#anti-lgbt+ laws

[thoughtlessarse]

The ultraconservative shift of the ruling party in Tbilisi, mirroring the paths taken by Russia and Hungary, has intensified pressure on the country’s gay and lesbian population, which now faces increased attacks, violence, and repression. The murder of Kesaria Abramidze was a devastating blow to Georgia’s LGBTQ+ community. On September 18, the transgender model and presenter was stabbed multiple times. Neighbors discovered her lifeless body in a pool of blood. The confessed perpetrator, her 26-year-old ex-partner, was arrested and faces up to 20 years in prison. According to posts the victim shared on social media a few months prior, their relationship had been “toxic.” Abramidze was one of the most prominent public figures in the country, yet even her fame could not shield her from this tragic fate. Reports from local media suggest that her complaints to the authorities may have gone ignored. Activists and the LGBTQ+ community in Georgia are now left grappling with a sobering question: if someone as visible as Kesaria could not be protected, how can the rest of the community survive amid the rising tide of hatred sweeping the nation? Just 24 hours before this brutal crime, the Georgian Parliament approved the “Law on Family Values and Protection of Minors,” a Draconian measure that bans any public expression deemed to be “LGBTQ+ propaganda.” The Social Justice Center in Tbilisi condemned the legislation, stating: “Political homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia have become central to the government’s official discourse and ideology. Kesaria Abramidze’s killing cannot be viewed separately from this overall grave context.” While Georgian society is largely conservative, progressive legislation enacted over the past two decades had allowed civil society to flourish. Numerous rights and advocacy groups emerged, establishing a foothold in the nation. Tbilisi, in turn, became the region’s liberal capital — a hub for peace activists from Armenia and Azerbaijan, a haven for exiles fleeing neighboring autocracies, and a rare safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. “Even though it was slow, there was progress. We organized festivals, conferences. State policies were updated, and mentions of sexual diversity were added. We worked on training police officers,” recalls Mariami Kvaratskhelia, co-founder of Tbilisi Pride and leader of the activist group Queer Initiative. “LGBTQ+ people from Iran, Lebanon, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya… came to live here because they felt freer, safer.” That sense of safety has vanished. In recent years, hundreds of LGBTQ+ individuals have fled Georgia, and many more are expected to follow if the ruling Georgian Dream party holds on to power. The group was declared the winner of the October 26 election, but the opposition has refused to recognize the result, claiming there was widespread fraud.

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[lambxink]

trying to post where i can but if youre able to donate toward our travel expences, anything helps. and if youre not able to donate at this time please boost this post. deshitstain signed into law even more anti trans/lgbtq bills today and it does not look like hes slowing down on them.

[suncatstudiosyt]

!!⚠️ HUGE ALERT ON KOSA ⚠️!!

KOSA is being voted in Senate this Thursday!!! Call now! Sign everything you can now!!

[apricotbuncakes]

Hey, trans people in Texas need to get out ASAP. I'm sure you already knew that, but it's only getting more dangerous by the day.

Odessa, Texas has made it legal to sue trans people who use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity, with the minimum price paid to the 'affected individual' (whoever reported the trans person and sued them) $10,000, or roughly the cost of Top Surgery.

Please stay safe.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:

Georgia’s parliament on Thursday pushed ahead a sweeping package of bills that would effectively outlaw LGBTQ+ identity in the former Soviet republic. The set of bills proposed by the ruling pro-Putin Georgian Dream party bans depictions of same-sex relationships in the media, outlaws gender-affirming surgery, and will make Pride events and the public display of the Pride flag in Georgia a thing of the past.

Parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili describes the bills as necessary to control “LGBT propaganda,” which he said was “altering traditional relations.” The first reading of the bill titled “On the Protection of Family Values ​​and Minors,” which draws heavily from Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ “propaganda” law passed last year, drew widespread support among Georgia Parliament deputies. The bill is scheduled for second and third readings in the fall. In addition to outlawing public gatherings “promoting” same-sex relationships, the legislation would also limit adoption to heterosexuals, ban gender changes on official identification, and outlaw “LGBT propaganda” in education. Georgian Dream MPs have also proposed introducing “genetic” requirements in establishing legal marriage, whereby marriage would be a union of a “genetic woman” and a “genetic man.”

The Caucasus nation of Georgia is moving forward with its LGBTQ+ and transgender erasure bills.

[uharuz]

as far as i can tell, anyone can sign the petition here. my autofill was on so i'm not sure if it's limited to some areas. as of posting this the petition is at 68,500 out of 100,000 and as far as i can tell you can sign it as many times as you want

edit: i tried signing and reloading the page and the number didn't go up but i got emails thanking me for signing, so i'm not sure whether they count

[lenbryant]

Texas fires doctors who offer gender-affirming care. WTF?

[lawofcollage]

This is known as the drag pride flag, which felt really relevant to share given the state of things.

