#vote for the rights of the LGBTQIA

[fishiteeth]

Toby may technically be a felon but he's not a convicted one so he can vote!

Unlike one of the presidential candidates....

All of my of-age American followers or folks who see this, please remember to get out there and vote

I voted in order to make sure I can keep my rights this morning and I implore yall to do the same

I am not a political account and this will be the only directly political piece you see from me

[reasonandempathy]

Walz has served as Minnesota’s governor since 2019 after 12 years in the House of Representatives and now chairs the Democratic Governors Association. He has built a reputation as a folksy politician who can get things done, as Minnesota has adopted a number of progressive laws during his tenure. According to a poll conducted earlier this year, Walz enjoys an approval rating of 55% among Minnesotans. Since Minnesota Democrats achieved a legislative trifecta in the 2022 elections, Walz and his allies have used their power to push a slate of progressive policies. The governor has signed bills protecting abortion access, expanding background checks for prospective gun owners and legalizing recreational marijuana. “Right now, Minnesota is showing the country you don’t win elections to bank political capital,” Walz said last year. “You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.” That philosophy has endeared him to progressives, who threw their support behind him as the veepstakes kicked into high gear over the past two weeks. They reshared clips of Walz lovingly mocking his daughter’s vegetarianism and tinkering with his car to paint him as the dad that America needs right now.

This is fucking awesome! Honestly, sincerely good news and a very promising pick for the potential Harris Administration. An aggressive, unabashed, popular, populist left-winger with a track record of enacting real, substantive help for people is capital-G Great.

What has he done, specifically?

Abortion rights

In a 1995 ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld abortion rights in Minnesota. In January 2023, Walz signed the PRO Act (Protect Reproductive Options Act) into law, making abortion a "fundamental right," as well as access to contraception, fertility treatments, sterilization and other reproductive health care.

The law made Minnesota the first state to codify abortion rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which nullified Roe. v. Wade after nearly 50 years of precedent. In April 2023, Walz signed the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act into law, shielding women and providers from any legal action originating from the patient's state.

Pro-LGBTQIA+ legislation

In March 2023, Walz signed an executive order to protect the right of residents to have access to gender-affirming health care. Weeks later, he signed the "Trans Refuge" bill, banning the enforcement of arrest warrants, extradition requests and out-of-state subpoenas for those who traveled to Minnesota for care.

"When someone else is given basic rights, others don't lose theirs," Walz said. "We aren't cutting a pie here. We're giving basic rights to every single Minnesotan."

Paid family, medical and sick leave

In May 2023, Walz signed a law creating a state-run program to provide paid family and medical leave for Minnesota workers, funded by a 0.7% payroll tax on employers, by 2026.

Legalization of recreational marijuana

In May 2023, Minnesota became the 23rd state in the nation to legalize recreational cannabis use. Three months later, people 21 and older could start to possess certain amounts of marijuana at home and on their person, in addition to legally growing up to eight plants at a time.

Restoration of voting rights for former felons

In March 2023, Walz signed a bill that restored the right to vote to more than 50,000 convicted felons who had already served their time.

Universal school meals

Amid the increase in food insecurity for many Minnesotans during the pandemic, and the subsequent strain on the state's food shelves that remains to this day, Walz signed a bill in March 2023 that ensures all K-12 students in the state have access to free breakfast and lunch on school days.

Do you know what makes this even better?

Fuck 'Em. I know negative partisanship is important and can help motivate right-wingers to vote, but they're going to vote anyway. And him being afraid of Walz is just a sign that he's a good pick, in policy and politics.

[rollwithdicey]

Before I get back to fully posting normally I also want to put this out there,

If you live in the United States,

If you become a member of the Satanic Temple you are legally protected by your First Amendment right for "Freedom Of Religion" to your own bodily autonomy.

The Satanic Temple is legally recognized as a church by the IRS and the Federal Court System. The are in multiple lawsuits against states such as Texas, Idaho, Missouri, and Arkansas that are implementing strict abortion bans.

This Bodily Autonomy also includes LGBTQIA+ members and Transgender individuals seeking medical attention

You can contact them and they will fight for you and your rights to practice your religion

This link brings you to their RRR Campaign page for more information:

Signing up is free and you can easily find a congregation near you, and it's not exclusive to the US, but for what's currently happening in the US following the presidential election, I'm making this post for you. You're also able to purchase a membership card and certificate after you join but joining is completely free.

One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.

Hail thyself

[theacecouple]

TOMORROW!

October 23rd, 2024 is the 4th annual Disabled Ace Day!

Disabled Ace Day, which takes place on Wednesday during Ace Week, is dedicated to awareness, visibility, and celebration of the intersections of Asexuality and Disability and advocates for material and social support of Disabled Aces everywhere.

With a vitally important election coming up in the US, we will be talking politics tomorrow on the The Ace Couple podcast by discussing the laws that create marriage inequality in our country for Disabled people, for Asexual & Aromantic people, and for Black Americans.

Obergefell v. Hodges may have allowed for same-sex marriage at the federal level, but it does NOT mean that we have true marriage equality in this country.

We encourage Disabled Aces from around the globe to talk about your own experience, be it personal or political, to raise awareness this Ace Week.

Disabled Ace Day logo by Emmalee Larghi Dahlgren

[political-us]

Voter suppression for married women, trans people, anyone who has changed their name since birth.

