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Listen to Rainbow Zone Radio Show / Zona Arco Iris Radio Mostrar, a bi-lingiual show, 4-6 PM on 89.1 KBBF

Rainbow Zone Radio Show is a bi-lingual, two hour-long, program featuring coverage of news impacting the LGBTQI+ Community; in-depth coverage of topics and events; interviews; arts and entertainment — tune in for information intended to keep the LGBTQI+ Community entertained and engaged. Airing on 89.1 KBBF FM English program from 4-6pm.

Zona Arco Iris Radio/Rainbow Zone Radio es un programa que ofrece cobertura de noticias que afectan a la comunidad LGBTQI+; cobertura en profundidad de temas y eventos; entrevistas; artes y entretenimiento: y información necesaria para mantener entretenida y comprometida a la comunidad LGBTQI+. 89.1 KBBF FM Programa de español de 4-6pm.

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LGBTQ+ grads celebrate “Lavender Graduation” despite universities canceling their events

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Over the weekend, LGBTQ+ college graduates in Utah came together for a “Lavender Graduation” ceremony after their schools canceled their own long-standing events.

According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Lavender Graduations have been held on college and university campuses across the U.S. since 1995, when Dr. Ronni Sanlo held the first event for three students at the University of Michigan. Sanlo, a Jewish lesbian, conceived the ceremony as a way to honor the accomplishments of LGBTQ+ graduates after she was barred from attending her own children’s graduations due to her sexuality. 

Lavender Graduations are similar to many specialized commencement events often initiated by students to celebrate their academic achievements along with their cultural heritage, providing a sense of community for marginalized groups.

But as Go reports, the University of Utah and Salt Lake Community College were among the Utah schools that canceled their Lavender Graduation ceremonies this year in response to a state law targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The law, H.B. 261, took effect last year, restricting Utah schools from incorporating any and all DEI initiatives — it led to the closure of student Pride centers and programs devoted to Black, tribal, and women’s groups.

Following the Lavender Graduation cancellations, however, LGBTQ+ nonprofit Project Rainbow Utah stepped in to host its own ceremony for students from the affected schools, according to Go. The event took place on Saturday, April 26, at the First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City, where graduates received lavender stoles, which have been traditionally distributed at Lavender Graduation ceremonies.

As Project Rainbow Utah’s Leela Henderson told the outlet, “Lavender Graduation is not just a tradition—it’s a lifeline.”

“We couldn’t let these students graduate without being acknowledged for who they are, so we made sure it happened,” Henderson explained. “This is a moment of celebration, not just for their accomplishments, but for their identities.” 

In recent years, DEI efforts have become a prominent target for Republicans across the country. Since taking office in January, the president has made dismantling such initiatives in both the federal government and the private sector a major priority, going so far as to deny federal funding and cancel federal grants for schools over their programs.

As Go notes, Lavender Graduation ceremonies at schools across the country have been the latest thing negatively affected by state laws targeting DEI initiatives. 

In Kentucky, the University of Louisville canceled its ceremony, opting instead to offer rainbow cords to all graduates. In Florida, organizers at four state-funded universities renamed their Lavender Graduation ceremonies as “galas,” “celebrations,” and “socials” to comply with the state’s Senate Bill 266, which mandates that “a Florida College System (FCS) institution, state university, or associated support organization may not expend any funds for programs or campus activities that…advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

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KRCB, Host of Outbeat Radio for 26 Years, Needs Your Support

The following is from an op-ed written by Darren LaShelle, President and CEO, Northern California Public Media, for the Press Democrat released Sunday, April 27 2025.

Public media is one of America’s best chances for bringing people together and healing the divisions we see across the political and economic spectrum—and I’d like to tell you why.
Stations like Northern California Public Media—which includes KRCB TV Cotati, KPJK TV San Mateo, KRCB FM Rohnert Park, and KRCG FM Windsor—have made significant strides in serving our communities, even while operating for decades with limited resources. At a time when we need more government support to elevate facts over conjecture and tell the stories of all Americans so that we may understand each other better, our modest federal funding is being threatened. The current administration has proposed rescinding future funds that Congress has already approved.

