#legislators

[grison-in-space]

Via a conversation on Metafilter about the state of Florida's decision to crush its public institutions, a person I think is particularly wise left a comment about the state of the legislature on higher education in Wisconsin.

The situation in Florida is atrocious, but it's important to be aware of how widespread this movement on the part of MAGA politicians to ban all academic and support programs related to gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality is. I'm a professor in the Wisconsin state university system, where, in addition to my regular fulltime work in my home department I direct the LGBTQ+ Studies Program (a more-than-halftime job I have done for many years in return for zero additional salary, or summer funds, or course buyout, or any other compensation...).

This summer, the Wisconsin state legislature, gerrymandered into permanent Republican control, voted to ban all DEI programs in the state university system, and cut $32 million from the university budget, which it stated was amount of "taxpayer money being wasted on divisive indoctrination efforts" (to paraphrase Assembly Speaker Robin Vos). This comes after years of successive budget cuts and a ten-year tuition freeze and years of faculty and staff taking pay cuts in the form of "furloughs" through which we were expected to just keep working. The situation is now somewhat improved in that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, vetoed the DEI ban, but he cannot restore the funding. Anyway: a few days after the legislative vote to ban DEI , I was giving a talk about the range of state bills attacking trans youth and adults, and there was a Democratic state legislator on the panel. When we were introducing ourselves and I told her I directed the LGBTQ+ Studies Program, she said, "Oh, but that's no longer legal. Well, unless Evers vetoes the ban; we'll see."

After doing some blinking, I responded by explaining the difference between DEI programs and academic programs. DEI programs provide student support services, which is deemed administrative work, in contrast to academic programs. The LGBTQ+ Resource Center and the LGBTQ+ Studies Program at my university are both vital and important. But the resource center organizes support groups and social activities for students, while the academic program teaches classes and sponsors academic talks. Academic programs are not part of the DEI system--and the very same legislature that voted for the DEI ban had spent years prior threatening sanctions against students and faculty for supposedly not sufficiently respecting the absolute value of free speech in academia. Legislators presented instructors as censorious ideologues, students as snowflakes in love with a victim narrative, and the legislature as the champion of teaching and discussing all ideas freely.

The image of DEI programs presented by Republican legislators is some kind of kink fantasy, in which cis straight white men are forced to prostrate themselves, declare themselves to be bad and deserving of punishment, and lick the boots of students who are trans and queer, of color and feminist. The reality is that university DEI programs are providing mental health services and tutoring and social support to college students, at a time when their levels of mental health challenges are very high. They have zero to do with the kink humiliation fantasy, they really are about inclusion, and it is ludicrous and cruel to cut social support to marginalized college students.

But even if the state ban were not vetoed, a DEI ban does not dismantle programs like Gender Studies or African and African Diaspora Studies or LGBTQ+ Studies, because they are academic programs, I explained to the Democratic legislator. But from her response, it was clear that not only did Republican Wisconsin legislators think they'd banned all academic programs examining race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and who knows what else (disability studies? Jewish studies and Islamic studies?), but that the Democratic legislators seemed to believe so as well.

The flip from "we are the party of free speech!" to "we are the party that bans books and entire academic disciplines!" happened with dizzying speed. But take it from me as a trans person--these legislative attacks can burst across the country in the space of months, shifting the landscape radically. The thing about the MAGA movement is that it is made up of people who believe that the situation is desperate, the American project is on the verge of failure, and the time has come to destroy or be destroyed. Most Americans, including non-MAGA Republicans, want to see the culture war cool down and Americans get along, but MAGA-sorts want it to go hot. And I have to admit some despair about what to do about this, because of the unpersuadability of this group. Take a look at Question 39 from this CBS/YouGov poll of Iowa voters last week, and what percentage of Republican voters there believe they are being lied to by various parties. The percentage of MAGA voters who said they said they believed they were being told the truth by Trump was 71%, in comparison to 63% for friends and family, 56% for conservative news sources, and 42% for religious leaders. Only 32% of Iowa Republicans generally believed they were told the truth by medical scientists. (The figures for Joe Biden and "liberal media" were 10% and 8% respectively.)

