Lily Wakefield

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School responds in worst possible way after defecate on teacher’s Pride flag

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When students at a California school stole their teachers Pride flag, defecated on it and posted a video on TikTok, the school responded with a ban.

According to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, last month, two boys at Paso Robles High School in California posted a TikTok video in which they defecated on their science teacher’s large classroom Pride flag, before trying to flush it down the toilet.

Although the school claims it took “disciplinary action” against the boys after it was alerted to the incident by other students, it then responded by banning similar Pride flags.

On 1 October, teachers received a letter about a new policy to make sure classrooms weren’t “politicised”. It told teaching staff to remove any flags that were “alterations of the American flag”, and limited any other flags to two feet by two feet, a significantly smaller size that the flag that was stolen.

Paso Robles Joint Unified School District superintendent Curt Dubost, who sent the letter, told the publication: “We don’t want to turn it into a politicised issue where a student enters a classroom and looks up, ‘Oh, there’s a rainbow flag here, or there’s a blue lives matter flag here — that determines what the partisanship is of my teacher.’

“We think that that’s a real slippery slope. And so we continue to believe that this is a very reasonable compromise solution that allows rainbows, but within reason.”

But sophomore Eve Barajas, president of the high schools equity club, said: “It’s obviously just banning the Pride flag altogether unless you want those little mini ones. It’s a way of subtly just getting rid of it.

“Their defense was that the Pride flag may be a trigger for certain students. But if I had said that the American flag was a trigger to me, I would be treated like a terrorist.”

Queer students say the school ‘has allowed the haters to win’ with Pride flag ban

LGBT+ students and their allies at Paso Robles High School have been protesting the flag ban by drawing tiny Pride flags, which fall within the guidelines, and putting them up around the school.

In a joint op-ed for the San Luis Obispo Tribune, they wrote: “What message does this send to students?

“The flag ban means the school has allowed the haters to win, while LGBT+ students feel punished for wanting to be seen and supported.

“When you are a high school student in the LGBT+ community, you walk into every classroom and school bathroom not knowing if you’ve entered a safe space.

“You endure angry stares, hurtful comments, and relentless assaults of microaggressions that erode our mental health and self confidence. It is exhausting. It is oppressive. It is unacceptable. And so we’re coming out against hate.”

The students have organised a forum, titled “Coming Out Against Hate”, to be held at the school on 20 October.

For the first time, pupils will have an opportunity to “share their experiences and visions for a more welcoming, inclusive educational environment.”

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Trailblazing astronaut Sally Ride will be first out LGBT+ person on a US coin

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Astronaut Sally Ride will become the first out LGBT+ person to appear on US currency, as part of the new American Women Quarters Program.

According to United States Mint, the first five limited edition coins in the American Women Quarters Program will launch next year.

The coins honour Ride as well as Maya Angelou, Asian American actor Anna May Wong, Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller, and suffragette Nina Otero-Warren.

Ride, an engineer and a physicist as well as an astronaut, was the first American woman to travel to space.

She married fellow NASA astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, but they divorced five years later, and she later entered into a 27-year relationship with science writer and professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State University, Tam O’Shaughnessy.

Although Ride was open about her sexuality with those around her, it was not widely known about until after her death in 2012. She stayed with O’Shaughnessy until she passed away.

The year after her death, Ride was awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama.

Otero-Warren, who was born in 1881 and will also be the first Hispanic American to appear on US currency, was also LGBT+ but was not out in her lifetime.

The politician from New Mexico was initially married to a man, but struck up a relationship with a woman named Mamie Meadors in the 1920s.

They lived on the same homestead, but in different houses, and were known as “Los Dos”, or “The Pair”.

United States Mint acting director Alison L Doone said in a statement: “These inspiring coin designs tell the stories of five extraordinary women whose contributions are indelibly etched in American culture.

“Generations to come will look at coins bearing these designs and be reminded of what can be accomplished with vision, determination and a desire to improve opportunities for all.”

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Refusing to use someone’s correct pronouns violates their human rights, Canada tribunal rules

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A human rights tribunal in British Columbia, Canada, has ruled that refusing to use someone’s correct pronouns violates their human rights.

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of restaurant server Jessie Nelson, 32, a non‐binary, gender fluid, transgenderperson, who was fired from their job after asking the bar manager to use they/them pronouns to refer to them.

Brian Gobelle “persistently referred to Jessie Nelson with she/her pronounsand with gendered nicknames like ‘sweetheart’, ‘honey’, and ‘pinky’”, according to the ruling by Devyn Cousineau, member of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. 

