#anti-discrimination

[hawkins-batman]

The Noah Schnapp Situation Going Into S5

‼️ There is a new version of this blog post! Please read here ‼️

With Stranger Things Season 5 coming out this year, we are unfortunately going to see a revival of the debacle around Noah, even though by then it will be an almost 2 year old subject. So, I thought I would get ahead of that with some of my thoughts based on what I've seen these last few weeks and more broadly over the last 6 or more months I've been on this scene.

Spoiler Alert: This is going to be a long one. It'll probably be my new pinned post.

Why Still Talk About It?

Frankly? Because it's still going on. Keep in mind, Liam Payne died in October 2024 (just three months ago), right around Noah's birthday, and THIS is how Twitter responded to that.

And just in case anyone thinks I had to dig back a whole 3 months to find Noah-hate-content on Twitter, here was just random things I grabbed from the last week:

Which brings me to the next point.

Why Do You Even Care?

"Noah doesn't know you." "He's not your pookie."

I know that. The funny thing is, from what little I know about Noah, I'm pretty sure if he DID know me beyond the ONE DM conversation we've had, he'd probably tell me to chill. Dude is very non-confrontational and nice. So, why do it?

Because I think the online movement in favor of Palestinian self-determination has been hijacked by teenagers and performative leftists who care more about looking good for their peers than practicing what they preach.

Because (as you can see above and in screenshots like the one below), people who claim to hold my liberal/progressive/left-leaning values have used this as an opportunity to be openly homophobic and antisemitic towards a then-19-year old who had JUST come out of the closet.

Proponents of the hate campaign against Noah have said that they are just "holding him accountable" or "criticizing him" in the hopes he "learns something."

Look up. Point to me which image is accountability. Point to me the valid criticisms.

There are none. There is just flagrant homophobia. And then there are posts like these two, coming from the same crowd:

This behavior is wrong on its face.

It is violent. It is bullying (which doesn't seem like strong enough of a word) and it's bigoted.

Wanna see more? Look up @noah_schnapp on Twitter/X. See what they've done to his account.

Inevitably, some of the people participating in this will see this blog post. If you've made it this far, this is for you:

This behavior discredits your activism. It makes you look performative and fake to say in one breath that you are a "Leftist" who cares about Palestinian lives as well as the lives of minority groups worldwide, and then to turn around and talk like this about a Jewish person and a gay KID. Because he WAS a kid when this started. Furthermore, it makes it clear to those of us who actually hold the beliefs we claim, that you are vapid enough to use Palestinian suffering for your own personal vendettas. That the APPEARANCE of goodness is more important than goodness itself. And that you will shuck solidarity with minority groups the MOMENT one of them steps out of the lines you have drawn around them.

Not to mention...

It's Based Mostly On Lies

As a reminder, this is what Noah Schnapp actually said shortly after October 7, 2023:

Read that again.

"...we will hope and pray for safety, justice, liberation, and self-determination in Palestine." That was part of the very first thing he ever said about the issue.

And then this happened:

This was the image/video he was crucified for.

Stickers that weren't even his. That he wasn't holding up or making. He was in a cafe, someone else came up to him with them, and he was videoed with that person.

That's it. That's all. All those tweets you saw above? The fake stories made up about him like this one?

All of that was supposedly "accountability."

The harassment of his family. Murder threats. Rape threats. All for stickers that weren't even his.

There's even a paid Stranger Things author on this very site, styling herself as a Byler shipper, who has contributed to the lies that have further added to the hate campaign I've described.

As an aside, Noah wasn't the only one in that video. The influencers that actually posted the video and HAD THE STICKERS?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

And just to be clear - I don't think they should get hate. I think non-Jewish online Leftists appropriated a term from Jewish culture, redefined it, and are weaponizing it to beat down Jews all over the internet—which is par for the course for this charcuterie board of performative activism.

Yet the point stands. Noah was specifically targeted; and the homophobia that IMMEDIATELY came from the Left suggests to me that it was his sexuality and cultural/religious identity that motivated the attacks.

Again, I'll say, this is wrong.

