The American Library Association announced last month that book-banning attempts have reached record highs, and yesterday, it released a report detailing the most challenged books in the country. "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe tops the list, which is dominated by books about LGBTQ folk and people of color. “More and more, we’re seeing challenges that say, simply, ‘This book has a gay character,’ or, ‘This book deals with LGBTQ themes,’ even if it has no sexuality in it,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA’s office for intellectual freedom, says. “We’re seeing those naked attacks on simply the visibility of and knowledge about LGBTQ lives and experiences.” Here's more from Smithsonian Magazine.
“The most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race…”
Time to buy these books, and/or request your public library purchase if they don’t have them. #bookstodon#books#libraries#censorship#race#lgbtq@bookstodon
It's important to recognize that the US anti-abortion movement is one facet – a leading and powerful one – of a global movement whose ultimate goal is to roll back rights for women and LGBTQ people and enshrine the privileges of straight men, of patriarchy, in law. Jodi Enda's report provides important information about this global initiative and its consequences.
Jason Sattler says that if you don't want to read the 920-page prescription of policies Project 2025 informs us Republicans will enact if given control of the federal government again, then read just one sentence, which sums up the whole project:
"'But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning.'
That would be the governing philosophy of a second Trump regime."
Public library staff in an Alabama town have locked up the library and walked off their jobs after the library's director was fired. The director had refused to remove 113 books with LGBTQ+ content from circulation after being ordered to do so by a library board dominated by right-wing Christian fundamentalists.
👏🏻#Michigan Gov. Gretchen #Whitmer signs new law decriminalizing surrogacy contracts. The legislation also includes more protections for #LGBTQ+ parents and greater access to #IVF -MSNBC
No cute bunnies or lambs in my files, I'm afraid. I do, however, have a lot of queer chickens. This is a painting of a hen-cock (c. 1900), a prize fighter, by English artist Herbert Atkinson. 🥚🐥🐔
"Almost half of those who indicated that they are now religiously unaffiliated — nearly a fifth of the country — say their former religion’s hostility to LGBTQ+ Americans played a role."
Aichi will become the first prefecture in Japan to recognize sexual minorities and common-law couples and their children as families under a “family ship” oath system that will come into effect on April 1.
#BestBuy is caving to threats by #christofascist#Republican investors, and will stop contributing to #LGBTQ non-profit organizations — including blocking their employee resource groups from making donations to those groups.
#Alabama bans #DEI in schools and says bathrooms must be designated by ‘biological sex’
The law (SB129) bans ‘assigning “fault, blame or bias” to any race, religion, gender or color, or discussions of whether “slavery and racism are aligned with the founding principles of the United States’
Jason DeRose reports on the recently published finding of PRRI that people in the U.S. are leaving churches in record numbers, and about a quarter of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, "a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S."
PRRI asked those leaving churches why they are leaving:
"And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people.
Those numbers were especially high with one group in particular.
'Religion's negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,' [Melissa] Deckman [of PRRI] says."
"We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans.'"
"Almost half of those who indicated that they are now religiously unaffiliated — nearly a fifth of the country — say their former religion’s hostility to LGBTQ+ Americans played a role.
"The unaffiliated (a third of whom used to be Catholics and more than half of whom used to be Protestants) skew younger, and younger Americans are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ and reject moral condemnations of same-sex relationships. Among unaffiliated people under 30, 6 in 10 pointed to religious teachings about LGBTQ+ relationships as a reason for abandoning their childhood religion, nearly as many as said they no longer believed the religion’s teachings."
Something a little different from me design wise that I hope some appreciate. The first item I've added to my Threadless shop - the main reason I wanted to use them for this is that I can automagically donate a portion of the proceeds to charities I selected.