Alabama lawmakers on Tuesday night approved legislation that would bar transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The bill mandates K-12 schools require students to use multi-person restrooms and locker rooms that match the sex on their original birth certificate. The Alabama House of Representatives voted 74-24 for the bill after two hours of contentious debate where Republicans said it would address an ongoing problem in public schools but opponents said it targets trans youth to score political points. The bill now moves to the Alabama Senate.
“Right now, you’ve got males who are dressing up as females, who are identifying themselves as females, and wanting to use the female bathrooms,” Republican Rep. Scott Stadthagen of Hartselle told lawmakers.
Stadthagen said some schools are now being asked to accommodate transgender students who request to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identity. He said the bill is also about protecting girls’ privacy and safety.
“All you are doing is demonizing an already vulnerable population. It’s all under the guise of protecting children just to win cheap political points. That’s all it is,” Rep. Neil Rafferty, a Democrat from Birmingham, said during debate on the bill.
Rafferty said schools in his Birmingham district have handled accommodations for transgender student, “without targeting vulnerable youth that are already having issues with suicide, mental illness, bullying.”
Stadthagen, in urging support for the bill, cited sexual assaults that have happened in school bathrooms. But opposing lawmakers challenged him to name any bathroom assault where a transgender individual was the attacker.
“How many of those cases involved a transgender woman?” Rep. Merika Coleman, a Democrat from Pleasant Grove, asked. Stadthagen replied he didn’t know.
Similar policies in other states have resulted in litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court last year rejected a Virginia school board’s appeal to reinstate its transgender bathroom ban, handing a victory to transgender rights groups and a former high school student who fought in court for six years to overturn the ban.
The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral arguments Tuesday in the case of a transgender student in Florida who was blocked from using the boy’s bathroom.
Republicans who spoke in favor of the bill said teachers and parents in their districts have expressed discomfort over transgender students using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Rep. Andrew Sorrell, a Republican from Muscle Shoals, said there is a transgender student using the girl’s bathroom at a high school in his district. Sorrell said he would not let his now infant daughter attend that school in the future without this bill.
“I think this is such a commonsense bill. I understand and appreciate that you are trying to protect our daughters,” Sorrell told Stadthagen.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, condemned the passage of the bill.
“Today, the Alabama State House of Representatives took steps to discriminate against transgender students who deserve the fundamental human dignity of being able to use the bathroom without being discriminated against or humiliated,” Human Rights Campaign Alabama State Director Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey said in a statement.
The Alabama bill is the second targeting LGBTQ youths to advance in legislative committee this year. A Senate committee last week advanced a bill that would outlaw the use of puberty-blockers, hormonal treatments and surgery to assist transgender youth 18 and younger in their gender transition.
Last year, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill to block transgender girls from playing on female sports teams at public schools.
Dr. Mehmet Oz leans in to ask a little girl, “Do you remember when your parents thought you were a boy?”
The question was but a few seconds of a full 2010 episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” that focused on the experience of raising transgender children. But the clip now appears in an attack ad aired by a super PAC supporting one of his Republican primary opponents in the crowded and high-stakes race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
Another campaign ad, from Republican U.S. Senate candidate Vicky Hartzler in Missouri, targets transgender people in sports and has her referring to an NCAA athlete — Ivy League championship-winning University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas — by her deadname and saying “women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women.”
And on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is running for re-election, ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-confirming care for kids as abuse.
Derision and disparagement of transgender people, and even of those perceived as their allies, are proliferating on the airwaves and in statehouses across the country as 2022 election campaigns heat up. It’s a classic strategy of finding a “wedge issue” that motivates a political base, political observers say.
“They are just weaponizing the fact that most everyday Americans don’t yet realize that they know someone who is transgender,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “It is easy to fall for a myth about a group of people you don’t know, and that’s just human. … It’s just really unfortunate to now see a group of politicians try to use that to their own advantage.”
Republicans use it because public opinion is on their side, said Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster.
