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Georgia Passes a Sweeping Anti-LGBTQ Law

Reuters that the bill would likely force her organization to shut down.The bill also bans access to gender-affirming care for all people — even adults — and prohibits changing the gender marker on people’s official documents to align with their gender identity rather than their assigned sex at birth. Parliamentary leaders of the governing Georgian Dream party say the legislation is needed to uphold traditional moral values, foster and support the family unit, and protect minors from being unduly influenced by visible displays of LGBTQ identity.As in Russia, the restrictions on LGBTQ rights and visibility are strongly supported by the Orthodox Church, which wields great influence in Georgian society.
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Cruz Critics Create Mock “Barbie” Doll Line Trolling Senator
An anti-Ted Cruz political action committee has released an ad trolling the Texas Republican senator for obsessing over what he claims are hidden messages in the Barbie movie rather than more pressing political issues.The “Lose Cruz” PAC’s ad mocks the senator’s obsession with culture-war issues — both real and imagined — by unveiling a collection of “Cruz-inspired Barbie dolls” mocking Cruz’s past actions, statements, or political positions.The three Cruz-inspired dolls featured in the video show an “Insurrection Barbie”, with included a “Stop the Steal” button and podium to speak from as you attempt to “destroy democracy,” a “MAGA Podcaster Barbie” to help “promote the MAGA agenda” — a nod to Cruz’s own political podcast — and a “Cancun Barbie,” referring to the time when Cruz left Texas to vacation in Cancun while millions of Texans were left without power and water following a historic winter storm.Cruz recently branded the Barbie movie as Chinese propaganda for a scene in the movie depicting a cartoonish map of the world, displaying a dashed line through the water surrounding the map’s crudely-drawn Asian continent. Some have argued that the line is meant to represent the so-called “nine-dash line,” which Chinese propagandists have drawn on maps in order to lay claim to disputed territory in the South China Sea that other nations say does not belong to China. The controversy over the imaginary map led Vietnam, which has an ongoing conflict with China over where their maritime borders begin and end, to ban the film.
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Mississippi Libraries Ban Youth from Accessing E-Books
Mississippi minors are being denied access to widely used e-book and audiobook platforms due to a new book-banning law.The law, which went into effect at the beginning of July, purportedly intends to protect minors from digital resources and databases that contain “sexually oriented” materials.The impact? Because OverDrive, Hoopla, and Mississippi state libraries lack age-based content restrictions, some public libraries are making their online databases –- including those entirely lacking in sexual content — entirely inaccessible to all young people under the age of 18, including disabled minors who may depend on audiobook or e-book access to read.“This move by the state ensures that those with the least privileges — those in unstable homes, those without regular internet access, and those without active parents or guardians in their lives — have even fewer opportunities to utilize public goods and services,” Kelly Jensen, the editor of Book Riot, the largest independent editorial book site, wrote in analyzing the ban.Given how existing Mississippi law defines “sexually oriented” materials, vendors could potentially be deemed to be violating the law by providing access to materials depicting sexual reproduction, nudity or displays of human anatomy, sexual health information, or depictions of LGBTQ identity. Depictions of any of these topics would be treated as equivalent to providing access to hardcore pornography.Violators of the law can face fines between $500 and $5,000, as well as possible prison time.
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Japan’s Supreme Court Rules Restroom Bans “Unacceptable”
attempted to prosecute a transgender woman who had entered and used a women’s restroom despite not having officially transitioned.The ministry said in a statement that it would examine the ruling closely and “take appropriate measures after consulting with the relevant ministries and agencies.” It also said it would continue to make efforts to respect the diversity of its staff.The ruling comes after a series of mostly pro-LGBTQ court rulings regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage in the country, with courts finding, in the majority of the cases, that laws blocking same-sex nuptials are unconstitutional.Japan is currently the only G7 nation where same-sex marriage hasn’t been legalized. Japanese law is vague about the ability of same-sex couples to adopt, and the country also lacks nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, permits conversion therapy, and does not recognize nonbinary genders, reports Reuters.On June 16, Japan enacted a law declaring that “unjust” discrimination is unacceptable, but doesn’t explicitly provide specific rights for LGBTQ people — in part due to opposition from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a right-wing political party that controls both chambers of the country’s National Diet, or national legislature.Despite the law being overly vague and not promising any specific rights, it still sparked a backlash from conservatives, who began campaigning for moves to protect women in multi-user, publicly-shared facilities.The plaintiff, whose name remains anonymous, celebrated the ruling.“All people should have the right to live their lives in society based on their own sexual identities,” she said in a statement.
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Seven GOP Attorneys General Threaten Target
letter — a rambling, unfocused missive that allows the attorneys to vent their spleen at Target for embracing and celebrating LGBTQ consumers — accuses Target of violating laws meant to “protect children from harmful content meant to sexualize them and prohibit gender transitions of children.”“As Attorneys General committed to enforcing our States’ child-protection and parental-rights laws and our States’ economic interests as Target shareholders, we are concerned by recent events involving the company’s ‘Pride’ campaign,” the attorneys general wrote in the letter.“Our concerns entail the company’s promotion and sale of potentially harmful products to minors, related potential interference with parental authority in matters of sex and gender identity, and possible violation of fiduciary duties by the company’s directors and officers,” the letter continues.The letter further alleges that putting up Pride displays in stores may violate child protection laws penalizing the “sale or distribution” of “obscene matter.”The letter accuses LGBTQ activists of using Target to advance their own agenda of “exposing Target’s valuable customer base, which include families with young children across the country, to ‘LGBTQIA+’ concepts and values.”The letter lists a litany of offending merchandise that social conservatives were outraged by, such as Pride- or rainbow-themed T-shirts and clothing for children, a “tuck-friendly” swimsuit sold in adult sizes, and an adult-sized T-shirt with the drag queen Katya on it.Even though the latter two items were not marketed toward children nor sold in children’s sizes, the letter deliberately misstates facts and alleges that such products will encourage kids to become transgender.The attorneys then
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Virginia Removes LGBTQ Youth Resources from State Website
Daily Wire, the page was removed at the direction of a cabinet-level agency, according to reporting from The Washington Post.Subsequently, the removal of the page of LGBTQ resources prompted questions from Health Department leaders and state employees over why subject-matter experts hadn’t been consulted or forewarned.Some of those same employees also noted that the Youngkin administration had removed information from the website without consulting those experts at least three other times, targeting primarily resources on abortions, sexual health, or pregnancy.All the decisions that have been called into question appear to pertain to the Youngkin administration’s efforts to reverse course or end policies that were in place for eight years under former Democratic Governors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam.In response to an inquiry about the removal, Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for the governor, framed the issue as one of parental rights — the rallying cry that helped him first get elected due to voters’ anger over school closures stemming from COVID-19 lockdowns, and objections from conservative parents about curriculum content, books on library shelves that aren’t part of official curricula, or district policies — especially those pertaining to race or LGBTQ identity — that they viewed as overly “woke.”Porter also appeared to raise concerns about some of the helplines and chat spaces provided by the LGBTQ organizations and the possibility that youth may be vulnerable to grooming or exposed to sexually-explicit content if they access such spaces.“In Virginia, the governor will always reaffirm a parent’s role in their child’s life.
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