Despite Nelson asking Gobelle to stop, he refused, and a second conversation between them about the issue became “heated”. Four days later, Nelson was fired by Ryan Kingsberry, who runs the restaurant. 

Explaining to Nelson why they were fired, Kingsberry said they had come on “too strong too fast” and were too “militant”.

Nelson later took their case to the human rights tribunal, alleging that “Gobelle’s conduct towards them, and the employer’s response, amounts to discrimination in employment based on their gender identity and expression”, in violation of the British Columbia Human Rights Code.

Cousineau agreed that Nelson’s human rights had been violated by the deliberate misgendering.

The judge ordered the Canada restaurant’s management to pay Nelson $30,000 in damages, as well as “implement a pronoun policy and mandatory training for all staff and managers about diversity, equity and inclusion”.

Jessie Nelson, a restaurant server in Canada, said the discrimination was ‘a piece of trauma in a long line of trauma for a trans person living a trans experience’

Testifying for the hearing, Jessie Nelson said they “don’t expect perfection around my pronouns; I never have”.

But the deliberate and repeated misgendering by the bar manager was a “trauma” that left them “scared and sad”.

They said that the job at the restaurant was one of their “first jobs I had where I felt confident enough to disclose who I was”. 

“This was the first time I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to be fully myself’,” Nelson said. 

“I deserve that. I’m 32 years old. I’ve lived long enough pretending… I don’t believe that trans people should have to do that, but I did feel like it would be beneficial. And it was devastating. 

“It’s a piece of trauma in a long line of trauma for a trans person living a trans experience.” 

They added: “I was scared and sad for myself, but more than that I was really worried about future people… I am here today in bringing this forward because it is important for me, as a trans person, to have my existence respected. 

“I’m a human being, with a beating heart and a desire to be seen and valued and heard in the world. And I’m also here for every other current and future trans or queer person working in a service or customer‐facing setting so that hopefully this doesn’t happen anymore. 

“Because it’s a lot. It’s very draining. And we deserve to live, and have joy, and be respected for who we are.”

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NASA refuses to rename multi-billion dollar space telescope honouring cruel ‘homophobe’

NASA is refusing to rename its James Webb Space Telescope despite claims its namesake was involved in an anti-LGBT+ government “purge”.

When it launches in December 2021, the $10 billion telescope will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built.

But the naming of the telescope, in honour of anti-LGBT+ former NASA administrator James Webb, has caused outrage. 

Earlier this year, four astronomers launched a petition to rename the telescope because Webb, who was the administrator of NASA between 1961 and 1968, allegedly participated in a government anti-LGBT+ purge.

Lucianne Walkowicz of the JustSpace Alliance and Adler Planetarium, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein of the University of New Hampshire, Brian Nord of Fermilab and the University of Chicago, and Sarah Tuttle of the University of Washington pointed out: “Prior to serving as the NASA administrator, Webb served as the undersecretary of state during the purge of queer people from government service known as the ‘Lavender Scare’.” 

After detailing Webb’s involvement in “purging” queer people from the US government, they wrote: “We, the future users of NASA’s next-generation space telescope and those who will inherit its legacy, demand that this telescope be given a name worthy of its remarkable discoveries, a name that stands for a future in which we are all free.” 

After 1,250 signatories called on the space agency to reflect on Webb’s history, NASA’s acting chief historian Brian Odom announced that it would investigate the evidence against him using archival documents.

But this week, NASA administrator Bill Nelson told NPR that there was “no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope”.

With its James Webb Space Telescope, NASA will be ‘sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it’

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, one of the astronomers who launched the petition to rename the James Webb Space Telescope, told NPR: “At best, Webb’s record is complicated.

“And at worst, we’re basically just sending this incredible instrument into the sky with the name of a homophobe on it, in my opinion.”

During the 1960s in the US, when Webb was NASA administrator, the idea that the federal government had been “infiltrated” by homosexuals, known as the “Lavender Scare“, resulted in the widespread dismissal of LGBT+ peoplefrom government service.

The astronomers alleged in their petition that Webb was responsible for the “purge” of queer people from NASA at the time.

The also wrote that Webb is specifically named in confidential memos regarding “the problem of homosexuals and sex perverts,” indicating that he was working as “a facilitator of homophobic policy discussions with members of the Senate”.

Prescod-Weinstein, a queer astronomer who was in a NASA postdoctoral programme, criticised the NASA investigation into a name change, and said she wished the space agency would be more transparent about the evidence it had reviewed. 

She said: “I’m basically a NASA fan girl. And so this is particularly hard for me, to feel like I’m being gaslit by the agency that I have spent my career looking up to, and that I have committed parts of my career to.”