The idea of restricting transgender athletes resonates with parents of high school athletes, motivates the Republican base, and carries swing voters by 2 to 1, Newhouse said.
In a primary, a Republican candidate can use it to establish their conservative credentials and to come out first or forcefully enough to own the issue, Newhouse said. Or it can be used to push a rival to the left, he said.
Asked for comment on the ad, which does not mention sports, Oz’s campaign — using inaccurate terminology to describe transgender women — said only that the celebrity surgeon doesn’t believe that “biological males should compete in women’s sports.”
The efforts to make political hay of transgender and other LGBTQ people extend well beyond just campaign ads.
At least 10 states have banned transgender athletes from participating in sports in a way that is consistent with their gender identity.
Indiana is poised to be the 11th, although federal courts have blocked laws in Idaho and West Virginia. And then there are states that are banning or investigating gender-confirming treatment, such as Texas.
The narrative of transgender people as a threat has strong parallels to bathroom-use and same-sex marriage bans and can be traced to Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign in 1977, said Andrew Proctor, an associate professor of politics at Wake Forest University who studies and teaches LGBTQ politics.
The political framing is often around protecting girls, which is probably designed to broaden its appeal, Proctor and others said.
“It’s good messaging. Who doesn’t want to protect children?” said Don Haider-Markel, a University of Kansas political science professor.
Although examples like Lia Thomas are few across the country, Hartzler — who cites her experience as a high school athlete and coach — said in an interview that the issue of trans athletes is ad-worthy in a Senate race because it is a “representation of the wokeness that is being inflicted upon us from all sides and has gone beyond common sense.”
A spokesperson for University of Pennsylvania athletics said Thomas would not comment on the ad.
The NCAA in January adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes to document testosterone levels before championship selections. For high school sports, states have a hodgepodge of policies.
In Pennsylvania, the TV ad from the super PAC supporting Republican David McCormick tries to characterize Oz as a “Republican in Name Only,” or not conservative enough.
The ad rips a few seconds from the episode and presents it without the context of a show that looked at transgender children from a measured standpoint, with input from a pediatrician and their parents on the kids’ newfound happiness.
The clip in the attack ad stops after Oz gently asks the girl, from a military family, if she remembers when her parents thought she was a boy. The full episode continues:
“A little bit,” the girl answers.
“Talk to me about that a little bit,” Oz says. “What do you remember?”
The girl’s mother, sitting next to her, says: “Like, how did it make you feel when I used to take you and get your hair cut at the barber shop on base?”
“It made me very angry,” Josie answers.
“You did not like your hair cut,” the mother says. “Why not?”
Josie answers: “Because I’m a girl, not a boy.”
A political consultant to Honor Pennsylvania did not return messages asking how that makes Oz not conservative enough. A McCormick campaign spokesperson did not return messages asking whether McCormick agrees with the ad’s attack.
Josie and her mother could not be located for comment on being featured years later in a political attack ad.
“I think it’s incredibly sad when a political leader finds that the only way that they can get themselves elected to office is by attacking vulnerable children and their parents,” said Lisa Middleton, the transgender mayor of Palm Springs, California. “Of all the issues that are before us in this world and this country today … to make it more difficult for a transgender child and their parents to navigate their life to adulthood is irresponsible. It’s un-American.”
Republicans aren’t the only party that uses wedge issues — Democrats often cast the wealthy in a negative light for political gain.
But the GOP’s targeting of transgender people may have a shelf life, just as both parties’ efforts against same-sex marriage shifted along with public opinion, said Paul Goren, a political psychology professor at the University of Minnesota. If it doesn’t pay off with electoral wins, he said, then Republicans will move on.
In Texas, Abbott’s letter came just a week before the state’s Republican primary, the nation’s first for the 2022 cycle. It aligns with a recent legal opinion from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who is also running for re-election, that is directed at gender-confirming treatments incorporating puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Pushback in Texas is coming from civil liberties groups, medical professionals and district attorneys in some counties.
