#Anti-gay propaganda law

[bgbrry]

YES. beloved mutual. you want to watch intervieq w the vampire for assad zaman alone please it will be worth it to see him in his full glory in s2

peer into his bright brown orbs

this is like if a gay angel was whispering advice in my ear.

[msclaritea]

you are a truly disgusting individual. your anti queer rhetoric is sending the world so far backward, you are pushing hate towards a community who already experiences so much shit from others like you. drag is not dangerous, it is art. being trans is not a cult. queer people are not inherently evil as you so clearly think. you are a sick fuck and I hope you have a terrible day <3

Scotland's Hate Crime Act comes into effect today. Women gain no additional protections, of course, but well-known trans activist Beth Douglas, darling of prominent Scottish politicians, falls within a protected category. Phew! 1/11

Lovely Scottish lass and convicted double rapist Isla Bryson found her true authentic female self shortly before she was due to be sentenced. Misgendering is hate, so respect Isla’s pronouns, please. Love the leggings! 2/11

Fragile flower Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", was rightly sent to a women's prison in Scotland after conviction. This ensured she was protected from violent, predatory men (unlike the 10-year-old girl Katie sexually assaulted in a women's public bathroom.) 3/11

Samantha Norris was cleared of exposing her penis to two 11-year-old girls. Hooray! Unfortunately she was then convicted for possession of 16,000 images of children being raped and sexually assaulted. Be that as it may, Sam’s still a lady to me! 4/11

Scottish woman and butcher Amy George abducted an 11-year-old girl while dressed in female clothing. No idea why this was mentioned in court – of course she was wearing women’s clothing, she's a woman! Amy took the girl home and sexually abused her over a 27-hour period. 5/11

But most women aren’t axe-toters or sex offenders, so let’s talk role models! Guilia Valentino (in red) wanted to play on the women's team 'because of sisterhood, validation and political visibility'. Naturally, she was given some boring cis girl’s place. Yay for inclusion! 6/11

Mridul Wadhwa, head of a Scottish rape crisis centre, says, ‘sexual violence happens to bigoted people as well.’ She has no gender recognition certificate, but was still appointed to a job advertised for women only. Time to be ‘challenged on your prejudices’, rape victims! 7/11

Munroe Bergdorf isn’t just a pretty face! Public campaigner for a children’s charity until safeguarding concerns were raised, she was appointed UN Women’s first ever UK champion. ‘What makes a woman “a woman” has no definitive answer,’ says Munroe. Great choice, UN Women! 8/11

Katie Neeves has been appointed as the UN Women UK delegate. She switched from straight man to lesbian at the age of 48 and, in a leaked 2022 webinar, described how she used to enjoy stealing and wearing her sister’s underwear. A truly relatable representative! 9/11

Image

Last, but least, TV’s India Willoughby proves we women can call a black broadcaster a ‘nasty bitch’ who ‘wouldn’t be anywhere without woke’, dub lesbians men, insult the looks of a female Olympic swimmer, ‘joke’ about kidnapping feminists, and STILL get airtime! What a gal! 10/11

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉

Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them.

In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.

For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of 'woman' to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women's and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.

It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.

I'm currently out of the country, but if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to

the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.

"It was only in Scotland that the Templars endured no persecution.." Albert G. Mackey

Knights Templars gave birth to the Freemasons.

The Templars practiced Dark Arts and Paganism.

The Templars infiltrated churches including the Church of England.

Reverend is a Masonic title.

Worship of the Pagan Adam Kadmon is worship of Divine Androgyne and Intersex.

The current Transgender Rights For Men and Drag, like the Gender Ideology in Weimer during WWII comes from Pagan worship, very sick elite fetish and Pedophiles. It steps on actual people suffering Body Dysphoria and physical disabilities, involving their organs.

Bottom line: Your 'Art' is FOUL and Fraudulent, meant only to please wealthy perverts and mock real women. Oh! And to allow access to children, for the perverts, you know damn well exist in your community.

[russianreader]

Love in a Young Pioneer's Tie

Love in a Young Pioneer’s Tie

The cover of “A Summer in a Young Pioneer’s Tie,” as designed by Adams Carvalho Katerina Silvanova was born and raised in Kharkiv, but moved to Russia at the age of twenty-two. She majored in forestry engineering, but never finished her studies. She has worked in sales all her life. Elena Malisova is a Muscovite and married, and works in IT. The girls [sic] had never been associated with…

[nicklloydnow]

“May I be permitted to say a few words? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic & Islamic History under William Montgomery Watt & Laurence Elwell Sutton, 2 of Britain ‘s great Middle East experts. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge & to teach Arabic & Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books & 100s of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs & that, for that reason, I am shocked & disheartened for a simple reason: there is not & has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality should anyone choose to visit Israel.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that many students are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, & that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Hating Israel

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel . I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies & myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a “Nazi” state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws?

None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When?

No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is a way to subvert historical fact. Likewise apartheid.

No Apartheid

For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a day in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous this is.

The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan & elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; or anyone else; the holy places of all religions are protected by Israeli law.

