What do you think about civil rights groups warning against going to Florida?

Why should something the NAACP suggests backfire on the Democrats? I think DeSantis’s racist and homophobic policies, supported by the Republican elected legislature, should backfire on the Republicans but they don’t. I think it’s quite likely that many liberals and corporations that may have thought of moving to Florida will not, e.g. Disney’s new corporate center which will now be built in Anaheim.

I would definitely not buy or move to Florida these days. I have friends there that I may or may not go visit. (If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t move to Texas either.)

Yes, it would stop me from going to Florida.

I don’t think it will backfire on the Democrats.

I think such awareness programs will probably help keep some marginalized persons safe, by ensuring that they are on their guard if traveling to unsafe areas.

The article doesn’t make me think minorities and marginalized people are more in danger, the basic news does.

The people who get fired up by the racist and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric spouted the the governor and his supporters are very likely to commit violence against targeted folks.

Florida has passed laws enabling them abducting trans children from supportive parents, and that allows medical personnel to refuse treatment to people based on religious reasons, meaning it is now legal in Florida for medical staff to let LGBTQ people die.

@janbb I have no idea if this will backfire, I am looking for opinions.

I think constant attention on DeSantis during covid made him one of the front runners of the Republican party. He became recognizable on a national level, it gave him more power than he would have had. This is different than the initial covid years, now DeSantis is known.

Discouraging Democrats from coming to Florida just makes the state more Republicans.

Are there actually statistics that minorities are less safe here? I understand the arguments about schools and his craziness taking on Disney, but as far as tourism are minorities less safe here?

Florida is in the top ten gayest states in the country, Dade county is 70% Hispanic. Florida is 27% Hispanic and 17% Black. We have a lot of minorities here. That is not even counting religious minorities, we have a lot Jewish people here too, I have seen estimates of 700,000. so, that would be like 10% of Jews in the country are living in Florida. That doesn’t even include people visiting.

@canidmajor Do you think this type of warning helps change the state? News about what is happening I think is good to make Floridians aware and to fight for civil rights and proper education by voting and other means, but this type of warning I am not so sure.

I agree racist rhetoric is dangerous. That is happening everywhere though. I don’t see Florida as more dangerous. Trump and DeSantis have national platforms now.

Florida is a basket case. I can state that LGBTQ people are leaving in droves and not traveling there.

@JLeslie It is not Democrats responsibility to move to Florida to save it from itself. You spout that rhetoric often, and it’s laughable.

I would not live in Florida with the bills that Desantis has passed that is such an authoritarian regime. God help us if he is the next president.
The NAACP is not backed by democrats or republicans. They are a non partisan group so I’m not sure where question about it backfiring on the democrats comes from.

@Hawaii_Jake Don’t be mean.

I am just annoyed with discouraging Democrats from moving here. Florida matters for the entire country. We are 29 electoral votes and our presidential elections are fairly close calls and the Republicans actively encourage their people to move to Florida. There are very blue pockets in parts of Florida, no different than Illinois or New York.

As I said to @janbb I have no idea how this lates thing will play out. Just looking for opinions.

The people who live in Florida have to save it from fascism. It’s no one elses’ responsibility to move there and save it.

Maybe there is a recall Ron DeSantis movement but I’m not seeing it.

@janbb Oh, I don’t expect people to move here to save it, I just expect an accurate representation and I don’t want “news” to backfire on the Democrats in general.

@JLeslie I think the Democrats, at least any I know, are pretty clear about what’s going on in Florida.

@JLeslie I don’t know if this warning helps change the state, I am not concerned about the state, I am concerned about the people being hurt and killed by the attitudes promoted by, and legislation enacted by the state.

Your absolute and unswerving loyalty of the state is a little concerning, as you don’t seem to understand that the state is personified by the governor and his thug minions.

The warning sounded to me like it was similar to a state department travel warning. Is that how other people interpreted it? Like it is unsafe to go to Florida. More unsafe here than any other state, because as far as I know they have not said that about other states. I think it is political, because DeSantis has possibilities of becoming the presidential nominee.

@canidmajor I am not taking about the state either. I do not have loyalty to the state like some sort of crazy nationalist obsession. I am talking about what it is the really in the state, and what is it really like compared to other states. The difference between the reality and how people picture it. DeSantis is worrisome, no doubt. I said all along the way he plays to extremists is very worrisome. He does the same as Trump and it is dangerous. It is much worse now than 5 years ago, now that he is focusing on the presidency he has amped it up.

People still think there were no mask mandates in Florida, that is false. There was no state level mandate, but we had local mandates. That was a misrepresentation in the media that hurt real people. There are a lot of misrepresentations of DeSantis and in the end it helps him. The facts are so bad regarding some of what he does, there is no need for the media to exaggerate and embellish, and it actually hurts the country. Do you really think you have an accurate picture of Florida just from the news? Do you think Europeans and Asians have a well rounded accurate picture of the US just from the news? Why does anyone think they know what any place is like from a afar?

@janbb I don’t know why you think that. I certainly don’t think that about any state I have not spent time in just by hearing about the state. Do you mean DeSantis, or you mean what it is like to be here? Trump was terrible, but how much did your life actually change day to day when he was president? Do you think the media helped him get elected? The constant coverage he received? A lot of Americans go on recognizability, they don’t actually research candidates or think through consequences.

It probably won’t make my travel plans different.
However. If I had a wife, kids, and disposable income, I would not go to Florida currently.

When I go to Florida, it’s to a tiny fishing town on the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee. I don’t spend much money there, and leave with plenty of fish.
So. I probably win the financial exchange of a visit there.

I feel bad for some of the people there. I wouldn’t blame them for moving to a different state. Don’t get me wrong, Florida is beautiful especially the keys. But. The experience can be replicated, and without the need to speak Spanish South of Daytona… Miami is a dumpster fire…

I hate to sound like an asshole, but Florida has the same problem as many other southern states. Some Old South Bible, thumpers, “patriots,” and rich older Northerners who also support the Republican’s ultra conservative agendas.

Legalized weed is a potential life raft for Florida… Seriously…

I find it incredible that DeSantis is at war with Disney. If I were a Floridian, I’d be irate… If Disney jumps ship, it’ll really change the place…

I just worry about helping DeSantis get more power and popularity That is my concern and why I asked the Q.

^Your concerns are understandable… I can’t think of any way to help…

Meaningless gesture. It makes for good TV, but it doesn’t mean anything. People are going to go where they want – black, white, purple, whatever.

This is political theater.

(As for me – even though I live one state away, I have never liked Florida. It’s too flat. And the politics doesn’t help. So I have zero plans to go to Florida for any reason.

@elbanditoroso Just curious. Ever hear of the Green Book? Or sundown towns?

@janbb yes, of course. But Green Book was 40+ years ago.

@JLeslie You wrote, “Trump was terrible, but how much did your life actually change day to day when he was president?” My life altered irrevocably. The lives of my friends were grotesquely changed for the worse. The lives of hundreds of millions of women in this country now have lost their rights to make health decisions for themselves. This question is based in extreme lack of common understanding of how many people live.

The ADL (Anti Defamation League) lists Florida as a “don’t go there state” !

https://florida.adl.org/

Fascist leader Ron Desantis (Mussolini wannabe) hates Jews, Black of color and LGBTQIA+ it shows.

I feel sorry for people that live there that are not Fright Wingers.

I know several Floridians that are happy to be Desantis followers because they are like thinkers.

@Hawaii_Jake I agree with you regarding the loss of rights and I would add the threat of violence against people like you and me went up significantly. Moreover, our fear level goes up even more than the actual statistical threat, but I don’t care, it still matters a lot to me, because the anxiety is bad for is as individuals and bad for the country. We have to be hypervigilant, and that is bad for our health and psyche.

I can’t remember if I wrote this above, I don’t see it skimming through, but my family and many friends were literally researching where we could go if we needed to leave the country. The threat was real to me and many others, but my daily life was still overall the same with friends and most people who I interact with daily. My guess is in your corner of HI your life stayed fairly status quo also, but correct me if I’m wrong. I actually considered HI as a place to move to, still being the US, but somewhat out of reach of the tyranny happening in the executive branch of the country.

What you and some other jellies don’t seem to understand is I find Trump and DeSantis scary. Reminds me of when Michael Moore said Trump has a good chance of winning in 2016 and he said not all of his supporters are bad people. No one wanted to listen to him defend Trump supporters, because they perceived it as Moore supporting Trump. He was just trying to sound the alarm.

@elbanditoroso Thank you. Not because you semi agree with me, I don’t care if people disagree, but at least you see how it is political and probably purposeful and theatre and ratings. It is flat, although, I live where there are a few changes in elevation.

I just have to ask: what ratings are the NAACP looking to get? I’m sorry, @JLeslie, I can’t even follow your reasoning. It sounds like you would blame the Freedom Riders of the 60s for calling attention to voting rights abuses in the South.

I’ll stop following now.

@janbb Ratings are the cable political news stations. I wasn’t clear.

The NAACP is trying to help Democrats garner fear and votes. Maybe donations too.

The Freedom Riders were incredibly brave and amazing. They went down into the South. They didn’t stay away.

NAACP is not politically affiliated. You keep waffling on what point you are trying to get across. I’ll step out now, also.

@chyna The NAACP does political lobbying. What are you talking about? They should. Politics and laws directly affect the lives of Black people and other minorities. .

Flordia is becoming a fucking cesspool. It’s going to become the next Kansas as an example of what happens under the Republican utopia of no immigrants, anti-LGBTQ policies, and anti-intellectual enforcement in the education system. Mark my words, the GDP in FL will plummet, and there will be brain-drain as the smartest folks in the state bail for more progressive states.

NAACP

Its mission in the 21st century is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination”. National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts and litigation strategies developed by its legal team.[5] The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP#:~:text=National%20NAACP%20initiatives%20include%20political,and%20questions%20of%20economic%20development.

@JLeslie You have changed your tune so many different ways on this thread that I have whiplash. I’m out.