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Feminist icon Judith Butler compares ‘gender critics’ to fascists

Philosopher and feminist icon Judith Butler has explained why “rethinking the category of ‘woman’” to include trans women is vital in “securing greater freedoms for women”.

Butler’s 1990 book Gender Trouble is a text that proved foundational to the development of queer theory.

In an interview with The Guardian, Butler reflected on the book 31 years later, and explained that “it was meant to be a critique of heterosexual assumptions within feminism, but it turned out to be more about gender categories”.

Before the book’s publication, and since, “what it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade”, they said.

They continued: “The category of woman can and does change, and we need it to be that way.

“Politically, securing greater freedoms for women requires that we rethink the category of ‘women’ to include those new possibilities.

“The historical meaning of gender can change as its norms are re-enacted, refused or recreated. So we should not be surprised or opposed when the category of women expands to include trans women.”

Judith Butler also insisted that they believe the ever-changing nature of the term “women” is also a concept that should be applied to the term “men”.

“Since we are also in the business of imagining alternate futures of masculinity,” they said, “we should be prepared and even joyous to see what trans men are doing with the category of ‘men’.”

Judith Butler slams TERFs as ‘allied’ with right-wing fascism

Links between the “gender critical” feminist movement and the far-right have been well-documented, and Judith Butler said: “It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with right-wing attacks on gender.”

The “anti-gender ideology” is not seeking to dispute the definition of gender, but to eradicate it “as a concept or discourse, a field of study, an approach to social power” altogether, they said.

Butler added: “The TERFs [trans exclusionary radical feminists] and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact… in favour of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism.”

They described that the “anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times”, and so TERFs “will not be part of the contemporary struggle against fascism”.

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Married couple plan ‘re-wedding’ after one of them comes out as trans during honeymoon

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An already married couple are planning a beautiful “re-wedding” after one spouse came out as a trans woman.

Jae and Rayna Harvey, of Somerset, England, first got married in 2018 in Texas, where Jae is from, but shortly after the wedding Rayna came out as a trans woman.

Rayna told The Mirror that she had been suppressing her true self since she was 11 years old, and that she felt hugely “liberated” after coming out while on their honeymoon in Wiltshire.

The couple are now planning a “re-wedding” to celebrate their love now that Rayna is out, and Jae said: “There’s a bit of a disconnect when we think back to our first wedding as I feel, ‘Well, Ray wasn’t there?’ and I want her in my wedding.

“What I want more than anything is for her family to see her walk down the aisle and for her to have her day – I got to have mine with all my bells and whistles, so now it’s her turn.”

Rayna said that since coming out as trans, she has received “absolutely incredible support” from everyone in her life, including her 93-year-old nan, who buys her “granddaughter” cards on special occasions.

Jae added that at the “re-wedding”, set to take place in Somerset’s Quantock Hills next September, both brides will be “wearing beautiful black dresses” as part of “an all-black and white theme with white, pink and red roses” symbolising rebirth.

In a message to Jae recently shared on Instagram, Rayna said: “Wife, words will never be able to explain how much of a difference you’ve made to my life, I owe most of who I am to you and the time you invested to teach me and to help me get where I want to be.

“From doing my photoshoots, helping me with what goes together clothes wise, holding my hand and reassuring me, to just loving me and being my wife, you’ve got it all, and I’m so so lucky to be loved by you.

“Here’s to another lifetime of love, laughs and happiness.”

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Single gay man who ‘always dreamed’ of a big family adopts six children with disabilities

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A single gay man who said he’s “always dreamed” of a big family has just adopted his sixth child with a disability.

Ben Carpenter, 37, from Huddersfield worked in the care sector before he adopted his first child when he was just 21 years old.

A single gay man who said he’s “always dreamed” of a big family has just adopted his sixth child with a disability.

Ben Carpenter, 37, from Huddersfield worked in the care sector before he adopted his first child when he was just 21 years old.

Adopting children who had disabilities and additional mental and physical needs was important to him, he said, because they “were the most vulnerable and the ones that were most in need of a loving and caring home”.

In 2015, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) estimatedthat while 25 per cent of all looked-after children have a  disability, this number skyrockets to 40 per cent for children waiting on the adoption register.

His first child Jack, who is now 14, has autism, and soon Ben started his family he adopted Ruby, now 11, who has complex needs.

I had a lot to prove at such a young age,” he said.

“I needed to show that I was mature enough and could offer these kids what they needed.”

After adopting Ruby, Ben was asked by the adoption agency whether he would adopt his daughter’s biological sister Lily, who is deaf.

