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BTW! As February is a short month, next Sunday the 22nd will be LGBTQ Literature night! Hope you might come prepared to mention at least a book or two that have been special to you, whether LGBTQ books or not!
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Pride Flag re-raised at the Stonewall Inn after the administration ordered it taken down
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Last week (The Guardian):
Novelist Arundhati Roy certainly thinks so. She pulled out of appearing at the Berlin[ale film] festival in protest at jury president Wim Wenders' claim that films should "stay out of politics"; she said Wenders’ stance was “unconscionable” ...
First among eight films cited by The Guardian in a followup piece on politically important films
A Fantastic Woman
Sebastián Lelio’s 2017 drama about a transgender woman fighting to be accepted by her dead partner’s family was a huge success internationally, winning the best foreign language film Oscar. But it was in Chile, where it was filmed and set, that it had the biggest impact. Lelio was invited to the presidential palace by Chile’s then-president Michelle Bachelet, who tweeted: “It was an honor to have the team of A Fantastic Woman here in La Moneda, the people’s house.” The film helped change the political climate in Chile and led to the passing of its gender identity law, which had been stuck in congress for five years.
•••
Olympics: Italy is overall still pretty homophobic, but this is helping:
Experiences of LGBTQ athletes: mostly good, but hate mail has been voluminous
ICE Out!
Trafficked, she spent 6 months in immigration detention as a young person
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I feel so sick reading this. She dedicated her life to helping her immigrant trans siblings, finally got the medical care she sought her whole life, and then a year later ICE tricked her, kidnapped her and used her postoperative status as a weapon to destroy her health.
CW for basically everything
— Jessica Kant (@jessdkant.bsky.social) 2026-02-08T16:01:35.022Z
When Donald Trump returned to the White House last year after campaigning on a platform that denigrated trans people and immigrants, Westley was working as a campaign director at BreakOut!, an organization helping Black and Latinx trans youth. She was in the process of obtaining a special visa for trafficking survivors and had received gender-affirming surgeries.
A Honduran national, she was called to meet with agents offering more lenient supervision, instead detained in horrendous cobditions and deported to Mexico. More about trans detainees.
Also:
On-scene report from a trans street medic arrested in Minneapolis.
Trans people continue to see their rights squeezed down and care choked off off both in the US and UK.
However,
The effort is being led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who is the parent of a transgender child. The pair also introduced the Trans Bill of Rights in 2023.
The proposed legislation builds on the Civil Rights Act. In the present state of affairs, it seems very unlikely to be reported out of committee in this session, but their persistence matters.
The week saw considerable buzz about Gavin Newsom, to the point that at least one person on Bluesky said they suspected surrogates at work.
I personally feel that amid the present crisis, jockeying just now for a nomination two years down the road would be a tad premature, but the week did also produce this explainer (free to read, I believe, though you may have to work your way through a menu):
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There seems to be a lot of discussion about Gavin Newsom today.
I wanted to re-share this piece that I wrote, because I have a lot of center-to-left Dems that follow me that want to understand.
There are very good reasons transgender people do not like Gavin Newsom.
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) 2026-02-13T18:43:38.724Z
LGBTQ people who remember the AIDs era may also be less than thrilled that Governor Newsom proclaimed February 6, 2926 as Ronald Reagan Day.
Exhausting:
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“It’s very draining to never know what my entire life might look like by this time next week, just because of policies & politicians.”
Trans Legislation Tracker is tracking 645 anti-trans bills as of Feb. 2026, marking an escalation in a decade-long campaign, @alexmar.bsky.social reports.
— Prism (@prismreports.org) 2026-02-10T15:31:02.693056047Z
This one got through, unfortunately:
.
Meanwhile, if I have this right, the proposed federal "SAVE Act" (Republicans have a way with Newspeak!) currently before Congress would require proof of citizenship and ID matching one's birth certificate to register to vote, disqualifying not only trans people who have changed their documents, but a great many others--such as adoptees, and married women who took their husband's name.
Oter fraud is, of course, minuscule, and this would amount to theft of people's votes.
Reportedly Sen. Collins, however, has gotten over her usual fit of the vapors, making this a squeaker. :-/
Even though a proposed U.S. rule designed to choke off gender-affirming medical care for youth has not been finalized, some hospitals have been shutting down these services preemptively.
In Colorado, a parents' group sued such a hospital.
The case asked [Judge Ericka] Englert to parse a first-of-its-kind question pitting the harm patients are suffering now due to the suspension of their care against the potential harm Children’s could face if it resumed care and was punished by the federal government for doing so.
...Englert made several findings in the families’ favor but ultimately concluded that granting an injunction “would pose a grave danger to the public interest that is greater than the danger to plaintiffs.”
The judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction; the case itself remains pending.
A California case, however, went the other way, granting trans youth in treatment there a reprieve for at least a few more weeks.
Care for these transgender young people does not include surgery.
Meanwhile, however, one Massachsetts hospital reportedly suspended "bottom surgery" for adults without warning or explanation.
The situation of trans people in the UK has continued devolving along Alice-in-Wonderland lines.
The latest from there has been a completely absurd legal ruling that a trans woman employee in a business could not use the women's room there, but imolies if she went out after her shift abd returned as a customer, then she could.
A summary of the devolution in Liberal Currents attached here:
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bathroom access, for instance, just wasn't an issue that came up until then - when it did a us-style bathroom ban was dismissed as unthinkable by mps
the same mps that are going along with one now, incidentally
www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...
— Toby Buckle (@polphilpod.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T13:31:48.564Z
Trans youth in the UK took a heavy hit with closure of the Tavistock Clinic, which has been the only facility in England and Wales treating young people with gender dysphoria.
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Really important not to brush over just how abusive, damaging, transphobic, harmful & hated the old service was.