Noah Has Since Responded

It hasn't stopped the bullying.

Didn't stop him from withdrawing from spaces he loved. From needing therapy from what we've learned from his now-deleted second TikTok.

And that really says something, does it? He cleared up his point. He tried to clarify and even apologize.

They didn't accept it. Not because it wasn't good enough. Not because it was "too late." Because this was the point. They wanted to keep doing it. They get sick joy from it.

Which is why...

I'm Not Shutting Up About This

This post doesn't even nearly cover the whole situation. The Byler fans who try to replace Noah's image in fan art and fan fiction. Who fan cast themselves as Will instead of Noah. The stalking and doxxing on Twitter. People reporting to GIANT hate accounts his location and when he's alone, PRAYING for him to be hurt.

I wish I could cover it all.

We have to stand up to this. On tumblr, on TikTok, on Threads, Twitter/X—everywhere we see it.

For our gay and Jewish siblings who see how Noah was attacked and feel less safe in their online spaces as a result, we have to speak up and say something.

And yeah. We have to say something for Noah, too.

The person who replied to me like this:

Him?

He did it because he needed to see a show of love from his fans. Doesn't mean he's perfect. Doesn't mean he won't mess up or do something in the future.

And no. Standing up for Noah, or for Jewish people, or other gay folks does not make you a genocide supporter or apologist. It doesn't mean you want any innocent people harmed. Don't give them the power to talk down to you like that. It's bullshit. You know it, and I know it.

All standing up to this vile shit is is an acknowledgement that Noah is a living, breathing person, as some of these people tend to forget.

And he didn't deserve this.

Any of it.

Related Blogs:

Examples of Noah’s Support for Gaza and Palestine (by @nymphus-fan-account)

The Evolution of a Lie

No, the Stranger Things Cast Does Not Hate Noah Schnapp

Lyric Vault’s Obsession with Noah Schnapp

[qnewsau]

Final ‘LGBT-free’ zone in Poland officially scrapped

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/final-lgbt-free-zone-in-poland-officially-scrapped/

Final ‘LGBT-free’ zone in Poland officially scrapped

In good news that can feel rare in this current climate, Poland has officially abolished its last remaining “LGBT-free” zone. 

This closes a dark chapter in the country’s recent history.

‘LGBT-free’ zones introduced in 2019

On Thursday, local authorities in the southeastern town of Łańcut voted to repeal a resolution that declared the area free from what it called “LGBT ideology”.

The move marks the final repeal of about 100 similar declarations passed across Poland beginning in 2019. Most targeted LGBTQIA+ people and organisations under the guise of protecting “traditional values.”

The resolutions, backed by the now-ousted Law and Justice Party (PiS), had no legal force but sent a chilling message: discouraging support for LGBTQIA+ rights and education, and in some cases, leading to local funding cuts for equality-based programs.

The backlash to the 2019 declarations was swift and widespread, drawing condemnation from human rights groups, international media, and the European Union.

In response, the EU froze billions of euros in funding for municipalities that adopted the declarations, stating they violated core European principles of equality and non-discrimination.

Image: Map of Poland’s previous ‘LGBT-free’ zones.

The undoing of the discrimination

In 2022, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled the declarations unconstitutional, describing them as “violation of the dignity, honour, good name and closely related private life of a specific group of residents”.

And slowly since then, the local resolutions were abandoned.

The repeals come amid broader signs of political change in Poland.

The Law and Justice Party was defeated in national elections in 2023. The country’s new leadership has signalled a more inclusive approach to LGBTQIA+ rights, though challenges remain.

Proposed hate speech reforms that would extend legal protections to LGBTQ+ people are currently under review by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal.

Still, for advocates and community members, Thursday’s vote in Łańcut is a long-awaited win. It is a hopeful signal of progress ahead for the LGTQIA+ community… a signal not seen in neighbouring countries.

