“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
Montana’s suicide crisis continues to make national news. Easy access to firearms and a paucity of rural healthcare availability no doubt contribute to Montana consistently landing among the top states for suicides per capita. Now, Montana Republicans are targeting our most vulnerable- Queer kids.
Suicide is already the second leading cause of death for kids in the United States, and LGBTQ+ kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers.
Interestingly, Montana’s own DPPHS report addresses the increased risk of suicide among LGBTQ+ kids. The report also notes, “Each episode of LGBTQ victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average.” Read the DPPHS report here: https://dphhs.mt.gov/assets/suicideprevention/SuicideinMontana.pdf
Preventing youth suicide would seem like a given. But let’s not pretend the MT GOP supermajority has any shred of decency. Rather than provide resources and funding to bring these tragic numbers down, Republicans instead are attempting to withhold healthcare for Queer Montanans. (Yes, we believe even those Montanans under 18 still count as whole, self-determining humans worthy of representation in our government.)
Enter the “Slate of Hate” as it has been branded by multiple non-profit agencies and human rights activists. The Montana Human Rights Network has identified a whopping 54 bills in the 2023 session with clear anti-lgbtq goals. Unsurprisingly, a number of those bills are sponsored by Great Falls’ own embarrassments, including “I Don’t Have to Pay Fair Property Taxes’ Jeremy Trebas and the world’s worst landlord, Lola Sheldon Galloway. More about these bills will be shared below.
Most urgent is SB 99, proposed by another Flathead-area bigot, Senator John Fuller. Fuller’s bill seeks to deny gender affirming care to minors. SB 99 would totally eliminate the rights of children and their parents to make appropriate medical decisions in consultation with qualified medical professionals. If this bullshit bill sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve literally heard it all before. Fuller introduced an incredibly similar bill during the 2021 session, which ultimately died on the Senate floor. But its a new session, and Senator Fuller still has a burning desire to watch Queer kids die. Denying them healthcare is one of the best ways to do that.
Montana’s own Health and Human Services agency recognizes the acute risk of being an lgbtq+ teen. Further, data also shows that gender affirming care SAVES lives. Yes, the very care Fuller wants to eliminate is what helps many kids survive into adulthood. Here’s a quick recap of a study showing the importance of gender-affirming care: https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives
Perhaps Fuller and his ilk aren’t aware of this data. More likely, they hate Queer people enough that they would simply prefer us dead. If verbal harassment doubles the rate of lgbtq+ youth self-harm, what effect are these GOP bills having on our kids? If this bill passes, our answer will be found in the local Obituaries.
Take Action To Stop SB 99
The good news is that the 2023 session has shown us the power of pushing back. We saw Keith Reiger immediately walk back his attempt to dismantle reservations after the idea was met with tremendous national backlash. Like most bullies, Republicans back down quickly when someone stands up and says “No more.”
Enter you, dear reader. You have an opportunity to stop Fuller’s bill, and the entire Slate of Hate, all from the comfort of your home. The bill is being heard this Friday, January 27, 2023. Follow this link to submit written testimony to OPPOSE SB 99 in the SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE. https://leg.mt.gov/public-testimony/
Repugnant Homophobe and Representative for HD3, Braxton Mitchell, has introduced yet another BIg Government bill. You may remember Mitchell as the Rep who introduced an anti-drag bill just days after the Club Q shooting. Mitchell’s bigotry is not limited to the LGBTQ+ community. He’s coming after women’s rights as well.
Mitchell isn’t trying to close a legal loophole or help grieving parents. That’s not his style. Like Mitchell’s other bills, he seeks to insert the government into our personal lives. Mitchell’s bill will create a record of every miscarriage and abortion in the state of Montana. There is absolutely no reason our government needs this private medical information. Surely Mitchell doesn’t understand that many women experience miscarriage at home, and there’s no physician involved. Apparently Mitchell is expecting people to fish their dead fetus out of the toilet and take it to a doctor to be declared dead. There is NO benefit whatsoever in requiring this kind of measure.
So what purpose does HB 213 really serve? Criminalizing pregnancy.
Bills like this are a step down the path to criminalizing our uteruses. This measure clearly seeks to discourage reproductive freedom and shame anyone who chooses to abort, with the potential of bringing criminal charges against them should the law change. (And we already know they want to criminalize abortion.) Further, when abortion is illegal, the next step will be investigating miscarriages as a crime.
Republicans love to oversimplify pregnancy and biology in general. They pretend that you can’t get pregnant from rape (Looking at you, Lola Sheldon Galloway). They act as if contraception never fails. They advocate for the fetus but abandon the child once it takes its first breath.