I don’t know, I guess it’s helpful to make people aware of the atmosphere. I doubt it will backfire on the Democrats though. I know that I have absolutely no desire to travel to Florida or Texas. Which is a shame because my brother is moving to San Antonio in less than a month. Unless he and his wife fly up here for holidays or whenever else, I probably won’t see them again because there’s too many random shootings going on down there.

I think I kind of get your point, that with these advisory warnings about FL, less left-leaning individuals will consider living here, which will push the state further from evenly split Democrat-Republican into a more clear Republican majority. But the advisories are regarding travel and I don’t think they, in and of themselves, necessarily impact where people live.

I fully support the advisories. Particularly families with trans people or those “at risk” of having trans kids (which I read to be homosexual), they are literally at risk of their children being taken. There are rules allowing for genital inspection of children. Rules that gender affirming care can be revoked at any time for adults. I have former students who are trans and need to move elsewhere to ensure their access to life-saving hormones. The anti-woke movement and policies, book banning, proliferation of charter and religious schools on public money, cutting all diversity, equity and inclusion programs, disallowing proper history education (can’t say “slavery”, can’t let white kids feel bad…), getting rid of polling stations in historically black areas, requiring fees to be paid by people with felony convictions to be able to vote…

Not to mention, DeSantis is doing away with traditional state university oversight and trying to get rid of tenure. The anti-woke bill has been amended to be more strict in higher education settings. Schools and businesses are dangerous for families who are at higher risk for long-term infection-related issues, as COVID is running rampant and we no longer report statistics (which we can’t because there is no testing). Businesses aren’t allowed to have mandated diversity, equity and inclusion trainings. Rent is through the roof. Public schools are awful. Universities will soon be an embarrassment. I mean, I could go on and on. I have no idea why any left-leaning individual would plan a long-term future here.

I think very little about it.

@Cupcake I’m worried about a lot of the things you mentioned, but I’m not worried about Black people traveling to Florida more than other states, yet NAACP picks FL and no other state?! That’s where this gets to be a little slanted to me. Worse in FL than AL, AR, MS, TN, for Black people? I just don’t see it.

It’s going to be Gay Days (red shirt day) in less than two weeks in Orlando. A few of my straight friends already have their rainbow and red shirts ready and parks booked. Let alone my gay friends.

You might have to come get me out of jail one day, because I go in men’s bathrooms at least a few times a year. Is there an age cut off? I was just on a facebook Disney thread with dozens of women telling a mom to take her ten year old boy into the women’s bathroom. I was just in Cheesecake Factory in Sarasota and a boy about 8 years old was in there with I guess his sister and mom must have been the person in a stall.

I want the news to report what is happening, it’s so important, but sometimes political strategy backfires, and sometimes how things are reported backfires.

Luckily, DeSantis can only be governor two terms and then has to take a term off. We just need to get a Democrat in next time.

As far as covid, the flu is estimated, and I don’t understand why CDC hasn’t switched to estimating covid cases. It is still tested if someone is hospitalized and if they die from complications from covid. Something like 400 people a day still dying! That’s easily 3–4 times flu deaths. The data is there, but the media has stopped reporting constantly, so most Americans are oblivious. Obviously, the government has decided 130,000 covid deaths a year is acceptable.

@Hawaii_Jake Don’t mistake questioning political strategy and trying to understanding foe with support.

Don’t get arrested in Orlando at Gay Days @JLeslie !

^^I most likely won’t be there. The biggest day is Saturday at Magic Kingdom, and I can’t go in the parks on the weekends on my pass. I’m too busy that week even on the weekdays that they will be in the parks.

I know professionally, many professors and researchers will no longer attend research and other professional conferences in FL because of our policies over the last few years. To your point @jleslie, many will no longer consider attending in several states, with FL being just one of them.

I forgot about the public restroom thing. I still take my 9 and 11 year old boys in the restroom with me in public, when necessary. I have read guidance to keep children in the restroom with parents until you can be confident that they would fight someone trying to harm them, estimated to be around 12 years of age. Because my kids are autistic, I have heightened concerns that they may comply with something unsafe. Have you seen recent footage of police called to remove a possibly male-presenting person from the women’s restroom line? It’s such an egregious violation to question someone’s identity in order for them to relieve themselves in public.

@Cupcake I haven’t seen recent footage, but I don’t doubt there have been some bad incidents. I did see video several years ago of a trans woman being harassed, I don’t remember what state it was.

The attack on universities is horrible full stop. I am conflicted about tenure K-12 and lean towards getting rid of it, but university level is completely different to me and I think professors should be protected. University is a place for debate and conflicting ideas, and the government mandating what can be said and taught and threatening the jobs of professors is horrible.

Some of DeSantis’ policies aren’t as drastic as the news makes them out to be, I have a problem with misrepresentation. Plenty of what he does is drastic, they can stick with just telling the truth. My big worry is DeSantis doesn’t seem to want to stop, rather he keeps going further in his extremism to please the “base.” It’s his political strategy, he has chosen to do the Trump bit. Scary. Money and power.

DeSantis has young children. What is he going to do if his daughter needs to be pee? Either he goes with her to the girls room or she goes with him. The whole bathroom thing is so stupid and annoying to me.

I actually was one of the jellies when this topic started 7–8 years ago that understood why women might fear a man in drag in the women’s restroom. Women get raped in public bathrooms. I also practically grew up in gay clubs where drag queens were often in the bathroom with me. It can be daunting, but anyway, in clubs we always try to go in pairs anyway. Drag queen is different to me than someone in regular clothing who is living as a trans woman or trans man. I don’t think there should be any laws about the bathroom at all, except to say having policy so schools have some singleton unisex bathrooms I think is a good idea.

In The Villages we have a very obvious trans woman, I see her out dancing a lot. I assume she uses the women’s room.

We also have a trans woman who works at one of the recreation centers I go to frequently, I assume she uses the women’s room? Maybe she uses the single room for handicap, but they are still labeled men or women. I don’t think anyone would make a big deal if she did go in the multi stall women’s room.

I saw a comment on Twitter yesterday where somebody was asking why we don’t have unisex bathrooms like they did on Ally McBeal. Of course, that was a business, so there wouldn’t be kids going in there, but it does seem like it would solve a lot of problems.

@LifeQuestioner I prefer having separate bathrooms when they are public restrooms and multistall. I just don’t freak out if a man is in the women’s room if there seems to be a logical reason. If I’m uncomfortable I would wait until they leave. What I care more about is the door opening out as I leave so I don’t have to touch the handle.

Here’s a Yahoo headline about Toad Cruise’s opinion:

Ted Cruz said Martin Luther King Jr. would be ‘ashamed’ of the NAACP’s Florida travel warning. MLK’s daughter, Bernice King, disagreed.

Here’s Bernie’s response to Cruz:

“What my father would be deeply concerned about is the harmful, discriminatory legislation in Florida,”

“He was a dreamer, but his dream was global, inclusive, and deeply rooted in love and commitment to eradicating what he called the Triple Evils,”

For a second I thought she was referring to the Triple Elvis. :p

I agree with have the utmost respect for her opinion.

One ironic aspect of the Cruz view, is that FL would probably have any poster of MLKJ it found on a public-school wall forcibly removed, and ban any book honoring him from any public library.

I agree it’s political theater, typical in pre-election years. Also I can assure you some areas of Memphis, St Louis and others across America are far more dangerous to everyone not a criminal. Most people know this.
Democrats are already in trouble for the next election and they know it, so this kind of thing is no surprise.
DeSantis is a weird zealot imo and will not win.

@Brian1946 Ted Cruz is an ass and horrible. God forbid he ever becomes president. His father is extremely scary to me, and usually I don’t judge someone by their parents, but Ted has shown he is influenced (and probably controlled) by those type of extremists.

@KNOWITALL Your opinion means a lot to me on this, I’m glad you answered. I don’t think the Democrats think they are in trouble (they keep saying Trump and his look alikes are losing all over the country) but I do think they are nervous and I do think they want to motivate people to vote.

@gorillapaws The difference is Kansas is 75% white not Hispanic and 6% Black and Florida is 53% white not Hispanic and 17% Black. 53%! Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/FL,KS/PST045222 Plus, as I mentioned Florida is one of the top gay states.

I know having a lot of minorities doesn’t guarantee anything regarding civil rights, but it’s hard to ignore the demographics here. The biggest obstacle is a lot of Latin Americans in Florida don’t realize they are minorities. It’s something I have always said, and Ana Navarro actually recently said it on The View. There are some people in each minority group like that, not just Latin Americans, but most Latin Americans in Florida are white.

The Cubans tend to be Republicans, because of Cuban policy over the years, and some of the newer immigrants tend to be very religious. If we had someone down here speaking to the Latin American population more about why Republican policy is scary the state would flip blue in my opinion. We need a Stacey Abrams for Hispanics here.

I’m worried about what is happening here, but like I said above, choosing Florida and not other states is so deliberate in my opinion and not objective, and won’t help anything probably. What will happen? Black people will stop coming to Disney World?

@JLeslie Statistics look pretty bad. Over 64% are white guys over 18 committing the hate crimes. Looks like the White Nationalists are really gaining ground there. Not good.

I think it’s political theater. I think it’s a way to “punish” DeSantis because he’s such a lunatic with his fight with Disney and other things.

There are Disney lovers that will go to Disney World no matter what. In these Disney groups on Facebook and TripAdvisor, some people are just so gung ho about anything Disney. They plan their trips over a year ahead of time, and Disney makes it where it has to be planned so far in advance to get reservations for things like hotels and restaurants, it’s part of the hype.

I definitely agree with @KNOWITALL that the Democrats know they’re in trouble. I’m a Democrat and I’m not big on Biden at all. I’ve been commenting in here for a few weeks about Biden being too old and that there must be some politicians that the Dem party can put forth as a candidate, other than a guy who can barely walk and talk. Apparently, polls agree with me and show that the majority of Americans are not thrilled with Biden. I’m still hoping he backs out for some reason and the Dems can find someone else, but it has to be soon because campaigning is in full swing. I know some people will defend Biden to the end, but really, he can barely put two sentences together and he doesn’t seem to be allowed to say too much off the cuff, because then it’s revealed that he’s not too with it.

