Ulta Beauty Gets Backlash, An HBCU Footballer Makes History, Drag in Idaho Under Threat and More: This Week in Queer News – Them
There’s also an urgent update out of Florida. Rather than wait until 2023 as initial reports suggested they might, Florida Republicans have rescheduled to OCTOBER 28th the board of medicine meeting to set rules on transgender healthcare that would ban all medical care whatsoever for minors–even if medically necessary, or reversible. In other words: one week from today. The meeting is public, and scheduled for 8AM at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport. See some organizing for a protest here.
The meeting agenda is studded with anti-trans figures. Some of these experts have admitted a near-complete lack of expertise on trans youth before a federal judge (for example, James Cantor), while others have recently had their expertise seriously questioned even when judges refused to place an injunction upon Florida’s legally disputed medicaid rules for trans health care access. The publicly avaliable meeting agenda contains numerous documents from religious associations such as the Catholic Medical Association with a stated aim of forcing all trans youth through conversion therapy, as well as documents from known hate groups, discredited psychoanalysts, and other such figures. It’s essentially a who’s-who of scientific transphobia.
With the urgent things out of the way, let’s talk about…
The Thing(s) We Won This Week
Despite efforts by right-wing transphobic groups to stop it, California is officially the first state to function as a sanctuary for trans people and their families fleeing the blatant attempts at criminalization in other states. That this win was needed at all makes it a bit hollow, but it is a win in the current climate. Further, Washington, D.C., has introduced a similar policy and passed it through legislation.
What the Heck Happened This Week ?!
The centerpiece of anti-trans legislation this week is a national bill introduced and cosigned by 30 Republicans that aims to ban queer and trans people from all forms of public life. This is not hyperbole and this is not a drill. The GOP claims that they have introduced a bill that will block federal funding for any events containing “sexually-oriented material” that are accessible to children under 10. The bill in question, misleadingly named the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” however, takes a very broad definition of what counts as “sexually-oriented material.”
It defines “any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related topics,” as inherently sexually-oriented material.
In practice, this means that any and all of the following could be construed as sexual under the bill’s parameters: