plorelle

Reflections

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Missouri School District Hears Policy On Hoax "Litter Boxes" And Trans Bathroom Bans

Francis Howell School District in Missouri held a hearing on a policy that would ban trans students from bathrooms of their gender identity

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

Francis Howell School District in Missouri, one of the state's largest, recently held a hearing regarding a new policy aimed at transgender students and their use of bathrooms. This policy seeks to prevent transgender youth from using restrooms that match their gender identity, while offering only limited alternative options. Additionally, the policy contains provisions concerning the presence of litter boxes in bathrooms, a baseless rumor circulated by several far-right anti-trans websites that has been proven to be a hoax. The school district is scheduled to vote on this policy in November. The new policy, Policy 2116, would mandate that transgender students may only utilize restrooms corresponding to the gender marker on their birth certificate. While it advises schools to establish a gender-neutral restroom, the policy only designates one such facility per school and does not require its presence on every floor. The limited availability of gender-neutral restrooms has previously sparked concerns. Relying solely on them can inadvertently disclose a student's transgender identity. Additionally, these facilities are often inconveniently located from classrooms and are occupied, leading to potential health complications from youth holding in their pee. Notably, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that “gender-neutral bathrooms” are not a constitutional substitute for allowing transgender individuals to use restrooms matching their gender identity due to these reasons.

The policy dismissively brushes aside these legitimate concerns. It goes so far as to penalize students for "abusing the privilege" of accessing single-use facilities after the imposed ban. If, for example, a student is repeatedly delayed due to the impracticality of such facilities, they risk being barred from using them altogether. This could result in some schools pushing trans students to use bathrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth, simply because the only facility provided is too out of the way for practical use.

The policy doesn't stop there. It specifically notes that "Except as necessary due to a physical or kinetic disability, only toilets and urinals shall be used to discharge human waste within restrooms or single-use restrooms." This seems to allude to the unfounded "litter boxes in classrooms" myth, propagated by Libs of TikTok—a right-wing account notorious for fueling transphobic harassment and violence. The claim is that students “identifying as cats” have demanded litter boxes. To this day, no verified incidents of litter boxes being used in schools exist, except for an isolated case in the late 2010s where kitty litter was stored in classrooms as a precautionary measure during school shootings.

Francis Howell School District in St. Charles County, Missouri is proposing an outrageous anti-trans policy that mandates trans students use bathrooms matching their gender assigned at birth. The district is also allowing the option of a gender-neutral bathroom, but in reality, such options are very limited and inconvenient.

The policy also alludes to the debunked litter box hoax with this line: "Except as necessary due to a physical or kinetic disability, only toilets and urinals shall be used to discharge human waste within restrooms or single-use restrooms."

[plorelle]

These adults should be very ashamed of themselves for treating students this way. The only real problem is that they don't have enough brains to recognize their perversity.

[philosophybits]

“How to act: Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings. Don’t gussy up your thoughts. No surplus words or unnecessary actions… Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people’s help. Or serenity supplied by others. To stand up straight — not straightened.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (3.5)

[ceasarslegion]

Ive noticed recently that my generation has... no concept of what the various economic classes actually are anymore. I talk to my friends and they genuinely say things like "at least i can afford a middle class lifestyle with this job because i dont need a roommate for my one bedroom apartment" and its like... oughh

You guys, middle class doesnt mean "a stable enough rented roof over your head," it means "a house you bought, a nice car or two, the ability to support a family, and take days off and vacations every year with income to spare for retirement savings and rainy days." If all you have is a rented apartment without a roommate and a used car, you're lower class. That's lower class.

And i cant help but wonder if this is why you get kids on tumblr lumping in doctors and actors into their "eat the rich" rhetoric: economic amnesia has blinded you to what the class divides actually are. The real middle class lifestyle has become so unattainable within a system that relies upon its existence that theyve convinced you that those who can still reach it are the elites while your extreme couponing to afford your groceries is the new normal.

[scavengedluxury]

One of the biggest ideological successes of the Thatcher/Reagan era (along with weakening the traditional institutions of worker power like unions) was to decouple people’s concept of social class from their personal relationship to property ownership and capital. Those lacking class consciousness are often happy to vote in parties that are completely antagonistic to their class interests because they support “middle class values” or whatever. After 40+ years of the neoliberal consensus we now have hollowed out economies and societies that are no longer capable of sustaining a middle class. Working age people are definitely seeing through the class-as-social-values kayfabe now.

