Apparently, every day is a battle for LGBTQ+ lawmakers. According to an Associated Press report, they “find themselves fighting just ‘to exist.'”
The article begins on an emotional note:
State Sen. Shevrin Jones can often be seen at the Florida Capitol greeting staff and colleagues with a smile or laugh, but when he’s alone it’s a different story.
“The outward expression is to show God’s love. That’s what I was taught,” said Jones, a Democrat. But, he said, “I have enough tears in my car to fill a lake.”
For Jones, who is gay, the past two years have been emotionally draining as Florida passed a flurry of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
More than 200 LGBTQ+ lawmakers across the country feel just like Jones, at a time when anti-gay and anti-transgender legislation is flourishing — as if they are under personal attack, and that they need to continually defend their community’s right to exist. The issue exploded into the national spotlight last week when Montana Republicans voted to bar Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who is transgender, from the House floor after a standoff over gender-affirming medical care for minors.
The AP reports: “The ACLU is tracking nearly 470 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 16 states, most with Republican-controlled Legislatures. Texas, Missouri and Tennessee alone account for more than 125 such bills; Florida has ten.”
Read on and you’ll find these bills include Florida’s March 2022 Parental Rights in Education law which banned discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade classrooms. And, of course, they identify the legislation as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The lawmakers – and the AP – are especially incensed over bills that “would classify providing gender-affirming care to minors as a form of child abuse.” Isn’t it?
They also object to bills that would force students to use bathrooms that “correspond with their gender,” that would ban LGBTQ+ books from school libraries, that would deprive students of the “ability to socially transition at school,” and ban biological men from competing against women in high school and college sports.
“It’s put pressure on LGBTQ+ lawmakers who are encountering opposition, misunderstanding and even hate among their Republican colleagues,” says the AP.
The article features Florida Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby, “a lawyer currently in a Master of Divinity program who was raised with a strong religious background. She’s also the first Black lesbian lawmaker in the statehouse to be out.”
Rayner-Goolsby said she is “literally trying to exist.”
I actually have a policy of no longer crying in Tallahassee. I will cry when I go home.
I’m literally trying to exist. The harsh things we’re saying are in defense of our life. The harsh things that they’re saying are to prop up a governor’s political ambition, and their desire and quest for power.
“In some cases, LGBTQ+ members who have deep faith are pitted against GOP members saying God doesn’t make mistakes, and that there are only two genders,” the article said.
Okay, so let’s get this straight. Lawmakers want to stop doctors from performing irreversible surgeries and prescribing hormone therapies to minors who are in no position to make life-altering decisions. They want to remove pornographic books like “Gender Queer” from grade school libraries. They want to prevent biological men, who are demonstrably stronger than women, from competing in women’s sports. And they want to prevent female students from having to deal with boys in the girls’ room and vice versa.
I consider all of these proposals to be not only entirely reasonable, but essential. I’m in a state of shock by the over-the-top, melodramatic reaction from LGBTQ+ lawmakers and even more so by the media’s efforts to spin this type of legislation as malicious. The fact that any of these measures are even open for debate proves just how stark-raving mad the far-left has become.
With nearly 470 anti-gay and anti-trans bills in 16 states, LGBTQ+ lawmakers find themselves fighting just "to exist." https://t.co/l6KVSiwx9a
— ABC News (@ABC) May 1, 2023
A previous version of this article appeared on Power Line.
If you enjoyed this article, then please REPOST or SHARE with others; encourage them to follow AFNN
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
Parler: https://parler.com/AFNNUSA
CloutHub: @AFNN_USA
The days of “just trying to exist” are long gone. We went from “I just want to be left alone” to “You not only better recognize me for my behavior, but you better celebrate me and my behavior, or else!”. They are simply crying about pushback they caused with their outrageous and dangerous overreach.
I’m not aware of any “anti-LGBTQ+” laws in America.
It is the epitome of authoritarianism to require established society to accept, honor, recognize, reward, give benefit to, approve of, people because of their proclivities of sexual satisfaction and the minutia that it entails.
Gender dysphoria is a serious mental disease that we are now being expected to consider normal human behaviour or else. Individuals are using this disease to groom and literally alienate children from their parents with the long held Communist indoctrination that children are property of the State. I’ve personally witnessed this insidious governmental practice first hand since the mid 1970’s when government tyrants literally kidnapped children from their parents because families are not as educated or enlightened as state agencies. And it’s in these state agencies where the vilest and most horrendous child abuse occurs. I knew a young girl whose mother deemed her incorrigible when she was 14 and handed her over to the juvenile caretakers. For 3 weeks she was anally raped by a 21 yr old counsellor at the juvenile facility so she wouldn’t get pregnant. It is of this ilk that are performing drag sex displays to children today in public and school libraries that barely understand that their body parts that allows them to relieve themselves will some day empower their ability to procreate. Parents who are actually true parents are being denied the knowledge of these deviant activities where children are being introduced to horrific pornography cartoon books that are exposing and teaching children as young as 5 and 6 how to masturbate, expose themselves to the opposite sex, experiment with touching, teaching how to perform oral sex, anal sex, and normalizing activities that are the stock and trade of pedophiles and sexual criminals. Democrat politicians are howling that Republicans are “banning books” and accusing them of the same practice as Nazi book burners for trying to stop these deviants from exposing this literature to children younger than 9 years old. This shows the vile disrespect that Democrat Marxists have for the family, the protection of children, and giving pedophiles free access to innocent children while denying parents the ability to protect their children.
No, this has nothing to do with being mean to gays or those suffering from gender dysphoria. I shouldn’t be anymore required to give any special allowances to anyone because they practice sex in a way that I don’t anymore than they should be required to practice religion in a way that I demand, or else. And let’s be done with this nonsense that they suffer violence and should get special rights. It’s quite evident that the people suffering violence have been at the hands of the sufferers of gender dysphoria not the other way around. It’s children being violated by the disturbing allowance of grooming, secretly convincing them that they’re not really a boy or a girl.
This horror must stop. Children deserve their innocence and teachers and educational institutions have no right to violate their innocence for any reason.