Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced in a keynote speech to the Young Conservatives of Texas an intention to "end" trans and GNC teachers being able to teach.
"This kind of behavior is something we need to end in the state of Texas."
Is this truly America, land of the free, home of the brave? Every day it’s becoming more and more like Putin’s Russia 😭
Jusr to think that a state governor could get away with openly saying something so hateful and horrible. That’s the kind of behaviour we need to end in the state of Texas. And all the others too.
Remember that the Appeals Court decision in Florida didn't change anything.i can still be disciplined for using my pronouns as a violation of our districts code of professional ethics. Our state's GOP is pushing school boards to ignore the settlement and proceed to follow the law as originally written. The school district I work in as a trans woman is one of the boards choosing to keep policies aligned with the original text of the law. It's not the win everyone wants it to be. We are still having to fight in the trenches here in Florida. So please don't become complacent just because a judge made a ruling. It far from fixed!
We need to start pushing back with lawsuits of our own. That teacher who was singled out should sue Governor Abbott for defamation and discrimination. He literally just put a target on her back and made it OK for anyone in her community to hate and discriminate against her. This kind of government approved hatred only ever leads to violence, and we're usually on the receiving end of that.
When I became the first US teacher to transition on the job in 1998 (in a conservative district of IL), my district supported me and I experienced little real pushback at all. It continues to shock me to see trans people fighting for basic human rights 26 years later. I'd say I can't believe the cruelty of some people, but that would be a lie. For the governor of a huge state, though, this just underscores that the GOP has fully embraced the politics of hate.
Thank you Erin. Historian Jason Stanley whose field of study is fascism talks about how a population must be “schooled” for fascism before it can take hold. To me, this is what Abbott is doing. Attempting to erase the social culture and lived experiences of upcoming generations. Orwellian stuff like: “Remember, what you are seeing isn’t real.”
The expulsion of Harvard’s Claudine Gay catches the attention of someone my age because it’s something I’ve never seen in my seven decades. The British used violence to punish the Kikuyu school children in Kenya if they spoke their native language instead of English. It turned out incredibly ugly.
Abbott and the Transphobes are preaching to people who have little self awareness and little depth of feeling if they think of themselves as being defined by their body parts instead of their inner awareness. I’m repulsed that adult cis men like Abbott are think of children’s bodies at all. Thank Zeus that Abbott and the Mean People are in the minority.
That quotation makes the endgame of "trans people removed from public life" quite stark. The schools are just the beginning, and itnwas never about bathrooms or women's sports.
“One of Grossman's students in New Jersey was Meryl Streep.[18] Another former student, Scott Keeler, wrote a newspaper essay on Grossman in 2007, for the Tampa Bay Times, recalling that "educators and adults in my community, including my own father, let pass the opportunity to teach tolerance and acceptance, and everyone was the worse for it."
They can never point to any data on trans teachers to supports the accusations they make. I’m encouraging all teachers who are trans to begin bragging, loudly, and often, about your testing scores. celebrate those AP exam scores. Celebrate the lower failure rates for your class credits. Celebrate the students who get into elite colleges or earn certifications. Brag. Early and often.
Let those successes become your shields and your joyful resistance because the state of Texas subjects it’s schools to a ton of testing and funds CTE programs like crazy. It pushes AP programming. Punishes high failure rates. As much as all those hoops really, really suck to experience in a school year…they also provide a lot of data points that prove their lies about trans teachers in classrooms.
The more trans teachers celebrate themselves publicly, the more people in the community will be safeguarded against being indoctrinated into this right-wing bullshit coming from men like abbot about trans teachers.
"This kind of behavior is something we need to end in the state of Texas."
Is this truly America, land of the free, home of the brave? Every day it’s becoming more and more like Putin’s Russia 😭
Jusr to think that a state governor could get away with openly saying something so hateful and horrible. That’s the kind of behaviour we need to end in the state of Texas. And all the others too.