@KNOWITALL Is that a statistic for Florida or the country?

@JLeslie My point is to let FL degenerate into a Republican hellscape that we can all point to and say “this is what happens when you pursue Republican policy.” Let the sane folks move to the surrounding states and win in GA, SC, NC etc.. It would be a strategic win for the Electoral College at least.

In tennis there’s a form of cheating called stacking when you put your worst player against the other team’s #1 and then you’ve shifted the rest of the matchups in your favor so it’s #6 vs. #1 that’s a guaranteed loss, but you’ve then got your #1 vs. their #2, 2 -> 3, 3 -> 4, 4 -> 5, 5 -> 6.I say bail on Florida and make an example of it. It’s going to be fucked due to climate change anyways.

It could affect anyone equally, not just the Democrats. And, like they say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

@gorillapaws Interesting analogy your tennis example.

So, you are ok letting Florida become a mess to be able to use it as a political warning. Too bad it is a state a lot of people love to come to, because the governors can brag about the economy and growth here. A lot of people seem to care about money more than moral issues like civil rights and healthcare access.

GA, SC, and NC are not zero income-tax states, which is part of the pull in FL. Plus, it does get pretty cold in those named Southern states. People do move to NC, SC, and GA, some even go to Florida and then bounce halfway back to one of those Southern states. You won’t get SC any time soon, it is way too Republican. You need both NC and GA to counterbalance FL, but that is just offsetting FL, we need more than that. The purple states are so important. In the last 5 years Florida is less purple and more red. It’s a shame. I don’t see the Democrats promoting moving to NC or GA. It is not being used a political strategy like the Republicans use FL.

I heard George Santos moved to Florida to vote in 2016. If that is true, I am totally suspicious and feeds into my paranoia about the Republicans not only telling people to register in Florida, but I think people are being paid to do it. Didn’t that one chic who worked for Trump use her parents’ address in Florida as her home address, which put her vote in Florida.

I’m not talking about the retiree population, I’m talking about the nurse who doesn’t want to risk having her husband deported for visiting the ER. When the immigrants leave FL en masse you’re going to see oranges rotting on the trees, construction grinding to a standstill (and construction costs skyrocket), low-wage healthcare jobs (CNA, MA, LPN) going unfilled, and landscaping being cost-prohibitive.

@gorillapaws Oh yeah, I worry about that too. Right where I live we have some of those problems way before DeSantis, because the developer didn’t do enough to attract young families, although they did build a really good charter school, but still overall lacking.

Add in the state becoming hostile to new immigrants it will hurt us, no doubt, but it won’t be as sudden as you might want to think. These people who are already here without papers or on tourist visas, but working, they are already taking a risk, they already worry about being caught. A lot of the threats by DeSantis are meaningless, because we already have laws about it both federal and state.

Typical DeSantis, talking it up to make his supporters happy and freak out Democrats to get attention even when he barely makes a real change. It won’t have no effect. He will definitely cause some misery, but mostly the laws are already there.

@gorillapaws But that’s what Republicans want!! The immigrants doing cheap construction for half the price of Union labor is a huge part of the anti-immigration debate/sentiment.

Biden seems more concerned about Ukraine and immigrants than Americans who elected him. Shit, even Trump sent Covid checks and prices weren’t nearly this high.

I saw something today that makes the NAACP warning nothing more than a lie…a political effort to discredit Desantis for the Democrats. The truth from the FL Chamber of Commerce is that FL has now become #1 in the country for Black owned businesses and #2 for Hispanic and for Women owned businesses. So the warning is just a bogus effort to help Democrats that are struggling right now.

@seawulf575 Well, I don’t know what those Florida Chamber of Commerce people are smoking. I just googled and it’s not Florida, it’s New York:

https://www.fundera.com/resources/black-owned-business-statistics

https://www.score.org/resource/blog-post/state-african-american-owned-businesses

Here are two links. Washington DC has the highest percentage of black owned businesses. So there’s nothing indicating Florida either has the quantity or percentage of black owned businesses.

@KNOWITALL “But that’s what Republicans want!!”

I know. I think they should get exactly what they want. And when the oranges rot on the trees in Florida but the oranges in CA are being sold, you’re going to see how the Republican fantasy of only European Immigrants allowed affects a state’s GDP. There’s demand for low skilled workers and not much supply that aren’t undocumented. Also, if it were up to me, I’d give a test to all FL students applying to out of state colleges called the “competent in basic understanding of factual reality” test. Passing that would be required to accept a high school diploma from FL as valid.

The other Florida irony is the issue of climate change. Miami and south Florida is built (if you can call it that) on sand. Warming weather is already causing sea levels to rise and posing a serious threat to Miami Beach (in particular) but also downtown Miami.

What’s the problem, you ask? Florida republicans have been big climate change deniers, despite the obvious effect on the Florida shoreline.

@elbanditoroso I say to my husband all of the time “all of these people moving here and soon the state is going to be smaller as the shore line moves inland.” He’s tired of me saying it I’m sure.

DeSantis actually makes gestures that are supposed to be environmentally sound and should help with the slowing of climate change (he doesn’t talk about the climate change part) but there is no question the Republican Party at large has railed against the legitimacy of human behavior contributing to the earth heating up. DeSantis does nothing that I have seen to counter this Republican stance.

I’d have to look it up, but he signed off on something like $600million to help with the affects of climate change like money for sea walls and I don’t know what else.

Some links DeSantis on environment in FL. People outside of FL probably aren’t in tune with some moves he makes that seem fairly environmentally conscious. Like the the covid situation, people outside of Florida don’t get a full picture.

Links regarding environmental spending.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2023/0127/On-environment-DeSantis-charts-a-pragmatic-path#:~:text=Ron%20DeSantis%20signed%20into%20law,tank%20conversions%2C%20and%20road%20elevations.

https://news.wgcu.org/section/environment/2023-01-11/desantis-unveils-3-5-billion-in-new-spending-on-the-environment

But, DeSantis also says Democrats use the environment as a Woke theme. Something like that.

He uses some double speak like Trump.

Well. Despite the conservative agenda being anti-brown people, the Latinos in Southern Florida are typically loyal Republicans. That doesn’t help.

I think Florida would do well to just try to educate, and motivate voters there. There are plenty of Latinos, women, centrists, LGBTQ+, libertarians, lefties, and even some conservatives who aren’t completely terrible who should be able to pull Florida at least back to center.

Georgia democrats had success with that strategy recently. They managed to inform enough capable voters to make some major changes. Some elections were embarrassingly close, but evil couldn’t keep a grip there…
Even Trump couldn’t talk a fellow Republican into “finding” votes for him there.

I think most Southern states are not as red as they typically vote. Because of less active informed voters, and less informed voters.
When people actually have a clue about what they’re actually doing when they vote, they vote differently…

I hate the fact that the female gender will likely lose some very basic, common sense personal health decision making soon. But. People are blaming the wrong people. While it’s crystal clear that male conservative politicians and lawmakers are quickly taking rights away from women, isn’t it just as clear that if so many people opposed to such things didn’t vote red this would never have happened? Trump appointed three conservative SCOTUS judges. Other conservatives have been put in place by the same female/pro-women voters who are crying about the mess now…

Maybe the public deserves the approaching Conservative utopia. Where the conservative version of “freedom,” is not so great when it’s reality…
Unfortunately. Even if people learn from what happens when they put these people in power, it may take a long time to fix things through the voting cycles/process…
As far as I’m concerned. All these people complaining, got what they asked for… That sucks. But that’s what happened.

I’m not blameless. I don’t vote. But. In my mind, I don’t play this stupid game in the first place. That is to say, I don’t waste my time pretending I’m making a difference by supporting the lesser of two evils in every level of government decided by “elections.”
As many of you know, I live in Charleston SC. The only reason I stay here is because it’s vastly different than most of the state, as far as being a more purple area than the surrounding red. In regards to people under 45, it’s even blue.

For those of us who want to have our wonderful Southern cities, but without the conservative thinking we’ll have to settle for these types of oases… But. That still comes with conservative state laws…

I’m pretty well traveled. One thing I know for sure is, nowhere is perfect. So. People can boycott traveling to certain places. But of all the variables determining travel, I feel that politics is a minor issue…

The biggest issue currently, is that the federal government is dragging the majority of the country into a conservative minority’s twisted preference of what they want America to be.

As much as we can debate the effect of the conservative agenda in a single state, it’s fast becoming a country wide problem. Mix that with a fairly new lack of cultural coexistence, and Florida is the least of all of our concerns…

The GOP wants America to be a Christian version of Pakistan. No thanks…

@jca2 Not sure what they were going on when they made the claim. But I did notice that your link went on percentage. Not really a fair comparison. Blacks make up about 13% of the population. Washington DC has a population that is about 50% black. So percentage-wise they would naturally be high up on the list. But even your link showed Florida at 3rd in the nation but it doesn’t show when the data was collected. And The FL CoC did say they just took over the top spot in the nation so it might be a true statement.

None of the information on Black owned business is complete enough including the video, which obviously is a right wing propaganda piece, because it looks and sounds exactly like all of them. Just like the terrorist created memes that all look the same with bold yellow and red all over the picture. We would have to dig more to figure the total per capita in a city or in a state.

The Southern states have the most Blacks per 100,000 in the states and some of the worst situations for Black people.

I know I talked about the diversity stats in Florida, but that alone doesn’t prove the situation is ok in Florida, as I said above a group can be the majority population and be oppressed and classified as a minority. What the numbers do mean is the possibility for change in a democracy. It happens that in Florida minorities overall are treated ok in Florida (traditionally) and having large numbers does help that, although there has been problems with how Haitians are treated at the federal level in Florida. Maybe DeSantis is about to make life for minorities here much worse? I’m not sure how it will play out.