Kimberly Shappley, a Texas nurse and mother of an 11-year-old transgender girl, Kai, said she was distraught and had begun looking for a job in another state. The family has already been on edge for years over efforts to prevent transgender children from using public bathrooms that match their identity, she said.
“As the parent of a trans kid, I can tell you that our close-knit community is just a wreck,” Shappley said on a video news conference organized by the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s just been a lot of tears. It’s been a lot of, ‘Do we have our documents in order? Do we have our plan in place? Is this the time we have to move?’”
But it’s hard to know where to go, she said.
“The whole United States is on fire with anti-trans legislation. It’s not just Texas,” Shappley said. “What is the safe place that you think trans kids can live right now? Because there’s not that many left.”
A beloved trans Latina woman allegedly killed in Lubbock, Texas, has become 2022’s third victim of an unceasing “epidemic of violence” in the US.
Cypress Ramos, a 21-year-old who could always be found smiling and cheering on her friends, was found dead in a storage unit on the morning of 12 February.
She died of blunt force trauma to the head after being struck by an unspecified hard object, according to the murder warrant for 32-year-old Allan Montemayor, who has been charged for Ramos’ murder, KCBD reported.
Ramos was found inside a locked container in the 2700 block of North Frankford Avenue after a fire was reported by a neighbour. Lubbock Fire Rescue put out the blaze only to discover a “dead body” inside at 11.30am.
As police arrived at the storage unit, officers elsewhere were dispatched to Montemayor who told cops he “f**ked up” and that there was a body in a storage unit set on fire.
Surveillance footage showed Montemayor’s pickup truck parked outside the unit. Both he and Ramos entered the unit – one hour and 20 minutes later, only he left and drove away.
When pressed by police about what took place inside, the warrant said he simply “shrugged and stated: ‘Isn’t it apparent?’” He alleged that Ramos has set a fire before coming at him with a bat and, “at this point, it was either me or [her],” Montemayor added, misgendering the victim.
Montemayor later told detectives that he believed a “song” had compelled Ramos to launch an attack against him in the unit. He also said, however, that the same song gave him instructions to kill the victim.
Lubbock County Sheriff investigators said that Montemayor had blood on his legs as well as his pants, said Ramos’ friend, drag queen Camilla Urbina, to KCBD.
“He tried to burn my friend, literally,” she alleged. “Like burn, burn them up.”
“There was blood on his pants, I believe that something else happened. And the truth will come out. And you will pay, promise.”
Montemayor is currently in the Lubbock County Detention Center where he is held on a $500,000 bond for a charge of murder.
Cypress Ramos was ‘always smiling’ and ‘loved everyone,’ friends say
According to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT+ campaign group that has been monitoring trans homicide rates since 2013, Ramos is “at least” the third trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming person violently killed in 2022.
It comes after last year’s record-breaking death tally of at least 56, many of them Black trans women, an already dizzyingly high figure that has continued to climb as more homicide cases emerge months after 2021 came to an end.
HRC has long warned that its own count is likely inaccurate, given that three-fourths of trans victims are misgendered and deadnamed by the police and press.
The American Medical Association has warned of an “epidemic of violence” against trans Americans – a statement repeated by president Joe Biden. The latest victim of this wave of violence, Ramos, was to those who knew her a “friend, a sister, a daughter”.
“Cypress was always smiling,” a friend of Ramos told Equality Texas in a statement on Saturday (19 February). “She was so tiny, so it felt like my arms wrapped around her three times.
“She just loved everyone,” the friend said before Equality Texas added: “A bright light like Cypress deserved to shine bright for much longer.”
The state-level advocacy group said a candlelight vigil in honour of Ramos’ life was held later that day at Tim Cole Memorial Park.
“Cypress Ramos’ death was an awful end to such a young life,” Tori Cooper, who leads HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement.
“Her story highlights how trans women of colour are still devalued in our society.
“We must all work to end the epidemic of violence against transgender and non-binary people. May justice be served in this case.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., laid out a conservative blueprint this week for a GOP takeover of Congress, and included in his “11-Point Plan to Rescue America” are a number of proposals that would limit the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.