It is hard to persuade people with facts and logic and calls for empathy when they think you are a liar attacking their great leader with whom 99% say they identify. What we have to do is persuade others to stand up. And I don't want to be doomy, but my experience with resisting transphobic legislation and action causes me a lot of concern. It's not just "the face-eating leopards won't eat my face" problem. The fact is, frankly, that a lot of institutions and people are craven. This past year I was in a working group with medical and social scientists advising the HHS about creating guidelines for research with intersex and transgender populations, and then Libs of TikTok spread lies about hospitals supposedly performing "sex changes" on little kids, and several children's hospitals received bomb threats--and suddenly most of the medical researchers working with trans youth were pulled from the working group by the hospitals they were affiliated with. Hospital administrators are shutting down research on trans youth and clinics serving trans youth, rather than having the backs of threatened doctors and patients, handing a victory to the face-eating leopards who growled at them.

My conclusion is that we need to focus energy on teaching people who have not dealt with serious bullying before how to stand up to bullies. For people like concerned parents considering attending school board meetings to oppose book bans, we could teach basic mutual aid strategies, like forming a supportive group to attend together. But what we are to do about people like college administrators and corporate executives who would like to do the right thing for students and employees, but not as much as they'd like to avoid offending a wealthy donor or receiving negative conservative media attention. . . that's a big question to me.

I have left my own longer comment in the wider thread.

(If you also like longform, thoughtful text conversation, this is my regular plug for Metafilter as a platform. If you DM me an email address, I can send you an invitation link for a free account.)

#metafilter #education #public education #colleges #legislators #cannot fucking believe the DEI thing #the thing is I have collaborated with this person in the past and he is a deeply sensible human being #so if he says this is what the legislators think #I believe him

[1five1two]

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?

Frederic Bastiat

#quotes #frederic bastiat #Mankind #legislators

[fieriframes]

[I'm here in Denver, Colorado, just a couple of blocks away from the Colorado State Capitol, to check out a joint that's serving up some righteous bar food to locals and legislators alike. This is Prohibition.]

#s17e07 a festival of flavor #guy fieri #guyfieri #diners drive-ins and dives #righteous bar food #colorado state capitol #denver #blocks #joint #locals #legislators #prohibition

[ore-chasms-blog]

help nebraska trans youths

hello

i am from nebraska and some terrible bills passed a round of debate in the state legislature:

LB 574

LB 575

these bills target trans youth and their parents rights under the guise of protecting school sports and 'protecting the children' from nefarious things from nefarious boogeymen in the forms of trans rights.

if you are or know people from Nebraska in the US, i beg you to contact your state senators with this aclu link:

contact legislator

reblog and spread if ya can please

only sign if you live in nebraska for legal reasons

#trans rights #nebraska #legislators #contact your senator #government #cw: transphobia #american politics #us politics #anime nebraskon #lgbtqia #lgbt rights #trans people #are people too #ne #huskers #unl #unk #uno #omaha #lincoln #kearney #north platte #grand island #activism #progressive #this shit is straight up the first to third stages of genocide like this is how it starts not with walls and chambers but with laws an

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

  “Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” - Percy Bysshe Shelley (died: 8 July 1822)

#Percy Bysshe Shelley #Shelley #poets #poet #poetry #philosophers #philosophy #legislators #legislate #world

[enbycrip]

EDITED TO ADD: Sources from the OP in the comments

#trans #nonbinary #trans nonbinary #ancient history #sumer #gender #we have always been here #historical trans people #you cannot legislate us away and you cannot wipe us out while humanity still exists #we are as perennial as the grass #inanna #trans is sacred

[pressnewsagencyllc]

Zardaris supersede Sharifs with most legislators from same family in Pakistan - Times of India

LAHORE: The Zardaris have overtaken the Sharifs to hold the record for having the most number of lawmakers from a family in Pakistani politics after President Asif Ali Zardari and slain former premier Benazir Bhutto’s youngest daughter Aseefa was elected unopposed as a member of Parliament. Aseefa, who is set to become the First Lady, had filed a nomination for the National Assembly seat NA-207…

View On WordPress

#Aseefa #Family #Legislators #Pakistan #President Asif Ali Zardari #sharifs #zardaris

[detainedstaffday]

United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (“Bangkok Rules”).