Plus, as far as Southern, which I don’t really count Florida as Southern, but technically it is part of the greater South, Florida is more significant in terms of it’s Latin American population than the others, except for Texas and maybe Maryland, I’m just guessing about Maryland, although Maryland is so diverse from all over the world maybe not.

Florida Latin Americans are less “brown” than other states. I hate that term. Many of the Latin Americans are Italian, German, English, Jewish from Eastern Europe or Israel, and yes Spanish (from Spain and very fair complected). Many came to Florida by plane (money and/or educated) not by foot, although a lot of Cubans came over by boat obviously.

Back to Black people, Florida does have its African American ghetto areas, but overall it does not feel like it does in many Deep South states here. The dynamic is different. Black people feel more integrated to me here, but that’s just my personal perception. Even down to language, there isn’t a strong dialect difference like in many Southern states. In fact, you are more likely to notice the Miami dialect if you vacation there, which is basically Cubans speaking English.

@seawulf575 The fundera link I posted states that New York has the highest number of black owned businesses and that was updated March 2023. That’s why I wrote New York in my details in that comment. I posted two links, one which shows the highest number of black owned businesses and one which shows the highest percentage of black owned businesses.

This seems to be getting derailed. The main point is that Florida has created an environment that is hostile to teaching about the true history of Blacks and gays in the USA and is repressing people’s rights to read and discuss what they want in schools, libraries and universities. This creates an atmosphere of oppression against those who are different in many ways, racially, sexually or gender identification and many people do not want to go there – either out of fear or as a statement of protest. The NAACP is political in that they lobby politicians of both parties for change but they are not an arm of the Democratic Party.

And yes,Florida is being singled out because DeSantis is running for President on an extreme platform but people are also aware of what is going on in Texas, the Carolinas and etc. This isn’t to say there aren’t liberals and “nice people” in Florida but until they run the government again, it is a radical, repressive state.

@janbb OK, back to the main Q. I’ll ask you, should the NAACP put out warnings for more states? Wouldn’t that make their statement seem more legitimate and less so obviously anti-DeSantis political with concerns for him being a supposed front runner of the Republican Party for President? If you agree with their statement about Florida, then why not add Texas, South Carolina, or even Virginia?

The official position (statement) of the NAACP might be non-partisan, but people within the organization certainly act in partisan ways, including endorsing candidates, because there is just no getting around that right now a section of the Republican party is harming the rights and well being of Black people. In the end it comes down to politics. The NAACP probably works with Republicans when it is in the interest of Black people, that makes sense to me.

I don’t think we can say the NAACP is not political, you can try to say it is “officially” non-partisan, but this action against Florida seems quite political and targeted to me. It just feels so obvious, which is a turn off. If I’m turned off, then I know Republicans and Independents are likely turned off. That’s my gauge to trying to get on the pulse of whether it is helping or hurting us, and when I say us I mean you and me as Democrats.

^^ I think you’re missing many points but I don’t think I can be any plainer than what I wrote.

@janbb I think you did not answer my question. Do you think the NAACP should be more even handed regarding what states they warn are hostile to Black people in terms of travel? Travel warnings usually have to do with physical well being. In this case I could see it also extending to equal treatment in public places.

Florida is being run by a Fascist Governor that is oppressing people color, LGBTQIA+.

According Senator Rick Scott the state doesn’t want liberal, “socialist” followers of Biden to go to Florida ! https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4017344-rick-scott-issues-travel-advisory-for-socialists-warning-florida-is-openly-hostile-to-them/

I wonder what is going to happen to central Florida . . . . ?

@janbb I have to say your post about Florida is 100% opinion. Not based in reality, but based on slant. Example: your entire view of gays and “education” in Florida schools is all based on the slant of the left-wing media. The “Don’t Say Gay” bill said nothing of the kind. It actually said that teachers are not allowed to discuss their private lives with the kids. They aren’t allowed to indoctrinate the kids. Ditto that for all that horrid oppression about books. Are you saying it is okay to teach a book to elementary school children that has explicit sexual acts in it? Are you saying it is okay to teach kids they should lie to their parents to do what they want? If the answers to these is yes, I submit you need to check your moral compass. If it is no, then you are admitting you don’t believe what you are preaching.

@jca2 I recognize what your article said about NY. What I don’t know (since it didn’t actually say) is what year those stats are from. But even your citation shows that FL is 3rd in the nation for black owned businesses. That doesn’t sound like oppression or a threat to black people even at 3rd. However I also found out that the National Teacher’s Union helps to fund the NAACP and FL has one of the weakest teacher’s unions in the nation. That adds some impetus to a reason for the NAACP to issue their warning.

@seawulf575 “Are you saying it is okay to teach a book to elementary school children that has explicit sexual acts in it?”

To be clear, the Bible has more objectionable content (rape, sexual slavery, incest, church-sanctioned forced abortions, fratricide, genocide, racism, slavery) than any book I’ve seen mentioned being banned by FL, and I for one think the Bible should be allowed in public school libraries.

The problem with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is that if a kindergartener asks the teacher about his two dads, or something related to a LGBTQ issue, the teacher’s hands are tied and she or he can’t answer it, because if they do, they will be subject to being charged with a crime. Imagine a little kid asking a question about something they’re curious about, and the teacher can’t answer. What can she say? “I can’t talk about that, because I might go to jail?” Imagine for the child how confusing it would be to hear that.

Cut and pasted from the link below:

The bill’s sponsors have emphatically stated that the bill would not prohibit students from talking about their LGBTQ families or bar classroom discussions about LGBTQ history, including events like the 2016 deadly attack on the Pulse nightclub, a gay club in Orlando. Instead, they argue that the bill would bar the “instruction” of sexual orientation or gender identity.

But the text says both.

In its preamble, the bill’s authors write that their aim is to prohibit “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.” But later, the actual bill states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur.”

“I could see why people are confused by that,” said Clay Calvert, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law who specializes in freedom of speech.

“One of the things I would have told my students in the fall, when I taught them statutory interpretation, and one of the things that courts certainly do, is to look at the preamble to assess, ‘Well, what’s the scope of that term called ‘instruction?’” Copeland said. “And the preamble seems to have a conception of what is prohibited that is much broader when we might think of a cramped conception of ‘instruction.’”

He added, “A good lawyer in a local school district, a good lawyer in the state department of education is going to do exactly that.”

Regardless, it remains unclear what the “instruction” of sexual orientation or gender identity entails. A definition of that type of lesson is not in the bill’s text.
Without a clearer description, Calvert said, “teachers may legitimately fear being sued” for a wide variety of classroom instruction, including lessons concerning same-sex marriage or the history of the AIDS epidemic.

“If a student raises a question that is not part of the lesson plan or the instructional plan of a teacher, but that question ties to sexual orientation or gender identity, then what may the teacher say at that point?” Calvert said.

Calvert raised the prospect of answering a student’s question about how same-sex couples marry each other.

“Am I teaching about what the Constitution says in that case, or am I teaching about sexual orientation?” he asked.
The text states that teachings on sexual orientation or gender identity would be banned “in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Critics have said the language of this provision could open districts and educators to lawsuits from parents who believe any conversation about LGBTQ people or issues to be inappropriate, regardless of their child’s age.

Legal experts agree, but dispute that a parent’s interpretation of what is or isn’t “age appropriate” would hold up in court.

Nonetheless, Calvert said, “it remains to be seen what ‘age appropriate’ or ‘developmentally appropriate’ means,” according to the state.

“The Department of Education has some leeway here to update and review its own standards about what is age appropriate, and then those will influence how this bill is actually implemented,” Calvert said. “In other words, it could stretch higher than third grade.”

Copeland added that the mere threat of lawsuits would complete the bill’s “work.”

“This kind of ever-present possibility of having to defend oneself, of a school district having to spend resources, will have its own chilling effects,” he said.

Some cut and pasted paragraphs from: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/floridas-dont-say-gay-bill-actually-says-rcna19929

”

And now it’s on the news that a town in Florida banned the poem by Amanda Gorman, Poet Laureate, the poem that she read at the inauguration. WTF? It’s more and more lunacy every day. They banned it because a parent said something in the poem was offensive.

How does ONE SINGLE PARENT get a book banned? Shouldn’t there be some sort of community opinion? What’s to prevent one lunatic parent from every school in America from bitching about something?

It was at a Democratic President inauguration, that is enough !
They may end the the “Bill of Rights” for the same reason; the only rights are for the fascist dictator
The “right” doesn’t want any Democratic to live or anyone that supports them.

The head of the NAACP lives in Florida. People here would do well to read the news themselves rather than asking this group what the newscast meant. Florida is the most free state in the nation.

@SnipSnip “Florida is the most free state in the nation.”

Unless you’re undocumented and need to go to the hospital, or have a trans child and the state wants to remove them from your custody, or you’re a teacher who wants to play a Disney movie in class, or a professor who writes articles about race…

@gorillapaws or are seven weeks pregnant and considering an abortion.

@jca2 I can handle the question about the 2 dads very easily. “That’s probably a question for you dads.”. The teacher didn’t engage, sent the question back to the parents where it belongs, and avoided possibly injecting his/her bias into any other answer he/she might have given.

@gorillapaws I find it interesting that many of the people that jump on the FL government stepping in on trans kids are the same ones that cheer when there is a story about states that pass laws allowing children to transition without parental consent.

My own opinion is very simple. Children are not mature enough to make life altering decisions for themselves. Anything that drastic needs to have in-depth psychological counseling prior to taking any action. A hormonal teen does not have a sound psychological base to work from. And parents need to be on board with any of it. Their lives are being impacted as well and if they are not consenting, that might lead to massive external blowback later on.

@seawulf575 I’m not going to armchair quarterback the nuances of trans kids development. I don’t have any expertise in that field, but I do know that getting those nuances wrong often leads to suicide. I think those recommendations should come from physicians and the standards of care. I believe the major organizations like the AMA all oppose the laws put forth in FL. That should be a red flag. Children may not be mature enough to make life altering decisions, but their physicians and parents can make decisions together with their child without you or I or President Biden, or anyone else injecting themselves into that conversation. There are hormone blockers that aren’t permanent. Nobody is performing gender reassignment surgery on young kids.

