responded "OMG. J (E's brother) would NEVER have done something like that. He was waaaaay too shy/introverted to perform in front of the whole school in drag as a joke."

jp1
5-13-22, 2:53pm
And now the NH legislature’s republicans are working on an ‘out the kids’ bill that would require school staff to out kids to their parents if they talk to a teacher about gender issues or join a gay straight alliance. The harm they are willing to inflict on LGBT youth just to score a few votes at the polls is remarkable.

Chicken lady
5-14-22, 10:34am
My pottery students make wall tiles for my classroom at the end of the year. K-12.

student on Thursday “can I put a pride flag on my wall tile?”
me”it’s your tile, you can put whatever you want.”
pause
me again “wait, no, you can’t put a naked person, swear words, slurs or hate symbols on your tile. Other than that, you can put anything you want.”
Another student “what if I leave some of the letters out of the swear word?”
me “if I can figure out that it’s a swear word it won’t go up. And I use Google translate and read Tolkien based runes. (Pointing to Latin on existing tile) this says “truth is eternal.”

Another student “what if it’s just a naked butt and not the whole person?”

follows values trade off discussion on the permissibility of nudity in art vs. the desirability of me keeping my job and students whose parents might be upset by naked butts having the opportunity to take my classes.

Every year I ask myself more than once 1) what is the likelihood that this will get me fired? 2) will it have been worth it?
I have no interest in being in a position where I have to ask myself “what is the likelihood that this will get me a felony conviction?”

flowerseverywhere
5-15-22, 11:33am
Food for thought in Florida.

You can substitute teach with a high school diploma or equivalent. Pay average is $124 per day. Average teacher salary in the fourties. Our school board meeting have non parents screaming about masks, getting books off shelves they deem inappropriate and so on. Books quietly disappear from libraries. Our governor mocked high school kids for wearing masks. So much for parental choice.

I imagine getting well qualified teachers will continue to be difficult in this environment. Who in their right mind would risk being sued and putting up with the rest of the bull here. I would never live here if I had kids in school.

The irony is I live where there is a very large openly gay community. I have never once felt in any way uncomfortable or intimidated by anyone. Why anyone cares what color your skin is, who you love, what god you believe in or if you don't believe in any god I'd beyond me. Oh yeah, there are points to score with Rich white republican voters through fake moral outrage so you and they can get richer while ordinary working barely get by. And no expanded Medicaid here. Who cares if you work full time and have no health insurance?

You have to be taught to hate and they are doing their best.

nswef
5-15-22, 1:03pm
Well said, flowers.

jp1
6-9-22, 10:57pm
So now the sad sack republicans think that the best thing they can do to protect children is make it illegal for kids under 18 to attend drag shows. And to criminalize parents who help their kids obtain gender treatment medical help. But hey, letting them get mowed down by angry antisocial young men with guns is AOK. Yay ‘Murica.

bae
6-9-22, 11:51pm
So now the sad sack republicans think that the best thing they can do to protect children is make it illegal for kids under 18 to attend drag shows.

I'm thinking that will limit opera attendance too.

JaneV2.0
6-9-22, 11:55pm
I'm thinking that will limit opera attendance too.

I don't know--forbidden fruit, and all.

LDAHL
6-10-22, 8:15am
One Texas state representative does not a moral panic make.

iris lilies
6-10-22, 8:59am
So now the sad sack republicans think that the best thing they can do to protect children is make it illegal for kids under 18 to attend drag shows. And to criminalize parents who help their kids obtain gender treatment medical help. But hey, letting them get mowed down by angry antisocial young men with guns is AOK. Yay ‘Murica.
Meanwhile, we make 5 year olds sit through drag performances at the public library.

Isn't our schizoid country grand??!!!

iris lilies
6-10-22, 9:01am
I'm thinking that will limit opera attendance too.
I do not get this reference. Please ‘ splain.

iris lilies
6-10-22, 9:11am
Food for thought in Florida.


…You have to be taught to hate and they are doing their best.

I dunno, this doesn’t seem to reflect the latest race education idea.

I agree with you in that one time we were taught “no one is born hating” and I distinctly remember that droning, white boarded message in our race-based education, especially in the oh-so-earnest teachings in our neighborhood when we had a very big blowup about basketball courts in our city park (and all of the bad stuff that went along.)

But now, a central idea of race-education and anti discrimination is that humans naturally gravitate toward people in their tribe and shunning “ otherness” is kinda natural. It is, of course, something to be aware of and overcome.