His fourth child was six-year-old Joseph, who has Down’s syndrome, and his fifth child was Teddy, who had Cornelia de Lange syndrome, a rare genetic disorder.

Tragically, Teddy passed away from sepsis in November, 2019, which was unrelated to his disability.

Ben said: “I was devastated and I felt guilty for a while because I kept wondering if there was something I could have done to fix it.

“Before Teddy passed away, I had been contacted to see if I would consider another child. It was a little boy with severe brain issues.

“I had said yes, but when Teddy passed I needed to put the process on hold to allow myself to grieve.”

Last year, although still grieving his son, Ben said: “I realised that this little boy also needed me.”

In April of that year, the gay dad adopted his sixth child, Louis, whose needs to use a wheelchair because of his disability.

He explained: “I had always dreamed about having a big family and I am so happy that my kids are a part of it and that they have so many siblings.

“I often sit and imagine them all at each other’s weddings.

“They are all so supportive of each other’s needs and I am so proud that I have created a happy, loving and stable environment for them to grow up in.

“As much as I have changed their life, they have also changed mine.”

Ben is currently raising money for a multi-sensory room, which “will help the children with sensory issues, developmental disabilities and learning difficulties”, via JustGiving.

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Olympian-turned-doctor ‘made herself a target’ by offering gender-affirming healthcare to trans kids

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Dr Michelle Telfer, who represented Australia in gymnastics at the 1992 Olympic Games, has described how she “made herself a big target” by becoming a global leader in caring for trans kids.

In a short documentary for ABC News In-depth, Telfer explained that after the end of her gymnastics career at the age of 18, she was inspired to become a doctor by those who had treated her various sports injuries.

She said: “I was trying to decide between doing paediatrics or doing psychiatry. And then in paediatrics, I found adolescent medicine, which is that perfect combination of paediatrics and mental health… I’d found the place I wanted to be.”

In 2012, after returning from maternity leave, Telfer took a job as the head of adolescent medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

She oversaw various services for young people, but her life changed forever when she was asked to lead the hospital’s gender clinic for children.

“I was asked to take over this group of trans children in their care, and I jumped at it,” she said. “I’d never met a trans child before I started this job.”

One of the first children she met with, she was, was named Oliver.

She continued: “I said to Oliver, ‘How do you know that you’re a boy? When did you start thinking about yourself as a boy?

“He was 10 at the time, and he told me his story… It was such a beautiful story.

“And I thought, ‘I can help this child have a boy’s body. How many people can do that?”

Oliver went on to receive hormone treatment when he was 15, with the consent of both of his parents. Now 18, he told ABC News: “I’m in my final year of high school. I’m hoping one day to study medicine, cardiothoracic surgery or something similar.

“I’m really optimistic about my future. I’ve huge ambitions I want to do a lot of good in this world. And I think that, you know, I wouldn’t be in that place, I wouldn’t be able to have those dreams, if I didn’t receive support from Michelle.”

Another of the kids in Telfer’s care, a trans teenager named Isabelle, also appeared in the film. She said: “I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have Michelle and the Royal Children’s Hospital with me. I think I’d equate a large part of my being alive at the moment to them.”

Right-wing newspaper The Australian has written “nearly 50” articles about Michelle Telfer.

But, despite the huge satisfaction she gets from helping kids to be their true selves, as the “debate” over trans people’s right to exist gets louder, Michelle Telfer has has become a “target”.

“There have always been critics,” she said.

“You don’t go into this area of medicine without being warned about becoming a target. And I’ve certainly made myself a very big target.”

She has been especially attacked, she explained, by the right-wing newspaper The Australian.

“From August, 2019, to the current time, The Australian newspaper has written nearly 50 articles about me and my work,” said Telfer

“The newspaper is inferring that clinicians like me are harming children, that it’s experimental, that the care is novel, and that they’re potentially mentally ill and they’re not really trans.”

In 2020, following fierce lobbying by right-wing media and anti-trans campaigners for a “national inquiry” into health care for trans kids, Australia’s health minister Greg Hunt referred the issue to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

The college shot down the idea of an “inquiry”, instead calling for greater access to gender-affirming services for trans kids.

However, even after the statement in support of her work, Telfer said the articles in The Australian continued and she began to struggle with anxiety.

Finally at the end of her tether, last year Telfer submitted a 42-page complaint to the Press Council over The Australian‘s coverage.

Despite everything, Telfer remains “absolutely optimistic about the future”.

“I know that what we’re doing is the right thing,” she said.

“Society has for hundreds and hundreds of years tried to ignore and dismiss trans people. But now that we’re affirming them, look at what they can do.”

