When Amy Vance and Martha Martin checked out nearly all of the books from the Rancho Peñasquitos branch of the San Diego Public Library, they had a nefarious plan. The incompetent duo emailed the administrator that they would not return the “inappropriate” books.
The duo thought they had the upper hand with the plan to hold the books hostage, but instead, their plan backfired spectacularly. They inadvertently raised $45,000 for the library to expand its LGBTQ+-themed programming and materials.
“Minor children have the right to belong to a community that respects their innocence and allows families to have conversations about sex and sexual attraction privately, and only when parents deem it appropriate,” the women wrote in a June 15 email to the library after checking the books out. “It’s time for the American public libraries to once again be a respectful space for young children to freely explore great ideas that unite and inspire us all, rather than places where controversial and divisive new ideological movements are given free rein to promote their theories and policy positions about sexuality to children without the consent or notification of parents.”
Manager Adrianne Peterson told the New York Times that she felt bad that the Pride display wasn’t up to par this year due to staff vacations and training. So when the pair opted to subvert the system, she was surprised that the display had caused such consternation.
Libraries typically have lax return policies and allow patrons to check out books repeatedly. The fees for returning them late are minimal and rarely enforced to encourage low-income people to check out materials without worrying about charges.
But when Peterson shared the women’s email, city councilor Marni von Wilpert amplified the news, asking people to support the library. And that’s where it all went sideways for the would-be censors.
“Stacks” of Amazon boxes began to pour into the building as people from around the nation replaced the stolen books – including ones that the system didn’t have already. Thousands of dollars in donations were raised for the library, and the city pitched in with an extra $30,000 to help expand the offerings and programming further – including the drag queen story hour, a particular target for rightwing prudes.
After public condemnation and realizing their plan had backfired, the two women returned the books to the library. They’re currently avoiding the media and have no comment on how their plan blew up in their faces.
Across the country, schools and public libraries have increasingly become the focus of conservatives attempting to ban books dealing with the LGBTQ+ experience. At the same time, armed members of far-right hate groups have shown up at local libraries to intimidate patrons attending drag queen story time events in some states.
Michigan has just become the 22nd state to ban the use of conversion therapy on minors.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills into law Wednesday — House Bill 4617, defining conversion therapy, which seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and House Bill 4616, which bars licensed therapists from subjecting minors to the practice and lays out penalties for violation, including discipline by public health regulators.
Both take effect in 90 days.
“Today, we are banning the horrific practice of conversion therapy in Michigan and ensuring this is a state where you can be who you are,” Whitmer said in a statement. “As a mom of a member of the community and a proud, lifelong ally, I am grateful that we are taking action to make Michigan a more welcoming, inclusive place.”
Conversion therapy has been condemned as ineffective and harmful by every major medical and mental health organization. Research has indicated it heightens the risk of suicide among LGBTQ+ young people.
Equality Michigan praised the laws’ passage. “Governor Whitmer has demonstrated unwavering commitment to the wellbeing and safety of Michigan’s LGBTQ+ youth and is sending the powerful message that every young person in our state deserves to grow up free from the damaging effects of this dangerous practice,” Executive Director Erin Knott said, according to MLive. “By affirming that LGBTQ+ youth should be embraced, supported, and loved for exactly who they are, Michigan is paving the way for a brighter and more inclusive future for everyone who lives, works, and visits here.”
Praise also came from the Human Rights Campaign. “This comes on the heels of Governor Whitmer establishing the first ever, state-wide LGBTQ+ Commission this past June, in addition to signing into law a bipartisan amendment to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) that explicitly includes protections for sexual orientation and gender identity,” said a press release from the group. “All of this progress is not only due to decades of organizing by pro-LGBTQ+ groups and activists, it’s a direct result of the will of Michigan voters in the 2022 midterm elections, who rejected a dangerous, anti-LGBTQ+ campaign by radical politicians.”