The document outlines Republican policy objectives on everything from the economy to abortion, but the point that caused the most alarm to LGBTQ advocates was in a section titled “Gender, Life, Science.”
“Men and women are biologically different, ‘male and female He created them,'” Scott wrote. “Facts are facts, the earth is round, the sun is hot, there are two genders, and abortion stops a beating heart. To say otherwise is to deny science.”
In this section, Scott — who served as Florida’s governor from2011 to 2019 — called for nationwide bans on government forms that “include questions about ‘gender identity’ or ‘sexual preference’”; gender-affirming procedures on minors; and transgender women and girls participating on female sports teams.
“We will protect women’s sports by banning biological males from competing,” the policy outline states. “It is hugely unfair and would erase many of the gains women have made in athletics over the last 50 years.”
Scott’s proposals echo the ongoing nationwide push of anti-LGBTQ legislation by state lawmakers.
So far this year, conservative state lawmakers have filed more than 170 anti-LGBTQ bills — already surpassing last year’s 139 total — according to Freedom for All Americans. The majority of the bills target transgender minors’ ability to receive gender-affirming health care or participate in sports.
In the eighth point of Scott’s plan, labeled simply “Family,” he called out the “radical left” for seeking to “devalue and redefine the traditional family,” using language associated with activists opposed to same-sex marriage.
LGBTQ advocates slammed Scott’s proposals.
Brandon Wolf, the press secretary for advocacy group Equality Florida, said that Scott’s manifesto was “affirmation of what we’ve been trying to warn folks about.”
“What is happening in Florida isn’t isolated,” Wolf told NBC News. “It’s a test market for a national strategy by the extreme right to legislate this country back to 1960, mire us in culture wars and decimate the progress we’ve won.”
Scott, a first-term senator who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is not the only Republican to preview how the GOP would pursue anti-LGBTQ legislation should it regain power in Washington.
Last month, former President Donald Trump said he would ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports nationwide if he were re-elected.
“We will ban men from participating in women’s sports,” Trump said during a rally in Conroe, Texas. “So ridiculous.”
Aside from how the GOP should navigate LGBTQ rights, Scott’s manifesto called for Republicans to “eliminate racial politics in America,” finish building a southern border wall and name it after Trump, and battle “the new religion of wokeness.”
While having surgery is not a requirement of being transgender and not everyone medically transitions (perhaps out of choice, due to financial situations, or other reasons), undergoing surgical procedures can be a big step in some trans folks’ transitions.
After surgery comes a healing process, and not just the physical kind, as trans people start a new chapter in their lives with new mental and emotional challenges. However, for some, accepting their scars from surgery is a major aspect of accepting who they are as a person.
Let’s meet three trans people who found power in learning to love their scars.
Lara Provided
Lara
Lara realized she did not identify as masculine when she was a toddler, however, they were forced by family members and religious pressures to hide their identity until they turned 30.
While coming out is still an ongoing process for Lara with other relatives and friends, she decided to have bottom surgery to affirm her feminine identity.
“I refused to get any surgeries until I came to terms with who I am and the body I was born with. I didn’t want to undergo surgery than still have the same issues with myself on the inside as before, since surgery only solves some of the challenges of being trans. The real challenge is loving and accepting who you are on the inside,” they say.
Lara shares that the biggest benefit from her surgery is that she can’t produce testosterone anymore.
“I had to come to terms with the fact that I would depend on injecting hormones for the rest of my life rather than feel the way I did with the wrong, naturally occurring, chemicals in my body. I had to accept that there was nothing wrong with me. There was something wrong with the way my body produced chemicals.”
Following on from their surgery, Lara says their scars have healed largely, but she can still feel them.
She says they are a constant reminder that she was able to become their whole, true self.
“The decision to have surgery changed my entire life. I’m reminded of that decision every time I trace my fingers over my scars, and it makes me feel validated. It allows me to move through my days with more clarity and purpose.”