If the American Society for Civil Engineers came out in opposition to a law mandating all bridges be built with bricks derived from chicken bones, I’d be reluctant to drive my car over it. I’m not an expert in bridges or the compressive strength of chicken bones, but when professional organizations raise concerns, I listen.

My limited understanding of personal experience with “trans kids,” leads me to the conclusion that it is extremely complicated and that any stance that is meant to work for all is likely a terrible idea.
I feel like this would be a great place for the government to back completely out of the loop, and just let each case develop within the circles of each family and their physicians.
There will be successes and failures, but at least the process played out without any external variables.
Families make life changing decisions for/with their children all of the time. It’s not a new thing. The gender thing isn’t new either. It’s just something people actually talk about now.
Hopefully, in the near future we will have a better understanding of how to work in cohesion with children with these issues. In the meantime, I think the best thing for people not directly involved in the matter to do is stay out of it.
Personally, I agree that children are not mentally evolved enough to try to start any sort of gender reassignment journey. However. I do see the suicide statistics, and they are not to be ignored. It’s important to me, that I don’t know more about how adults cope with making the wrong decisions about gender too early.
So. Do we support them being suicidal as a young person, or as an older person?

Perhaps the best strategy is to get fully involved in a possible “trans kid’s” thought process. Ensure that lines of communication are ALWAYS open, but not necessarily physically altering decisions. Yet. That way, the child shouldn’t feel trapped in a situation. Let’s try to keep the age old thinking that you can be anything you want to be, when you grow up. You can be a doctor, a police officer, an astronaut, a video game designer, or a different gender. When you’re old enough.
What determines “old enough?”
Well. States already have an age of consent. Maybe we could agree that if we think kids are mature enough to consent to sexual activities at a certain age, they can start making decisions about their gender at that age too?...

I guess I just feel like the best thing to do is fond a compromise. A middle ground. As long as gender can be considered fluid, and not permanent, maybe that will be sufficient to help these certain kids. Especially if they are not being singled out because of their identity confusion. Kids will always be assholes. They’ll bully each other no matter what. But. Most child bullies aren’t mentally developed either. They get their opinions from their parents, or guardians. Therefore. If adults can simply coexist, and teach coexistence by example, it will likely rub off on our nation’s children…
That would be helped greatly, if people ob both the right AND left stopped hating each other.

Liberals on these very pages want conservatives to accept all people. Yet. They themselves don’t accept conservative people… Can nobody see the problem here?..

I think the biggest problem is that the government representation of both sides is acting too much. Instead of acting on our different beliefs, we should focus on learning to live with each other because of our shared beliefs.

Most people on both sides want the same thing. It’s the method of pursuing those ends that we differ on…

The fear of either side pulling the rope too far to their side, results in radicalism. If we cut off the extreme right, and extreme left, we would be left with the majority of Americans…

If extremists on both sides let off the gas, I think things would calm down enough for us to at least get to the table and have reasonable discussion…

I’ve had a LOT of roommates in my life. The one thing we all understood was that the most important factor in our successful coexistence is compromise.

Surely there are better ways to compromise, than what DeSantis is doing in Florida. And better ways to react to it than boycotting, or abandoning the state.
As far as the NAACP, or really any civil rights advocates retreat is not how progress is made.

Think about how black people got to where they are today. Rosa Parks didn’t leave her seat, or the bus. She stood her ground. There were “sit ins,” marches, mass gatherings etc. Thongs that forced discussion about the issues. The last thing that the NAACP, or the LGBTQ+ community, or females should be doing is removing themselves from the threat. If you run today, you’ll have to run tomorrow. One day, you’ll have nowhere to run…

Personally. I’m not going to make helping Florida my business.
But.
I have been to protests here, in my city. This is MY city. It’s my responsibility, to stand up for what I feel is right. Floridians who don’t want “Floridastan,” should keep pressing the issues, and inform each other. Knowledge is power. That’s why DeSantis and his crew want to take away certain books. That’s why they want to try to push “undesirables” out of the state. A lot of those “undesirables” can vote. They’re informed. They can spread knowledge to others. Then those others can vote. It’s an attempted hostile takeover…

If a positive outcome is the hope though, coexistence is key. Compromise is essential.
Good luck Florida…

I think if DeSantis and the Florida legislature is ok with teachers using the word gay or transgender when answering questions for children then they should change the wording of the law so the spirit of that in the law is more clear. As it is written, it can be interpreted as the topic should not be a part of a lesson plan, and not over reach into basic conversation, but the way it is written it can be twisted to mean that, and so teachers are afraid.

Teachers definitely can and do avoid topics that they feel are inappropriate. If a 5 year old asks a teacher where do babies come from, I’m assuming the teacher doesn’t answer the direct question, but rather directs the child to ask their mom and dad.

I’ve said this before, mostly DeSantis makes move that don’t change much of anything and create an uproar, and don’t say gay us mostly like that in my opinion, but I don’t doubt for a second that some right wing mom or principal in some corner of Florida wouldn’t use it unreasonably against a teacher. DeSantis does do some very explicitly dangerous changes to law that really change policy in a big way, like wanting to move abortion access back to 6 weeks. Initially, he did 15 weeks, which barely changed anything in practice, although I disagreed with that too.

As far as Black people, the Freedom Riders came to the South and were met with blatant discrimination and violence. If Black people come to Florida during the travel advisory they will most likely be met with hospitality. It’s just not going to work the same way.

@JLeslie DeSantis didn’t just want to move abortion access back to six weeks, he moved it back to six weeks.

^^It’s awful. If I was still trying to get pregnant I would be completely freaked out.

Think about the gynecologists, they will be leaving because of fear they will be crossing the fascist leaders. They don’t just do abortions . . . any women looking for a gynecologist may have to go to another STATE !

@gorillapaws As usual, your answer leaves me scratching my head. You cite the AMA oppose the FL laws yet you then make the claim that if the American Society for Civil Engineers came out with a recommendation for a new style bridge that didn’t sound right, you’d question it. Kinda goes against the idea that a known group of “professionals” making recommendations should be accepted.

Another point…the AMA probably does disagree with many of the FL laws since it is taking a lot of money out of their pockets. Cutting back on abortions for convenience and cutting back on gender reassignments for teenagers (17 and under) is removing quite a bit of income for doctors.

One last point…This is an article about a young girl that decided she wanted gender reassignment at age 12, told her parents at 13 and got onto puberty blockers, double masectomy at age 15. Decided she had made a mistake by age 16. Interestingly, the age that isn’t mentioned above is that she got the idea for gender reassignment from the LGBTQ+ activist on Instagram. The article also mentions another person that got influenced by the same sort of activist on Tumblr.

So let me ask: is it worse to try pushing gender reassignment on kids age 11 or to make them wait until they are 18 to start the transitioning?

@seawulf575 ”...is it worse to try pushing gender reassignment on kids age 11 or to make them wait until they are 18 to start the transitioning?”

I’m not a physician. I’m pretty sure you’re not one either. Googling shit on the internet doesn’t count as research and certainly doesn’t make either of us experts. I guess I don’t understand why you feel the public has the right to insert themselves into that conversation.

And even though that young woman may regret her decision, we also don’t know if she would have committed suicide and lived long enough to regret the decisions.

It’s definitely a tough situation. As a foreign party, the government should be happy to step away from the issue completely. It’s lose/lose…

@gorillapaws My point is that this is being done to kids. That young lady is not a one-off. It all started about the time puberty hit her, when her mind was already a soup of conflicting feelings and emotions. This is the exact wrong time to make life altering decisions. And that is what the FL law says. When the person is 18 we consider them an adult. At about that age the hormones have run their course and they are capable (or should be) of making informed decisions. If the concern is she might have taken her own life, even more reason not to let her make crazy decisions. Let me ask this: If someone is suicidal, what do we always tell them to do? The answer is “seek help”. That help is in the form of counseling and psychological care. We don’t tell them to try permanent life-altering surgeries.

@seawulf575 “And that is what the FL law says”

No. FL law is big government inserting itself into some of the most personal choices people make with their families and physicians.

“If the concern is she might have taken her own life”

Yes! That’s the concern. When someone’s gender doesn’t match their sex, and they’re going through puberty they’re at an extremely high chance of committing suicide relative to the baseline. Forcing them to go through the puberty of the wrong gender is traumatic and creates permanent changes. That’s what the experts and the data say.

“If someone is suicidal, what do we always tell them to do? The answer is “seek help”. That help is in the form of counseling and psychological care.”

In the case of gender dysphoria, the treatment is often gender affirming care. But let’s be real, your understanding of that, and Florida politicians (and mine) are so infan-fucking-tesimmially inadequate to really form any conclusions on the topic. In our society we have experts who spend decades of their lives learning about things and people like us and DeSantis have no business inserting ourselves into the best practices for the standard of care for the pediatric treatment of gender dysphoria. Just as none of us have any business telling engineers how to build bridges because we watched a YouTube video about arches and slept in a Holiday Inn Express…

Furthermore, FL law will remove custody from parents if they do follow the advice of physicians for the treatment of their kids in every other state in the nation.

@gorillapaws FL is not required to be like every other state in the union. Neither is NY or CA or IA or AK. They are all allowed to do things the way they want. That is how this nation is designed…a group of individual, autonomous, sovereign states working as a cohesive unit in somethings and separately on others.

@seawulf575 “That is how this nation is designed…a group of individual, autonomous, sovereign states working as a cohesive unit in somethings and separately on others.”

To a point, but let’s not pretend that “Florida is the most free state in the nation” when they engage in authoritarian, “Big Government” repressive practices, because that’s just bullshit.