“By signing the conversion therapy ban into law today, Governor Whitmer continued to demonstrate that she is a champion for LGBTQ+ equality,” Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal at HRC, said in the release. “So-called conversion therapy is a dangerous and discredited practice that will hopefully never see the light of day again here in Michigan.”
Warbelow added that voting matters “because it directly led to days like today.” She referenced Whitmer’s establishment of an LGBTQ+ Commission last month and other pro-LGBTQ+ legislation supported by the governor.
In addition to the 22 states, the District of Columbia and numerous cities and counties bar licensed therapists from subjecting minors to conversion therapy.
In January, Italy’s right-wing government ordered state agencies to cease registration of children born to same-sex couples. Now they’ve taken it a step further: a state prosecutor in northern Italy has ordered the cancellation and re-issuance of 33 birth certificates of lesbian couples’ children, endangering access to medical care and education.
Non-gestational mothers are receiving letters informing them that they are being retroactively removed from their children’s birth certificates. New birth certificates are being issued listing the name of only one of the child’s mothers.
In February, Human Rights Watch released the first global report on violence and discrimination against lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ+) women, which found access to fertility treatment and the rights of non-gestational lesbian mothers were two of the top concerns for LBQ+ activists across 26 countries. In January 2022, a United States court removed lesbian mother Kris Williams from her child’s birth certificate, replacing it with the name of the sperm donor, who petitioned for custody. In December 2022, a Japanese draft law proposed prohibiting doctors from providing fertility treatment to any woman not married to a man.
In Italy, lesbian couples cannot access fertility treatment, same-sex couples cannot marry, and the law does not explicitly regulate whether same-sex parents can both be registered. Many lesbian couples go abroad for fertility treatment and even to give birth, then bring home their child’s birth certificate for registration with the local municipality. Italy’s recent moves attack this already expensive, precarious, and difficult path to legal parenthood.
In interviews I conducted for the 2023 investigation, queer women’s concerns about parental rights often superseded hallmark LGBT rights issues, like marriage equality or the decriminalization of same-sex conduct. Lesbians want to create and protect their families, regardless of if, when, and how the government decriminalizes their lives and recognizes their relationships.
The right to create a family is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the European Convention on Human Rights – all of which Italy has ratified.
Italy should immediately reinstate the women removed from their children’s birth certificates and drop its ban on the registration of children born to same-sex couples. Authorities should pass inclusive parental recognition bills that explicitly recognize the legal parenthood of non-gestational lesbian parents.
ndiana State Police and forensic investigators have completed DNA profiles for two different humans whose remains were exhumed from the estate of now-deceased wealthy Republican businessman Herbert Baumeister. Police believe Baumeister murdered over 20 men and boys that he met at Indianapolis gay bars during the mid-1980s and ’90s.
Baumeister, who is considered one of Indiana’s most notorious serial killers, lethally shot himself in the head on July 3, 1996, after police found evidence of 11 men’s bodies hidden at his 18-acre Fox Hollow Farm estate in Westfield, 20 miles north of Indianapolis. Investigators recovered over 10,000 charred bones and bodily fragments from the property. Police believe the remains may belong to at least 25 different murder victims, Yahoo! Newsreported.
So far, police have only identified eight of the bodies, but late last week investigators announced that they recovered two complete DNA profiles for two additional bodies. They will now check these profiles against DNA samples donated by families who suspect Baumeister of possibly killing their missing relatives.
If the profiles don’t match those samples, police will compare them to those stored in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a national database of DNA evidence taken from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scenes, and missing persons. If that fails, investigators may partner with private DNA testing companies that conduct “forensic genetic genealogy” to see if the profiles match any DNA they can access.
Hamilton County Coroner Jeff Jellison told WXIN that investigators will continue to test the numerous bone and body fragments to see if they can complete additional DNA profiles for other victims. However, DNA may not be recoverable from all of the bones and fragments, Jellison said.