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[arearchive]

Muller House, Belgium 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Child Labor Violations Have Surged. Democrats Have A Plan To Crack Down.

The legislation would jack up fines and hold big companies liable for violations committed by their subcontractors.

Dave Jamieson at HuffPost:

Democrats in the House and Senate on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at cracking down on the illegal use of child labor, as regulators cite an increase in cases around the U.S. The legislation, from Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) and Sens. Bob Casey (Pa.) and Patty Murray (Wash.), would ramp up fines for child labor violations and hold big corporations responsible for the actions of the smaller businesses they contract with. The subcontracting provision is significant because the children working in name-brand meatpacking plants and other settings are often technically employed by outside companies, like cleaning contractors. Under current law, it is typically the subcontractor that’s hit with fines.

Murray said in a statement that she was disturbed by reports of migrant children getting maimed in the workplace and called for “real action at the federal level to crack down on illegal and exploitative child labor.” “This is about protecting vulnerable children from exploitation and abuse—there’s no reason Congress shouldn’t be able to act,” she added. The recent public concern around child labor stems largely from the investigative reporting of The New York Times’ Hannah Dreier. She published a series of stories documenting the dangerous work done by migrant children who left Latin American countries for the U.S. Many kids wound up performing hazardous duties in meatpacking plants, including cleaning heavy machinery. A Labor Department official said earlier this year that the agency had seen a 50% increase in child labor violations since 2015. The cases came in two forms: children working more hours than were legally allowed for minors, or children performing hazardous tasks meant for adults, and sometimes getting injured.

[...] The bill would also raise civil fines for child labor from the current $11,000 to $151,380 for each child involved in a violation. Criminal penalties would increase from a maximum of $10,000 to $750,000 for child labor convictions, according to Democrats’ one-page summary of the proposal.

Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Bob Casey have introduced a bill that would toughen civil and criminal penalties for violating child labor laws.

[lady-arryn]

Estella Opera House ▸ LIES OF P (2023)

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[plorelle]

I was born in 1950: by implication, the answer is obvious.

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

What everyone should know about the new House Speaker, Mike Johnson

On Wednesday, after weeks of chaos, House Republicans unanimously selected Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the new Speaker. Compared to t

Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information:

On Wednesday, after weeks of chaos, House Republicans unanimously selected Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the new Speaker. Compared to the previous Republican candidates for Speaker, Johnson has kept a relatively low profile in Congress. He was first elected to the House in 2016, and previously served as GOP deputy whip, a relatively junior leadership position. Johnson, 51, spent most of his career working as an attorney for far-right religious advocacy groups. Before joining Congress, he had a brief but eventful tenure as a member of the Louisiana legislature.  Here is some information you should know about Johnson, now that he has been abruptly elevated to one of the most powerful political positions in the nation. 

Johnson advocated for the inclusion of controversial Bible course in public schools 

In 2002, a course created by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools was offered in eight Louisiana parishes. The course, according to an April 2002 report in the Sunday Advocate, called "for students to read the Bible as a history book." It was criticized for being "skewed toward Protestant evangelical Christianity," for treating "the Bible as an accurate record of history," and for being a "thinly veiled" attempt to push Christianity on public school students. 

The Supreme Court allows for the Bible to be taught in public schools, but only "objectively as a part of a secular program of education." Johnson defended the Bible course on behalf of the Louisiana Family Forum. He argued that the "Supreme Court did not say you have to discuss everybody's view on the Bible." Requiring that public schools treat all religious traditions equally, Johnson said, was "the height of political correctness." 

[...]

Johnson became the unofficial spokesperson for "covenant marriage"

Johnson is also an advocate of a legal type of marriage that makes divorce difficult. Known as a covenant marriage, this form of matrimony reduces the grounds for divorce. It was championed by “conservative Christians in the late 1990s [who] thought divorces had become far too frequent under permissive procedures and sought to legally tighten the rules.” NOLA.com reports. Couples in this arrangement cannot divorce by mutual consent and can only dissolve their marriage under specific, limited circumstances. Even then, there are significant barriers to initiating the process.

[...]

Johnson said LGBTQ people were living an “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle” 

In a series of editorials from the mid-2000s, first discovered by CNN, Johnson said that "homosexual relationships were inherently unnatural and, the studies clearly show, ultimately harmful and costly for everyone." He warned that recognizing same-sex marriages would lead to "chaos and sexual anarchy." Johnson said that allowing same-sex marriages would inevitably result in legal protections for pedophiles and people marrying their pets. He also supported criminalizing sexual activity between people of the same sex. “States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse,” Johnson wrote. [...]

