“We do not allow children to make many kinds of unhealthy decisions, such as smoking, drinking, child pornography, sex with adults, and illegal drug use.”
That’s how Senator John Fuller opened his promotion of his bill at the hearing for SB99 on Friday: by equating gender transition with child porn and statutory rape. Got to protect the kids from pronouns and porn!
It went downhill from there.
My friend and I had driven through a snowstorm that day from Belgrade to Helena to join the many doctors, therapists, trans and Two Spirit folks, and parents of trans kids to voice our opposition to the bill. It’s a bill that would make it illegal for us to seek gender affirming care for our kids. A bill that would insert the state between our families and our providers, designate evidence-based practice as “child abuse,.” It would even make it illegal for our kids’ teachers to use their names and pronouns if such things didn’t match their genitals.
We sat and listened to the line-up of proponents. These included many religious right-wing organizations, such as the Montana Family Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, Restore Liberty, Moms for Liberty, and the Family Research Council. There were several out-of-state professional “detransitioners” who travel around and warn about the regrets of transitioning. There were chiropractors, a physical therapist, someone from New York who claimed to have a PhD in psychiatry, and a lot of angry, disgruntled parents and grandparents, some from Montana, some from other states.
They didn’t even pretend that parental rights applied to this topic. They all flat-out stated that parents of trans kids don’t have the same rights as everyone else. That they were singling out gender-affirming care as the One Terrible Thing that medical consensus, science, and best practices get utterly wrong. This is the hill their fanatical parental rights movement dies on. Fuller even stated, as did others, that the state needs to protect kids from “their parents’ influence.” Because surely parents like me are chomping at the bit to force our boys to be girls and force our girls to cut their hair and change their names. (Maybe they should turn the spotlight on their churches before going after us if they’re worried about “parental influence.”) I’ve never seen these rabid parental rights zombies state that the government needs to protect kids against their own parents before, and I grew up in the fundamentalist homeschooling world that invented anti-government parental rights fanaticism.
As expected, proponents started pulling “stats” out of their asses and claiming heart-rending stories of pain, regret, and “body mutilation”. One professional detransitioner claimed he’s gotten more than 10,000 emails from people who want to detransition. Another dude from a Christian organization in Billings stated that the instance of girls transitioning to boys has “increased 5000% percent,”, while people from the Heritage Foundation and the other hate groups made claims that 82% of people who transition regret it. At one point my friend leaned over and incredulously whispered, “They’re just making shit up!”
I should have made a bingo card, because they hit all the same talking points: transitioning is a lucrative business, look at Sweden, kids can’t make their own decisions, they’ll never be able to have sex or make babies (lots of obsession with how kids will have sex), trans people existing is an assault on the traditional family, people can’t make decisions until they’re 25, “I wanted to be a boy, too,when I was a kid,” “My son identified as an airplane,” and “out of state interests are trying to destroy Montana families.” (Even though the majority of proponents were out-of-state activists.)
It was one and a half hours of a daunting onslaught of bigotry, ignorance, lies, propaganda, and outright hatred. One senator at the end even equated suicide with gender transitioning, stating sarcastically that he should seek “suicide-affirming care” for his son who was determined to kill himself. It was an astonishing display of vitriolic word vomit.
When opponents got up to speak, the entire energy of the room shifted. We had twice as many people and 99% were actual Montanans. We had representatives from every hospital and medical association in the state, along with doctors, nurses, therapists, endocrinologists, independent clinics, domestic violence organizations, state representatives, and so many more.
But all my love and respect goes to the trans kids and adults who stood up to tell their stories. The youngest child to speak was 13. They fearlessly told their stories of growing up trans in Montana and begged the heartless committee to not take that away from them. It broke my heart and inspired me. I stood up and asked why they think I should get rights over two of my kids but not the other two. Parents told life-changing stories about their children to senators who didn’t care, who will probably vote this bill through anyway. I actually got a photo of Senator Theresa Manzella scrolling on her phone, and Senator Barry Usher falling asleep while one parent talked about how gender-affirming care saved his child. They are ghouls with a black hole where their hearts should be.