@gorillapaws No, I don’t necessarily believe FL is the freest state in the union. But they are far from the most oppressive and miles away from a terrorist state as the NAACP would have you believe. ALL states and even more so the Federal government engage in authoritarian, “Big Government” repression. FL is no exception. But compare that to CA where allowing crime to run rampant because they set up “laws” that don’t protect the public but do reward the criminals. Or where they are forcing everyone to “go green” whether it makes sense or not or whether they want to or not. Or NY where they put a law on the books that allowed the cops to just come into your home and seize your firearms because of an anonymous tip. Or Virginia where they forced students to accept trans kids without any say or even a notification to parents. And when a young girl was sexually assaulted in a bathroom because the school made it okay for biological males to go in there, her father was arrested at a school board meeting because he dared to confront them on the policy. Their reaction immediately after the attack on the girl was to keep it quiet and move the “trans” boy to another school where he sexually attacked another girl. Authoritarian? Repressive tactics? Oh yeah. In comparison I believe FL to be very free. They are trying to actually do the will of the people and not push some activist agenda on everyone.

@seawulf575 In NY, there is a law on the books that allows the cops to just come into your home and seize your firearms because of an anonymous tip? No way. I have never heard that and I have a lot of friends who are gun owners and would die fighting before anybody came into their home and just seized their firearms because of an anonymous tip.

Link? If you’re going to say something crazy, you know you’ll be called on it and asked for a link.

Before you tell me to google it myself, I did. I googled New York law seizing firearms and found nothing of the sort. The majority of New York state is heavily Republican, so the large population of NYC is what makes NY Democratic, but the Republicans would never, ever allow such a thing. Please google things for accuracy before you post nonsense, or if you believe it to be true, post a link along with your statements.

I doubt the rule about trans kids in bathrooms has anything to do with an assault. If a kid assaulted another kid, do you think he cares what the rules are? We are talking assault, I wonder the details of that case. I think all new schools should have some single bathrooms.

NYS was very late in the game for approving same sex marriage, and plenty of other issues that you might think NY would be always very liberal on. There are so many Republicans in the state, and unfortunately they often go along with the party base even when they don’t agree. IL is the same, Chicago is blue and the state is otherwise red. California has a lot of Republicans too.

Here’s what @seawulf575 is talking about, but it REQUIRES DUE PROCESS and is a court order. It is not a “tip to the cops” and they show up at the house!

It called An Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) is a court order issued when a person may be dangerous to themselves or others.

Thank you @Tropical_Willie, That’s more logical than just random cops showing up from an anonymous tip.

I know when I worked for the organization that represented employees, there was a case where one employee threatened another, and admitted it, so it wasn’t like just a baseless accusation. The employee that did the threatening owned firearms, legally, and he was made to turn them all over to the authorities until the case with the coworker was solved. That, I would say is reasonable because if they let him keep the guns and he went and shot the coworker, everyone would be saying “why didn’t you prevent this?”

Nobody is showing up and entering homes and seizing weapons on anonymous tips. Like I said, NY is largely Republican except the city, and no politician would even put such a thing as suggested by @seawulf575 forth unless they wanted to never be elected for anything again.

I’m no expert on trans kids, but if you are female but identify as male, the blockers and treatment stop breast development and other aspects of puberty, like facial hair, etc.

If those kids are forced to go thru puberty, due to these laws, I can definately see deadly consequences.
It’s a very trickly slope legislating morality and/or sexuality.

@jca2 Let me help @Tropical_Willie since he got part way there. Here is the actual text of the bill. Now I did go a bit overboard of an anonymous tip. But the devil is in the details. Someone has to file a petition to get the ERPO going. In the text, if you bother to read it (which I doubt you will) they cleverly push you off to another document to find out some of the details, such as “Family or Household Member”. That sends you off to Section 459-A.social_services_law_section_459-a of the NY Social Service law. I’m helping you with all the links I can since you can’t seem to use Google. If you look at the definitions there, a “Family or Household Member” can be just about anyone. It can be your parents if they live with you or visit regularly. It can be your spouse. It can be a teenaged child 16 or over. It could be an ex-wife or ex-husband. It can be an old boyfriend/girlfriend. It can be a neighbor that stops over regularly. Or actually it can be any of these that claim to stop by regularly. Even more scary, it can be a police officer that thinks you might own a gun.

So the petitioner fills out a form claiming you threatened violence at some murky time in the past or that they think you might present some danger and Voila! your guns are seized after the court gets the paper. You are not called to testify, you are not consulted at all, there is no real verification of the claim at all, You are now guilty until you prove your innocence. So let’s say you are in the middle of a divorce and your ex decides to screw with you. So they fill this out and have the cops messing in your home. Or let’s say the governor pushes the idea that state troopers need to submit X number of these per month. Can’t happen? It already is. Houchul has mandated that troopers fill these out if they stop someone they believe owns guns and are “a danger”.

So now you have your links. Care to actually read them and then tell me how out to lunch I am?

@JLeslie Yes we are talking about assault here. This case made national news but was probably quickly suppressed by the left. Let me catch you up to date. On May 28, 2021 a boy wearing a skirt followed Scott Smith’s daughter into the bathroom and sexually assaulted her. The police verified there was an offense of Forcible Sodomy and Sexual Battery at Stone Bridge High School on May 28, 2021. On June 22 at the school board meeting the school board superintendent claimed the predator transgender student or person just doesn’t exist and that they had no report of assaults happening in their bathrooms. That is what set Mr. Smith off…that his daughter was not only raped but that the school board was calling her a liar to cover it up. The National School Board Association cited him as a problem with parents and wrote a letter to the DoJ asking them to treat parents as domestic terrorists. The NSBA came under a lot of heat and wrote a retraction to the DoJ. But the DoJ sent out guidance to all Federal Prosecutors to treat any vocal parents as domestic terrorists. But back to the original crime. The boy in the skirt showed up on Oct 6 at Broad Run H.S. (in the same town) and was arrested for sexually assaulting another girl. So the school board knowingly lied and did mental gymnastics to try covering up the issue.

^^^ . . .and you point is . . .? ^^^

Florida . . . NAACP…

We all know you are anti LGBTQIA+, anti-Drag, Anti-Biden, ANTI-liberal and ANTI-Democrat

@seawulf575 When I click on your link Section 459-A, it says “page not found.” Click on it and see.

@seawulf575 On my own, I googled the Social Services section that you cited. I found this (I can teach you how to post links if you are having difficulty with the task. It’s not too hard I promise): https://www.nycourts.gov/legacypdfs/forms/erpo/Application_Temporary_ERPO_(UCS-6341)_fillable.pdf

As you can see, it’s a little tiny bit more detailed and involved than “someone just calls in a tip and they march into your house and seize your weapons.” Since this is a court document, apparently it’s only if a Judge orders it that it happens.

I said we are talking about assault. I’m aware of the case. A boy who isn’t trans could assault a girl in the bathroom just as easily, the point is the assault.

It reminds me of arguments against gay men in the military, because the gay men might sexually attack the men they shower and bunk with.

Or, that priests are pediphiles because they can’t get married and can’t have sex.

All of those things are ridiculous!

Even if military barracks were co-ed I expect no one to be sexually assaulted. Assault is assault.

If a man wants to have sex, gay, straight, I hope he isn’t going to get it from a child. Would you ever sexually assault a child?

All this type of thinking is faulty.

@jca2 I tried making the link and all the underscores screwed it up here on Fluther. That’s why the whole entry looks weird

https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._social_services_law_section_459-a

@JLeslie And the whole point is that many of those that are calling Florida a terrorist state fight for rules that allow that boy to dress up like a girl to assault girls. That is why the school board lied and allowed a rape victim to be victimized again…because they were afraid of being branded as some name or another. Florida is not suffering from that fear. They are making decisions on things that go the way many of their constituents want things to go.

@Tropical_Willie Florida…NAACP…wasn’t it you and many other jellies like you that brought up LGBTQ long before I did? Wasn’t Transgenderism mentioned long before I commented? Funny how when your view is challenged with facts you suddenly act like I’m trying to deflect.

Girls get assaulted in hallways and in stairwells at school. Like I said, I think there should be single bathrooms for students, but also note that girls bathrooms have stalls, we aren’t out there peeing in front of each other. The problem is the assault not that the person is gender fluid.

@seawulf575 Funny that you think you’re providing facts…

@JLeslie Except having individual bathrooms for students isn’t practical. When you have 5 minutes between classes, individual bathrooms wouldn’t work. And yes, girls bathrooms have individual stalls. But that doesn’t help if the attacker follows you into the bathroom, except possibly to provide a place to drag the victim. And I don’t believe the guy was gender fluid. He was a sexual predator that was using the rules put into place to allow him access to his victims.

@Cupcake Yes, what was I thinking. Providing citation after citation is just making stuff up. How odd. Just curious…what do you consider facts?

10 GAs @Cupcake
Someone thinks he is winning this . . ‘cause he is so smart” . . . . .. . . . .. . .. . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . .with no facts !
Florida is turning into a “right wing” FASCIST state. . . and someone is happy DeSantis is running it into the ground.

@seawulf575 Obviously, he/she whichever is correct in this case, needs to be dealt with. My point is boys with bad intentions go in the bathrooms anyway, or press a girl up against a wall and feel her up, or you name it, we get assaulted more than you might think!

It’s a tricky topic, but Republicans need to stop making it like trans people are criminals. If they could calm the hell down and talk about the topic with respect for the trans community maybe we could all work together to find reasonable solutions. I don’t remember this being a hot topic until Republicans made it into one. Schools were handling it at a local level. We have men come into women’s bathrooms sometimes, I go into men’s bathrooms, it’s never been such a big deal when there is a good reason. Now, it’s so overblown it’s stupid. They are a tiny percentage of the population.

Wulf. I’m not trying to pile on here. But. Isn’t the boys taking advantage of “trans” laws to assault girls thing a very rare thing?
I would agree with others that assaults, sexual or otherwise, don’t just happen in bathrooms. Our hero Trump, did it in a dressing room…
America already has too many laws, in my opinion. Making, or changing laws for extreme anomalies is not something I’m a fan of.

I thought limiting government power, and keeping the government out of people’s personal lives was a conservative/republican core belief. Am I incorrect?