This funding is essential. Local stations like NorCal Public Media stretch every federal dollar by raising six additional dollars from local sources—foundations, sponsors, and members like you. This local-national model, baked into public media since its creation, ensures that communities are active participants in our nonprofit service. While this model works well in wealthier metropolitan areas, it’s often unsustainable in rural or low-income regions. Federal funding safeguards access to public media for all Americans, regardless of geography or income.

Public media was established through the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to counter what FCC Chairman Newton Minow described as a “vast wasteland” of commercial television. Since then, commercial media has grown even more polarized and profit-driven, while public media has remained committed to education, factual reporting, and local storytelling. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was created to oversee federal funding and support a system that now includes 1,500 local TV and radio stations, reaching 99% of the U.S. population.

More than 70% of CPB’s funds go directly to local stations like ours. Public broadcasting costs the average taxpayer about $1.60 per year—less than a cup of coffee. NorCal Public Media receives about 10% of its annual budget from CPB. That money supports our staff, programming, and the infrastructure necessary to fulfill our mission.

Public media serves a broader and more diverse audience than many realize. Around 60% of our television viewers live outside urban areas. We are a trusted source for 87% of homes without internet, 56% of low-income households, and 55% of rural homes. Public media has bipartisan appeal: 35% of our audience identifies as Democrat, 26% Republican, and 37% Independent. In fact, a recent YouGov survey showed that 65% of Trump voters believe public television is either adequately funded or underfunded. For the 22nd consecutive year, public television was ranked the most trusted American institution, with 76% of citizens agreeing it provides excellent value.

Our children’s programming is unmatched. PBS Kids reaches more children—especially multicultural and low-income children—than any other kids’ TV network. A notable 88% of parents trust PBS Kids as a safe, educational space for their children to watch content and interact with digital learning tools.
Public media also helps fight the spread of local news deserts. Across the country, public radio stations employ over 3,100 journalists focused on community, state, and regional news. We are the nation’s largest journalistic enterprise. At KRCB 104.9 FM, we are actively expanding our coverage of Sonoma, Marin, Napa, and Mendocino counties, both on air and online, because our community deserves reliable, factual reporting in an age plagued by misinformation.

Our impact goes beyond journalism. Public media is an essential part of the nation’s emergency alert system. NPR powers lifesaving emergency alerts for the nation’s radio stations via the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS). For TV, PBS operates the Warning Alert and Response Network (WARN) which enables nationwide broadcast distribution of emergency alerts. From wildfires to earthquakes and floods, our stations play a critical role in keeping communities safe. During emergencies, public media stations are often the only outlets providing hyper-local information of value—including emergency shelters, evacuation routes, and messages from local authorities at the municipal and county level. Without this infrastructure, many parts of the emergency broadcast and cellphone alert system would simply collapse.
Federal support for public broadcasting is a small but vital investment in communities that rely on us. That support must not be rescinded. We urge Congress to continue funding public media and preserving its ability to inform, educate, and unite Americans.

I respectfully disagree with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who stated, “We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,” during a recent US House subcommittee hearing on public broadcasting. There is no hate in public media, only a mission to tell the stories of our communities, uphold the highest journalistic standards, and bring people together around high quality news, educational programming, and local community outreach events that unite us instead of dividing us. Public media does all of this for a modest investment and provides these free services to every American.

Darren LaShelle
President & CEO

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Jill Sobule, ‘I Kissed a Girl’ singer-songwriter, dies in house fire

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Bisexual musician Jill Sobule, the singer-songwriter behind the 1995 sapphic anthem “I Kissed a Girl,” died Thursday in a house fire at age 66.

Firefighters were called about 5:30 a.m. to a home in Woodbury, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities, The New York Times reports. They found Sobule dead inside the house.