But Montana showed up that day. From professionals to parents to friends to children, Montana showed up to passionately voice their opposition to this cruel bill that would strip life and liberty from the most vulnerable among us. Unlike the proponents who were mostly out-of-state activists loudly claiming out-of-state activists were trying to turn our kids trans, opponents of the bill were everyday Montanans like you and me, standing up for the children of Montana. And it was beautiful. We’ve got each other’s backs, Montana. “We will fight like hell,” as Rep. Zooey Zephyr stated that day. Keep showing up, keep speaking up, and never back down.
“You may legislate with hate, but we will protect each other with love” ~Keegan Medrano, MT ACLU
Recently, there has been a divisive movement spearheaded by Republicans to emphasize parental rights – especially in HB 234: Revise dissemination of obscene material to minors laws.
How about considering parental responsibility?
Simply:
Parents are responsible for being part of the curriculum development process in schools, and there is a complaint process available if a parent is concerned about a teacher’s implementation of a particular curriculum or book choice by school and public librarians. If a parent does not take the time to be aware and involved through the processes described above, then they have abdicated their rights.
Parents are responsible for knowing what their children are reading and setting the family standards for what is appropriate as children begin to select their own reading material. If parents do not supervise what their children are reading, then they have abdicated their rights.
Parents are responsible for imparting their values regarding “obscenity” to their children. They are responsible for developing open lines of communication with their children so that the children can share any concerns about what they may be learning/reading, including something that might seem obscene.
Because there are wide variations within families as to what is acceptable, particularly regarding “obscenity,” it is the responsibility of schools and libraries to provide curriculum/book selections that span those variations. It is not the school’s responsibility to cater to any one set of possible parental standards. Nor should public libraries. There are general guidelines in place to determine the appropriate age for reading material and curriculum. Public schools and libraries have a duty to follow them.
What is “obscenity”? “To see it is to know it” does not work, as seeing something like “obscenity” “lies in the eye of the beholder.” Educators and librarians are not the arbitrators of what is/is not obscene for our society.
When he’s not working diligently to keep his rental tenants in poverty with his hand out at their doors, he’s working in the House to make sure they can join the growing unhoused community in Great Falls. That’s right, Great Falls’ reigning Dairy King and local landlord, Rep. Steven “Mr. LOLA” Galloway, is heading legislation (HB-282) to speed up the eviction process for renters in Montana.
Specifics noted in the bill include:
Protections for landlords to issue 24 hour notices for property access or to correct rental agreement violations with tenants facing eviction proceedings within 3 days for refusing property access.
Putting extra stress on our already overloaded courts by significantly shortening the filing due dates and hearing scheduling windows. Meaning, where courts and tenants typically had a cushion of anywhere from 10-20 days before, multiple lines of Sections 70-24 and 70-33, MCA have been amended to an allowance of only 5 days instead.
Interestingly, or maybe better put – strategically, in reference to the 24 hour notices, there are no exceptions for tenants who may be working out of town, be hospitalized, on vacation, or otherwise. In sum, tenants who are working hard, severely ill, or enjoying time off away from home can find themselves in the crosshairs of their landlord’s impatience.
Rep Galloway was quoted by Montana Public Radio as saying this legislation is an attempt at “alleviating the stress on the judicial system that has more pressing issues”, but if that’s truly the case, why shorten their working time? With Rep. Galloway himself identifying that our courts have more pressing issues, these amendments read as a greasy attempt at further overwhelming the courts and floating their eviction actions with little to no pushback.
While some supporters of the bill say this proposed legislation will be used for “worst case scenarios”, anyone with any kind of sense can see that this is the first of many blows to deliberately weaken already feeble tenant’s rights, and Rep. Steven Galloway is more than happy to be the champion of those endeavors.
The E-City Beat opinion piece entitled“Mob Rule Dominates Great Falls Public Education Meeting” (1/4/2023) grabbed my attention. Its author Jeni Dodd identified herself as a “creative, multi-faceted, multi-talented, knowledge junkie. Liberty, integrity, truth, and critical thinking are among my most important precepts.”
Having attended that meeting, I found her article title completely confounding. So, I read the first sentence.