Baumeister was a married father of three and the founder of the local Sav-A-Lot thrift stores that made him wealthy. His wife of 25 years said that she and Baumeister only had sex six times during their marriage and that she never saw him nude. In 1994, his 13-year-old son found a partly buried human skeleton on the estate, but Baumeister said the cadaver had belonged to his father who was a doctor.
In the early 1990s, when Indiana State Police began investigating the murders of gay men who had last been seen at Indianapolis gay bars, one man identified Baumeister as a person who nearly suffocated him to death during a sexual encounter at Baumeister’s estate. Concerned about Baumeister’s increasingly erratic behavior, Baumeister’s wife allowed police to search the family’s estate while he was out of town.
Police initially found evidence of 11 bodies on the estate’s grounds and issued a warrant for his arrest. In response, Baumeister killed himself at Pinery Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada.
Police also suspect that Baumeister may have been the “I-70 Strangler,” a serial murderer who dumped his naked or partially clothed victims’ bodies near Interstate 70 during the late 1980s. Though the serial killings remain officially unsolved, in April 1999, police named Baumeister as their prime suspect in the case, noting that bodies stopped appearing on the interstate after Baumeister purchased his estate in 1991. Baumeister’s victims ranged in age from 14 to 45.
Same-sex intercourse is already illegal in the West African nation, and is punishable by up to three years in jail.
The Ghanaian parliament has been debating the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values bill for two years, with most MPs in favour of it.
It would criminalise same-sex relations, being transgender and advocating for LGBTQ+ rights (which alone is punishable by up to 10 yeas in jail under the bill), Reuters reported.
A legal challenge, filed by academic researcher Amanda Odoi, said the proposed legislation would affect donor aid and other financial support for the country, according to the news agency.
However, the Supreme Court ruled last week that her arguments were not convincing enough to grant an injunction, meaning Ghana’s parliament has a clear path to getting the bill through its final stages and signed into law.
Shortly after the bill had its first reading in August 2021, a group of 13 United Nations experts called for it to be rejected, branding it “a textbook example of discrimination” and a “recipe for conflict and violence”.
Earlier this year, United States vice-president Kamala Harris, standing next to Ghana president Nana Akufo-Addo during a press conference, said she felt “very strongly” about supporting the development of LGBTQ+ rights in Africa.
It was something she considered “a human rights issue and that will not change,” she added.
Other African countries are also clamping down on queer rights.
Uganda has already passed a strict anti-homosexuality bill into law. It introduces a death sentence for “aggravated homosexuality”, which is defined as sex with a person under the age of 18 and having sex while HIV positive, among other categories.
Kenya is also considering an anti-homosexuality bill. The Family Protection Act would see a complete ban on activities that “promote homosexuality”, including openly identifying as LGBTQ+ or wearing Pride emblems.
It heavily reflects the law in Uganda, with a similar “aggravated homosexuality” clause that could also result in the execution of offenders.
“Aging Gayfully!” is a unique class being offered online as part of the Older Adults Program of Santa Rosa Junior College. It is free to all California residents. The class provides a comfortable space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning adults to explore skillful aging strategies that address their unique aging issues. The Fall 2023 semester session begins online on Wednesday, August 16 11 am – 1 pm and continues weekly until December 13. For more information or for instructions on how to enroll email the instructor Gary “Buz” Hermes MA at ghermes@santarosa.edu.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that bans transgender individuals from receiving gender-affirming care, changing their gender in official documents and public records, fostering or adopting children, and having a legal marriage. Marriages involving at least one trans person will be annulled.
Legislators who promoted the new law said it is necessary to protect Russia’s “traditional values” against “Western anti-family ideology,” including the “pure satanism” of transitioning, The Guardian reported. Similar rhetoric has been used to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a deadly ongoing attack now entering its 516th day.