Free Arab Israelis

Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran , the Bahai’s (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran ?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews — something no blacks were able to do in South Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews & Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

Women’s Rights

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men & women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays oftn escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel & say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

(…)

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations.

(…)

Israeli citizens, Jews & Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations & call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , & Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the ME that gives refuge to gay men & women, the only country in the ME that protects the Bahai’s…. Need I go on?

(…)

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more.”

[makingqueerhistory]

Russia’s Bolshoi Theater has removed a ballet dedicated to dancer Rudolf Nureyev from its repertoire, citing a new Russian law that expands restrictions on activities seen as promoting LGBT rights, its director said [last month]. Bolshoi director Vladimir Urin said the ballet “Nureyev” had been dropped “in connection with the newly signed law, which unambiguously deals with issues related to propaganda of non-traditional values,” the Interfax news agency reported.

[mariacallous]

A well-known Georgian transgender model has been murdered, local officials said, a day after the government passed legislation that will impose sweeping curbs on LGBTQ+ rights in the country.

Georgia’s interior ministry said Kesaria Abramidze, 37, was believed to have been stabbed to death in her apartment in suburban Tbilisi on Wednesday.

Georgian media later reported that a man had been arrested in connection with the crime.

Abramidze was one of the country’s first openly trans public figures. Her death follows controversial legislation on “family values and the protection of minors” that will allow officials to outlaw Pride events and censor films and books.

The law, which was approved by the Georgian parliament on Tuesday in its third and final reading, includes bans on same-sex marriages and gender-affirming treatments. It is expected to be another point of contention between Georgia and the EU as the country seeks to join the bloc.

Critics argue that the bill, initially introduced by the ruling Georgian Dream party in the summer, mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive anti-LGBTQ+ measures over the past decade.

Although the motive behind Abramidze’s murder remains unclear, her death was swiftly cast by Georgian civil society as part of a state campaign against minorities in the country.

Under the Georgian Dream party, which has taken an increasingly anti-liberal stance, the country has seen a rise in violence against LGBTQ+ people.

Last year, hundreds of opponents of gay rights stormed an LGBTQ+ festival in Tbilisi, forcing the event to be cancelled. This year, tens of thousands of people marched in the capital to promote “traditional family values” at an event attended by the ruling party amd the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church.

“There is a direct correlation between the use of hate speech in politics and hate crimes,” the Social Justice Center, a Tbilisi-based human rights group, said in its statement reacting to the murder.

“It has been almost a year that the Georgian Dream government has been aggressively using homo/bi/transphobic language and cultivating it with mass propaganda means,” it added.

On Wednesday, Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, called on the Georgian government to withdraw the “family values” law, warning it would harm Georgia’s chances of joining the bloc. The legislation would “increase discrimination & stigmatisation”, he said on X.

After Abramidze’s death, Michael Roth, the Social Democratic party chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee in Germany, echoed that call. “Those who sow hatred will reap violence. Kesaria Abramidze was killed just one day after the Georgian parliament passed the anti-LGBTI law,” Roth wrote on X.

The introduction of the law comes just five weeks before parliamentary elections that many see as a litmus test of whether Georgia, once one of the most pro-western former Soviet states, will now drift towards Russia.

The country’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, whose functions are mostly ceremonial, is expected to veto the law before it comes into effect. However, Georgian Dream and its allies have enough seats in parliament to override her veto.

Earlier this year, the Georgian Dream also pushed through the divisive “foreign influence” law, which western critics argue is authoritarian and Russian-inspired, and has derailed the country’s EU aspirations.

Meanwhile, tributes have started to pour in for Abramidze, who represented Georgia at Miss Trans Star International in 2018 and had more than 500,000 followers on Instagram.

“Kesaria was iconic! Provocative, wise, incredibly brave! A trailblazer for Georgia’s trans rights,” Maia Otarashvili, a Georgian political scientist, wrote on X.

Zourabichvili said the murder should be a “wake-up call” for Georgian society.

“A terrible murder! The death of this beautiful young woman … should not be in vain!” the president wrote on Facebook.

[ohsalome]

love seeing people (westerners) WHO HAVE NEVER EVEN MADE A SINGLE PEEP ABOUT UKRAINE AID, EVER, reblog russian lgbt aid funds after the recent news.

i'm very anti whataboutism but holy hell. when it comes to a certain country we all agree that liberation comes before improvement of lgbt issues. *i* agree with that, at least. but then the same people would rather pay to save lgbt people from a country that's actively besieging another country, it's just... beyond words how hypocritical it is.

I have so many things to say, none of them being nice.

Ukrainian army is, so far, the only force that is presenting challenge to "putin's regime". Wouldn't it make sense for people who "want to protect russian lgbt+s" to support us then? We are conctantly being degraded for "not allying with good russians" who are supposed to be our "natural allies" because they are "anti-putin".... Funny how it doesn't work the other way around, doesn't it? And yes, I have personal experience with russian lgbt+ and feminist circles (prior to the full-scale invasion), and I remember clearly how they explicitly ignored all pleas from ukrainians to speak up on our behalf. And how can one forget the famous "women have no nationality"...