I agree with your opinion about how individual states are supposed to work, separate but in cohesion with the federal government. I think a fear some have, is that other states or even the federal government will follow the same path and continue radical agendas like DeSantis’s… That’s my concern…

Another concern I have is, when does this stop? What’s the conservative endgame? Other than my opinion?
All this don’t say gay, anti-abortion, anti-LBGTQ+, book banning etc, seems to be leading to thought banning…

Am I just jumping to an unrealistic conclusion?

@JLeslie that’s one of the most used plays, from the current GOP playbook. Dehumanizing groups of people. It’s definitely a fascist trait… It’s disturbing how successful the tactic is, with so many Americans…
Trump lives and breathes fear mongering…
DeSantis is trying to be a similar figure…

@JLeslie Again, it isn’t just the attack. As I said, I don’t believe this guy was trans. But the rules say he didn’t have to prove anything…he just had to say he felt like a girl and he was allowed to use the girls bathroom. All a part of the glorious trans progress plan. That is why the school board tried to hide it…denied it ever happened. Even when there was a record of a call to that school for that reason. The assault is bad, but it’s just a logical conclusion of the idiotic rule.

@MrGrimm888 You can pile on all you want, but you know I will discuss your points one by one.

“Isn’t the boys taking advantage of “trans” laws to assault girls thing a very rare thing?” Not really. Back a few years ago Target went this route, allowing anyone to enter the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. This was one of the first major retailers that did this. Opponents of this said they feared for the safety of women. Oh yeah! I was one and got ridiculed on these pages with statements like I was a transphobe and trans people were not violent. Those that ridiculed completely tried to sidestep the statement that it wasn’t the trans I was worried about, it was the perverts that would use the rule to find victims. What was the result? In the first 16 months the number of sexual assaults doubled over the previous 16 months topping at 80. Is a 100% increase “rare”

“Making, or changing laws for extreme anomalies is not something I’m a fan of.” Nor me. So why do we have to rush to change our bathroom laws for a section of the population that is extremely small? Isn’t that the exact same thing…changing laws for extreme anomalies? Because we don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable? What about the women who now have to deal with them? Ask Reilly Gaines how the biological women felt when Lia Thomas walked into their locker room and began to strip down right there. Most were very uncomfortable. But now we have a situation where if women are uncomfortable with the rules thrust upon them for the sake of the few, if they don’t feel safe, if they are offended…that’s their problem. If they complain they are publicly ostracized…especially by the left and the trans activists.

“I thought limiting government power, and keeping the government out of people’s personal lives was a conservative/republican core belief. Am I incorrect?” It is. So why is the government expanding their power and forcing everyone to accept something that has led to things like sexual assault and rape? Changing existing, common sense laws that the majority of the population was very comfortable with so that a very small part of the population can feel good?

“I think a fear some have, is that other states or even the federal government will follow the same path and continue radical agendas like DeSantis’s… That’s my concern…” Well gee. Funny how those considerations only go one way. The majority of the people don’t agree with the progressive policies. That’s why you DO see more states following along with passing laws so things align with the will of the people in their states. But here’s the interesting part: the response when things don’t go the way the left wants. When they pass laws that are very arguably dangerous and offensive to many all in support of their agenda, the right voices opinions about those laws, articulating their concerns. To that opposition they are branded homophobes, racists, transphobes, Nazis, haters and all sorts of other things. Look at your own statement. “Radical agendas”. What is DeSantis really doing? Basically pushing back against the “progressive” agenda which many feel is a “radical agenda”. Florida is just getting back to Conservative values. Again…not getting into the name calling but dealing with the issue to meet the values of the majority of the people in FL. And here’s the real kicker…the part you are going to love…if the majority of people DON’T agree with the state laws, they can vote out the people that are not in line with the values the people want. In other words if the state congressional members and the governor are working in a vacuum and making changes that are hugely not popular, they can get voted out fairly easily.

“Another concern I have is, when does this stop? What’s the conservative endgame?” To push back against the Leftist agenda, to instill some sanity into society, to make a society that is safe and healthy. It never stops since the left continues to push for more and more radical things, an agenda of supporting fewer and fewer people at the expense of more and more people.

“All this don’t say gay, anti-abortion, anti-LBGTQ+, book banning etc, seems to be leading to thought banning…” That is indeed a possibility. Just as it has been with the Leftist agenda. And it is something that has to be watched. But here’s the difference between the left and the right: the right will admit to the possibility and is willing to police against it. The left never does that. They do everything possible to silence any opposition to their agenda. Look at the major efforts to censor anyone that dared to oppose them for the past 10 years. When you are pushing a viewpoint and then censor anyone that disagrees, isn’t that thought banning? That leads directly to tyrannical rule…something the right doesn’t want. Example: one of the things Florida did was to ban specific books from being taught to children. They were sexually descriptive, not only talking about sex, but describing in detail sexual acts, how to do them, etc. These are books that parents have started reading from at school board meetings and the school board cuts them off because they say the language is not appropriate for the meeting. Can we agree that describing in detail to elementary school children how to give a blowjob is not good thing? But recently there was a case where a school district caved to a single loud-mouthed mother who spoke heatedly about banning books that weren’t that descriptive but she didn’t like them. Again…there has to be some reasoning and some common sense put into things. That school board should have asked what was offensive about the books and then tabled the matter until they could see the facts of the case. Instead they just caved. That is the sort of “leadership” that can lead to tyrannical rule and thought banning. But to be clear, that tactic of shouting your demands is what has worked for the left for a long time. We are finally starting to see that tactic doesn’t work anymore and people are letting them shout.

@seawulf575 I have a feeling we are not too far apart on it, except that I am never trying to demonize the trans community. The Republicans say things that ostracize these children and adults. It’s horrible.

@JLeslie I have no problem with trans folks, but I do believe that children need to be protected against doing damage to themselves until they adults. Unless there is some dreadful disease that needs to be corrected. But question: Does the Trans community feel the same way about non-trans people? They demonize anyone that doesn’t fully support them.

Target policy became a rallying point for anti-LGBTQ groups. Conservative groups were literally sending men into Target bathrooms.

The “study” you reference is by a TERF organization called “Woman Means Something” that pulled from “220 media-reported sexual offenses”. I’d like to see what media they’re referring to.

@seawulf575 Sorry, you can’t turn that around.

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

People who object to people living transgender need to shut the hell up. Their rhetoric is harmful. They can discuss safety concerns, but they need to at the same time show they care about transgender rights and show respect and not behave so terrified. Regarding bathrooms they should make it clear they don’t believe transgender individuals are more dangerous than anyone else. Unless, of course they think they are more likely to commit an assault, then that’s just false and bigoted.

I have concerns about young people altering their bodies permanently, but it seems to me to be a very difficult thing to deal with and society shouldn’t make it harder by screaming disapproval. Parents love their children (with very few exceptions) let’s not have the government dictating what treatment can be done or not. Maybe children who are less sure (I think some are very sure) would have an easier time considering not very drastic measures if they felt accepted and able to change their mind or can cross dress without judgment and dress as their assigned sex too.

Actual research from a reputable source about real statistics.

More actual research.

@JLeslie I’m not turning it around. Ask Riley Gaines. She got attacked because she, as a female athlete, dared to speak out against biological males competing in women’s sports. In other words, she was speaking up for women and was demonized for it.

@raum Isn’t it interesting that you want to discount information I provide using terms like TERF which is lefty activist speak for “women we want to shut up”. But you don’t actually want to address the facts of that study. Instead you cite a “study” from a “Reputable Source” that (a) does nothing but cites an NBC report and (b) doesn’t actually address attacks on women/girls. You try to side step by showing something that cites attacks on transpersons in a bathroom of their biological gender. Then you give “more research” from a lawyer that says there isn’t “empirical data” to support a claim that women are at risk OR that transpersons are at risk from using their biologically assigned bathrooms. That sort of shoots a hole in your first citation. Sorry.

Meanwhile what I cited looked specifically at Target bathroom attacks. Can’t get much more specific than that. And easy to verify. Look up police reports of peeping toms and sexual assaults in Target stores. Select from the year before their policy change to the year after the change. Actually it was 16 months before and after.

But let me ask: why are you fighting so hard against protecting women? Misogyny?

The lead author of the study is Gabriel Murchison, PhD candidate in population health sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Not NBC.

That’s exactly my point. The study you cited is about peeping toms from 220 media-reported incidents over 14 years spread across nearly 2000 target stores in the US.

The study I cited is about actual violence against transgender youth. Using a survey of 3,700 teens. From a non-biased source. Unless you’re now calling Harvard population health scientists misogynists?

@raum
Right wingers have always regarded universities as bastions of bolshevism.

@ragingloli Apparently.

Real concerns about safety in Target stores.

@raum It doesn’t matter who authored it, it still is side stepping the issue I was pointing out. If anything it helps point to the situation to resolve all the problems. Give Trans people their own bathrooms. That stops your fear of boys beating up trans people in the boys room and it eliminates some pervy predator from following girls into the girls bathroom to rape them.

@ragingloli so it is okay in your mind for university professors to threaten reporters with a machete or attack underaged kids because they disagree with their view point? Please…enlighten us as to how that is acceptable to you.

@raum Yes, that must be why they pulled the product. It couldn’t be because of the people leaving the store in droves. Their sales plummeted, just like Bud Light and for the same reason. Did they keep the Satanic gear for kids? Nope. That was another reason people were leaving in droves.

”so it is okay in your mind for university professors to threaten reporters with a machete or attack underaged kids because they disagree with their view point?”

Where did that come from @seawulf575 ?

Enlighten us because you are not making sense on this thread ! ! !

@seawulf575 I never think violence or even a threatening situation is ok, I have been consistent about that, but I have no idea what she said in her presentation. Was she mean and horrible? If she isn’t a nice person then I have a problem with her too. I don’t have that information. Plus, I didn’t see the actual attack. Did someone push her away in a crowded area, or actually come after her. The details matter.

@seawulf575 I don’t really have a retort. I was just wanting to know your thoughts on my queries. You did that succinctly.