When asked their advice for other trans folk learning to accept their bodies post-surgery, Lara wants everyone to know that self-love is the key.
“Scars from gender-affirming surgeries are a mark of self love. Let your scars be a permanent reminder to love yourself and your identity.”
Faye
Faye
Faye also had an emotional experience when she saw her scars for the first time after surgery.
“The first time I looked down and saw my scars after surgery, I thought they were so beautiful that I cried. I felt proud and sexy because they symbolized the fact that I took charge of a bad situation and did everything I could to ensure that I would live a long, healthy life. They prove I’m a warrior.”
She feels like she saved her own life by choosing to transition and live as her authentic self, and Faye wants the world to accept trans scars and how they mark a chapter in someone’s life.
“We need to show our real skin so others can see what that looks like. We need to show our scars because they are simply part of being human, and mine just add to the tapestry of my life,” Faye says.
She continues to assure others that, while others may see your scars and judge you, how you feel inside is what matters most.
“Only you know what you’ve been through and how much stronger you’re becoming because of it. If you want to talk about your scars and your journey, that’s fine. You are allowed to show them off.”
However, Faye also highlights how surgery isn’t just one thing, since representations of trans people in the media tend to focus on the surgical aspects of transitioning, especially bottom surgery.
“Surgery can be incredibly affirming for people like me who wish to have it. But, it’s important to remember that hormonal transitions are also valid medical options and can produce results that alleviate dysphoria.
“But, ultimately, having or not having surgery doesn’t make anyone’s experience more or less valid. Surgery simply changes the body in which you experience your gender, not your gender itself. So, to any other trans people, I remind you that your gender is valid, regardless of whether you want to have surgery.”
Ethan
Ethan
Finally, we meet Ethan, who came out as transgender in the summer of 2016. He first recognized that he was trans in his teenage years, but coming out was a journey, especially to his parents.
“Admittedly, it took both of my parents quite some time to adjust, to move through their own phases of processing and understanding, and eventually settling in a place of support and acceptance. With that, of course, came many a time of still using my birth name, or female pronouns which was impossibly hard to cope with. But, I knew they needed time and space to let the new reality become familiar territory,” he shares.
Fortunately, his family unit is now stronger than ever and he has fiercely supportive friends who are quick to correct others and advocate on Ethan’s behalf when he isn’t present.
“I had top surgery in 2019, but that in itself is quite a broad and all-encompassing term for any of the chest masculinizing surgeries transmasculine folks undergo. I had a double incision, bilateral mastectomy, with free nipple grafts.”
Ethan says his initial focus of importance when he came out was to start testosterone and effectively go through a second puberty. He wanted the world to see him the way he was on the inside.
However, once that started to kick in and the discomfort began to lessen around his image, he felt overwhelming dysphoria around his chest. Therefore, chest surgery and no longer needing to wear a binder to compress the tissue and give a flatter appearance in clothes was really important for Ethan.
He says having surgery solidified the comfort he had found in his identity, and he felt immediate relief post-op that he struggles to describe with words.
Following surgery, Ethan has been on a journey with his scars, since he initially experienced pain and frustration that his body wasn’t healing quickly as his incisions popped open.
“This means now that parts of my scars are thicker and more raised than perhaps they would have been. For at least a year or more that really got me down. I desperately wanted my scars to heal and fade to be barely noticeable so that they didn’t ‘out’ me. However, chest surgery has been a wholly liberating and genuinely life-changing process,” he shares.
Ethan does admit that surgery isn’t a “fix,” and there are still aspects of his body where he doesn’t feel comfortable, but he has developed a happy relationship with his scars.
“There are days where they itch and are tight, and that’s frustrating. But, there is comfort in sitting massaging them with creams to help with the long term fading and settling that scar tissue does over many years. I never once have felt ashamed of my scars.”
He says scars tell a story, and his are a story of strength and ownership as he began living as himself.
“Scars come in many colors, shapes, sizes, and body locations, and that’s something to celebrate.”