This is, from my memory, the third time russia has "banned lgbt+s", and I believe I have a good reason for being sceptical about the real consequences of russian laws which, as we all know, are worth a little more than toilet paper. It is common knowledge which people of russian elite are gay, and I sincerely doubt their life will change in any way with this new law. As a matter of fact, most of them are a part of russian propaganda machine, like the infamous Anton Krasovsky. Also, what is the point then of this law, if it functionally duplicates all the previous ones already existing and brings nothing new to the table? I will not repeat the conspiracies about "diverting attention from Ukraine", because you've probably already heard of them. My own conspiracy is that its goal is to further the international reputation of russians as innocent victims of the regime, all while ukrainians are being actively slandered and forced into fake opposition with palestinians. One example relevant to the discussion I've seen recently is a post of a russian "war refugee" who has fled from russia either when the war started, or during one of the mobilisation waves. She was complaining about how much she dislikes living in the West and how she plans to return to russia, fully knowing that it is an authoritarian hellscape, and she will have to collaborate with it, because "it is more comfortable there"... This is what I think about russian "victims of the regime" - this is all masquerade for them, which they are ready and happy to take off once they are tired of play-pretending being part of the civilized world and want to return to their comform zone swamp.

Just like pussy riot monetizing Bucha imagery for their fame and profit, russian lgbt+s jumped on the oppostunity to appropriate the suffering of ukrainian war victims to earn more $$$$$. And I blame western media which has for day one has put us on the same scale, equating ukrainian civillians to russian ones, even though only one side has to live under constant bombardment, only one side had to seek refuge due to the threat of occupation, only one side is being actively genocided... But russians are having meanie mean words said about them on the internet, and this is just as bad - nay, mayhaps even worse! Remember how during the first months of full-scale invasion westerners were claiming that russians will starve to death due to sanctions, and I was preaching to the choir trying to explain that we are literally dying due to west feeding the russian war machine that is exterminating us? Well, almost two years have passed, no russian have famished because Chanel has left the market, they are successfuly importing all the missiles components through Kazakhstan, and Ukraine cannot even count all the losses we've had because how much of our territory remains under the occupation. But westerners have already congratulated themselves about how they've "immediately gifted ukraine all the weapons they need once the war started" (hahaha!) and moved on to playing with their new palestinian toy, all while for some reason pitting us against each other (and stealing footage from Syria and Ukraine to misrepresent them as Palestine)

Oh and don't get me started on western "political activists" who go out of their way to mention every single conflict happening on planted earth, excluding Ukraine. I will never forget that.

[very bitter and pessimistic conclusion censored]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mira Lazine at LGBTQ Nation:

The Bulgarian parliament voted to enact a law prohibiting the “propaganda” of “non-traditional” sexual orientation and gender identity in schools last Wednesday. Their vote triggered mass protests and public opposition. The proposed law states, “It is the educational function of the Bulgarian school that such a state institution should not be allowed to promote or incite, in any way, directly or indirectly, ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or identification of gender identity other than that which is biological.” The law, an amendment to the Pre-School and School Education Law, emerged after the 17-member Parliamentary Committee on Education and Science overwhelmingly approved it. The committee’s approval led to a four-hour debate last Wednesday that culminated in the bill passing through parliament. This bill was proposed previously, however, it failed in committee.

Of the 240 parliament members, 159 voted in favor of the first section of the bill, while 22 voted against and 13 abstained. For the section defining “non-traditional sexual orientation,” 135 voted for it, 57 against, and 8 abstained. Members of the more liberal parties were unable to vote for the first section for unknown reasons. The law was especially popular among the increasingly politically dominant pro-Kremlin Revival/Vazrazhdane Party, which was the party to introduce it.

[...] Over 7,000 citizen signatures and nearly 80 non-governmental organizations were sent to the government to plead that Bulgarian President Rumen Radev does not sign this bill. Belgian LGBTQ+ rights organization Forbidden Colors said in a statement, “It is deeply troubling to see Bulgaria adopting tactics from Russia’s anti-human rights playbook. Such actions are not only regressive but are also in direct contradiction to the values of equality and non-discrimination that the European Union stands for.”

A protest was announced the same day in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Since then, there’s been widespread protests throughout the capital and Varna, a port city. There have also been petitions sent to the Bulgarian government asking them to oppose the measure. The bill defines “non-traditional sexual orientation” as “different from the generally accepted and the concept of emotional, romantic, sexual or sensual attraction between persons of opposites.” Bulgarian news site Clubz, as well as Parliament member Eleonora Belobradova claimed that this section of the bill was actually copy/pasted from the Bulgarian Wikipedia. Additionally, the bill only recognizes “biological sex,” completely writing trans people out of the law and ignoring intersex individuals entirely.

Protests erupt over Bulgarian parliament’s passage of Russia-style Don’t Say Gay or Trans law.

