I wanted to share a video about political polarization and share a few more links about the recent cloud over LGBTQ rights from the 'Right' in the name of keeping the material away from young kids.
Amanpour on PBS presents 'Uniquely Stupid: Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life' an interview with Jonathan Haidt on how social media algorithms drove people into 'aggrieved' tribes sometime in the period of 2012-2014.
I'll share a few more articles about the moral conundrum behind the various state 'don't say gay' bills.
On Vox, Aja Romano article, 'The right's moral panic over 'grooming' invokes age-old homophobia, 'Groomer's accusations against liberals and the LGBTQ community are recycled Satanic Panic. The Qanon panic was present on January 6 and at some other events (like at Comet Ping Pong in DC in 2016) but I don't think it's a big part of all the state laws on the classroom.
On Andrew Sullivan's Daily Beast, Scott Bixby writes 'Same-Sex Marriage Foes Get Band Back Together for 'Don't Say Gay' Push;' SAME BANS, DIFFERENT SONG 'Opponents of marriage equality are failing against this rising tide of LGBTQ acceptance, but they're still desperate to try,' (according to Barbara Simon, a spokesperson for GLAAD).
HRC has a really interesting piece about trans or non-binary identities in indigenous tribes in North America, whereas the 'invading' settlers were very much into fidelity to biological gender roles during conflict and expansion into their territories.
Kyra Buckley has a story in the Houston Chronicle about the recent issues at Disney and at Exxon.
Here is my take. There is a big difference between the questions about equality for LGBTQ persons as individuals as they were posed in the past (with particular attention to the debates over sodomy laws, then 'don't ask don't tell', and then marriage equality) and today's questions about the mental and physical health of minors who may claim to be dubious about their gender identity or even binary identity at all. The latter group is much smaller in percentage. The literature from reputable medical sources on that issue is somewhat mixed and uncertain. But there is a parallelism between the two sets or problems. One thing is certain: gender dysphoria normally requires responsible or licensed medical attention, and society (including legislatures in red states) should follow professional guidelines (which seem to be a bit uncertain). Sexual orientation does not require such attention. (I won't put down the YouTube channels sponsored by 'Better Help'). But there is another thing. Both sets of issues are widely discussed in public, in the media and online, and even grade school kids are likely to have heard of them. School systems need to develop a way to handle this without indoctrination. Whether in at least rare cases social transition of trans children should be attempted is a sensitive topic that school boards would have to work with carefully.
But there seems to be another problem especially bothering some parents. The legalization of same-sex marriage and even of open service of gay people and even trans people in the military does mean it is covered in the news, and does mean children inevitably grow up knowing about it. That is unavoidable. Some parents could fear young children will get 'ideas' and not want to develop 'normally' and have families of their own when they grow up (give them grandchildren - or lineage). That may have been particularly the case in my own history as an only child, and lineage dies with me. (It is the absence of a needed behavior normal heterosexual intercourse in marriage, not the commission of something, that becomes the problem).
This observation fed into Russia's 2013 anti-gay-propaganda law and has even fed some angry rhetoric surround the Ukraine war (Putin's remarks about 'self-purification' and a Russian Orthodox cleric's mad remarks) so there is both scapegoating and the possibility of a belief like this to become truly dangerous. This fits into my notion that 'gay rights' is more about individual rights v. mandatory tribalism, as I have covered in the books (and now screenplays).
This creates indeed a dangerous circularity, possibly a movement to roll back gains of the past years to encourage more kids to have families or prop up the birth rate, an idea in many right wing circles.
A parallel idea would seem to apply to claims of gender dysphoria in children, which is much less common when left to itself.
My own background probably had something to do with genetics (a cousin had a similar disposition) but it was not gender dysphoria. I will take that up again in the new environment.
A final thought about the approach of authoritarianism. I know that I have not always 'paid my dues' as an individual and yet resist attempts to justify my activity by publicly supporting or (even privately) bonding to individuals who seem to base their identities on belonging to a marginalized group(s), even intersectionally. I deal with individuals, and individuals can fail, even without their own fault in a narrow personal responsibility sense. Personally, I tend to refuse to look at victimization as an excuse for personal failure, and that would include myself. (What happens to marriage vows then, even prospectively?) But for individuals with my disposition to be more willing to deal with this could be important in the long run to defending democracy.
Laura M. Quianoo has an interesting perspective along these lines '10 MORE Things Black People Wish White People Would Stop Doing'. Points 8 and 9 are interesting.
Postscript: Watch this film (June 21) from Real Pride: Born This Way: The Science Behind Being Gay narrated by Bryce Michael Sage (Canada, 2013), who takes a penile plesythomgraphy test himself along with MRI to look at his hard-wired limbic system. The film gets into male son birth order, degree of female relative attraction to men (giving them more children) to non-bimrary people in Samoa who are seen as providing an altruistic function for the entire family; the cis gay male does provide an interesting paradox in biology, but it seems to happen with many primates (they discussed the situation with macques in Japan).
I would add a rather ominous warning. Consider Russian Orthodox cleric Patrick Kirill's warning that Russia was fighting personally destructive (as he sees them) influences from the West like gay pride, which he sees as an individualistic indulgence which weakens the Russian People (as such, as it is many tribes). Consider the Russian 2013 anti-gay propaganda law (Russia had eliminated the sodomy law in 1993). The idea is to avoid the 'distraction' that diverts young men especially from fathering more children, when Russia has a desperately low birth rate. Putin wants to settle the underpopulated East and Asian land in Siberia with many more people. Suppose on May 9 he advances a push to rapidly resettle many Russians. That would suggest he believes he could launch a pre-emptive nuclear war (or more likely just EMP, as in the previous post) against Europe and the US and have the rest of a world for himself, and a people who can take the personal sacrifice to start all over.