“There will be suicides in the trans community, no doubt because [the law] will make some people feel really hopeless and trapped,” one trans Russian told the BBC. The law may also create a dangerous black market for hormones that are unregulated by medical authorities, an expert told the Bangkok Post.
Between 2016 and 2022, 2,990 Russians legally changed gender, the Post reports. Russia also granted gender marker updates on ID starting in 1997. But anti-LGBTQ+ authoritarianism has grown in the country since Putin rose to power in 1999.
ILGA-Europe, a continental LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group, said that the new law “flagrantly violates fundamental human rights standards and principles.”
“The trans and gender diverse community in Russia [and their] rights and wellbeing are under attack,” the group added. “Everyone has the right to self-determination, privacy, and the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”
The group also noted that denying trans people healthcare will worsen their mental health. Furthermore, denying trans people the rights to correct gender markers on documents, to marriage, and to raise children will place them “in legal” limbo, ILGA-Europe noted, reinforcing negative stereotypes about trans people harming children and creating “unnecessary burdens on trans people, forcing them to disclose their private and medical history and exposing them to discrimination, harassment, and violence.”
Yan Dvorkin — a 32-year-old psychologist who works with the non-governmental trans advocacy organization Russian Centre T — called the law “fascist” and said it will be “difficult for people to hear that the state thinks of them as ‘enemies of the people,’ takes away their rights… and puts them beyond the law.”
The law is just part of Russia’s ongoing and years-long crackdown against LGBTQ+ individuals. Putin first signed a law banning so-called “gay propaganda” in Russia in June 2013. The law ostensibly sought to “protect children” from any “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships,” as stated in the law’s text.
The law has mostly been used to silence LGBTQ+ activist organizations, events, websites, and media, as well as to break up families and harass teachers. It has also been roundly condemned by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as civil rights activists around the world.
Last December, Putin signed a law expanding the country’s prohibition on LGBTQ+ “propaganda.” The newly signed law effectively outlaws any public expression of LGBTQ+ life in Russia by banning “any action or the spreading of any information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public, online, or in films, books or advertising,” Reuters reported.
Critics say the updated law will further endanger the lives of Russia’s LGBTQ+ population, which has already suffered increased harassment, violence, and hostility in recent years. It has been used to prosecute a 40-year-old German teacher for sexually propositioning another adult man and also to prosecute a same-sex couple for sharing their relationship on social media.
Anti-LGBTQ+ religious leaders and right-wing political figures in the U.S. have praised Putin for his law. Indeed, Republican legislators, so-called “parents’ rights groups,” and right-wing pundits have increasingly moved to ban American kids from accessing any LGBTQ+ content, gender-affirming healthcare, or drag shows over untrue claims that these “sexualize” and “groom” children.
In 2013, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) President Austin Ruse said Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws were a “good thing” that “most of the people in the United States” would support. In 2014, anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical leader Franklin Graham also defended the law.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgment-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
The Michigan Supreme Court broke new ground Monday in a dispute over parental rights, saying a woman can seek custody of her partner’s child who was born before their same-sex relationship ended.
Carrie Pueblo has no biological ties to a boy who was born to Rachel Haas in 2008 but had helped raise him. Pueblo insists they would have been married at that time if same-sex marriage had been legal in Michigan, a status that could have given her a formal role in the child’s life even if the marriage had ended.
“While the decision in this case likely affects few, it is, nonetheless, important for what it represents,” Justice Megan Cavanagh said in a 5-2 opinion.
“Justice does not depend on family composition; all who petition for recognition of their parental rights are entitled to equal treatment under the law,” Cavanagh wrote.
Pueblo and Haas had raised the boy together after their relationship ended. But by 2017, Pueblo said Haas demanded that she stop having contact with the child.
Pueblo now can return to a Kalamazoo County court and attempt to show that she and Haas would have been married, if possible, when the boy was born through in vitro fertilization.
If a judge agrees, Pueblo then can be evaluated for “custody and parenting time,” the Supreme Court said.