[matan4il]

Ive long believed that this recent extremist hatred of “colonists” was more about the perceived value of the people being colonized than about the actual harm to human life that colonization causes. (And I do not think of Israelis as colonizers, btw) The past hours have proven this to me. It’s not about whether they think Israel is truly guilty of colonization; it’s that Israelis would dare go against a group they have decided has fundamentally different and more valuable level of humanity. The same exact people who claim they’d support indigenous Americans taking back the land hate Jews for doing exactly that. And my God, the amount of people who spend most of their time discussing sexism and violence against women now saying that the innocent women being killed and kidnapped en masse is “the price to pay” is making my blood boil. I feel like I’ve witnessed so many people just toss all decency and morality out the window just so they can pat themselves on the back for being “anti-colonialists”. Anti-semetism has so rotted peoples brains. I’m praying for you and for every life caught up in this atrocity.

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for the ask.

Let me just say you're of course right that Israeli Jews are not colonizers of the Jewish ancestral homeland. But I haven't been touching this point, because the truth is... even if they were, would it justify such barbarity? Or do we as human beings believe in the sanctity of life, and understand that violence, rape, torture, mutilation and cold blooded murder, let alone mass murder, should NEVER be accepted as the solution to any problem?

Did people take the Nazis, those who committed the worst crimes in human history, and tried to use them to justify the massacre of all Germans, or to de-legitimize the very existence of a German state?

I actually sadly don't think the world does value the lives of Palestinians. I'm friends with so many. Mainly, as a gay woman, I have gay Palestinian friends. I have friends whose families found out they're gay, threatened to kill them, they applied for refugee status in so many western countries, but none would take them. I'm aware that Palestinians are being discriminated against BY LAW in so many places (for example in Lebanon, where Palestinians are barred from no less than 39 professions). If this were about their well being, then pro-Palestinian activists and demonstrations would be speaking up about the mistreatment of Palestinians everywhere! But they don't. If they can't blame the Jewish state for a perceived wrong, they don't care what happens to Palestinians.

Not everyone, obviously. Many accept the info as handed to them and they think they're being pro-Palestinian, when really they're just being fed, and then end up passing on, anti-Israel propaganda.

So, sadly I think this is a new form of antisemitism, expressed by singling out the Jewish state. It isn't the push for human rights it pretends to be, or the movement would care about the human rights of Palestinians in places like Lebanon and Jordan, too.

I think a good way to sum up what's wrong with people justifying the massacre that we experienced here is found in this image:

Thank you, I really appreciate the care and the prayers! Sending you endless hugs and love! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So this should have been an ask rather than a message. But I'll hide your name so there's no claims of doxxing.

Ok so first I'll address the last claim.

Gaza is extremely anti LGBT. Most of the Muslim world actually is. Because in miss countries that practice Islam have a few practices to deal with gay people. Castration, jail, or death. It's extremely common to find in most nations. Gaza isn't an exception. The region has it's own laws, specifically that of jailing people whom are gay. For 10 years.

The second claim revolves around the fact that scholars have made pretty definite claims that most all the Philistines are fundamentally gone. Sure it's likely you'll find traces in your blood line somewhere but no that land area has not been occupied by "Palestinians" for a long time. It's actually rather recent.

Also I can separate the people who support Gazan people from people who suppose Hamas, except you all give me on reason to. You lie about hostages, beheadings, and rapes. Most all of you call the Jewish people colonizers when historically almost ALL of that land is their land. What's more while there isn't a voting system in Gaza, Hamas was supported into a position of power through bribery etc by the current people of Gaza.

Believe whatever you want. But don't pretend that one of the most traditional conservative (to an extreme) religions on earth is actually pro LGBT. They aren't. You are all a disposable pawn in their quest to purge the world of every faith not their own. What's more, I'd treat most of you in better faith if most of you were not liars who believed in propaganda. News comes out of a bomb or rocket blowing up a hospital by hamas. Then mainstream leftists do nothing but cover that Non-Stop. Then come to find out it was actually a rocket fired by Hamas that misfired fell back down and blew up a parking lot.

I would treat you all in better Faith generally if y'all didn't believe the mindless propaganda of people who want to see the Jewish people wipe from the face of the Earth. Because it's been pro hamas people and pro Palestinian people who have torn down missing persons signs from the October 7th attack. It's been pro Hamas and pro Palestinian people who have said that Hamas did nothing wrong. It is pro Hamas and pro Palestinian people who have shouted a genocidal term which is from the river to the Sea. Except again historically that land never belonged to them.

I hate taking sides on these wars and other things across the world because it always gets polluted by bleeding heart leftist who think brown people good white people bad and y'all consider Jews white which is the only reason most of you are even upset. I would honestly treat most of you and better faith, if I did not see leftists and progressives harass Target and threaten none Israeli Jews around the world because of a fight going on in a different country that these people have nothing to do with.

If you have zero sympathy for the people who got raped beheaded murdered or kidnapped on October 7th you are pro Hamas. And people who say that their pro Palestinian will never ever get an ounce of Mercy from me. And if you want to know why it's because those same people absolutely never care about the victims on the Israeli side. They either say that they deserve it they call them colonizers or they excuse it because they are "not human".