She was staying with friends while rehearsing for a performance of songs from her autobiographical one-woman show, Fuck 7th Grade, which was to take place Friday at the Swallow Hill Music Festival in Denver, Sobule’s hometown, her publicist said.

Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” came out 13 years before Katy Perry’s different song of the same name. Sobule’s tune, off a self-titled album, was “the first song with blatantly queer themes to break the Billboard Top 20,” GLAAD notes. A video of the song was popular on MTV.

Sobule’s sexuality became the subject of speculation after the song’s release, and her record label initially told The Advocate she was straight. However, she then contacted the magazine to talk about her identity.

“I guess if I had to pinpoint my sexual orientation — which I hate to do — then bisexuality would come the closest,” she said in an interview published in the January 23, 1996, issue of The Advocate. She found bisexuals stigmatized by both gay and straight people, and she said she had to get over some assumptions herself. “I used to think that when people said they were bisexual, they were just copping out because they didn’t want to admit they were full-fledged queers,” she told the magazine. “Now I think that’s so closed-minded. I believe there’s a whole spectrum of sexuality.”

She said she wanted to be a positive role model, and she went on the be outspoken about LGBTQ+ issues, the death penalty, reproductive rights, eating disorders, the MAGA movement, and more. She addressed many of these topics in her songs as well.

“Jill Sobule wasn’t just a trailblazer in music — she was a beacon for queer artists, and I was incredibly lucky to call her a dear friend,” said a statement from GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “Long before it was safe or common, Jill was writing and singing about sexuality and identity with raw honesty and wit. At a time when doing so could have cost her everything, she chose truth. That courage helped pave the way for today’s artists like Brandi Carlile, Tegan and Sara, Lil Nas X, Sam Smith, Adam Lambert, and so many others who now stand proud and open in their music.”

Sobule released 12 albums, most of them “genreless and creative,” the Timesnotes, and was a pioneer in using crowdfunding to produce them. She had another hit with “Supermodel” from the 1995 film Clueless. She also wrote the theme song for the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous, which starred Emma Roberts and ran from 2004 to 2007. Her one-woman show became an off-Broadway hit in 2022 and had three more productions after its original staging. It was a New York Times critics’ pick and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. An original cast recording of the show will come out June 6, plus a reissue of her self-titled album, which includes “I Kissed a Girl” and “Supermodel.”

– YouTubewww.youtube.com

Seventh grade was her worst year in school, she recalled to Playbill in 2023. “All of a sudden, peers become more important than your parents,” she said. “In 6th grade, I was this tomboy, I was a badass, I was the electric guitar player. Suddenly, 7th grade happened, and my friends started wearing makeup and I didn’t feel like I fit in. I knew early on that there was something different about me; that I had crushes on my friends, and that wasn’t the ‘right thing.’ 7th grade is when it all fell apart.”

In Fuck 7th Grade, “she described being called a homophobic slur, feeling out of place among the other girls and having an unrequited crush on a girl,” the Timesreports. She once “joked that growing up, her only queer role models had been Miss Jane Hathaway from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ and her gym teacher, ‘who looked like Pete Rose,’” the famous baseball player, according to the paper.

In 2009, she told The Advocate she had “no bad feelings” about Perry’s song. “I still think it’s great to have a song, if I was a little girl, and I heard Katy Perry’s ‘Kissed a Girl’ and I had those kind of feelings, which I did, I would still feel like, that’s great, that’s wonderful,” she said. “But I will say that maybe mine was a little more, just a touch more queer than Girls Gone Wild. Maybe.”

In addition to Ellis, others who recalled Sobule fondly included her manager, John Porter, who released this statement to the media: “Jill Sobule was a force of nature and human rights advocate whose music is woven into our culture. I was having so much fun working with her. I lost a client and a friend today. I hope her music, memory, & legacy continue to live on and inspire others.” 