[commiepinkofag]

Drag Me To The Capitol march and rally against anti-trans bills

Monarch, right center, leads chants in front of the Statehouse doors as protestors participate in the Drag Me To The Capitol march and rally against anti-trans bills in Montgomery, Alabama, on Tuesday May 16, 2023. The march went from the State Supreme Court building to the State Capitol building, then to the Alabama State House. [📷 Mickey Welsh / Montgomery Advertiser]

[our-queer-experience]

listen. as someone running a queer positivity blog with the world being.... like it is right now, i feel like i need to say a few things.

the first is that vents are always welcome in my inbox, and i will always listen no matter the subject, no matter your personal opinions or political stance or anything.

the second is that i am not required to make posts or reblogs about ever tragic bill. yes, it needs to be talked about. yes, we need public awareness. but i am transgender. i have generalized anxiety and depression. there need to be spaces focusing on promoting group joy and euphoria and love, because when the whole world is talking about every awful thing, it becomes very hard to even go online to have fun.

we need to talk about these things. but it is not ever trans persons job to try and make a differance. some of us just want a space free from negativity, and we are not evil for not priorotizing activism.

we do not owe anyone activism. we are allowed to exist free of politics online.

[thedisdainfullysilentvisitor]

I've heard plenty of the shit the Muck and Orange have been doing so far. I'd really like to hear about more people telling ICE agents to 'gargle my balls' and refusing to comply with direct orders.

On the bright side there's actual good people brave enough to stay in the government when they were ordered to do something illegal and were placed on leave or fired and refused to do either one.

I mean, Orange ordered people not to fly lgbt flags near the white house or in government buildings. Who is still doing that? Who's helped AOC find the migrants and get them to seminars that guide them on how to avoid ICE even if AOC 'gets in trouble' for it?

Need to know we're not just giving up and kneeling to the nazis.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Adam Zivo

Published: Nov 30, 2023

Given the chance, Hamas would murder every LGBTQ person in the world

Amid renewed conflict in Gaza, a startling number of queer progressives are romanticizing Palestinians and playing down their hatred towards LGBTQ people. This whitewashing is wrong, no matter how legitimate Palestinian calls for self-determination may be.

Since the early 2000s, radical queer activists have fervently advocated for Palestinian rights under the assumption that, as both communities oppose the capitalist West, “queer liberation” cannot be disentangled from “anti-imperialism.”

This has never made much sense. Strategically aligning against a shared enemy does not necessarily make two groups friends. There are obvious tensions between Palestinians and the LGBTQ community that cannot be ignored — mainly the fact that most Palestinians, along with their political leaders, hate gay and trans people and many want them dead.

In a 2019 poll conducted by the BBC, only five per cent of Palestinians in the West Bank approved of homosexuality — which was the lowest rate within the Middle East and North Africa. Gazans are generally excluded from this research, but local Islamic law mandates death or 10 years of imprisonment for homosexuality.

LGBTQ people face such dire threats to their safety in Gaza and the West Bank that hundreds have fled to Israel as refugees. When interviewed by the United Nations, escapees have recounted harrowing torture and death threats from both family members and Palestinian security forces. Yet even abroad, these people are not safe. Last year, Ahmad Abu Marhia, a 25-year-old gay man living under asylum in Israel, was kidnapped and then beheaded in the West Bank just two months before he was scheduled to immigrate to Canada.

Despite this, activists throughout the West have paraded signs bearing the message “Queers for Palestine” — a slogan that some have ridiculed as the equivalent of “Chickens for KFC.” Earlier this month a banner was hung in the University of British Columbia reading: “Trans liberation can’t happen without Palestinian liberation.”

It’s unclear why LGBTQ rights are in any way dependent on Palestinian self-determination — activist explanations here tend to be vague and muddled at best.

Is the argument that no disadvantaged social group can be free until all are? If that’s the case, then why is this logic rarely, if ever, applied to antisemitism? And if all disadvantaged groups need support, then why should any LGBTQ person, who has limited resources and time, prioritize the Palestinians over the many other communities fighting for rights and attention in the world today?

While LGBTQ people have no special obligation to support Palestinians, there is nothing wrong with defending Palestinians’ fundamental rights despite their rampant homophobia — the validity of these rights is not conditional on moral perfection, after all. If a gay man can support Afghan and Iranian women, or Uyghur Muslims, all of whom have their own prejudices, then Palestinians can be reasonably supported as well.

Deciding what social causes to support is a deeply personal choice for anyone — some LGBTQ people prioritize Palestinians, and others don’t. Each option is understandable, but which path one chooses to take should, ideally, be based on accurate information.

Rather than allow this, though, the queer left uses misleading arguments to inflate support for the Palestinian cause — firstly, by fabricating an artificial obligation to Palestinian liberation, and, secondly, by playing down the severity of Palestinian homophobia (and, by extension, Islamic homophobia).