Haas’ attorney had urged the Supreme Court in April to stay on the sidelines and let the Legislature change the law if lawmakers believe it would be appropriate. Justice Brian Zahra agreed with that position in his dissent.
“I am uncomfortable with retroactively recognizing a marriage-equivalent relationship. … Courts will be required to dive into all public and private aspects of a now-defunct relationship to hypothesize whether the couple would have chosen to marry,” said Zahra, who was joined by Justice David Viviano.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating after a deputy threw a transgender man to the ground, punched him and held him down as the man called for help. During the encounter, which was caught on recently released surveillance video, the man could be heard telling the deputy that he couldn’t breathe and at one point said, “You’re going to kill me.”
Emmett Brock, 24, told NBC News he was driving home from his job as a teacher in February when he passed a deputy who appeared to be having a heated conversation with a woman on the side of the road. Brock said he gave the deputy the middle finger as he drove by, and that a patrol vehicle started following him, but the deputy never turned on the vehicle’s sirens or lights.
Emmett Brock.Courtesy Emmett Brock
He said the vehicle tailgated him through several blocks of a residential neighborhood, so he called 911 to ask if he was being pulled over even though there were no lights or sirens.
“I was told if there were no lights and sirens, then I wasn’t being pulled over and could continue to where I was going,” Brock said.
Brock pulled into a 7-Eleven in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb, and Deputy Joseph Benza parked behind Brock’s vehicle, according to video from the store’s security cameras that Tom Beck, Brock’s attorney, provided to NBC News.
Brock exited his vehicle and, as he closed his car door, Benza said, “I stopped you,” the video shows. Brock responded, “No, you didn’t,” with the knowledge that he had called 911 to check, he said. But then he said the deputy’s hands were on him, and he immediately panicked and thought, “I’m going to die.”
Benza grabbed him, threw him to the ground and then held Brock for three minutes while repeatedly punching him in the head, the video shows.
“You’re going to kill me,” Brock is heard yelling. “You’re going to f—ing kill me. Help! Help! Help! I’m not resisting!”
Brock said he’s 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 115 pounds, and he estimated Benza is about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds.
“His entire body weight is on top of me, and he flipped me over and threw me on my head,” Brock said, adding that his glasses broke immediately. “I’ve never even been in a fight, I’ve never had a speeding ticket, nothing like that. So I’ve never been punched before, and to have these full-force blows from behind from this deputy that is so much bigger than me, it was just, there’s no way I’m getting out of this alive.”
After the struggle, Benza arrested Brock and put him in the patrol vehicle.
Benza said he pulled Brock over because there was an object hanging from his rearview mirror, and it appeared to obstruct the driver’s forward view in violation of a California code, according to an arrest report Beck provided to NBC News.
Benza wrote in the arrest report that he activated “my patrol vehicle overhead lights, which include a fixed forward-facing red lamp,” though the overhead lights were not on when Benza pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot behind Brock, the video shows.
Benza wrote that he got out of his car and told Brock he “stopped (detained) him,”Brock said he didn’t, and “it appeared he was about to walk away from the car and myself.” He added that Brock’s “rejection of my traffic detention and his apparent intent to distance himself from his vehicle further raised safety concerns.”
“I know from my training and experience that those who possess contraband items inside vehicles commonly attempt to disassociate themselves from their vehicles when law enforcement is present,” Benza wrote.
Benza added that he feared Brock was going to punch him and that Brock “continuously tried to bite” him. He said he punched Brock “approximately eight times in rapid succession.”
“My punches had their intended effect,” Benza wrote, adding that Brock subsequently stopped trying to bite him and wrapped his arms around his own head.
Benza did not reply to a request for comment.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in an emailed statement that it “takes all use of force incidents seriously.”
“The Department is investigating the information and allegations brought forward by Mr. Brock and his attorney,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, we cannot comment any further at this time due to the pending litigation in this matter.”
