Barrage of Bad Laws

I'm very excited about today's show. We did a supersize special on the terrible Don't Say Gay legislation that is coming out of Florida, that is being sanctioned by Governor Disantess, and so I wanted to take this time to sit down and talk with a couple of people on different sides, not on different sides of the issues this, it's not on both sides, but folks coming at it from the family aspect, from the legal aspect, from the teacher aspect, so that we can understand the full picture of the

assault that the right wing has on our education system and our public schooling and why why people should should be up in arms about it. So coming up in my conversation today is Stacy Stevenson, who is the CEO of Family Equality and LGBTQ organization that works to ensure that LGBTQ people can create the kind of families that they want and that they have the support and a community and a network that allows them to do so.

Also coming up in today's conversation is Frederick Ingram, who is Secretary Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers and was formerly the head of Florida's AFT. And then finally we will have a conversation with Carl Charles, who is staff attorney at lambed Illegal, the LGBTQ legal outlet that has been fighting these battles for decades. That is the show today, folks, and I hope that you enjoy, folks.

I am so excited to welcome to woke F Daily the CEO, president, executive director, the boss Lady in charge of Family Equality, Stacy Stevenson, to join us to talk about really the horrific, horrific attacks that we are seeing once again waged against LGBTQ youth and their families, particularly folks. You know that I have been talking about what Governor DeSantis has been doing in Florida, what's being copycatted in

Texas and around the Red state. Stacy, welcome to woke F. Tell us a little bit before we jump into what's happening in Florida about what it is that Family Equality does. Yeah, absolutely so, Family Equality. We are a nonprofit and we've been in existence since nineteen seventy nine. And really our mission is to ensure that LGBTQ folks who want to have children can do so, and people who have children and families after you've weathered foster or adopted, that you

can actually sustain your family. So, in a nutshell, our mission is to fight for lived in legal quality for LGBTQ families and future LGBTQ families. And you know, but oh, police, go ahead, and I was going to say it. And we do that in a myriad of ways. And when we work with the administration, and we work with policy issues on the state and federal level, we connect families basically because community is really important as well, and we

provide education and programming too. And then storytelling is a core competency of ours, and I think we all know that storytelling is one of those methods that can help change hearts and minds. So we really do a lot of storytellings where we show the real impact of what's going on here, but also humanizing LGBTQ plus families because oftentimes people don't see our families modeled in the media

at large. You know, Stacy, I have worked, as folks know, in and around LGBTQ politics and policy for most of my career. And you know, I was hearkening earlier this week, earlier last week into remembering the rash of suicides at the beginning of two thousand, of the two thousands, the rash of suicides of LGBTQ youth who were being bullied

in schools. And then I reminded folks about the response that the Obama administration had in terms of making sure that our public schools, our charter schools, were safe for lgbtquth, that they were equitable, that trans youth had access right to the bathrooms that they felt most comfortable using, and that they felt they were able to learn free of harm. Well, we are seeing a total and complete reversal of that.

And I want to get your initial reactions to this, don't say gay legislation that just flew through, you know, the Florida legislature, which we know is control of Republican controlled. What were your initial reactions to that? Well, disappointment, obviously from a couple of perspectives. So number one, I was one of those LGBTQ plus youths in high school and middle school who was struggling to find my way and

to find support. And I remember when I came out or actually got pulled out of the closet at sixteen or seventeen, and I remember distinctly because I couldn't get support in my peer groups. I remember feeling so desperate. I went to one of the administrators I think it was a principle, and I wanted to talk with her about what was going on, and she just refused to talk with me. Now that was not based on any law or anything like that. This was in the nineties.

But think about that when this was just her set, and if this is going to be built into laws, then what's going to be the impact. There's a true human impact here to these kids, and so I just remember how horrible that felt. And I was absolutely thinking about taking my own life and didn't want to be here anymore because I didn't have the supported home, I didn't have the supported school. And I remember when of the administrators telling me, how would you ever know that

you were gay? You're too young to even feel this way. So then that messaging right is also damaging. The other perspective is from a parent perspective. So I'm a mother of two seven year old twin boys, thank you, And they have two moms. And we live here in Texas and our boys are often advocates for themselves in their classrooms. They're often correcting teachers about I have two moms, I don't have a mom and a dad. And so far some of the teachers have been receptive to Okay, London

has two moms, Duke has two moms. But what if that's taken away from them? Yeah, what if the teachers can't tell the students that London and Duke have a different family structure, And what if London to do are silence or other kids in Florida are silence about not only themselves but their families. And so there is a true human impact that I don't think that the politicians are thinking about. They're not thinking about that, and it's going to be harm harmful, very harmful to our children

and their families. You know. I don't want to say that they're not thinking about it. I just don't think they care, you know, like that, I mean, that's that's the truth of the matter, is that they don't care.