Having said that, if you are one of the people who cares about both sides in this fight especially all of the innocent people. I will treat you with some level of good faith. But if you have no care for the Israelis that were hurt killed or brutalized. Then I absolutely believe 100% you are pro Hamas. Because as far as I'm concerned you all take pro Hamas propaganda at face value which is a group of people who want Jews wiped off the Earth and everything that comes out of Palestine news wise is almost completely Hamas propaganda in their quest to destroy Israel. That land in mass does not belong to the current residence of Gaza. Almost unilaterally that land belongs to people of Jewish descent. And the fact that they gave that land to the current people referred to as Palestinians should show that they actually care at least a bit. Because honestly if they wanted genocide like everyone claims they could glass Gaza and every other place with Palestinian residents overnight. And I mean glass in the literal sense.

Because the fake before and after photos we keep seeing of Gaza show that it was extremely high-end. They were rich. We're all Palestinians rich? Probably not but a lot of the before and after photos showed a lot of really really high-end housing hotels and businesses. And yet the people who are pro Palestine insist that it was an open-air prison and that they were just treated to the worst atrocities. Sure.

[the-olympics-olympics]

Weird Olympic Moments Tournament

To celebrate (?) the Paris 2024 Olympic Games starting in a few weeks, I thought I'd run another Olympic-themed poll tournament. This time, we're diving into history and getting to know some of the stranger, lesser-known stories of the Games.

Polls will run for a week, and the tournament should last until around early September if I'm doing my math right. The first polls will begin Monday, July 15th.

At the end, we'll award a gold, silver, and bronze to the top three.

After many hours on Wikipedia and the IOC website, here's the list of moments I came up with:

Horse vaulting

Pigeon racing

Sarajevo venues damaged in war

Mayor of Montreal says "The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby," then proceeds to host one of the most financially disastrous Games in history

George Eyser wins six medals after being run over by a train

Solo synchronized swimming

Crowd gets pooped on by 25,000 pigeons

Flame is taken to top of Mount Everest

Margaret Abbot dies without knowing she made history as the first US woman to win gold

Brazilian team has to sell coffee to afford the trip to Los Angeles

A teenager's "dumb idea" becomes Olympic tradition (athletes marching together in closing ceremony)

St. Louis experiments with "purposeful dehydration", denies water to marathon runners

Kanakuri Shizō takes 54 years to finish his race

Mt. Vesuvius moves the Olympics to London

They stop doing the Olympic salute for some reason

IOC President compares a terrorist attack to a vote to ban a racist country

The Olympics goes 88 years without letting women run marathons

Olympic flame transmitted via satellite

Northern Rhodesia declares independence during Olympics, changes name to Zambia

Vancouver 2010 cauldron malfunction

Montreal 1976 stadium is finally paid off in 2006

The curse of the Beijing 2008 mascots

Everest climbers get gold medals

Sochi snowflake malfunction

They hold the Olympics in 1906, then later say it doesn't count

Colorado kicks the Olympics out

Flame hidden from view after anti-gay law

Summer Olympics held during Winter

Haiti and Liechtenstein discover they had the same flag

Riot at the 1924 rugby match

McDonald's gives out more Big Macs than they expected

Chamonix 1924 retroactively named the Winter Olympics

Doves burned during cauldron lighting

Torchbearer takes olympic flame down a ski jump

Medals made of e-waste

Shooter aims for wrong target, loses gold

Olympic torch passed on International Space Station

Alien addresses crowd

Figure skating debuts at Summer Olympics

Olympics held on two different continents

Rio organizers lose key to stadium gate

Baron de Coubertin wins a gold medal under false identity

1960 winter games held in city named for an ethnic slur

Obstacle Swimming

North Korea considered to co-host 1988

Housing complex for American soldiers during the occupation of Japan becomes the Olympic village

Torch design changed mid-relay

Cauldron lit by flaming arrow

Last three seconds of basketball final replayed three times until results changed

St. Louis threatens to hold their own Olympics if they don't get named host city

Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat

Balloon racing

Delirious man carried over finish line by coaches, wins marathon

Summer Olympics held in November and December

Olympics postponed for COVID

Blue screen of death appears during opening ceremony

Marathon runner attacked by priest

Guy kicks referee in the face and (maybe) ends up on a stamp

Jet pack flies over stadium

Centennial games not awarded to a very confident Athens

LA 84 gets in trouble for commercializing the torch relay

Olympic flame relit with cigarette lighter

Rower stops for ducks

Nazi propaganda becomes Olympic tradition (torch relay)

Did I miss a great weird moment? Send it to me in an ask and I might do a round 2 or something!

I chose the moments based on my own personal bias (lol)

Heads up that there is one that involves the death of animals, but I will tag any polls with that #tw animal death

Please don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything else tagged, and how to tag it!

Also, a disclaimer that I'm tired and scatterbrained and I work full time, so if this gets a little disorganized I apologize. Shouldn't be too bad though.