International human rights law provides a clear and universal framework relating to detention, enshrined by the following rule:

United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (“Bangkok Rules”)

Bad food and medical care and even worse problems make prison reform a must.

The Bangkok Rules give guidance to policy makers, legislators, sentencing authorities and prison staff to reduce the imprisonment of women, and to meet the specific needs of women in case of imprisonment.

#Bangkok Rules #make prison reform #women prisoners #International human rights law #policy makers #legislators #sentencing authorities #prison staff #meet the specific needs of women #case of imprisonment #detention and imprisonment #detention #Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners #Non-custodial Measures #Women Offenders #Youtube

[oh-dear-so-queer]

In 1921, a law to criminalise lesbian sexual activity was proposed in the House of Commons. Lesbianism had not been banned before, and the majority of legislators thought it safer not to draw the attention of chaste women to such possibilities.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

#book quote #normal women #philippa gregory #nonfiction #20s #1920s #20th century #law #criminalization #lesbian #house of commons #banned #legislators #chaste

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

Yall remember how Texas had that "report an abortion" form that they had to take down after a week?

Well, Missouri has one, only it's for reporting transgender concerns.

Comrades. Friends. Romans. Countrymen. You know what to do.

#queer politics #transgender #trans rights #trans legislation #trans genocide #missouri #fuck the AG man #PLEASE deal with this the same way we dealt with the texas one #i want this man to be SHAMED #I want my trans kids to know they are LOVED #i want this thing down by SUNDAY #please. if you do one thing for me ever im asking that this is it

[teachanarchy]

How does Congress “Work”? | Power and Politics in US Government 22 of 30...

#power #politics #government #congress #committees #legislators #legislation #Youtube

[prokopetz]

It's generally true that institutions don't make rules prohibiting things that nobody is doing (i.e., the existence of the prohibition demonstrates the existence of whatever it's prohibiting), but then I think about the moral panic back in the 1980s where people genuinely thought that shitty movies about white dudes dressing up in ninja costumes were teaching children to be ninja assassins, and passed a bunch of laws banning "ninja weapons" for which their only source of knowledge were those selfsame movies, with the result that, to this day, many jurisdictions have laws on the books prohibiting weapons which do not exist, and I reflect that every principle has exceptions.

#media #movies #moral panics #ninjas #legislation #swearing

[energynews247]

Michigan legislators took $176K from DTE since outage backlash

DTE Energy has given $176,000 to Michigan lawmakers’ campaigns and related funds since a February ice storm caused lengthy power outages, a reoccurring event that stoked widespread backlash from DTE customers. The spending comes as Democrats attempt to pass climate and consumer protection bills, raising questions over whether they will deliver on promises that some have made to rein in the…

View On WordPress

#176K #backlash #DTE #legislators #Michigan #outage

[tenth-sentence]

What the three also had in common was that they all involved threats to the body.

"Frankenstein's Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture" - Jon Turney

#book quote #frankenstein's footsteps #jon turney #nonfiction #scientists #medical men #legislators #common point #threats #bodily autonomy

[qupritsuvwix]

#congress #senior citizens #legislators #term limits

[ladookhotnikov]

Coin Center Calls DeFi Bill Unconstitutional

Cryptocurrency analysts are extremely negative about the bill on the regulation of decentralized platforms which has been submitted to the US Senate.

As conceived by the senators who submitted the project for consideration, sanctions can be imposed on any investor of the DeFi platform if a violation of the law is found. If the law is adopted, the Ministry of Finance will determine the responsible person.

The Coin Center spokesman said that the very concept of DeFi implies the absence of specific leaders who exercise control over the protocol and services.

Legislators parry these accusations by saying that most platforms that present themselves as decentralized actually have a clear structure and an ultimate beneficiary.

Critics of the bill claim that if it is adopted, the constitutional article on freedom of speech will be violated because code developers who can create it as well as freely express their opinion may fall under sanctions.

#CoinCenter #DeFi #USSenate #Control #Legislators