[nadias-orizonta]

If nothing else, you're still here. I cannot stress enough YOU'RE STILL HERE!!! You were here last time, you survived long enough to still be here now. I'm proud of you! If they want us gone, make them work for it. If they want to take our rights, fight to hold on and if they win, fight back again and again and again!!! They take so much already, don't let them take your hope, don't make it easy for them, don't give them your heart, never give up your life!

The one thing they hate more than anything, is the fact that YOU ARE STILL HERE!!!

Let them seethe, let them cry, let them be consumed by the hate in their hearts, and let them be forgotten by all but the dirt they'll rot within.

Let them watch as all of their work amounts to nothing because WE WILL STILL BE HERE!!!!

[quantumfrail]

[squishymain]

Reminder

[limerence-leftovers]

I voted. I tried. I love you.

— Millions of Americans for Kamala Harris

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

You can bet your ass!

[1stpoliticalcartoons]

[whenweallvote]

It’s the last weekend of Pride, y’all! #Pride started as an uprising in 1969, and we have the numbers to bring that same energy straight to the voting booth in 2024. 

Join us and Billy Porter in registering to vote now at weall.vote/register.

[monchy-cronchy]

Exist unapologetically‼️♿️🏳️‍⚧��

It’s a hard time for a lot of communities right now, in the US because of the election. It’s not yet over, but it’s not looking very good. Remember to be yourself, but safely! They don’t want us to exist. They don’t LIKE us existing, so EXIST. Do not disappear. Do not lay silent. Do not fall, we have each other.

Be safe, be proud, be you. 💙

and if for some god awful reason you follow any of my socials and voted red, get the hell out

[izzylimon]

YOU NEED TO SEE THIS, PLEASE SHARE!! Ben Shapiro confronted on abortion bans as they negatively affect the black and LGBTQIA+ communities

trigger warning: SA is mentioned

[soberscientistlife]

[ceilidhtransing]

It's frankly horrifying how blasé some American queer people are being about the stripping away of legal rights under a potential Trump administration.

I'm very aware that queer politics and queer liberation are bigger than just “what's legal” or “what the state allows us to do” or whatever. Queer people have a very long history of existing without state support and building our own community structures when the rest of society fails us. But oh my god this doesn't mean that our legal rights aren't important. Protection against discrimination is important. The right to marry is important. Being able to access legal HRT is important. The right to legal gender change is important. Adoption rights are important. Protection against “gay panic” and “trans panic” defences is important. Not being classified as a “mental illness” or a “sex crime” is important. Having laws that are on our side isn't everything but it sure as hell isn't nothing.

I feel like some queer people today have this idealised, romanticised idea of what life was like for the queer community in the west in the 60s, 70s, 80s - this sense that Yes It Was Tough, But It Wasn't Anything We Couldn't Deal With, that it was more “radical” and “punk” and “politically pure” and so really we should be wanting to return to that because That Was When All The Cool Grassroots Queer Organising Was Happening before we started getting proper legal protections.

But a lot of the organising that people were doing back then - not all, but a lot - was towards the very rights that some people now don't seem too concerned about throwing away. They fought hard for stuff like anti-discrimination protections and HRT access and I know that's not “glamorous”, it's not “throwing bricks at cops”, but it's important activism that makes a genuine material difference to the lives of so many queer people. They wouldn't have fought so hard for these rights if they didn't matter. And the idea that acknowledging this is somehow “anti-revolutionary” or “bootlicking” or whatever is absurd.

And from these people there's so little recognition of the fact that actually, for many of us, we didn't survive this era. Or we survived but endured so much avoidable suffering. There's a tendency to romanticise “community organising” that tries to compensate for a hostile state while forgetting that community organising can't save everyone. [And it's much, much easier to do community organising when you have a modicum of legal protection. It's a lot harder to organise your queer community pantry and support hotline and safe sex supplies dispensary when the law now defines running any kind of queer venue as “child grooming” or “a public obscenity” or whatever and starts jailing people for it.] Don't rose-tint this time as one of Cool Underground Radicalism without acknowledging that a hell of a lot of people suffered and died because society was far more hostile to them and they didn't have the legal framework that we have now.

Am I saying that, because queer people have some legal rights now, everything is lovely and perfect? That queer activism is “finished because we have gay marriage now”? No. Of course not. Inequality persists. Discrimination persists. The rights that currently exist still don't protect everyone equally, especially where queerness intersects with other forms of marginalisation. There is still so much more to push for.

But pushing for more is completely incompatible with allowing a rollback of what we already have. This casual “so what if Trump takes away our rights; I'm still not voting Democrat” is a spit in the face of all the people who fought so hard for queers to have these rights. Throwing away your vote in order to make a political point and thus allowing someone into power who plans to remove legal rights for queer people - and who is also unimaginably worse than his opponent on basically every other issue - is not what queer activism looks like, and this casual willingness to sacrifice hard-fought rights is demonstrative of either immense privilege or an incredible blindness to what life is like for queer people who don't enjoy these rights. There are queer people in the world who are still fighting for their identities not to be fucking criminalised, who will be looking at the attitude of essentially “who cares if Trump gets into power and sets fire to decades' worth of queer legal victories, if that's what it takes to prove a point to the Democrats” with utter appalment. (And if you're not queer, but are perfectly unconcerned about sacrificing our rights on the altar of Refusing To Vote For A Democrat, that is disgusting, and you are not an ally.)

People fought so hard to have these rights. Rolling them back will have horrific consequences. Please don't just toss them away.