Let the games begin, and whatnot

@tournament-announcer :)

[hornet-best-bug]

With all the shit happening against transgender individuals here in the UK, this makes me worry. Worry for my friends, acquaintances, and just. Everyone who is LGBTQ+ and comes under the trans umbrella.

It's utterly disgusting and dissapointing to see a backpedal in equality here in the UK. Fuck the goverment and the tories.

With all of this happening, i'm starting to worry that they won't stop with trans people, they'll target gay people, anyone in the LGBTQ+ in some way shape or form.

With all this happening, how long will it be before they target us disabled individuals. Will they start taking away our rights too?

I don't mean to derail this at all, but this is fucking terrifying. If LGBTQ+ people are getting their rights revoked, whos to say they won't go after disabled rights too?

Maybe i'm just overthinking and being extremely pessimistic, but i once felt proud to be in the UK. To have better laws than america in some parts, but that's gone to shit hasn't it? Our goverment and thise supporting the movement are as bad as the Americans.

Fuck everything, why can't we all co-exist without any issues. We all have blood in our veins, we are all sapient beings. We are all human fucking beings. LGBTQ+ people aren't aliens, people of colour aren't aliens, disabled people aren't fucking aliens. We. Are. All. Human. Beings.

Why can't we just all co-exist and understand one another? Is it just human nature to ruin what was already good and run it into the ground?

Im sorry, this is all a lot to take in, and its just deeply upsetting. I'm feeling a lot of anger and just sadness. I hope everyone here in the UK can stay safe. Please remember that you are all valid and that with enough action things will get better they have to.

#im trying to find a bright side but its so hard #i'm fucking terrified. #i'm not always in the loop on politics becauss it fucks eith my mental health so tumblr jumpscared me and made me realise that the UK isn't as perfect as i thought it was. #glad i have tumblr here to educate me instead of resding news outlets because i bet you they'd be filled with anti-trans propaganda.

[stele3]

I’m sick and fucking tired of US queers responding to the news out of Russia with “oh, we’re next” or even “America is just as bad.”

I’m non-binary, born a woman. I take testosterone that is covered by insurance. I’m legally married to a (nonbinary) woman despite the fact that my legal gender is female; that marriage is upheld at the state and federal levels.

Have I faced discrimination in my life as a queer USAmerican? Absolutely!

But right now in Moscow, police are raiding gay clubs.

In 2020 the Russian constitution was changed to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. There is a national movement against queer people; you cannot possibly compare that to, say, Florida or Texas passing anti-trans bans. Yes, those things suck and we need to fight them, but they aren’t happening at a national level. (Yes, I realize Republicans are trying. They haven’t yet succeeded. In Russia they have.)

Things are bad for our Russian community right now. Don’t you dare fucking minimize that by comparing them to the privileged lives of US queers, when I can get HRT in the mail, file a joint tax return with my wife, and sue somebody for not respecting my pronouns.

[crossdreamers]

Strong American support for the LGBTQ-community, but trans people do not get as much love as the rest

A recent poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times in collaboration with NORC at the University of Chicago reveals that while Americans generally support the LGBTQ+ community, their acceptance of transgender and nonbinary individuals is notably lower.

The survey, which revisited questions from a 1985 poll on gay and lesbian perceptions, shows significant shifts in public opinion over nearly four decades. Key findings include:

A majority of Americans approve of same-sex marriage and laws protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from job discrimination. In 1985, 72% of American adults said sexual relations between adults of the same sex were always or almost always wrong. Today, that has dropped to 28%.

The poll finds that 7% of adults identify as LGBTQ+ (1 in 5 among Gen Z)

Support for transgender and nonbinary people is less robust, particularly among Republicans, Protestants, and those without personal connections to the LGBTQ+ community.

72% of Americans know someone who has come out as gay or lesbian, but only 27% know a transgender or nonbinary person.

Americans are divided on issues related to queer youth, with two-thirds supporting laws to protect the ability of transgender or nonbinary people to receive gender-affirming care, but only half supporting it for children.

Many respondents (42%) view young children's transgender or nonbinary identities as "a phase" rather than a true identity.

The poll, funded by the California Endowment, surveyed 1,624 adults, including 775 Californians and 313 LGBTQ+ individuals, and was conducted using NORC's AmeriSpeak panel in January 2024.

More on transgender people

From the report:

The gay and lesbian community has made strides since 1985, but they still face some obstacles in many ways. But the transgender and nonbinary community have an even tougher time. Though 34% of adults would be very or somewhat upset if they had a child who were gay, lesbian, or bisexual, 48% would be upset if they had a child who was transgender or nonbinary. Thirty-one percent of the public disapprove of transgender and nonbinary adults living their lives as they wish while about a fifth feel the same about gay, lesbian, or bisexual adults. Nineteen percent would be less likely to vote for a gay or lesbian candidate for Congress, but 33% say they would be less likely to vote for a transgender or nonbinary candidate. The public’s resistance to transgender and nonbinary issues is particularly acute when it comes to minors. Twenty-five percent favor laws to prevent an adult who identifies as transgender or nonbinary from receiving gender-affirming medical care, but 54% support laws that prevent a child younger than 18 from receiving such care. Still, in some ways many U.S. adults are accepting of transgender and nonbinary children. About half (54%) think schools should respect students’ wishes and not tell parents about their child’s transgender or nonbinary identity if the student does not want to. Forty-four percent say schools in their area are doing the right amount to accept transgender and nonbinary students, but 25% would like them to do more.