Her lawyer, Ken Hertz, added, “Jill wasn’t just a client. She was family to us. She showed up for every birth, every birthday, and every holiday. She performed at our daughter’s wedding, and I was her ‘tech’ when she performed by Zoom from our living room (while living with us) during the pandemic.” 

The Swallow Hill Music Festival will host a free gathering in Sobule’s honor from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Friday. It’s open to all. A more formal memorial event will be held this summer.

Survivors include her brother and sister-in-law, James and Mary Ellen Sobule; her nephews, Ian Matthew and Robert; and Robert’s wife, Irina.

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Affirming haircuts are a human right: The stylist fighting tooth & nail to upend salon gender norms

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When customers book hair appointments at Chicago’s Logan Parlor, owner Jamie DiGrazia asks only two questions: How long is your hair, and how long do you want it to be? These questions may seem simple and even quite logical, but in fact, they are quietly revolutionary. 

While it’s quite common for a person’s hair length and style to deviate from gender norms, it remains standard practice in the beauty industry for pricing menus to offer women’s cuts and men’s cuts. DiGrazia says the model is both inefficient for salons as well as unfair and unaffirming for customers. 

“Everyone has the right to a safe and positive affirming hair service,” DiGrazia told LGBTQ Nation. At Logan Parlor and other affirming salons scattered across the country, pricing and time slots are based on desired length and style, not gender. DiGrazia’s nonprofit, Hair Has No Gender, aims to spread the concept of gender-free pricing throughout the industry. 

It’s no easy feat, though. Gender norms have been embedded into every nook and cranny of the industry for decades, and DiGrazia has found that some of the institutions in charge are profoundly resistant to change.

“Why wouldn’t we want to move towards this pricing structure that’s gonna support queer people, have women pay a fair price and allow the business owners to charge for their time, talent, and product instead of someone’s perceived or assumed gender identity?” they said. “Charging based on gender is jamming more traditional gender roles down everybody’s throat.”

But of course, that’s exactly what some social conservatives want. 

Making change on our own

As trans people have become more visible, a vicious conservative backlash seeks to erase anyone who deviates from the gender norms governed by sex assigned at birth. Laws targeting everything from gender-affirming care and anti-trans discrimination protections to pronoun use in schools have grown exponentially — both in number and cruelty — since the GOP began waging its war on this small and vulnerable community. 

Recently, Republican lawmakers took their battle to a new level, pushing for the right to police even the way kids dress and wear their hair. 

When DiGrazia caught wind of Arkansas’s “Vulnerable Youth Protection Act,” they began campaigning against it immediately. H.B. 1668 sought to punish adults who supported a young person’s social transition, meaning their decision to present as a gender they were not assigned at birth through changing their name, clothes, hair, or other physical attributes, but not through any medical care.

The bill defined social transitioning as “any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex… including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.”

DiGrazia watched the entire hearing in which the bill was introduced. “It was disgusting,” they said. In one clip, state Rep. Mary Bentley (R), the bill’s author, confirmed that the text says adults who support a child’s social transition, even when that child has consent from their parents, could be found civilly liable for up to 20 years for providing that support. 

Bentley called supporting trans youth “a horrible social experiment that is just devastating the lives of people.” 

“It was disgusting,” DiGrazia said. “I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears.” 

Perhaps even more shocking, they added, was the silence from major beauty associations, despite DiGrazia’s efforts to mobilize them.

“They basically took a ‘let’s wait and see approach,’” they said, declining to name the specific group they tried to work with. “I wrote them a pretty stern email about how that was a harmful choice… They have a responsibility to our industry.”

DiGrazia felt that even if the legislation was likely to die on its own due to unconstitutional language, it was important to come out hard against it, to send a message to lawmakers that the industry would not tolerate even the possibility of legislation so hateful and wouldn’t support a debate over trans kids’ dignity.