Remember that the Appeals Court decision in Florida didn't change anything.i can still be disciplined for using my pronouns as a violation of our districts code of professional ethics. Our state's GOP is pushing school boards to ignore the settlement and proceed to follow the law as originally written. The school district I work in as a trans woman is one of the boards choosing to keep policies aligned with the original text of the law. It's not the win everyone wants it to be. We are still having to fight in the trenches here in Florida. So please don't become complacent just because a judge made a ruling. It far from fixed!
I have a better suggestion. End all fascist, racist governors first.
We need to start pushing back with lawsuits of our own. That teacher who was singled out should sue Governor Abbott for defamation and discrimination. He literally just put a target on her back and made it OK for anyone in her community to hate and discriminate against her. This kind of government approved hatred only ever leads to violence, and we're usually on the receiving end of that.
When I became the first US teacher to transition on the job in 1998 (in a conservative district of IL), my district supported me and I experienced little real pushback at all. It continues to shock me to see trans people fighting for basic human rights 26 years later. I'd say I can't believe the cruelty of some people, but that would be a lie. For the governor of a huge state, though, this just underscores that the GOP has fully embraced the politics of hate.
Thank you Erin. Historian Jason Stanley whose field of study is fascism talks about how a population must be “schooled” for fascism before it can take hold. To me, this is what Abbott is doing. Attempting to erase the social culture and lived experiences of upcoming generations. Orwellian stuff like: “Remember, what you are seeing isn’t real.”
The expulsion of Harvard’s Claudine Gay catches the attention of someone my age because it’s something I’ve never seen in my seven decades. The British used violence to punish the Kikuyu school children in Kenya if they spoke their native language instead of English. It turned out incredibly ugly.
Abbott and the Transphobes are preaching to people who have little self awareness and little depth of feeling if they think of themselves as being defined by their body parts instead of their inner awareness. I’m repulsed that adult cis men like Abbott are think of children’s bodies at all. Thank Zeus that Abbott and the Mean People are in the minority.
Fascist theocracy
That quotation makes the endgame of "trans people removed from public life" quite stark. The schools are just the beginning, and itnwas never about bathrooms or women's sports.
Replace 'transgender' with black, female, gay or disabled and he could have used this in any of the last several decades.
Genocide. Smacks of Germany in the 1930s.
1971:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Grossman#:~:text=Paula%20Miriam%20Grossman%20(October%2030,the%20basis%20of%20sex%20discrimination
“One of Grossman's students in New Jersey was Meryl Streep.[18] Another former student, Scott Keeler, wrote a newspaper essay on Grossman in 2007, for the Tampa Bay Times, recalling that "educators and adults in my community, including my own father, let pass the opportunity to teach tolerance and acceptance, and everyone was the worse for it."
plus ça change
does anyone else think that this man’s obsession with trans people is strange at best, sick at the worst?
Wondering how the America I grew up in has devolved into fascism.
Such an embarrassment for the state! He should not be serving any government!
They can never point to any data on trans teachers to supports the accusations they make. I’m encouraging all teachers who are trans to begin bragging, loudly, and often, about your testing scores. celebrate those AP exam scores. Celebrate the lower failure rates for your class credits. Celebrate the students who get into elite colleges or earn certifications. Brag. Early and often.
Let those successes become your shields and your joyful resistance because the state of Texas subjects it’s schools to a ton of testing and funds CTE programs like crazy. It pushes AP programming. Punishes high failure rates. As much as all those hoops really, really suck to experience in a school year…they also provide a lot of data points that prove their lies about trans teachers in classrooms.
The more trans teachers celebrate themselves publicly, the more people in the community will be safeguarded against being indoctrinated into this right-wing bullshit coming from men like abbot about trans teachers.
Yeah well too bad Gov. Abbott, there's this pesky thing called the Constitution.
And hey, we're happy to have any trans/GNC teachers here in PA. Your loss is our gain...