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Women’s Institute puts proud trans woman on magazine cover in historic first

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The Women’s Institute (WI) has featured a trans woman on the cover of its magazine for the first time ever: 74-year-old activist Petra Wenham.

Petra, a member of the Cake and Revolution WI in Suffolk, said she was “honoured” to be the first trans person to grace the cover of WI Life.

In the magazine, she explained that she came out as trans to her wife, Loraine, in 2015 and came out publicly in 2018.

Around the same time, she began delivering a talk to other WI groups titled: “Have you ever met a trans woman?”

In it, she explains to members the difference between sex and gender, what it’s like to grow up trans, what it means to be intersex and the cost of transitioning, among other topics.

Petra wants to show WI members that “the human condition is complex and gloriously so”.

Throughout Petra’s coming out journey her wife, with whom she has two children and two grandchildren, has been her “rock”.

“I’m very fortunate that I still have my wife Loraine and we’ve been happily married for 48 years,” she said.

“She’s my rock and that gives me a much better base to talk from than some trans people who have been kicked out by their partner or are suffering from depression.”

Just as her wife has fully embraced her, so has the WI.

She said: “WI members are not just accepting, but actively supportive and are welcoming me to the sisterhood… The WI gives me access to build friendships with other women, which is what I need, to build a friendship base besides Loraine.”

t released a public statement in the 2000s to clarify its position, and has since worked with trans education charity Gendered Intelligence to draft it Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy.

Melissa Green, general secretary for the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI), told the East Anglian Daily Times: “The WI is proudly a trans-inclusive organisation… Trans women are welcome to join the WI and participate in meetings and activities in the same way as any other woman.

“We were delighted to feature Petra on the cover of the latest WI Life magazine and share her inspiring work as a speaker and activist.

“It is wonderful that Petra has been welcomed into her WI with such kindness and that reflects the ethos of the WI – it’s about women coming together in a friendly and inclusive environment, learning new things and making a difference in their communities.”

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Top lawyers, MPs, academics and activists tell Boris Johnson how to end conversion therapy

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Lawyers, politicians, academics and activists have banded together to tell Boris Johnson exactly how to legislate for a ban on conversion therapy after his claim it is “technically complex”.

In March this year, following the resignation of three members of the government’s own LGBT+ advisory board, Johnson promised to “stamp out” conversion therapy, but claimed that a ban would be “technically complex to deal with”.

Four monthson, there has been no progress aside from the announcement of a consultation which will take place before a ban is introduced, with no timeline, aiming to “protect the medical profession, defend freedom of speech, and uphold religious freedom”.

o help Johnson with his “technically complex” task – one which has managed with relative ease by many other countries around the world – a group of lawyers, academics, parliamentarians and campaigns have come together.

The Ban Conversion Therapy Legal Forum, convened by campaigner Jayne Ozanne and chaired by barrister and House of Lords member Baroness Helena Kennedy, “brings together some of the most senior legal minds in the UK”.

Its many members include Robin Allen QC, Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley, Mermaids legal and policy advisor Lui Asquith, legal academics from the universities of Liverpool, Leeds, Kent, Nottingham Trent and Manchester, and the LGBT Caucus leaders for Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

Conservative MP and new “special envoy” on LGBT+ rights Lord Herbert, who was appointed by Johnson in May, is also “working closely” with the group of experts.

The forum, which held its inaugural meeting on Monday (28 June), has already released a statement advising Johnson on how best to ban conversion therapy.

It explained that the “best way of banning conversion therapy is by using a combination of both civil and criminal remedies”, and added: “Legislation banning conversion therapy must be human rights compliant. The rights of victims and potential victims of conversion therapy must be prioritised.

“The way in which conversion therapy denies human dignity and demeans its victims amounts to degrading and inhuman treatment. And by denying their identity, it also destroys their private life. By definition, conversion therapy is discriminatory.”

The Ban Conversion Therapy Legal Forum acknowledged that a ban “may fall within the scope of other human rights, most notably freedom of religion and belief, as well as freedom of expression”.

But, it explained: “The harm caused to LGBT+ people by conversion therapy will justify restrictions on those rights, but the Forum is clear that the interferences with those rights should go no further than end the harm done to LGBT+ people by conversion therapy.”

The forum offered to “work with the Government to ensure that the ban on conversion therapy works in a variety of settings, and that no one is excluded from its protection”.

Baroness Kennedy, the forum’s chair, added in a statement: “It is critically important that there is legislation to ban conversion therapy and that it provides full protection to all LGBT+ people in accordance with human rights principles.

“That is why I am pleased to join a broad group of people with expertise who can assist the government and ensure there are no loopholes which can be used to continue this deeply harmful practice.”

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