What to learn from this

Our take away from this is that the anti-transgender propaganda has had an effect on the way Americans see trans people, but probably not as big an effects at right wing extremists and "gender critical feminists" would have liked to see.

The main reason trans people are less accepted than gay and lesbian people is most likely that they are easier to dehumanize. A large majority of the respondents know someone who is gay or lesbian, and therefore see them as "one of us", but they do not know people who are trans.

It seems clear that one important goal of the anti-trans terror is to scare trans people from coming out, so that they remain outsiders and aliens. This is why it is so important to fight back against the transphobes now.

Los Angeles Times/NORC Poll on LGBTQ+ Communities

"Americans approve of LGBTQ+ people living as they wish, but their support drops for trans people, poll shows"

Photo: Johnrob

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, round 1 of the minor bracket

Propaganda:

For Mick Rory and Leonard Snart:

The only supervillains on that show that understood the assignment. Thieves with a flare and loyal only to eachother. Eventually become anti heroes on legends of tomorrow but I liked them best as villains. The best part of both shows. Over the top and committed to the theme for the vibes. Puns and crime.

Fire and ice pairing! 

For Sergey and Oleg: (propaganda from the previous tournament here)

They're so married!!! The domesticity oh my god they live together and they sleep in the same bed and they're worried if the other isn't here when they wake up and they take care of each other when they're sick. Sorry, the latest issue was a lot. Anyway, the crime-doing part. They're both officially criminals and they're wanted in quite a few countries for various reasons: in Russia they killed A Lot of people in various bloody and/or arson-y ways (most famously rich corrupted people, which only antagonists can do) and blew up some stuff (which also killed a lot of innocent people) and kidnapped other innocent people just to get revenge on one guy who was just doing his job (the cop who got Sergey in prison while Oleg was out of the country) (and technically Oleg breaking Sergey out of prison is also a crime, on top of all his solo mercenary stuff). In Italy they also killed people and also broke countless laws (you can even count building safety laws in here for fun), in Mexico (honeymoon!) they had a run-in with the local mafia and that also ended bloodily, in a few other countries they were mostly just evading the law but you can't really do that without breaking other laws. They stole at least one helicopter (after killing the soldiers in it). And that's all *before* the current series. In that one they're coercing someone into becoming a vigilante (an already wanted by the law vigilante), and they're trying not to do so much public things, because they like being presumed dead and not being on the run. But that doesn't stop them from bloodily killing anyone who threatens them or Lera (the med student under the new Plague Doctor costume) or their plan, or defending themselves (by killing people) when the consequences of their past actions come around (does it even count as legitimate defense when you kill almost all the henchmen of the guy who wants to kill you because years ago his parent was an unfortunate victim of your beef with someone totally unrelated? Not sure). And yes *technically* they're killing other criminals, but also they are much worse criminals themselves (as said on- page by a secondary character who was trying to kill them because of, well, all the past terrorism / murder).

They're widely considered to be the worst people in a town full of criminals. A lot of people want to kill them, because of all the murders they did earlier. In all their appearances they're either the most married couple of a series that also has real married couples, or extremely efficient killers who don't have a qualm disposing of everybody else's henchmen.

[mariacallous]

This spring, Tennessee passed a first-of-its-kind law that protects the rights of adults who object to LGBTQ+ identity on moral or religious grounds to foster and adopt LGBTQ-identifying kids. Tennessee’s move came partly in response to a considered Department of Health and Human Services rule designed to protect LGBTQ+ kids. The federal change, passed shortly after the Tennessee bill, was a reversal of a Trump administration decision to remove nondiscrimination protections.

It’s a chilling law, one that echoes the most virulent anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes pushed across a number of Western democracies. The policy sets up the family as an instrument for disciplining unwanted elements in society, following the model established by Hungary, Russia, and others.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary amended the constitution in 2020 for the purpose of redefining family and stripping same-sex couples of their parental rights. The change defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Non-married people require special permission to adopt children. As a government official put it, “The main rule is that only married couples can adopt a child, that is, a man and a woman who are married.” The constitution now defines family as “based on marriage and the parent-child relation. The mother is a woman, the father a man.” It goes on to declare, “Hungary defends the right of children to identify with their birth gender and ensures their upbringing based on our nation’s constitutional identity and values based on our Christian culture.”

In a country where pro-natalist subsidies bolster family planning through grants for families to purchase homes to the abolition of income tax for mothers who give birth to or raise at least four children, circumscribing same-sex couples as ineligible to foster or adopt is more than an act of cultural and economic discrimination. It’s an attempt at annihilation.