Two more violent deaths of transgender Americans have just been reported, both from December, bringing 2021’s total to 53. It was already by far the nation’s deadliest year on record for trans people.
Za’niyah Williams, a 21-year-old Black trans woman, died after a hit-and-run car crash in Houston December 20, TransGriot reports. She remained unidentified for some time and was misgendered by police and media outlets. But her loved ones have come forward to identify her.
“You were loved and will always be a part of me!” a cousin wrote on social media. “Fly high you beautiful butterfly.” A friend posted that Williams was “a very sweet and smart young lady and always ripped the runway when she dressed up.”
“Za’niyah Williams was a bright soul who at 21 years old had the world in front of her,” Tori Cooper, the Human Rights Campaign’s director of community engagement for its Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a press release. “It is horrific that her life was taken from her by an unknown assailant who drove off without a care. She was also misgendered in initial reports until she was identified by her mother. We must create a society that respects Black trans women and all transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people. Although we honor them in death, they deserve to live, and they deserve justice for the crimes that too often end their lives.”
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office asks that anyone with information call (713) 221-6000 and reference case number #2112-07879.
In Albuquerque, N.M., white trans woman Nikki Turietta, 31, was found shot to death December 31, TV station KOB reports. She was found in her home, shot in the head. Turietta was also initially misgendered by media.
Jen Struck, Turietta’s aunt, described her as “a character” and “just completely free spirit.” Turietta had grown up in Albuquerque and had returned there a few years ago after traveling all over the U.S. and internationally, Struck told KOB. Turietta had just celebrated the holidays with her family.
“We’re just all in shock,” Struck said. “I don’t think it’s really set in for some of us yet.” Violent crime has been rising in Albuquerque, with a record 114 homicides in 2021.
Turietta’s death remains under investigation by Albuquerque police. “We want justice,” Struck said. “We’re desperate for answers. We want to know what happened. Somebody’s got to know something. They didn’t commit suicide.”
“It is horrific that on the last day of 2021, yet another transgender person was killed in what has been a record year for fatal violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people,” Cooper said. “This violence has been unceasing, but so too must our efforts to combat it never stop. We must commit to creating a safe and affirming culture for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.”
Kai Shappley, an 11-year-old transgender girl from Texas, is in the spotlight once again after she was named a Time Kid of the Year finalist. Kai, an elementary school student, first made national headlines in April, when she testified about trans rights before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs.
After she was named one of five Kid of the Year finalists, Kai and her mom, Kimberly Shappley, talked to NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin about the motivation behind Kai’s activism.
“I started my activism because I thought it was unfair how they were treating us,” Kai said. “We’ve seen a lot of what’s going on multiple times in history, and it’s just history repeating itself over and over. It’s terrible, so I started speaking out, because I wanted that to stop.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/VFGHDEx?_showcaption=true&app=1
Texas is one of over 30 states that considered legislation targeting transgender youths last year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Texas alone considered over 50 such bills, according to the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas. It was one of those bills — a measure that sought to criminalize providing or assisting minors with gender-affirming health care — that led Kai to testify last spring.
“It makes me sad that some politicians use trans kids like me to get votes from people who hate me just because I exist,” she said at the time. “God made me, God loves me for who I am, and God does not make mistakes.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/lVVrWXE?_showcaption=true
The Shappley family has moved three times in the past few years and now lives in Austin because “it’s the safest place” for Kai to be, Kimberly Shappley told KXAN.
The Shappleys anticipate that they will have to continue fighting bills that target transgender youths, and that’s fine by Kai.
“I’m a bold and strong, independent little lady,” Kai said, “and I will keep fighting for as long as I need to.”
More than a year after the January 6th insurrection where a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and violently entered the Capitol Building, leading to multiple deaths and injuries. Now, prosecutors are readying themselves for the trials of a number of the alleged organizers of the events.