“Amid a chorus of boos and shout-downs, there were a few brave souls that dare (sic) to express opinions unpopular to the summoned mob.”
Wow! We must have attended different meetings. This “mob” consisted of an engaged, but largely respectful group of parents, current and former teachers, administrators, and legislators. Ms. Dodd followed that introductory grenade by stating that the above sentence was “my overall impression of the recent meeting … .”
Was she dreaming?
Ms. Dodd continued by “blowing” the line of communication that led to almost 200 people attending the meeting:
“… Moore originated the communication by sending an email to Great Falls Rising, who then forwarded it to the Cascade County Democrat Central Committee, who sent it via Mail Chimp to their mailing list.”
I sincerely doubt that only Great Falls Rising forwarded the communication to the Cascade County Democrat Central Committee. There were at least two other sources sharing communication about the meeting, each of which had CCDCC members as part of their email lists. The CCDCC could have gotten the information from any number of sources.
Ms. Dodd blustered on, “Moore approached me after the event, and I was surprised when he ask (sic) me if he had answered my question.”
The question wasn’t hers; Rep. Krebs demanded that Sup. Moore defend how he had come to hear about the meeting. Ms. Dodd later followed up by pointing her hypothetical finger at Sup. Moore as she rudely asserted, “You didn’t answer his question!!!!”
“I also let him know I had seen the message he sent to his so-called ‘partners’ and asked, ‘Who were these partners?’”
“He answered, ‘I sent an email to Great Falls Chamber, Yes to Education and the education advocacy group Great Falls Rising.’”
“By the way, his words, not mine, categorizing Great Falls Rising as an ‘education advocacy group.’ I would beg to differ.”
“I don’t know about you, but when someone won’t give a straight yes or no answer and instead, deflects questions and redirects to another topic, it makes me uneasy and suspicious. I subsequently told Moore that this wasn’t the first time I’d seen him evade and avoid answering questions.”
Really? I think Sup. Moore directly answered Ms. Dodd’s question. Maybe she should ask the real question: why does the MT OPI not want the educators it is meant to support attending meetings it organizes?
Here’s my impression of the Anrtzen’s “faux” public education meeting.
Sup. Arntzen organized the forum to attract a specific minority of Montana residents in each of the towns she visited. She did this by selectively sending meeting notices through certain sources to get the audience she wanted to interact with – Republican legislators so that they could use the meetings as a way to spread disinformation and raise popular support for for passing anti-public education legislation. (She held a fifth “forum” on January 2nd at the Capitol Building attended by her selected audience and, I would guess to her dismay, Occupy Montana Leg attendees there to express their opinions during the opening session of the Legislature. They watched as the meeting that she had tried to orchestrate in Great Falls actually played out in Helena (as it had in the first three meetings she produced in other Montana cities.) They said wildly conspiratal things: that public schools are “confusing” students by moving “far, far Left”, and that school administrator positions are a waste of taxpayer money.
Sup. Arntzen’s selection of the first four Montana cities for these “productions” (Kalispell, Stevensville, Billings, and Great Falls) is illustrative of Sup. Arntzen’s true purposes. She did not list Bozeman, Missoula, Helena, or Butte. What’s the difference? The four cities that got selectively-sent notices were Republican and the four which did not were Democrat.
The “chorus of booss” referenced by Ms. Dodd was directed at Sen. Emrich’s (R) suggestion that the inadequacy of funding for education could be addressed by reducing the funding directed toward school administrators. The “shout-downs” were an automatic shock response by attendees to the suggestion that too much funding was going to administrators and that reducing administrator funding could begin to adequately address the education shortfall. It was also a result of the obvious, insidious attempt to pit teachers against administrators by Sen. Emrich and other Arntzen “production” partners including Rep. Kerns. But Sup. Arntzen et al totally misjudged their audience. At one point, she asked the attendees who support public schools to raise their hands. With the exception of these legislators, nearly the entire room did raise their hands. Sup. Arntzen had an agenda she wanted to communicate, but she was forced to read the room. Regrettably for her, educators and parents were allowed to voice their very real concerns about education in Cascade and surrounding counties.