Queer leftists are quick to argue that the Qur’an’s language on homosexuality is ambiguous, while ignoring the fact that the hadiths, which are the canonical teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, explicitly prohibit homosexuality. Muslim-majority countries do not pass discriminatory legislation arbitrarily — they work off mainstream interpretations of Shariah law.

Some queer leftists try to exonerate Palestinians of any moral responsibility for their homophobia by blaming western colonialism. To make this argument, they typically fixate on the fact that legal prohibitions on homosexuality were first introduced into the region by the British in 1936.

But the British ruled this part of the Middle East for only 30 years (from 1918 to 1948) and implemented sodomy laws for barely more than a decade. Palestinians have had 75 years to improve their attitudes and laws, but haven’t done so and show no desire for change — even though the Israelis, who also inherited these laws, were able to shed this baggage decades ago.

To blame contemporary Palestinian homophobia on a relatively brief, long-dead period of colonial rule is inane and patronizing. It implies that the Palestinians have no moral agency; that their beliefs and institutions are simply dictated by western policy choices; and that they are incapable of being held to the same ethical standards as Europeans.

Another minimization strategy is to argue that Islamic homophobia is not much worse than what is experienced in the West. For example, world-famous drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova (an Irish-American who cosplays as a Soviet citizen) recently claimed on X that anti-LGBTQ violence in Gaza is comparable to that in Scotland or Massachusetts. The post went viral and was liked over 140,000 times.

The last time I checked, gay people are not beheaded or routinely tortured in the West. While some anti-LGTBQ violence exists, only very coddled westerners can delude themselves into believing that this is similar to what occurs in Gaza, the West Bank or the rest of the Islamic world.

Some queer leftists also nonsensically claim that criticizing Palestinian homophobia “erases the existence of queer Palestinians” — but absolutely no one, except maybe Hamas, is saying that LGBTQ Palestinians don’t exist. Calling attention to social prejudice actually spotlights victims who would otherwise be forgotten. This should be glaringly obvious.

The queer left’s tendency to romanticize Palestinians and ignore their homophobia may seem strange at first, but it becomes intelligible when one remembers that this crowd often subscribes to a strain of “anti-imperialism” that interprets the world through a simplistic and reflexively anti-western framework.

This framework divides the world into a simple binary: oppressors (who are unambiguously evil) and the oppressed (who are morally pure). “Anti-imperialists” assume that: i) communities that oppose the West overwhelmingly fall into the “oppressed” class; ii) members of this class tend to have similar political and social priorities; and iii) political violence committed by the oppressed automatically counts as morally justified “resistance.”

Of course, the world does not actually conform to this framework, because global conflicts are far more nuanced than anti-imperialists are willing to admit. There is no black-and-white divide between good and evil, and no grand coalition of victims — real life is too diverse and fractured for such a simplistic narrative.

Yet false simplicity provides comfort to many queer activists, because it conceals the uncomfortable compromises that come with political life. Many progressives feel anxious about their own privileged positions in the world, and, as a result, often resort to performative righteousness to assuage these insecurities. The dynamics here are not much different from what is sometimes seen among the devoutly religious — the presence of doubt, compromise and moral greyness is psychologically unacceptable.

In the context of the Palestinians, this fundamentally selfish need for black-and-white thinking leads the queer left to minimize homophobia that, in any other context, would be unacceptable. It encourages the romanticization of Hamas, a terrorist organization that would, if given the chance, murder every LGBTQ person in the world.

If queer leftists wish to ensconce themselves in fairytales, then that’s their prerogative — but other LGBTQ people are justified in taking a skeptical approach, which, yes, can include support for Palestinians’ self-determination that uncomfortably co-exists with clear-eyed recognition of the very ugly parts of Palestinian culture.

[apricotbuncakes]

Hey if you live in WV, our state has filed 17 anti trans bills as of February 14th, 2025. Several of them are repeated bills that didn't get passed last year, and several of them are new.

In fact 46/50 states have filed some form of Antitrans law in this legislative session so far.

Now bills being filed doesn't inherently mean they will be passed. In fact only a fraction of the introduced anti trans bills actually get signed into law. It is devastating when it happens. It's not rare for it to happen, but it's unlikely that all of them will pass in your state if any are filed there at all right now.

If you're worried about your state becoming unsafe...

Click this link to read an Emergency Evacuation Plan designed to help keep trans people informed about what is going on around them and make a set plan for where to move.

I made this E.E.P myself, and update it when pressing information is released, usually at the federal level as keeping track of every single state individually would be a nightmare, and make navigating the document very difficult.

It is not perfect, it cannot address every unique situation, but it's a start. And I hope to expand and improve it wherever and whenever possible.

[zonedelicious]

[itsays]

25k notes all agreeing btw

[makefandomfriends]

Hi! I’m asayyun/ksx22!

My main fandoms are Countryhumans and Law of Talos, but I’m getting into Voltron, MHA, ATLA and am thinking of reading Percy Jackson.

I’m autistic and I like writing fanfiction. I also like making problematic characters lol

Go say hi to asayyun/ksx22!🕊️