“They didn’t do anything about it, so I had to do it. I had to get my volunteers, get the graphic designer.” The Hair Has No Gender Instagram post on the bill was the organization’s most shared to date. “Hundreds of people shared it,” DiGrazia said. “I hope they called as well.”

Bentley did withdraw the bill after the hearing, as it was criticized by the Attorney General’s office for chilling free speech. However, she will work on amendments and language with the Attorney General’s office to bring it into a form that could pass. 

DiGrazia is ready to fight again, and they hope others will be too, whether against this particular bill or any similar ones that arise nationwide. 

“Make the calls, make the emails, tell [your] friends and family, and make [your] own campaign around it about how it’s harmful… I think people think that somebody else is going to do it, like I did,” he said. “No one else is going to do it.”

We need people that are willing to advocate and who are active allies to stand up against terrible things… It’s really important that we have this grassroots community,” he continued. “I just want to mobilize all these salons that are in the community that serve queer people… We’ve got to come together and make change on our own.”

Love your hair, love yourself

DiGrazia isn’t only trying to fight these bad bills and industry trends — they’re also trying to implement some good. 

In Illinois, they have been working with lawmakers to pass legislation that would enshrine gender-free pricing into law. The Gender-Based Discrimination in Service Industries Act would ban service businesses from charging different prices based on gender. It’s something that theoretically seems easy to get behind, but H.B. 5523 died in the state house in January. 

Some folks didn’t see a need for it, DiGrazia said, since gender-based pricing is technically already illegal through sex-discrimination law (though it remains common practice). Others thought it would be a burden to salons, who would have to change their pricing structures. 

DiGrazia said one beauty association even hired a lobbyist to advocate against the bill, which played a major role in its failure. The lobbyist argued the bill was vague and made untrained business owners vulnerable to the consequences of a law they wouldn’t know how to implement. 

Through their work with Hair Has No Gender, DiGrazia has heard from several brands that believe they should emphasize the business benefits of inclusion rather than the importance of queer and trans rights if they want to succeed in shifting hearts and minds on this issue. DiGrazia disagrees with this approach.

“I’m never going to do that,” they said, emphasizing that they’re dealing with a human rights issue. “The conversation is trans and queer rights. If it also benefits someone’s business, great…. [but] I’m not going to lead with that. That advice makes me sick.”

They said these kinds of changes are about keeping clients and coworkers safe and comfortable. “This is about being a good person and a good human and being an active ally and standing up for people who are being attacked,” DiGrazia said.

Stylists who are not trained to be inclusive could end up disappointing their clients at best and, at worst, making them feel profoundly unsafe or dysphoric. DiGrazia said they’ve worked with people who have not been given the haircut they asked for because their stylist perceived them as more feminine or masculine than the style they requested.

“I didn’t realize how important my hair was to me as my image until I had the cut that made me feel like me,” Logan Parlor client Emma Marzullo said in a video.

“Hair is an extension of yourself,” added Qadir Muhammad. “If you love your hair, you in turn love yourself a little bit more.”

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Trump just defunded a national program to end prison rape. It’ll harm queers most.

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In a setting where LGBTQ+ people already face disproportionately high rates of sexual violence, the Department of Justice has defunded a key resource combating prison rape through the congressionally mandated Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

PREA was passed unanimously by Congress in 2003 and sought to document and curtail the incidence and effects of prison rape in federal, state, and local institutions.

Part of the legislation’s mandate was the creation of the National PREA Resource Center, which provides federally funded training and technical assistance to states and localities and serves as a “single-stop resource for research and tools for all those in the field working to come into compliance with the federal standards,” according to the center’s website.

Funding for the collection and dissemination of that data ended this week.

“Prosecuting criminals, getting illegal drugs off of the streets, and protecting American institutions from toxic DEI and sanctuary city policies” are the Trump administration’s priorities, a Department of Justice spokesperson told The Appeal, which obtained a letter ordering the resource center’s closure.

“Discretionary funds that are no longer aligned with the administration’s priorities are subject to review and reallocation,” the spokesperson added.

