The ​American Taliban at Work and Play

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

To ND Legislators: Are Women Equal to Men and Shall All LBGTQ+ be Stoned?

It is well known that many politicians who have played doctor when toddlers continue to play the same game and vote on medical and scientific issues they know nothing about after being elected to public office. Some believe Satan is very busy spreading a horrifying sexy virus around which will condemn participants to Hell.

What nonsense. A couple of decades ago Norwegian scientists studied the top 1,500 species on Planet Earth and quit when they realized all those species had members who were homosexuals. The researchers determined that homosexuality is a normal and natural variation among both wild and captive animals and humans. It is clearly a matter of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.

When Roy and Silo of the Central Park Zoo fell in love and decided to have offspring, the two male penguins took turns sitting on an egg a zoo employee had found neglected by other penguins. They raised the chick as any other pair would. Like any same-sex human couple would.

If a Republican politician was in California, he would be serving in a legislature that is composed of ten percent LBGTQ+ members elected by fellow citizens. Think about it.

When I was principal of Fargo North High School in the early 1990s, we had a kerfuffle between some testosterone-loaded athletic jocks and some gay kids from our very talented theater group. I called both groups into the choral room, lectured the hell out of them and threatened to suspend anyone for ten days if they dared lift a finger against each other. That ended it. But a letter came to me from a gay student. It was later published in the school newspaper, and later I used it in my column in the High Plains Reader. It’s revealing:

“Junior high was the worst. At this age your peers switch from calling you girl to calling you ‘fag’ or ‘faggot.’ And they have evolved in their aggression towards you from just name-calling to physical abuse or threats of abuse. I hated coming to school. I was SCARED to come to school. Now in high school my life is OK, but only OK. I have switched and dropped classes to avoid certain people. I have stopped eating lunch in the commons to avoid possible words shouted at me. School is something you will remember forever. When I think back about my school life, the word that comes to mind is ’fag.’ Why make people’s lives living hell? Why make school a bad memory? Please stop. Why mess up more lives?” Signed, A Person on the Planet.

In the 2022 election an Oklahoma Republican legislative candidate said he wanted to stone gays to death “because it will make me a Christian. Well, does that make me a homophobe? Christians believe in biblical morality, kind of by definition, or they should….” Well, North Dakota Republican legislators, what planet do you live on? What state do you want to live in, North Dakota or Trumpistan?

Mother to Trans: “God Never Makes Mistakes. God Works Perfectly.”

A description of the birth and life of Cory in Open Society Foundations by Serena Daniari will perhaps make a “Christian” think Jesus Christ might have some good ideas about loving enemies and friends.

When Cory was in his mother’s womb being checked out by God (according to the Bible), his doctors and nurses told his mother he was a girl. But when “she” was delivered in the maternity ward, “he” was born with a phallus (that’s a penis to the uninformed).

Here was an intersex child, supposedly with two XX chromosomes, born with a penis instead of a clitoris. Doctors told the mother Cory was born with “ambiguous genitalia” and that they could easily remove the penis and “normalize” her girl’s genitalia. She refused at that time, saying: “Can I just have my kid?” She and her husband ask: “If you remove something, it’s gone forever. Who knows if this person is going to grow up to want to have a vagina or to have penetrative sex? And whose business is it to make those decisions except the person?”

Cory is now seven and is a shy, artistic person who now identifies as a boy who loves drawing, music, and video games. The parents and his doctors have no idea what will happen at age fourteen or twenty-one. The real trouble is, some politicians for political rather than medical or family reasons, will stick their ignorant noses into places they don’t have a prayer of understanding and really screw things up for about seven percent of Homo sapiens.

Why not spend some of your time thinking about, if God perfectly makes people and never makes mistakes, why are babies born with ambiguous genitalia? Spend some time studying transgenders. Read “Transgender or Devoutly Christian” by Casey Parks in the December 26 Washington Post about Cedar Rapids, Iowa teenager Sid High who asked his mother at fifteen: “Am I going to Hell?”

If you have a heart about people instead of a cash register, you might learn something.

Why Are Republican Legislatures Trying to Pass 168 Bills Limiting Transgenders?

It’s all about whites retaining political power as the country gets more diversified. They must keep conservative Roman Catholics and fundamentalist and evangelical Christians saying redemptive Hail Marys and wrapping snakes around their necks and continuing to vote for anti-life legislation.