Tunde Furesz is the president of the Hungarian Maria Kopp Institute for Demography and Families and previously worked in the government as deputy secretary of state responsible for family policy and demography. In an interview with the Hungarian Conservative, she addressed criticism of Hungary’s family policies by saying, “Attacks on family policy, on the Fundamental Law and now on the child protection act are always ideological attacks. Right now, Hungary is against LGBTQ propaganda.” As to the appropriateness of Hungary’s discriminatory policies, she asserted that “every state has the sovereign right to prioritize which groups of society are to be focused on.”

This is a crucial point, because Furesz is drawing out exactly what’s at stake in the Tennessee law and so many other instances of anti-LGBTQ+ and discriminatory family policy. It is a question of what kind of country is being built, beginning with one of the smallest and most rudimentary units within society. How the family is defined and how the contours of parental rights and the nascent individualism of the child are traced posit fundamental ideas about who we are, how we relate to one another, and the boundaries between our freedom and society’s demands.

Of course, perhaps no other European state has been as pioneering in its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda as President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Gay adoptions were banned in 2013, around the same time a ban on gay “propaganda” was implemented. A ban on adoptions by international same-sex couples came in 2014. Putin has repeatedly portrayed LGBTQ+ rights and other liberal ideals as a form of Western cultural aggression. He reiterated this in his speech announcing the Russian invasion of Ukraine: “They sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.”

More recently, the Russian Supreme Court banned the “international LGBT social movement” as an extremist organization in November. In early 2024, the first convictions were handed out: a man in Volgograd for posting a picture of a pride flag and a woman in Nizhny Novgorod for wearing LGBTQ+ earrings. The man paid a 1,000-ruble fine, and the woman spent five days in detention.

But it’s Orban’s regime that has become a particularly popular rhetorical and policy touchstone for right-wingers in the United States. Americans who want to learn from Hungary’s illiberal cultural crusade in order to reshape this country see much to import. This spring, Gladden Pappin, the American academic and Catholic integralist who now works as the president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, told an interviewer from the National Catholic Register that “American conservative politicians need to ask: What positively can I do to make the traditional family more likely to survive? Sometimes it’s implementing the anti-woke policies in education. … But with changing mindsets, we need to think ahead about how to increase the likelihood that people will choose the family life they really want.”

Rod Dreher, another right-wing American expat in Orban’s orbit, has characterized Hungary as standing athwart the gates of European history, defending values against a woke horde: “For example, even as European Union inquisitors are trying to punish Hungary for protecting its children from LGBT propaganda, Disney—Disney!—in Germany has greenlighted a new series for youth about a teenager who has sex with Satan and falls pregnant with the devil’s baby. Not a peep from the bespoke Huns of Brussels about that. The real threat, you see, is from retrograde Christians like Viktor Orban, who believe things about family that most Europeans did seemingly the day before yesterday.”

On this side of the Atlantic, right-wingers are fond of parental rights arguments, but this commitment falters when the parents in question are LGBTQ+ or when they affirm such identities in their children.

Policies like Tennessee’s and the wider environment of hostility toward LGBTQ+ people also decrease the likelihood that potential LGBTQ+ parents will seek to foster or adopt. Polling from Gallup shows that LGBTQ+ adults are more likely to consider fostering or adopting, but they also report high levels of concern about possible discrimination in the process. The deterrent effects of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination are visible, with nearly half of LGBTQ+ men reporting that fear of discrimination poses a “major barrier to fostering and adopting.”

These measures are not limited to Tennessee. At the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, this February, right-wing commentator Michael Knowles declared that “true freedom is a national policy based on what we know in our hearts as morally right” and went on to attack same-sex couples and the practice of surrogacy, insisting that “children are people and no one has a right to another person.” Last week, Gabriella Gambino, the Vatican’s undersecretary for the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life moderated a panel at the U.N.’s Geneva headquarters on the need to abolish interns surrogacy. Gambino referred to international surrogacy as “procreative tourism.” Italy’s Minister for Family, Natality, and Equal Opportunities, Eugenia Roccella, also participated.

Last year, during a House subcommittee hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who is gay, as “not a biological mother.” Parents’ rights tend, however, to mainly run in one direction: exerting control over trans youth. Tennessee passed a law in May that criminalizes adults who assist minors in receiving out-of-state gender-affirming care without parental or guardian consent and another that would require schools to out trans students to their parents.

I am adopted myself, and I’ve written before about some of the thorny challenges around adoption and its ethics. But in places like Nashville and Budapest, what we find are not moral gray areas or troubling dilemmas. There is only the use of state power to impose a rigid concept of family and to further marginalize a minority under the guise of defending values and honoring would-be parents.

The hard-line approach to cultural issues in Republican-dominated states threatens to turn parts of America into places that more closely resemble the illiberal regimes of Europe’s backsliding democracies rather than the fully free society the United States is at the national level. In places like Tennessee, just as in Orban’s Hungary, the sort of society being molded and the kind of family being promoted are exclusionary, regressive, and profoundly illiberal.