Sexual minorities — or those who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or who report a same-sex sexual experience before arrival at a carceral facility — are disproportionately incarcerated, according to the National Institutes of Health, which itself is facing devastating cuts by the Trump administration.  

The incarceration rate of sexual minorities was 1,882 per 100,000 in the survey period, more than three times that of the U.S. adult population. Compared with straight inmates, sexual minorities were more likely to have been sexually victimized while incarcerated, to have experienced solitary confinement and other sanctions, and to report current psychological distress.

Terry Schuster, the head of New Jersey’s prison oversight agency, called defunding the National PREA Resource Center a “reckless move.”

“The National PREA Resource Center is a library of every everything that’s ever been written about how to prevent and address sexual violence in custodial settings, and it’s staffed with experts who can answer one-off questions from people who are running jails and prisons and juvenile facilities and police departments,” he said. “Defunding them is like burning that library to the ground.”

Just Detention International, a nonprofit focused on ending sexual assault in prisons, said the cuts were “devastating” and would make carceral facilities more dangerous.

“The shuttering of the National PREA Resource Center is, quite simply, catastrophic for incarcerated people,” said Linda McFarlane, Just Detention’s executive director. “Its programs were a gamechanger for corrections agencies, while also helping to shed light on the conditions inside prisons and jails across the country.”

“Without the PREA Resource Center, corrections agencies will be left on their own when it comes to best practices to stop sexual abuse — and the public will be left in the dark about what goes on inside detention facilities,” McFarlane added.

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Boston queer group preserves LGBTQ+ history tour erased National Park Service

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In January, the president’s executive orders purging trans and queer identity and diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) efforts from the federal government began their devastating cascade through the federal bureaucracy.

One consequence speaks to the frightening authoritarian tactics deployed by the president and his MAGA loyalists: rewriting or erasing history not aligned with their Christian nationalist vision for the United States. That vision doesn’t include trans people — now or ever.

The most egregious example may have been removing all mentions of the trans women who instigated the Stonewall Riots in 1969, a watershed moment in the history of LGBTQ+ rights. Once reported faithfully by the National Park Service on their website, trans people have now been erased from both the history of the riots and from the LGBTQ+ acronym itself—thousands turned out at the monument in New York’s Greenwich Village to protest the changes.

But the same erasure is happening at similar sites of LGBTQ+ history-making across the country. The latest to come to light: the city of Boston.

The city’s History Project, a group “documenting LGBTQ Boston,” reports that in February, the National Park Service removed “Their Dreams, Their Rights, and Their Love,” an LGBTQ+ audio tour of Beacon Hill and Downtown Boston, from its website.

The tour includes the roles of influential queer figures like 19th-century novelists Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields, gay rights activist Prescott Townsend, and popular gay gathering spots like the Sporters Bar in the city’s West End.

“This tour belongs to the public—not the politicians,” the group says. “Work created by government employees in their official roles is public domain, and should be available to our community as we continue to fight for visibility, truth and joy.”

Work created by government employees in their official roles is public domain, and should be available to our community as we continue to fight for visibility, truth and joy.The History Project, a group dedicated to preserving Boston’s LGBTQ+ history

So the History Project is rescuing the audio tour and other LGBTQ+ history officially erased by the NPS.

“The History Project exists to document, preserve, and share queer and trans stories; our work is especially vital when institutions fail to protect or respect our history. We’ve made this tour accessible again, and we invite you to walk through queer and trans history in resistance against those who want to erase us,” the group says.

In an investigation of the National Park Service’s history-altering changes in the Boston area, The Boston Globe found at least six instances where the service removed stories from its website on LGBTQ+ activism at Faneuil Hall; wiped guides on Black and LGBTQ+ history from the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters web page; and shortened all mentions and tags of “LGBTQ+” to “LGB” (an acronym that is only ever used by transphobes). 