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[jtwb768-babbles]

Pride: More Than a Month, It's a Movement

As June explodes in rainbows and corporate logos don their Pride colors, remember this: Pride began not with a party, but with a riot. It is resistance, refusal, and a lifelong fight for equity that continues long after the glitter settles and the flags come down. Every June, cities burst with rainbows, corporations update their logos, and social media fills with supportive hashtags. There’s…

Pride: More Than a Month, It's a Movement

[bubblegumbi-tch]

Sign the Petition

No More LATER. Legislate the Anti-discrimination Law in South Korea RIGHT NOW!

In light of it now being pride month, let's put in the work to end LGBT+ discrimination across the globe and lend your support to this petition for a specifically LGBT+ centered anti-discrimination law to be put into place in South Korea!

Please reblog if you sign!

[intelligentliving]

Virginia Passes Non-Discrimination Bill For The LGBTQ Community

On April 11, Governor Ralph Northam announced that he signed the Virginia Values Act (Senate Bill 868), making Virginia the first state in the South to pass extensive protections for the LGBTQ community. The Bill, which is sponsored by Senator Adam Paul Ebbin, prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and...

[trans-advice]

The Supreme Court May Erode Decades of Wins for LGBT Worker Rights

In a trio of cases this coming term, the justices will hear arguments on whether it’s legal for bosses to discriminate against LGBT employees.

For two decades, most of the LGBT movement’s highest-profile victories have come at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2003 the justices issued a ruling legalizing gay sex that dissenting conservative Justice Antonin Scalia warned would set the stage for nationwide legalized gay marriage. Within 12 years, his prediction was realized. The court made marriage equality the law of the land—reflecting, and also accelerating, a sea change in straight Americans’ views and treatment of their LGBTQ family members and neighbors.

But next year the high court could deal LGBTQ people a painful blow: wiping out lower-court rulings that shield them from getting fired for who they are.

In a trio of cases this coming term—involving a child welfare worker, a skydiving instructor, and a funeral director—the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether it’s legal for bosses to discriminate against LGBT employees. Contrary to what many Americans now assume, no federal law explicitly prohibits firing workers simply for being gay or transgender. Nor do the laws of most states—including some populous ones such as Texas and Ohio. (Only 21 states and Washington, D.C., have laws that explicitly prohibit private companies from firing workers for being gay or trans; another one restricts anti-gay firing but not anti-trans dismissals.)

On the Basis of Orientation or Identity

*Some states with laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of orientation or gender identity are also in a federal circuit with a ruling that says the federal sex discrimination ban effectively prohibits discrimination based on orientation or gender identity.

Data: Movement Advancement Project

Jimmie Beall learned that the hard way in 2003, when she was abruptly terminated from her position as a public school teacher in London, Ohio, a couple weeks after receiving a glowing evaluation. Beall, a lesbian who taught government to high schoolers, says she learned from local parents about rumors she was fired for being gay and was shocked to learn there was no law specifically prohibiting that. An email later surfaced from the superintendent to the school board alluding to Beall’s sexual orientation while discussing not bringing her back for another school year. “I thought, They can’t do that, because that would be illegal—there’s protection against discrimination,” says Beall. “It never occurred to me that there wasn’t.”

Despite the lack of explicit protection for LGBT workers, Beall filed a lawsuit arguing that because she was a public employee, firing her for her sexual orientation violated the Constitution. In 2006, after a new superintendent took over and a judge ruled Beall’s case could proceed, the school district agreed to settle the case and establish a nondiscrimination policy. But Beall says she assumed that before too long the state of Ohio or the federal government would prohibit anti-gay discrimination across the board. “I never imagined that, this many years later, we still would not have the same protections that everybody else already has.”

In recent years, some courts have ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on sex discrimination also implicitly prohibits bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. “When a male employee is fired because he has a husband, and he would not be fired if he were a woman who had a husband, then he was fired because of his sex,” says Jennifer Pizer, law and policy director for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a nonprofit that pursues LGBTQ civil rights cases. “When a trans woman was acceptable at work presenting as a man, but was fired when she presented her true gender, which is female, she was fired for being the wrong kind of woman.”