While some insurrectionists, like Brandon Stratka, have cut deals to provide investigators with information, others have stood their ground. Jessica Watkins, a trans woman who is one of the most prominent figures in the trials, has maintained her innocence and is set to argue her case at the end of January.
Who is Jessica Watkins?
Jessica Watkins is an Army veteran. She served in the military under her former name, serving in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003. Later, she was a first responder as a firefighter and emergency medical technician in North Carolina. She lived in Woodstock, Ohio with her boyfriend Montana Siniff. There, she owned and operated a bar and grill with him called The Jolly Roger.
Watkins was a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers. In addition, she formed a small, local “paramilitary group” according to Buzzfeed News, called the Ohio State Regular Militia.
What did Jessica Watkins have to do with the insurrection?
According to social media evidence, records obtained by investigators, and various videos, Watkins traveled to Washington, DC to take part in the insurrection and, wearing full tactical gear, was a part of the group that entered the Capitol, getting at least as far as the rotunda. According to prosecutors, though, she not only participated in the action but helped to coordinate it: investigators showed texts to those she wanted to join her militia and other messages where she tried to get them to come to trainings. She mentioned getting the recruits “fighting fit” for inauguration.
After Watkins home was raided — she was not there — where FBI agents found numerous firearms, pool sticks cut down to baton size, and medical supplies, she turned herself into police.
What does Jessica Watkins say happened at the January 6 insurrection?
According to Watkins, she was in Washington D.C. as security for various speakers for the events leading up to the Capitol invasion. Her posts on Parler made this clear. In another Parler post, she wrote that she had been a part of the storming of the Capitol.
“Teargassed, the whole, 9,” she wrote. “Pushed our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even. The news is lying (even Fox) about the Historical Events we created today.” In interviews, she has consistently claimed that once inside she tried to stop others from vandalizing the building.
After being arrested, in court Watkins disavowed the Oath Keepers and said she had disbanded her militia. A judge ruled that she was to remain in custody until her trial though Watkins said she was being treated unfairly as she is transgender. She said that injuries she had were not treated and she was forced to remain naked in her cell for days. Officials denied this happened.
“My name is Jessica Watkins, and I am a January 6th defendant,” she wrote in a statement to The Gateway Pundit in December. ” I have been incarcerated nearly a year for crimes I did not commit, so as to serve as a pawn for ‘The Party’ to exploit. And exploit they have.” In the statement, she claimed that January 6 was a riot incited by police.
“Our charges are false, the truth manipulated, and we will one day be vindicated,” she wrote.
What are the charges against Jessica Watkins for the January 6 insurrection?
Watkins is of the most high-profile cases in the prosecution of those involved in the January 6 insurrection. According to investigators, she went beyond being a participant and was an organizer of the event, recruiting, training, and directing others. On January 13, 2022, she was one of 11 individuals indicted in federal court with seditious conspiracy. She has also been charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building, and tampering with documents.
Watkins faces decades in jail. The sedition charge carries a maximum of 20 years.
Watkins first trial begins on January 31, 2022, and then she has another trial on April 19, 2022.
A gay rights advocate who was integral in legalizing same-sex marriage in Florida was found dead in a landfill in what is being investigated as a homicide, authorities said Wednesday.
Jorge Diaz-Johnston, 54, the brother of former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, had been last seen alive Jan. 3, Tallahassee police said. Shortly after a missing person alert was issued for him Saturday, his body was found in a trash pile at a landfill in Baker, Florida, about 60 miles west of the Alabama border, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
Don Johnston and Jorge Diaz wait to speak to the media and supporters after a court hearing on same-sex marriage in Miami on July 2, 2014.J Pat Carter / AP file
Diaz, who served as mayor of Miami from 2001 to 2009, released a statement on Twitter confirming his brother’s death.
“I am profoundly appreciative of the outpouring of support shown to me, my brother-in-law Don, and my family after the loss of my brother, Jorge Diaz-Johnston,” he wrote. “My brother was such a special gift to this world whose heart and legacy will continue to live on for generations to come.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/jv8Jwwr?_showcaption=true&app=1
While he had a high-profile brother, Diaz-Johnston made a name for himself. In 2014, he and his husband, Don Diaz-Johnston, and five other same-sex couples sued the Miami-Dade County clerk’s office after they were barred from getting married.