It was widely critiqued for being too transphobic, not for being too affirming.
The complaint process was hard to access & never once led to redress so folks stopping complaining.
— Cal Horton (they/them) (@fiercemum.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T15:00:34.329Z
Sorry about the very small print here, I can't read it either--
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Youth gender care in the UK had scandalous aspects, only in the opposite direction of the claims the press ran with.
In addition to years long waits for time sensitive treatments, older teens who passed assessment were forced to do a year on puberty blockers before hormones were considered.
— Evan Urquhart (@evanurquhart.bsky.social) 2026-02-13T17:12:16.405Z
.
They were apparently anticipating an epidemic of detransitioners filing lawsuits but
At the same time,
The UK just proposed new school guidance that effectively bans even social transition for trans students (using a different name, pronoun or haircut). It implements a full bathroom ban while requiring mandatory outing of trans youth if a teacher suspects they are trans.
Comment from Bluesky user not enabling embeds:
I was repeatedly told that trans people were "medicalizing gender nonconforming behavior." Meanwhile, the UK has basically said you need to involve a doctor if a child's clothing, name, or haircut doesn't align with their gender
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This draft guidance reproduces Cass insisting that clinicians must be involved in decisions about *social transition* which actually should be none of their damn business
They take the line that this "non-directive" intervention should force things to be "keeping options open and flexible"...
— Ethel Weapon (@lousadzak.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T16:25:42.370Z
.
A book urging parents not to support their trans kids
Although
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Policies based on lies is killing kids.
"Good Law Project can confirm that in 2021-2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years"
It takes years for this data to be available there will be more.
All these kids had the right to life.
— Sara Hummingbird (@sarahumm.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T19:43:40.453Z
Part of one discussion on Bluesky how it devolved. Focus on media framing and a few key influencers.
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basically, we've utterly erased the rights & healthcare access of a vulnerable minority because a very small group (of apparently very well-connected) of people became fanatical about it & the (also very small) group who decide press coverage decided they needed relentless coverage
— Toby Buckle (@polphilpod.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T13:41:33.698Z
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the idea that this was a popular backlash to a socially dominant 'woke' worldview, pushing pronouns down all of our thoughts is absurd
a decade ago most brits did not hold well defined views on this, there was a bi-partisan consensus for tolerance
— Toby Buckle (@polphilpod.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T13:28:15.013Z
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#alt-text: Chart showing the frequency of trans-related articles by month in the UK press from 2012 to 2022. The count remains below 50 per 30 days until 2015, rising to 400 per 30 days by 2021, then peaking over 1,000 in 2022.
Source: committees.parliament.uk/writtenevide...
— dixTheory (@dixtheory.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T21:30:47.040Z
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Media coverage increased right after marriage equality became law in the UK. Like in the US & sometimes funded by US groups, as soon as they lost on marriage/gay rights, they switched to attacking trans folk as a problem. The Murdochs did their usual. Once Rowling got involved, coverage shot up.
— Green Owl (@greenowl.bsky.social) 2026-02-13T16:01:12.857Z
Shutting down info
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Eliminating gender studies courses helps to ensure that universities and other institutions will continue to protect men who benefit from the abuse of women and girls, either directly or through their connections to those who exploit girls and women for profit.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
— Jess Calarco (@jessicacalarco.com) 2026-02-13T17:38:13.146Z
Employment crisis
Quite a thread if you go there (click on "Bluesky").
Another user who doesn't enable embeds:
Legitimately why I su*ck d*ck for a living
:-/
Miscellany
Canada: after a young mass shooter turns out to be trans
Bluesky user:
I can't overstate just how much of a disinformation weapon X has becomeand it's being targeted at trans people in particular. A 6 year old video is going around being passed off as the shooter. Fake images are circulating like crazy along with outright genocidal language.
There are viral calls to mass institutionalize trans people. Major media outlets are running salacious articles with headlines like this "Are cross-sex drugs driving trans shooters to kill?"It's a feeding frenzy using this shooting as an excuse to go after trans people even harder. It's sickening.
About those drugs
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They're all used for a very wide range of purposes, from acne to menopause, prostate cancer, fluid retention, precocious puberty, and many many more. None of them are new, or in any way "experimental" as so many breathlessly repeat.
— Tessa (@tessavh.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T23:05:16.296Z
... thread about how the state broadening the definition of "pornography" is intended as a weapon against the LGBTQIAP+ and Black and Brown communities. I obviously don't advocate giving kids sexually explicit materials. But "bodies/sex/sensuality/queerness exist" isn't inherently explicit.
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When a sitting representative refers to the Super Bowl halftime show as “pornography,” people should use that to reflect on how they and other representatives are simultaneously working to ban, censor, and restrict “pornography” and what that actually means
— Kat Tenbarge (@kattenbarge.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T18:52:11.532Z
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And we don’t have to guess what they mean, because we can read Project 2025 ourselves and see that “pornography” is shorthand for LGBTQ people existing publicly. That’s what they’re working to ban, censor, and restrict online under the guise of “protecting” kids from porn
— Kat Tenbarge (@kattenbarge.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T18:56:06.988Z
Hungary
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“Rather than being threatened with a criminal sentence, he should be commended for his courage in organising the largest Pécs Pride in history.”
Solidarity with Géza Buzás-Hábel and the many other activists in Hungary fighting for their freedoms. Everyone should be free to celebrate Pride.
🇭🇺🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
— Senthorun S. Raj (@senthorun.bsky.social) 2026-02-09T20:05:54.264Z
Values:
Pre-colonial Uganda
They can own property together
Turkey
Netflix;
Btw, I read the book (The Pink Marine), it's excellent
One of my childhood heroes!
AND day after tomorrow!