Earlier this month, it also removed mentions of Black abolitionist icon Harriet Tubman on its Underground Railroad page; those references were restored after widespread shock and outrage.

“The National Park Service has always had this reputability,” said Theo Linger, a former NPS Boston employee who contributed work and research to the Boston LGBTQ+ History section. “To have queer history included in that sort of prestige was a very big deal.”

But in February, Linger was given a choice: Eliminate any mention of trans and queer people from his work, or remove it—Linger walked away.

“I didn’t want to jettison my community, or any community,” Linger said.

In an eerie premonition of the censorship to come, the now-erased LGBTQ+ History title page stated, “As America’s storytellers, the National Park Service is committed to telling the history of all Americans in all of its diversity and complexity.”

“For many years, the rich histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans have been erased through punishing laws and general prejudice,” the site said before eventually erasing transgender and queer Americans from its pages.

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Hula Hoop & Play Happens Wednesdays on Guerneville Plaza

Wednesday, May 21·6:00 – 8:00pm

Guerneville Plaza, Guerneville, CA 95446, USA

http://rrhoopflow.com/

Hula Hoop & Play! Wednesdays 6-8pm Guernville Plaza! We have lplenty of extra hoops if you don’t have one and can teach you how to hoop if you haven’t before or just need a refresher. We move to the live weekly music mix of DJ WT3 playing his set of #Anthropology on Guerneville’s own River Theater Radio 95.1fm. All movement is welcome, so it’s not just about hooping… just come to move if that’s your thing… 🙂 We respect social distancing while having fun!!!

Contact
RRHoopFlow@gmail.com

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Alabama House passes ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ drag ban, and Ten Commandments bills all at once

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The Alabama state House of Representatives passed three anti-LGBTQ+ laws on the same day.

Republicans approved the bills Thursday, which included an expansion of the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to encompass grades K-12, a ban on drag performances in some public spaces, an LGBTQ+ Pride flag ban in public schools, a ban against school employees using students’ preferred names and pronouns, and a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displaced in all public education institutions — even colleges. The bills now head to the state Senate. 

HB 244 would “prohibit classroom instruction in public school prekindergarten through the twelfth grade related to gender identity or sexual orientation; to prohibit education employees from displaying certain flags and insignia in public preK-12 schools; and to prohibit education employees from referring to a student by pronouns inconsistent with the student’s biological sex.”

The “certain flags” employees are forbidden from displaying are flags “relating to or representing sexual orientation or gender identity in a classroom of a public preK-12 school,” singling out the LGBTQ+ Pride flag.

HB 67 would “prohibit public K-12 schools and public libraries from knowingly presenting or sponsoring drag performances in the presence of a minor without the consent of the minor’s parent or legal guardian.” Drag is defined as “a performance in which a performer exhibits a sex identity that is different from the sex assigned to the performer at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers,” leaving uncertainty as to how it will impact transgender people.

HB 178/SB 166 would require “each local board of education and the governing body of each public institution of higher education to display the Ten Commandments and a context statement in a common area of each school under its jurisdiction.” Schools are not required to use their funding for this, and can instead accept donations. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama said in a statement in response to the bill’s introduction that mandating the Ten Commandments in public schools is “unconstitutional – plain and simple.”

“The First Amendment guarantees that students and their families — not politicians or the government — get to decide which religious beliefs, if any, they adopt and what role those beliefs will play in their lives,” the group wrote. “Displaying the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms blatantly violates this promise. Students can’t focus on learning if they don’t feel safe and welcome in their schools.”

The organization denounced a previous version of the drag ban in a separate statement, calling it “an attempt to censor LGBTQ experiences from the public.”

“The attempt of legislators to censor performers based on their personal viewpoints is contradictory to our first amendment rights,” it wrote. “The ACLU of Alabama wants to protect our first amendment right to express ourselves. Drag performances are part of that expression and should not be censored by the state based on subjective viewpoints on whether or not they are appropriate.”

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