As usual. We don’t agree on everything. However. You made some valid points. As in many cases. I think that most people want the same things, but differ in various degrees on how to accomplish common goals.

Thank you for your patient, detailed response… You got me on the voting thing… As you no doubt are aware…

I think I’ve exhausted my opinions on these matters. For now…

I’ll just grab some popcorn, and see where this goes…

@JLeslie By all accounts the presentation was very civil and to the point. It wasn’t denigrating to transpeople, it just was pointing out the biological differences and why it isn’t fair, and potentially dangerous, for biological women to compete against biological males. The crowd was very civil. Obviously some people agreed and some disagreed, but that is at any public speaking event. But the crowd was not shouting or throwing things or charging the stage or anything like that. The attack came after the event, when she was leaving the auditorium. In other words, it was a planned attack…an ambush if you will. They surrounded her, shouted at her, she said they were trying to hit her with one punch hitting her shoulder and another grazing her face. Campus police had to surround her to hustle her into another room they could defend.

@MrGrimm888 As always, people are going to have differing opinions. It is not offensive to me when you voice an opinion with which I disagree. You do it respectfully and in the spirit of debate. I try to respond in kind.

As always, you are a welcome addition to any discussion.

^Same here Wulf…

@seawulf575 Since I don’t know all of the details I can’t really comment, except to say, I do think it’s unfair for biological men to compete with women, but it’s so tricky if hormones have been used since a very young age. In the end I side with barring them from competition when men have a natural physical advantage, but it’s sad to do it. Some sports are separated by gender and the gender doesn’t really matter. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the best female athletes have testosterone levels that are very high naturally.

Some of my most liberal friends agree it’s unfair for trans women to compete with women in some sports. I think more people agree than not.

@JLeslie I go back to the purpose of sports. It is to compare yourself to others of similar abilities. We have to consider gender into that. Men are usually far stonger, heavier, more muscle mass, stonger bones, etc that women are. Just a biological fact. If we do away with separating men and women in competition, then women might as well stop competing, which is not fair to them. Even in things like wrestling or boxing there are weight classes. That is to protect the athletes and to make the competition more fair.

None of this is to say transgender persons shouldn’t be allowed into competition, but it is to suggest that starting a transgender category might be the best solution. Transgender persons can only compete with other transgender persons.

Just because someone identifies as a woman doesn’t change the biological facts that they aren’t.

@seawulf575 It’s a possible solution, but transgender is such a small group of people I don’t know if it would happen. Some sports that are separated could be co-ed like tennis and some others. Maybe a separate co-ed league for some sports.

@JLeslie I think you just touched on part of the problem in society right now. Transgender is such a small group of people. Why is there so much upheaval and demands for society to change to accommodate them? Even in sports…we are willing to screw over thousands and thousands of women to support a very small handful of guys that want to claim they are women. Why?

@seawulf575 In sports I don’t think most people are willing to have an extreme unfair advantage. Aside from that, I do think it’s important that trans people get to feel comfortable, accepted, and reasonable accommodations, the same way we do for the disabled. Also, the laws we have not allowing discrimination in public places.

It seems to me the Republicans started this hellfire as a wedge issue. Going after small minority groups is classic targeting a group that doesn’t have much power and, the people targeting them include people willing to be violent and who proudly boast about carry guns. It is terrorizing. The Nazis went after Jews, the disabled, gay people, gypsies, small minority groups are often victims of extremists.

@JLeslie The problem between the Trans movement and disabled people is very simple: disabled people have reality and facts showing their need. When a person only has to say “I identify as a woman” to claim all the “acceptance and accommodations” being afforded trans people, that presents a problem. That is why I suggested trans people get their own bathrooms. That eliminates that area from being a problem.

As for starting it, you can thank the trans community and the complicit media. They are the ones that started with all this idiocy of pronouns and a hundred different genders yet they couldn’t actually define what a woman was even though many of them said they felt like a woman. And they got extremely demonstrative and arrogant about it. “You aren’t using my pronouns!!!!” was a big thing long before the Republicans started pushing back. It was when they wanted to start pushing it on children that people finally said enough is enough. Look back and think for a moment about how all this got started. Most of the conservatives had the same attitude: hey, you want to believe you are a woman, more power to you. But that wasn’t good enough. Hell, I’ve even seen a discussion where a guy said he wouldn’t have sex with a trans because he isn’t gay and the opponents went crazy. They weren’t willing to accept his view of this or allow him to hold it, but he was supposed to suddenly say he wanted to sleep with a biological man. That is how loony this has gotten. And people are tired of it.

That is why there are so many boycotts going on now. People are tired of having this garbage forced down their throats. So many people that it is destroying well established businesses.

Every day people benefit from ADA laws. We use plenty of ADA accommodations without having to prove anything, the one exception I can think of is parking spaces. There are other exceptions, but that’s one most obvious.

Actually, many disabilities come with some sort of identifiable marker. I had an employee that had PTSD. He carried a card in his wallet. I knew a guy that had Tourette’s and same thing. Wheelchairs, crutches, braces, etc are pretty self evident. But be honest…claiming to be a different gender needs no proof, isn’t permanent, and is generally used by troubled individuals to seek attention. Yes, I know I will get people piling on, but it’s how I feel.

Yes @seawulf575 that is your opinion – - – - you think it is okay to be a right winger !

@Tropical_Willie Yep.

**__.and people that are different from your opinion of normal should be punished !*

@seawulf575 Believe it or not, the majority of people have integrity and a conscience. You are worried about one or two in a sea of millions.

One day it could be you. You might have a family member who is trans, or you might need the ADA button to open a door, or need the scooter at the supermarket, or a pro-life granddaughter might have a deformed fetus that could never survive that she wants to abort. Just be nice, you will feel better.

@Tropical_Willie Don’t you feel the same? That people that differ from your opinion of normal should be punished?

@JLeslie Go back and look. It isn’t actually the trans people I worry about. It is the fools that cause problems by using the rules places put into effect. I do believe that today’s trans movement is filled with people that are looking for attention and to be noticed. Hence the clown makeup (many times), the bright colors, the outlandish shows, etc. Even demanding pronouns is an effort to get attention. They hit me more as children than adults. They dress up and act up so they can get attention.

Believe it or not, I’ve known a trans person well before all this movement started. I worked with him. He started transitioning around 2003 (or somewhere around there). He didn’t do it for attention. He did it for medical reasons. He was hermaphroditic and was told by the doctors he had to choose one sex or the other or he would start having serious health issues. As part of the process he had to spend at least a year dressing and living as a woman and had to get psychological counseling through out. It was unusual for those of us that had worked with him. He started off as a guy that was 6’ tall and about 230#, always wore camo pants and ball cap and had a Fidel Castro style beard. He’d answer the phone with a deep gravelly voice. Over that year he started wearing dresses and makeup (tastefully done), his voice started raising, etc. It was a process. The bathroom situation was one the company had to deal with. He didn’t want to continue using the men’s room and the women were uncomfortable if he used the ladies room. So the company set up a unisex bathroom well before that was a thing. Everyone was satisfied with that.

I always felt sorry for him. He was handed a tough hand. He was married with 2 teenaged daughters when he decided to transition. His choice to be a woman cost him his marriage and put a HUGE strain on his relationship with his daughters. But he moved on with life and transitioning. Nice guy and pleasant (though not really attractive) woman. She handled the transition with courage and grace.

@seawulf575
I don’t punish people because they are different !

But Desantis does . . . .

@Tropical_Willie Of course you do! You chime in with all sorts of personal attacks anytime I post something you disagree with. You are incapable of having a civil discussion about facts. You panic and fall into typical lefty behavior which includes name-calling and false accusations to try shutting up opposition to your beliefs. Go back to any thread we have ever had. That is pretty much your standard behavior.

@seawulf575: look at the pot calling the kettle black!

@jca2 Go back and look at just about any thread you like. I avoid personal attacks and stay on facts and discussion until after idiots, such as yourself, try chiming in. You cannot bring yourself to actually call out the dozens of jellies that regularly attack me but have not problem trying to tag me. Go back to sleep.

I feel sorry for you because feel you are “PUNISHED”

when asked for sources . . . . . . .

when asked for links . . . .. . . . . . .

when you “cut and paste” from “right wing” and “white supremacists” websites

. . . and pulling “poor me” I’m being harassed by “weaponized Fluther”

Find another website to sell you Fascist view point !

Go to Parler or Truth Social @seawulf575 tell them about how you bad mouth non-right people !

@seawulf575 So, are you saying you agree the KKK and other White Supremacists are now in the Republican Party or at minimum vote for Republicans? I’m not calling all Republicans WS, I’m only checking to see if you agree they were Democrats during the time of Lincoln, but now they are Republicans.

@Tropical_Willie Your lunacy continues to shine for all to see. And not surprisingly there are at least 3 loonies right there with you. I frequently give sources and links but, as you just point out, you don’t like them. Of course you NEVER actually address the substance, but rather call it a right wing outlet and focus on that. Typical. Meanwhile, you don’t recognize that you frequently use radical left wing outlets as sources of your “facts”. These links frequently show all sorts of false facts that I rapidly disprove.

Now you want me to go to another website because you just can’t stand an opposing view point. Want to tell me now about how you don’t attack people for that?

@JLeslie I have no idea who they support since I don’t fly in their circles. It would seem they support Republicans, but in the end, it really doesn’t matter. The KKK was a creation of the Democrat party and acted as their enforcers when they were created. Now they are pretty much irrelevant. Ditto that with “white supremacists” which is a created boogeyman of the left. When challenged about what WS groups are out there, the answer is invariably crickets. Ditto that with the Neo-Nazis…a relatively small and irrelevant group. But the Democrat party has moved on and now have Antifa and BLM as their enforcers.

The thing about groups like the KKK and the Neo-Nazis is that they really have only the fear-mongering of the left that keep them alive and well. The association with the past (when they supported the Dems) is why those on the left continue to act like they are movers and shakers and that they influence the world. They don’t.