Johnson's history as an anti-abortion extremist 

As an attorney, Johnson frequently sued abortion clinics, seeking to limit access to reproductive healthcare in the state. As a member of the Louisiana legislature, Johnson simultaneously was paid $200 per hour to represent the state in litigation defending "the constitutionality of a state law requiring physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic where services are provided." The law made it extremely difficult for any abortion clinic to operate in the state.

[...]

Johnson played a key role in trying to overturn the 2020 election

Johnson was one of the main players in the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Following the election, Johnson led a group of Republicans in filing an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit urging the Supreme Court to invalidate the election results in key swing states. The brief, which was signed by an additional 125 House Republicans, argued that “authorities in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan had ‘usurped’ the constitutional authority of state legislatures when they loosened voting restrictions because of the pandemic.” The court declined to hear the case “citing a lack of standing.” 

This week, the House Republicans elevated Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to the Speaker's gavel, making him the most far-right Speaker of the House in history.

See Also:

HuffPost: New Speaker Mike Johnson’s Long History With The Religious Right

MMFA: Mainstream media should report on new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s extensive history of anti-LGBTQ extremism

[aokozaki]

Okay honestly it didn't hit me how funny the concept of Weird Al's Even Worse album is until I found out they'd have gone on sale side by side.

"Hmmm, do I want Bad, or Even Worse?"

[pixarsource]

Elemental (2023), dir. Peter Sohn

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

[doctorfriend79]

🐱 Happy National Black Cat Day! 🐱

[redbelles]

Greed is an animal that hungers for blood.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON dir. Martin Scorsese

[powerburial]

i love how theres no rules for pronouncing words in English, you literally just have to learn and hear someone say every single word

[3liza]

if anyone is wondering why this is, it's because they stopped teaching American children (and many British) the rules (which exist, and have been standardized and written down for centuries) sometime at the turn of the 21st century. if you are gen x or older, have English degree-holding parents, and/or had any really old teachers who were still teaching into the "fuck grammar" era of public schooling, you unlock a special level of English comprehension where you can pronounce 99% of words perfectly without ever hearing them at all, as well as the ability to code switch to a higher-"class" dialect of English at will, which is extremely important for any social interaction where you have to deal with people who are judging you for such a thing, which happens a lot more often than you're aware of unless someone has already told you about it. usually no one tells you about it unless they're teaching it.

there were a lot of reasons for the shift, most of them can be blamed on Reagan and Thatcher (like everything else). it was pushed through to school curriculums and popular culture as a "de-snobbification" of english education where everyone's regional and ethnic accents would be normalized and accepted, what actually happened is that language gaps between rich and poor kids was crowbarred farther apart as you could no longer learn to talk, write, or read fancy in a free public school, leaving only the wealthy kids who got tutors and private schools and educated parents with a formal English education able to choose to code switch or to struggle considerably less in college when professors usually start expecting you to know grammar and etymology already and don't think it's their job to fix your high school teacher's fuckups. (it is, but that's a different post)

this is why almost everyone on YouTube is speaking only approximate English (see the #youtube grammar tag) a lot of the time and one of the big reasons people with average hearing and reading and processing function have started needing subtitles a lot more in the past ten years, when they didn't before

this gets brought up on Tumblr a lot, see prior discourse about cursive not being taught anymore (not actually a good thing, prevents you from reading anything handwritten before 1990, bad for handwriting ergonomics especially for hypermobile people [see: why do so many hypermobile and autistic people get into fountain pens]) and the new yorker article about "vibes based literacy".

anyway the lesson here is every time the education establishment announces they are about to make education "less formal" and that this will benefit "everyone", because hooray we all thought learning cursive and sentence diagramming and Greek word roots was boring, right? what they are actually announcing is that you will still be judged for not being able to use those formal skills, but now only rich people will be able to learn them from tutors as basic education becomes increasingly privatized.

[bourtange]

specifically on the topic of pronouncing words, a conlang nerd sat down and brute-force compiled a numbered list of rules for correctly pronouncing english words that gets it right for nearly every word 23 years ago (the date explains why his phonetic transcription is so weird, sorry)

[insufficientlyadvanced]

this is a sick resource for me as a non native speaker but i'd also like to complain because it finally prompted me to look up what all the funny IPA symbols mean exactly and now I found out that my native german's pronunciation is a lot less straightforward than i've been telling myself. you win this time anglophones.