Tag Archives: LGBTQ

Uncontested Elections Are Bad for Democracy: Worthington School Board

Interesting story from small town Minnesota about a school board forcing one of their only Latino teachers to remove his Puerto Rico and Pride flags. That’s a whole thing, and while I have feelings about it, I want to talk about elections instead.

Why it matters: Because Worthington School Board, like many of our local boards and councils, has a problem with uncontested elections.

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Library Advisory Committee Meeting

Last week I chaired a meeting of the Dakota County Library Advisory Committee. Since joining the committee in 2019, we’ve had exactly one member of the public attend our meetings and no one has ever spoken during the public comments.

Last week an estimated 150 people attended our meeting, with more waiting outside, and 37 people spoke (including half a dozen teens) before we cut off the comment period. Local news was filming as well (though I haven’t seen a story run yet).

Running that kind of meeting is daunting.

It’s hard to explain what it meant to have a few familiar faces in the crowd.

All things considered, I think the meeting went very well. Our committee listened with politeness and respect. I’m grateful and honored to served with such an amazing group of book lovers.

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But I Want Them to Live

Today is Trans Visibility Day. I see you. I love you. I am here for you.

These past few months have felt like a dark time for the trans community. I’m sorry.

We’re in a place right now where attacks on the LGBTQ community, and specifically trans folks, are coming fast and furious. Not just from a minority of bigots and haters, but from state governments and seemingly an entire political party. Not just a few red states (where these bills are passing and becoming law), but nearly the entire country.

I’ll say this as simply as I can: This is a civil rights issue. Some people want to deny LGBTQ people their civil rights because they some how think that’s wrong or feel threatened by it. But it’s discrimination, it’s rooted in hate, and it’s evil. It’s anti-American.

And no, I don’t care about your religious exemption or your fake concern for women’s sports or your gross and wrong conflation of abuse and homosexuality (ready for “grooming” to become the new scare-word?). There’s no excuse for hate.

Here’s why I think this issue is so simple: Kids are dying.

You either care about those kids and want to see them live, or you don’t.

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Rally for Trans Kids in Hastings

I went to the Rally for Trans Kids in Hastings today, in response to the bigoted hate poured out on Hastings school board member Kelsey Waits and her family by a ‘concerned parents’ group in the community. The group outed Waits’ 8-year-old trans child and has created an environment so hostile the family doesn’t feel safe and had to move.

Waits said it best in an MPR interview:

“Transgender kids are the most at-risk kids in our schools for suicide. Almost 50 percent of transgender students will attempt suicide, and that’s in Minnesota and nationwide. And what research is starting to show is that by supporting these kids, you decrease their risk of suicide. You’re saving their lives.”

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