I think that, you know, in in this current political climate, the radical right would be happy for us to go back into the closet and to be punished, right for our desire to be out and proud, right, And you know when you talk about the human impact and thank you so much for sharing, you know a part of your own story. Do you how do we tell this story, Stacy?

How do we get out our own types of campaigns so people understand that, regardless of whether they themselves are queer or children come from a queer background, that this type of trauma that we are placing on young people in schools, this is just the beginning. Tennessee just passed legislation where they don't want to talk about the Holocaust and they're taking those books off the shelf. So, you know, how do we wage this campaign? How do we have

these conversations so people get what is going on here? Yeah, it's interesting, and you know to your point that they don't care. That's an even you know, larger issue, right, And some think that this has been used as a wedge issue, right, so for political gain, and so maybe that's exactly what it is. But in terms of how do we tell this story, how do we you know, sort of create this campaign? I think again it's talking

about the human impact of this. I mean, that's I think for those people who do care, and I think there are people who do care who may not understand what is going on. I think that we have to be very clear and the un tell the ugly truth about the human impact. So there was a survey released by the Trevor Project in twenty twenty one about the human impact right and the forty two percent of LGBTQ plus youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.

That was from twenty twenty one. You know, half of all LGBTQ plus youth of color reported discrimination based on their Wraith ethnicity in the past year. I think showing statistics number one is one thing, and I think also telling the story in the way that this is damaging, this is going to lead. As Shaston said, I think in the tweet after this was actually reported, that this is going to kill kids. And I don't think that we have to twe should shy away from that. It's

an ugly truth. But the fact of the matter is that it is. It is going to it absolutely is, and so there is a real risk here of us losing more youth and as you mentioned, going backwards and going back into the days then when I when I came out where we saw more students like us, all suicides at my school happen. Um. We got to tell the impact, We got to show the numbers, um, and

we got to be loud about it. What will family equality as you begin, you know, you've been in this position now as a newly executive director for you know, close to a year. You're coming in at a really precarious time, and you know, in our society, what are some of the things that you have up on your agenda for family equality in dealing with this and then other issues that you all tackle on a day to day basis. Yeah, you know, we are putting a very

distinct focus on what we call our schools work. We know that there are opportunities and lots of opportunities to protect our kids and our families in schools, and so we are doing that. So we're working closely with our partners like and Glisten and with the administration to ensure that children, for example, who have LGBTQ plus parents or family members are protected at school under specific laws. So those are one of the things that are on our agenda.

Our policy folks are engaged into some state coalition to working with our national partners to fight some of these bills, the Don't Say Gay bill, book bands, curriculum bands, all those attempts to erase our history. We're starting to work in coalition with people and to use families, Family Equalities Voice, to have a seat at the table from a family perspective, to show the impact of family, and I think from

a larger perspective. You know, our work is really around ensuring that GBTQ plus people can actually create their families and as I mentioned early, can sustain their families. So larger legislation like the John Lewis Every Child Deserves a Family Act is something that has been on our agendas, our flagship legislation, and we're going to continue to push that and then our efforts to get the Equality Act pass, which will provide explicit protections for LGBTQ plus families and

some protections to protect children's and children in schools. Last question for you, Stacy, because the times are so precarious, because you are raising young kids in you know, young black boys in a red state. You know, you know firsthand about the challenges that we are facing. How do you hold on to hope in this moment and inspire other people, other families, to believe that we can move past this really dark moment. It's a great question. One of the things I'll say is that I'll be honest

that it's not always easy to hold onto hope. So I don't want to paint this rosy picture, because it does get rough, Danielle, It absolutely does. At the same time, I have these moments with my kids and my family, and I think back to being a young LGBTQ plus person who was told that I would never have a family, that we as a collective would never have a family, that those rights would never be given to us, that

marriage would never be given to us. And I look back and I see where we are now, and so I think what I what I try to do, especially in the seat that I'm sitting in now, is to look at those those hard won rights that we that we did get, like marriage, like the Bostock decision, you know, some of the decisions that we've seen where we actually

can foster and adopt children. To look at the winds and to look that we have had some progress, and then to lean on that and to know that we've been at these dark times before, and I believe that we will we will get through them. And we know in terms of just LGBTQ plus equality that the majority of Americans actually support you know, anti discrimination, you know, and so we know that we have lots of support.