There are currently 166 bills awaiting action in Republican states to restrict the rights of members of the LBGTQ+ community, which is three times the number pushed just three years ago. According to the two kids just elected to the ND Legislature, there will be two more added to the list. Gee, are they shielding someone?

All major medical groups are opposed to the bills, including the American Medical Association, the American Pediatric Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. But who gives a damn about experts when you have a chance to retain power?

About 75 of the bills are designed to keep parents and kids dumb. Moms for Liberty is really Moms for Stupidity. These bills place severe restrictions on special curricula, classroom discussions, and ban library books that explain LBGTQ+ issues. Some restrict conversations among teachers and students about sexual and gender identities on school grounds or in the building! Florida is particularly guilty of “Don’t say gay” bills.

ND Representative Lori VanWinkle, who reminds me of another that slept for 20 years, would bar schools from making accommodations for transgenders, like bathrooms. Nothing like a trans in a bathroom to get a Republican politician aroused! I wish they would get as angry about drug companies that make insulin for $1.18 a dose and then charge more than $100 for it.

At least 29 bills are designed to prevent treatment of transgenders who want to transition to the sex their bodies have chosen for them. Only idiots and those bewitched by religions still accepting 14th Century science believe persons have a choice. There are very serious medical problems associated with puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries associated with removing sexual parts. If you are a medical doctor specializing in this dynamic sexual field, convince legislators to get the hell out of the way of achieving transitions.

Remember: For the first time in U.S. history, voters in all 50 states and D.C. had the chance of voting for an LBGTQ+ candidate. Many of them won. Also remember: the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine is a transgender who is a trained pediatrician from Penn State University who specializes in adolescent medicine. Levine states: “Gender-affirming care is medical care. It is mental care. It is suicide prevention care. It improves quality of life, and it saves lives.”

To Republican North Dakota legislators; Why did 52% of trans and non-binary young people contemplate suicide in 2020? Because of people like you who still believe in your ignorance that they are all going to Hell—and should be stoned to death.

If the Planet Is Livable, the Long Arc of History Will Accept the LBGTQ+ Community

I’m convinced by science that in the distant future we will discover why there is such a wide range of homosexuality among at least the top 1,500 species. I’m convinced by Darwin the answer will go back hundreds of millions of years.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, it’s important to know that 68% of Americans support same-sex marriage and that 8 of 10 support laws that protect the LBGTQ+ community from job discrimination, unfair housing laws, and public accommodation problems. Some countries and states have banned conversion clinics which have led parents to believe that homosexuality is a choice, not a permanent condition.

We don’t understand the battles going on inside bodies among genes, hormones, cells, synapses, and other things we don’t know about yet.

For DeSantis to beat Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination, he must become a bigger asshole than the “Orange Jesus” so the MAGA crowd will support him. DeSantis has forced the Florida Agency for Health Care to come up with a new rule which bans Medicaid Insurance coverage for gender dysphoria treatments for transgender people. It also released a report stating that puberty blockers, sex reassignment surgery dealing with breasts and genitalia, and cross-sex hormones are dangerous solutions for LBGTQ+ members. The agency labels it as child abuse—while they continue to commit it.

The leading medical associations, pediatric doctors, and mental health specialists agree that medical treatment for transgender children is safe and can dramatically improve their well-being. Federal guidelines state that gender-affirming care is crucial to the health and well-being of all transgender and nonbinary children. But, of course, politics is politics.

Accept the Fact: North Dakota K-12 Schools Have 20,000 LBGTQ+ Students

The North Dakota Risk Behavior Survey estimates there are more than 20,000 LBGTQ+ students in North Dakota K-12 schools. Approximately 1% of our population is “asexual,’ that is, they have no interest at all in having sex and they rarely even masturbate. That means that 99% are interested in sex with a large majority extremely interested.

The majority has cisgenders, transgenders, bisexuals, lesbians, gays, aromantics, demi-sexuals, pansexuals, nonbinary, gender fluid, gender identity, intersex, genderqueer, and others too numerous to mention. People travel the world to find sex that interests them. Fortunes are made providing it. How did the Kardashians become billionaires?

With local, state, and national governments attacking the LBGTQ+ community constantly, it has come to pass that more than 50% of transgender and non-binary youth across the Divided States of America have seriously considered suicide in just the past year alone. This estimate was arrived at by the Trevor Project which released state-level data from surveys of 34,000 queer and trans youth ages 13 to 24.