“For us, it’s not just only a question of love and wanting to express our love and have the benefits that everyone else has in the state, but it’s an issue of equality, and it’s a civil rights issue,” Jorge Diaz-Johnston told NBC Miami at the time.
Same-sex couples who had challenged the wedding ban celebrate after Circuit Court Judge Sarah Zabel lifted the stay, allowing gay couples to marry Jan. 5, 2015, in Miami.Walter Michot / Pool via Getty Images file
In January 2015, a Miami-Dade circuit court judge ruled in the couples’ favor, legalizing same-sex marriage in the South Florida county more than a year before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Elizabeth Schwartz, who represented the six couples in the case, called Diaz-Johnston’s death “heartbreaking.”
“They fought so hard for their love to be enshrined and to be able to enjoy the institution of marriage, and for the marriage to end in this way — in this gruesome, heartbreaking way — there are no words,” she told NBC Miami.
Shortly after winning their case, Jorge and Don Diaz-Johnston married in March 2015, according to public records. Coupled with an image of his husband grinning at the camera over dinner, Don Diaz-Johnston addressed his death on Facebook.
“There are just no words for the loss of my beloved husband Jorge Isaias Diaz-Johnston,” he wrote. “I can’t stop crying as I try and write this. But he meant so much to all of you as he did to me. So I am fighting through the tears to share with you our loss of him.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/oZecGrV?_showcaption=true&app=1
The current mayor of Miami, Daniella Levine Cava, acknowledged Diaz-Johnston’s role in advancing LGBTQ rights in the city.
“In Jorge Diaz-Johnston, we lost a champion, a leader, and a fighter for our LGBTQ community,” she wrote on Twitter. “His tragic loss will be felt profoundly by all who loved him, as we honor his life and legacy.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem released a national advertisement on Thursday promoting legislation that targets transgender youths.
Without saying the word “transgender” or “trans,” the ad promotes a bill that Noem, a Republican, introduced last month. The measure would prevent trans girls from playing on any female sports teams at school, including club teams.
Noem, the first woman to serve as South Dakota governor, said it would be “the strongest law in the nation protecting female sports.”
“In South Dakota, only girls play girls’ sports,” the ad begins. “Why? Because of Gov. Kristi Noem’s leadership. Noem has been protecting girls’ sports for years and never backed down.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/Qt6aXee?_showcaption=true&app=1
Noem wrote on Twitter that the ad, which promotes her 2022 re-election campaign, will appear on prime-time national news shows Thursday evening.
But last month, she made an about-face, introducing the new bill, which mandates that students compete on sports teams that match the sex listed on their birth certificates “issued at or near the time of the athlete’s birth.”
“Common sense tells us that males have an unfair physical advantage over females in athletic competition,” the governor said in a statement at the time.
“I am certain that Governor Noem would much rather talk about this issue than her pandemic response,” said Gillian Branstetter, a longtime trans advocate and the media manager for the National Women’s Law Center. “We have significantly larger problems, for example, problems that exist! Those would be good problems to solve as opposed to conjuring fictional ghosts of a changing society and attempting to exploit people’s ignorance.”
Major sports organizations, including the NCAA and the International Olympic Committee, allow transgender and nonbinary athletes to compete on teams that correspond to their gender identity under certain conditions. The IOC updated its guidelines on transgender athletes in November, removing policies that required competing trans athletes to undergo what it described as “medically unnecessary” procedures or treatment.
However, South Dakota and 29 other states introduced restrictions on trans athletes last year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group. Ten states have passed laws restricting trans athletes, with nine doing so last year.
Since the start of the new year, state lawmakers in at least seven states have proposed laws that would limit the rights of transgender and nonbinary youths. Several of those measures mirror Noem’s bill, blocking trans students from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity.