Ms. Dodd concluded her fallacy-filled confabulation with this:
“A picture emerged from my attendance at this forum and it isn’t a pretty one— the picture that far too many of the summoned bunch that attended don’t want parents and taxpayers to have a voice with OPI and legislators in a public forum— at least not a voice that they can’t control.”
Ms. Dodd, in the above quote, got it backwards. In fact, the Great Falls “bunch” was a voice that they (Sup. Arntzen et al) could NOT control.
Below is a summary of the suggestions coming from many of the meeting’s “uncontrollable” attendees:
We must pay our educators a salary commensurate with the responsibility they bear for our most valuable resource, our children.
We must bookend traditional K-12 education with
(a) public preschools taught by certified teachers in all school systems and
(b) direct connections to post-secondary training/education leading to jobs.
3. We must address the mental health/substance-abuse issues that threaten our children.
4. We must fully fund the woefully underfunded federal special education mandate
Readers of this commentary, please look carefully if you see/ any legislators referencing parent/public comment as a basis for an education bill. If the reference differs from the four suggestions listed above, they may have originated from a deceptively choreographed series of meetings like Sup. Arntzen’s that produced a predetermined result supporting the game plan of the MT Republican party to destroy Montana’s vitally important public education system.
Finally, Ms. Dodd failed in her self-proclaimed devotion to liberty, integrity, truth, and critical thinking. In fact, her opinion piece is filled with untruth, emotionally-based conclusions, and attempts to manipulate its readers.
Integrity? Sadly, Ms. Dodd, on that criteria you earned an “F”!
Having a great morning, sipping on some tea from my favorite local coffee shop. Knowing in the peripheries of my mind that somewhere, somehow, a Cascade County Representative was making a mockery of themselves and our city. But alas, I was blissfully unaware of exactly what was occurring.
And then it happened.
A friend sent a photo of Great Falls’ very own, LOLA (aggressive capitalization intended) Sheldon-Galloway sporting a vomit-inducing, repugnant fringe number while attending today’s House Judiciary Committee meeting which included a hearing on HB 163 – a missing and murdered Indigenous women task force bill.
I’d say that seeing the photo was like watching a car crash, but it’s more like watching those cyst removal videos on Tik Tok. Like, “Damn, I don’t want to see this but apparently the universe wanted to present this to me.” You don’t *really* want to witness it, but it’s now been put in front of your face, and even though your stomach kind of hurts and you want to look away… you can’t.
Since “Discovery” [insert a massive eye roll here], Indigenous people, particularly women, have been stolen from their homes and forced to perform sexual acts with, carry out manual labor for, and bear children to colonizers. A major contributing factor to this? The sexualization, fetishization, and dehumanization of Indigenous people. When colonizers, and particularly those holding political office, have woven legal policies and heighten rotten social customs to distance themselves from Indigenous people we get: LOLA, in fringe.
Truly, it doesn’t take the late Joan Rivers to point out what an atrocity the caped leather vest is, especially paired with what appeared to be double braids in her hair. But we’re not here to pretend play ‘Fashion Police’, as fun as that may be. What we are here for is to call out our local representation to leave sexualized imagery of Indigenous people in the past, not present it on a statewide platform in Committee meetings.
While we’d love to believe that LOLA has turned a page and today’s get up is how she’s showing her support and solidarity for the MMIW/MMIP crisis (however misguided), her documented history of voting against protecting and uplifting Indigenous people makes it hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Some specific instances from back in 2019 include: a no vote to HB 33 – a bill to extend a Montana Indian Language Preservation program, voting no to HB 42 – a bill to extend the Cultural Integrity and Commitment Act, and yet another no to HB 135 – a bill to create a tribal college credit transfer and student opportunity task force.
Knowingly using the likeness and sterotypical, wild west fantasy-esque imagery of Indigenous people while simultaneously and continuously proposing legislation that will no doubt harm that same population is right on track for LOLA.
Today’s showing is a good reminder that LOLA is in fact simply one of many wolves in sheep’s clothing (or colonizers clothing) ‘representing’ Great Falls.