Montanans believe in medical privacy.We don’t need our Representatives prying into our personal lives, and we certainly don’t need them keeping tabs on our uteruses.
On January 2, 2023, the 68th legislative session made its debut swearing in the newest batch of Montana legislators. This also marked the first time that one party formed a supermajority since Montana’s constitution was adopted 50 years ago. Speaking of which, this Republican supermajority is champing at the bit to introduce a slew of amendments to the constitution. They’ve proposed 54 such amendments already. Some of the topics they want to legislate on are: the way elections are handled, the way judges are selected, redistricting rules (read: gerrymandering) amendments defining gender, banning abortions, and enshrining school choice and a parental bill of rights.Their plans are clear. They want Big Government to control Montanan’s personal lives and public institutions. Confusingly, Sen Steve Fitzpatrick has proposed a constitutional amendment on proposing constitutional amendments. If Republicans have their way, Montana’s constitution will be unrecognizable before the session is through.
Concerned about Republican’s extremist agenda, a group of activists from Great Falls organized an event – Occupy MT Leg. We were joined by concerned citizens from around the state. Why occupy space on the first day of the session? To let these legislators know that we will hold them accountable for everything they do during this session. Our sizeable group from Great Falls, Helena, Belgrade, Conrad, and more, first gathered in the rotunda to protest Superintendent of Public School’s Elsie Artnzen, who had brought in a slate of far-right speakers (an abuse of the office) to mount yet another unfounded attack on our public school teachers and administrators. Artnzen’s “event” was small, disorganized, and met with Boo’s from protestors in the crowd.
We then moved to the Old Supreme Court Chamber, where the public reception was to be held for the newly-sworn lawmakers. Cakes were there, ready to be served, doubtless alongside much back-slapping and self-congratulations. We had aimed to speak with our legislators and make sure they know what we expect of them, but it turns out that they didn’t want to face the public. Not to be deterred, we gathered around the balcony of the rotunda, displayed our signs, and filled the space. We are here, and we will not be ignored.
Finally, following the swearing-in, we marched around the capitol building. The group was comprised of people from different generations, different parts of Montana, with different advocacy issues. But we experienced a solidarity that we believe we share with a large portion of Montanans. Far-right extremism is not representative of most of us, and this “super majority” does not represent us. They are not some aristocracy, and we are not some peasantry. We can and will raise our voice when they eat their cake and throw us the crumbs. We’ll be keeping a close eye on their votes, and the bills they sponsor. With this supermajority, they feel emboldened to show their true colors. And we are committed to rejecting fascist ideology wherever we see it.
If there’s one tax credit I can claim every year, it’s the one I get for living rent-free in Commissioner Rick Tryon’s head. Tryon, like many an aging Republican, has a long history of targeting women. Women in politics. Women in leadership. Hell, even women he’s never met outside of a Facebook comments section. That’s why I know that although I am the current object of Rick’s unblinking attention, I am but the latest in his long history of targeting women who are too loud for his liking. Most of this targeting happens on his right-wing blog, E City Beat.
ECBs prior targets include former City Commissioners, former Mayors, and former legislative candidates. Although they may write a one-off article about a man they disagree with, the recurring characters on the blog are all women. Accusations have ranged from serious to spurious, one of the more comical being an article where ECB accused a Representative of being a Satanist because they didn’t like her t-shirt.
At one point ECB created a fake author. The persona was a Queer woman who “wrote” articles for the blog under an achingly bad penname. The ruse was sad and short lived. Rick was quickly called out, owing to his use of a common stock photo in his creation of what ECB assumed a lesbian would look like. (Please note: it was a kind of goth, manic pixie dream girl vibe. I think he has a type.)
Most recently, Dear Old Rick has attempted to make me sound like a danger to society. Now, to be clear, this new post itself doesn’t list Rick as the author but rather uses the umbrella of “ECB Staff.” But when you’ve had a dude hate-crushing on you for several years, its easy to recognize the voice behind the piece. Further, Rick’s frenzied promotion of the piece on his own page indicates a significant degree of investment.
But to my point, this latest article makes me sound way cooler than I am. Anyone that knows me personally knows that I’m basically a Hobbit. I’m short, prefer being left alone, but given enough pipeweed can be persuaded to go on the occasional adventure. And if ECB had simply implied I was a menace, I wouldn’t dispense any emotional labor responding to this most recent fan fiction. But alas. Despite the compliment to my image, ECB made a fatal mistake. In this re-telling, they completely ruined my joke. Not just misrepresented it, but thoroughly ruined it.