Brock was booked at the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station, which is part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where he said he told staff he is transgender.
“And the jailer began to just badger me with questions,” Brock said, including, “So, you’re actually a woman?” and “Do you have a penis? If you don’t have a penis, then you’re definitely a woman.”
“I’m seeing him get angrier and angrier every time I deny that I’m a woman,” Brock said. He feared the jail would increase his bail if he argued, so he decided to just nod his head and say “OK.” He added that the gender markers on all of his identity documents say male.
The male jail employee then brought in a female employee who told Brock she was going to need to “see everything,” Brock recalled. So she brought him to a nearby bathroom and he showed her his genitals and explained what surgeries he has had and the effects of testosterone before being placed in a women’s holding cell.
“I’m not sure what I could have shown her on my body that would have been enough for them,” Brock said. “I just felt so demeaned. I felt humiliated. I felt small. Here are these police officers, these sheriff’s deputies telling you to do something while you’re in their custody, and if you don’t want to make it worse for yourself, and you don’t want your bail to be higher and you don’t want to be stuck there longer, you have to comply with anything they say. You are completely powerless.”
The sheriff’s department did not respond to questions regarding Brock’s allegations.
Brock said he was booked on three felony charges of mayhem, resisting arrest and obstruction, along with a misdemeanor charge of failure to obey a police officer. He said he lost his teaching job three days later due to the pending charges and is still unemployed. He said his girlfriend and his parents have been supporting him, but that he is also accruing debt.
Prosecutors have since decided to pursue two misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and battery on an officer, according to arrest records.
Brock said he has anxiety every time he drives his car, because he fears someone from the sheriff’s department will know the make and model of his car and pull him over. The arrest also took one of his greatest sources of fulfillment: his job. He worked as a 12th grade English teacher at an alternative school for at-risk youth.
“That was my self-worth. That’s where I got my fulfillment in life, was helping others, teaching these students and being there for them,” he said. “So when I lost that I just, that was my happiness, and it’s been a lot of depression and hopelessness.”
He said people have asked him if he regrets giving the deputy the middle finger as he drove by, but he said he doesn’t.
“I felt like that’s what I could do in that moment to stand up for that woman,” he said, adding that the deputy appeared to be harassing the woman. “I regret that he reacted so poorly and so angrily and then he beat me for that. But I don’t regret expressing my First Amendment right.”
Increased representation and awareness of LGBTQ+ communities in entertainment, politics, and business seems to have increased anti-LGBTQ+ activism, according to a new report from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. As a result, right-wing extremists stepped up their attacks on LGBTQ+ people during Pride Month celebrations nationwide.
Researchers found a spike in anti-LGBTQ+ protests during Pride celebrations, including in historically liberal states like California. One in five demonstrations took place there last month, according to the group.
Aside from anti-Pride protests, ACLED also notes that many of these protests targeted drag shows and gender-affirming care. Most anti-LGBTQ+ events were reported in Texas, New York, and California, with 26 states and the District of Columbia reporting events.
The organization reported that in 2022 far-right extremists committed more than 300 percent more anti-LGBTQ+ acts than the previous year, which “strongly” correlates with subsequent violence against gays and transgender people.
Actors on the right who haven’t always agreed on their particular take on ideology have joined forces against a common enemy: wokeness.
As a result, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have joined forces with violent street thugs like the Proud Boys and Christian nationalist groups to target LGBTQ+ communities.
Nevertheless, this adverse reaction to the rise in acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, as emphasized by corporations like Target during Pride Month, may result in a backlash. Despite most Americans’ support for gay marriage, images of vigilantes deciding who can read library books may not sit well with them.
According to ACLED, about half of June’s anti-LGBTQ+ protests were countered by pro-LGBTQ+ demonstrators. In addition, the group found twice as many LGBTQ-friendly events as anti-LGBTQ+ events.