My point here is that the central ideas of woke education change. If you hang around long enough, as I have, you will see major shifts in focus.

happystuff
6-10-22, 12:28pm
Iut now, a central idea of race-education and anti discrimination is that humans naturally gravitate toward people in their tribe and shunning “ otherness” is kinda natural. It is, of course, something to be aware of and overcome.

My point here is that the central ideas of woke education change. If you hang around long enough, as I have, you will see major shifts in focus.

I don't see any problem with people gravitating toward others of their tribe. I think the issue is when people make the separate choice to HATE everyone outside their tribe. Choosing who makes up your "tribe" may very well be natural, but then going that step of hating everyone else, I believe to be learned.

bae
6-10-22, 12:39pm
I do not get this reference. Please ‘ splain.

Many important opera roles are performed by cross-dressers.

And then there's Shakespeare...

JaneV2.0
6-10-22, 2:11pm
I don't see any problem with people gravitating toward others of their tribe. I think the issue is when people make the separate choice to HATE everyone outside their tribe. Choosing who makes up your "tribe" may very well be natural, but then going that step of hating everyone else, I believe to be learned.

I agree--and your "tribe" might consist of like-minded people, regardless of other considerations.

ApatheticNoMore
6-10-22, 3:46pm
I hear gravitating toward your tribe and don't even think of race, I think of similar values and so on. I mean it may or may not end up ethnically diverse, if it's not one has no obligation to make it so, but that's what I think of when I hear that.

jp1
6-10-22, 8:50pm
One Texas state representative does not a moral panic make.

But add in a large state governor directing child protective services to investigate parents that take kids to drag performances and you’re getting pretty close. Especially when these pathetic human beings have been screeching ‘GROOMER!!!! ‘ for months now. It’s almost as if they feel that being called deplorable was a challenge to live up to rather than something to be embarrassed about. But sure, maybe if you keep re-electing them they’ll give you another damn tax cut or something.

jp1
6-12-22, 12:08pm
https://newrepublic.com/article/166712/pizzagate-comet-ping-pong-pride-lgbtq-republicans


Now, a little more than five years later, 25 percent of Republicans identify as believers of the Pizzagate successor QAnon, and the far right’s capacity for street violence has grown. At the same time, where once most elected Republican officials would at least nominally distance themselves from Pizzagate-pushers out on the fringe, that wall has largely eroded. Across the country, GOP lawmakers have waged a legislative crusade targeting queer and trans kids, smearing opponents as “groomers,” language that rhymes with the “pedophile” claims that inspired the attack on Comet Ping Pong. And where once the targets of these conspiracy theories were largely confined to a select group of Democratic lawmakers and their allies, the fearmongering—amplified by Fox News and prominent conservative social media accounts—is now targeted at all LGBTQ people, from national figures to members of your local community. The stage is set for a Pizzagate in any city.

Thanks to Governor Shitbag from Florida and other turds like him all over the country LGBTQ people will end up dead. Meanwhile the 75% of republican voters that don't believe that Pizzagate was a real thing will keep tolerating these asshats and pulling the lever next to their name come voting day because they just don't care.

JaneV2.0
6-12-22, 12:34pm
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/11/1104405804/patriot-front-white-supremacist-arrested-near-idaho-pride

Right-wing hate groups seem to be multiplying like noxious viruses. This one "Patriot Front" assembled to rain on a Pride gathering in Idaho.

"It is clear to us based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession and in the U-Haul with them, along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown," said Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White.

Authorities said they were alerted to the group by a concerned citizen who called to report seeing approximately 20 men jump into a U-Haul truck at a hotel parking lot wearing masks, carrying shields and that they "looked like a little army," said White."

jp1
6-15-22, 7:53am
Ron Desantis will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that his efforts to demonize LGBTQ people are having success in California.

https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-disrupt-drag-queen-story-hour-public-library-sheriff-1715043?fbclid=IwAR126F-uR0bOJ0q1JD8eVyEsQZXkCWpTSBE7JN188HbY5w82LygsOeA-Y8s

JaneV2.0
6-15-22, 10:20am
Ron Desantis will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that his efforts to demonize LGBTQ people are having success in California.

https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-disrupt-drag-queen-story-hour-public-library-sheriff-1715043?fbclid=IwAR126F-uR0bOJ0q1JD8eVyEsQZXkCWpTSBE7JN188HbY5w82LygsOeA-Y8s

I would expect nothing less from the Proud Boys (sic), an ignorant, violent bunch of knuckle-draggers if there ever was one. Pedophiles are usually heterosexual family men, often churchgoers--including large numbers of pastors, apparently..

https://news.yahoo.com/list-local-southern-baptist-church-214704199.html