Call me dangerous. Call me a terrorist. But you will not call me Un-Funny.
Once again, ECB will be foiled by the very technology they cling to so desperately for relevance. Sadly, that means I have to explain an interaction on Twitter. I will not call it a “Twitter beef.” I am a woman in my 30s who absolutely should not be using phrases like “Twitter beef.” Please bear with me. None of us are excited to be here.
Picture it. Twitter, 2022.
A self-described gay Republican is online. And he’s saying some bigoted shit.
For background: An activist posted a picture of Democratic Senator, Ellie Boldman, taking a selfie with Republican Representative, Braxton Mitchell. Mitchell has already introduced homophobic bills for the 2023 session. Additionally, his re-surfaced tweets include him calling people “faggot” repeatedly.
You with me?
So, activist posts this picture. Activist has in their bio “they/them” pronouns. Self-described gay Republican posts this transphobic comment.
I see self-described gay Republican’s tweets. First, the transphobic tweet. Then, this tweet where dude discusses the recent cost of his dental work. (Democrats want that to be free, btw.)
I point out to self-described gay Republican that saying bigoted things is dangerous. He could get hurt. And he has just said that he can’t afford dental work.
Got that timeline?
Dude: I cant afford dental work again.
Dude: Makes fun of a Queer person.
Me: It’s dangerous to be a bigot, and you can’t afford more dental work!
That timing? I mean, come on. *chef’s kiss*
ECB’s re-telling of this entire interaction really ruins the joke. There’s no regard for context or comedic timing. Thankfully, these screenshots explain the story a little better. As seen above, far from being the victim, this gentleman was engaging in bigoted speech. He has every right to do so. Just as fellow Twitter users have every right to remind him of the dangers inherit in such bold statements.
Rick Tryon siding with a transphobe is not surprising behavior. In fact, Tryon’s own past transphobic posts were previously brought up during a commission meeting. And just last summer, Tryon tried to assert a neo-nazi flyer distributed in Great Falls didn’t contain transphobic language, when it very much did. So Rick teaming up with a man making transphobic comments on Twitter? Yeah, that checks out.
More importantly, dear readers, ECB’s articles about me often seem like a concerted attempt to deflect attention away from Tryon’s own behavior. Does Rick really think I’m dangerous? I don’t think so. The more likely explanation is that Rick is angry about this article I wrote. Read it here, because Rick doesn’t want you to. It details his recent change of heart regarding a certain safety levy.
Once again, we see that an attempt was made, but we’re none of us fooled.
I get that I’m on your mind a lot Rick, but don’t kid yourself. You’re not even my coolest nemesis.
THE RECEIPTS
ECB impersonates a Queer woman under the guise of an editorial. ECB accuses Indigenous woman of Satanism because they don’t like her t-shirt. A quick search of the name “Jasmine Taylor” brings up 3 pages of articles on ECB. Nothing to see here, folks! Just very normal Commissioner behavior.Where it all began? I’m fairly sure this was the first time I hurt lil old Rick’s feelings. Our Hurtaversary, if you will. Yes, he’s been at this for over 4 years. Also, why did he write in 3rd person?“This is disgusting” says dude who once threated to beat up an elderly man after a public forum meeting.
“Well, haters gonna hate. I and others are on our way to legislate. Your toxic hate and resentment filled way has literally destroyed the Dem party in Cascade County and taken good and decent folks down with it. I’ll let you folks get back uninterrupted here to being the mirror-image of Jordan Hall and the soft delusion that you’re not effectively the same thing he is in a dress.”
We at WTF have covered a myriad of topics that folks care about. From the housing crisis to our right to privacy, we’ve discussed the disturbing voting records and often outrageous antics of the far-right in Great Falls. Sharing accurate information isn’t hateful or indicative of resentment. Quite contrary, it’s how we keep our community informed. It appears George can’t spot the difference between participating in hate speech and speaking out against it. Thus, we’ve put his latest statement about myself and Helena to the test. Let’s see if George’s claim stands up to scrutiny.
**Many of Hall’s charges are still pending as detailed in the linked articles
We do give George one half of a check mark, as Jasmine does indeed wear dresses fairly regularly. However, Helena wears them less frequently. Further, we have no knowledge of Hall’s preferred clothing; therefore, we’re not sure how apt the comparison is. Regardless, an attempt was made. We’d like to congratulate George on his victory! A breakdown of the math shows us that it cost George a mere $39.27 per vote!
