Who was mocked on social media this week for conflating gender and sexuality in an attempt to be hateful when they declared, "The word 'cis' is a heterosexual slur"?
Elon Musk
X users had a field day with Elon Musk's inability to be effectively hateful with his failure to discern between gender and sexual identity.
Cisgender simply means that a person's gender identity aligns with their sex they were assigned at birth, so not only is it not a slur, but it also has nothing to do with sexuality. Homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual people can be cisgender.
House Speaker Mike Johnson's past work with which anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy organization came to light this week?
Exodus International
Johnson, who worked for the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, collaborated with Exodus International to promote their yearly "Day of Truth" event, which promised to reveal the "truth" about homosexuality.
Johnson also wrote an editorial to promote the event in 2007, where he claimed that “advocates of homosexual behavior” want to “gild and glamorize homosexual behavior while gagging anyone who opposes it.” He called queer teens “sexually-confused” and said that Christians were being silenced by anti-bullying advocates.
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“Day of Truth was really established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda in public schools,” he said in a 2008 radio interview.
Exodus International fell apart in 2013 and some of its ex-gay leaders have since come out as gay.
Transgender rights advocates from what state are asking the Supreme Court to make its first ever decision on gender-affirming care for trans people?
Tennessee
The ACLU of Tennessee, along with the ACLU and Lambda Legal, are asking the Supreme Court to stop Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care from going into effect. The law would not only ban trans youth from starting puberty blockers or hormone therapy, but also would force trans kids already taking those treatments to stop and detransition.
If the Supreme Court takes up the case, it would be the first time the Court inserts itself into a case involving such a ban.
Which out House member tried to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) this week in response to Greene's attempt to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN)?
Becca Balint (D-VT)
Balint put forth her privileged resolution in response to a censure resolution from Greene, that targeted Tlaib, who is Palestinian-American, for her statements on the Israel-Hamas war.
She ultimately scrapped the vote after 23 Republicans voted against Greene's resolution. Balint's resolution stated that Greene has “repeatedly fanned the flames of racism, antisemitism, LGBTQ hate speech, Islamophobia, anti-Asian hate, xenophobia, and other forms of hatred." She said she is holding onto it for now and may call it up for a vote at a later date.
Taiwan recently hosted the largest Asian Pride event in history. Which two legal rights did queer people in the country recently receive?
Gay adoption and the recognition of same-sex marriages conducted in foreign countries
Over 176,000 people attended Taiwan’s 21st annual Pride march last Saturday in the capital city of Taipei. Attendees celebrated two recent LGBTQ+ rights victories in the country: the legalization of gay adoption and the recognition of Taiwanese same-sex spouses who were married in foreign countries.
However, activists noted that same-sex couples aren’t legally allowed to conceive children through in vitro fertilization and transgender people are still required to undergo gender-affirming surgery before they’re allowed to change gender markers on their official documents.
Which House member's spouse runs a Christian counseling service that has compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest?
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)
It was revealed this week that Kelly Johnson, wife of rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ Speaker Johnson, runs a Christian counseling service that categorizes LGBTQ+ identities as “sexual immorality” and compares them to incest and bestiality. Kelly Johnson has since taken down the company's website.
Mike Johnson also recently claimed that he couldn’t remember numerous anti-LGBTQ+ statements he made while serving as a senior attorney and national media spokesman for the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom.
What reason did Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) give for voting against the expulsion of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from Congress this week, even though Santos is facing 23 criminal charges for financial fraud?
Raskin said he wanted a court to convict Santos of a crime first
Raskin, one of 31 Democrats who voted against expelling Santos from the House, explained his belief that representatives should only be expelled if they’re convicted of a crime.
Santos survived a Wednesday night attempt to expel him from the House after the chamber failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to do so. After surviving the vote, Santos gloated online, writing in a now-deleted post, “If you come for me, you best not miss.”
Which of the following queer musicians did country music icon Dolly Parton collaborate with in her upcoming album Rockstar?
All of the musicians listed here
In her first-ever rock ’n’ roll album, which will be released on November 17, Parton collaborated with Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, Miley Cyrus, and Brandi Carlile, as well as LGBTQ+ allies like Pink, Lizzo, and Stevie Nicks.
In a recent interview, Parton came out against transphobic laws, stating, “I know [trans people] and love them all, and I do not judge. And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things and I know how real they are. I know how important [gender-affirming care] is to them. That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton."
Which corporation issued a dire warning this week that "if the line is not drawn here, there is no line at all" in regards to protecting free speech?
Disney
This week, Disney expressed in court documents a fear for the future of the First Amendment should Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) emerge the victor in their court battle. The lawsuit accuses DeSantis of a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint” after the entertainment company publicly criticized his “Don’t Say Gay” law.
In court documents filed on Monday, Disney warned that a DeSantis victory would lead to a slew of other companies being punished for expressing a “disfavored viewpoint.”
“If the line is not drawn here, there is no line at all,” Disney stated. “The retaliation against Disney for crossing the Governor’s ‘line’ was swift and severe: for the explicitly-stated purpose of punishing Disney for its comments, the State immediately stripped Disney of its voting rights in the governing body that oversees Disney’s use of its own private property.”
Which celebrity spoke out against transphobia and for their own transgender child this past weekend?
Annette Bening
While receiving GLSEN’s Advocate Award at the LGBTQ+ organization’s annual Rise Up L.A. benefit, Annette Bening — whose son Stephen Ira is trans — said, “[We need] to speak out and speak up as transphobia has invaded our government at the local, state, and federal levels.”
“It is hurtful. It is shameful. And it is being used as a tool by the far right to rally their base and turn out the vote,” she added.