Citing past precedent that discrimination for not conforming to sex stereotypes is a form of illegal sex discrimination, several federal circuit courts have embraced such arguments, creating a patchwork of protections covering their jurisdictions. Next year the justices could either extend those protections nationwide or wipe them out. So in states that haven’t passed laws prohibiting anti-LGBT bias but have been covered by federal appeals court precedents restricting it—including Florida, Georgia, and Indiana—a Supreme Court ruling could give companies that don’t want LGBT people in the workplace a green light to fire them. “There won’t be a question mark anymore,” says Beall. “And because of that, I could see a whole lot more people discriminating.”

President Trump’s appointment of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, which made the Supreme Court more conservative than it’s been in a generation, could turn the tide. “My instincts suggest that this is an uphill battle,” says Anthony Michael Kreis, a visiting professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law who’s helped draft pro-LGBT legislation. The prospect of a loss at the Supreme Court raises the stakes for action in Congress, where Democratic allies have tried unsuccessfully for decades to pass a law that would explicitly ban anti-LGBT bias. “I don’t have a lot of confidence that the court will protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination,” says Rhode Island Democratic Representative David Cicilline.

On May 17 the House finally passed the Equality Act, a sweeping bill Cicilline sponsored that would beef up the Civil Rights Act by prohibiting sexual orientation and gender identity bias in employment, as well as in education, credit, federal programs, housing, jury service, and public accommodations such as hotels and restaurants—even if the Supreme Court rules that the original law didn’t do any of those things. The bill’s supporters include more than 200 large employers such as Amazon.com, Apple, Coca-Cola, and Marriott. Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in an online post that the legislation “is true to what we’ve always valued at Facebook for our employees and the people who use our products around the world. No one should face discrimination because of who they are—and we hope Congress passes this legislation.”

After proposing narrower bills and fighting among themselves on questions such as whether to pursue the rights of gay employees separately from those of trans workers, liberal lawmakers and activists unified in 2015 behind the more-ambitious Equality Act, which they say better highlights and addresses the full spectrum of discrimination LGBT people still face. In a survey this year by the Public Religion Research Institute, 69% of Americans—including majorities in all 50 states—expressed support for legislation protecting LGBT people in hiring, public accommodations, and housing.

But in Congress, like the Supreme Court, the fate of anti-discrimination protections now rests with conservatives. Republicans command a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and even if Democrats were to take back that chamber and the presidency, advancing the Equality Act would require either abolishing the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule or mustering enough GOP support to reach the 60 votes. The same day the Democratic-controlled House passed the Equality Act, Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah and a Judiciary Committee member, called it “counterproductive” legislation at a time when “Americans are becoming more tolerant every day” anyway. “It unnecessarily pits communities against each other and divides our nation when patience and understanding are so sorely needed,” he tweeted.

Conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation, the nonprofit that Trump said helped develop his roster of potential Supreme Court picks, are hoping LGBT activists get rebuffed by both the judiciary and the legislature. For the justices to rule that the Civil Rights Act already covers sexual orientation and gender identity “would be usurping the power of Congress,” says Emilie Kao, who directs Heritage’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society. If Congress did pass the Equality Act, she says, it could infringe on management prerogatives such as the ability to dictate what’s worn by an employee, including those who have “a belief that they are of the opposite sex.”

Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley, who sponsored the Equality Act in the Senate and is working to secure GOP support, says he hopes the Supreme Court’s coming LGBT cases will help draw national attention to the bill: “The issue of having full opportunity in our society, of having full freedom, shouldn’t depend on the whims of a conservative court.”

[paganinpurple]

I don't know if anyone on tumblr has seen the new Scottish anti-discrimination adverts posted all over our cities and towns but I'm super proud of my country for doing this.

These are just some of the signs posted on our public buses and there's also street advertisments, billboards and a TV spot.

Hate crime. Report it to stop it.

#Onescotland

[equalityspeaks]

New Dem Kansas gov reinstates protections for LGBT state employees

The new Democratic Kansas governor moved to reinstate protections for LGBTQ state employees in her first official act.

Kelly has also expressed support for a statewide bill that would extended anti-discrimination protections to all LGBTQ Kansans. A group of the state’s first openly gay state lawmakers have said they will introduce that bill, according to the Eagle.

A huge win for Kansas!!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