It's just really kind of working through and working through some of these wedge issues that the politicians are trying to throw at us. Well. I can't thank you enough for the work that you do, for making the time to join willk F, and hopefully you will come back and talk to us more about where family equality is, the work that it's doing, and also how we can continue to be involved for those volks that do want to be involved in this moment. Absolutely, thank you for

having me, Daniel, appreciate you, folks. I am very happy to be joined today by Frederick Ingram, who is the secretary treasurer of the the American Federation of Teachers and formally the president of the Florida Education Association. Frederick, thank you for making the time to join wike a F today.

You know your state of Florida, My goodness, does Governor de Santis want to keep his name in everyone's mouth for all the wrong reasons, has been championing legislation that would have LGBTQ people essentially erased from discussions, from curriculum, from the history books. Can you tell us a bit about what you are seeing and hearing from teachers on the ground in Florida about these moves that this governor is making and what we know will most likely be

copycatted around other Republican run states. Sure, you know, thank you for having me. And it's a sense state of affairs as it relates to Governor de Santis and his lack of leadership in Florida, his his his his inability to bring people together, his intent on divisive type policies and legislative agenda that he has for the state of Florida. This is just one of the many bad bills that he's proffered over the last year since he's been governor of State of Florida. I'm sorry, the last two years

that since he's been governor of State of Florida. And you know, we've seen anti woke bills, whatever that means. We've seen bills that try to step on the feet of people who are have the freedom of assembly, which is directly after the George Floyd bill. They had an Anti Riot Act, and he's had the anti trans bill where you're banning trans kids from trying to participate in

sports in our public schools. And this is just one of the many where he's trying to demean and he is trying to push down our LGBTQUH students and those who identify with lg LGBTQUH. You know, the community, yeah, right, right, the community and so so so it's just it's a it's a tragedy what's happening in the state of Florida.

And what we know that this governor is trying to do is position himself to run president, and unfortunately he is pulling the worst of the rights and conservative thoughts h to for people because we believe that he's running squarely against President Trump, who lives in Florida, and we believe that he has to keep pushing to the right so that he can stay to the right of the governor in Texas and Georgia, where we're seeing other bad bills that are being, like you said, copycattered all over

this country, inclusive of of voting rights bills. So it's all h We believe that we're the incubator for all things bad right now as it relates to legislation. But you know, we're fighting back, you know, so Frederick talked to me. You know, I am a former teacher, former educator, and I taught first and second grade elementary school in Washington, DC before I would make my way into policy work

and then to New York where I am now. And I will tell you that of the many positions that I have had, teaching was one of the hardest that I've ever done. And every day that I see what we are putting our teachers through, whether it be series of mass shootings. Florida was the first state to say, oh, we're not going to do anything about, you know, school shootings,

We'll just arm our teachers. Right We're sending them to work in a pandemic without the safety of mask mandates in these states, without the safeties of vaccination requirements in these states. And now we're saying you can't talk about race or racism, you can't talk about LGBTQ people. What are teachers saying to you all? What are you hearing?

And is there a mass resignation of teachers that we actually should be paying attention to Yeah, then you know it's funny you asked that, because even before the pandemic, even before the sentis, we had a shortage of teachers. That shortage is being exacerbated, that shortage is being expanded beyond almost beyond repair, because we don't have enough students in our colleges and universities that are in the pipeline to become teachers. And so this shortage is going to

send us back decades. It's going to send us back decades, not only in public schools throughout, but we know that our black and brown children hurt even more because we know that there are a lack of black and brown teachers in our classrooms in the in the state of Florida. In fact, black males make up two percent of all teachers in the country. And so we have those shortages. And it's not what teachers are saying. It's what they're

not saying. It's that they're putting their keys on their principles desk and saying, you know what, I've had it. You won't keep me safe. You're fighting mass mandates, you're acting as if the vaccines don't exist. You're telling me what I can teach as it relates to history. You're telling me what I can teach as it relates to students' mental health. And LGBTQ students need those types of supports around them because it is still a very vulnerable place to be when you are a young student, and so

our teachers are the first line of defense there. And so teachers are not saying anything, they're just walking out the door. If you've got thirty years or thirty five years or twenty five years, you're saying, you know what, I've had enough. I have simply had enough, and I'm

out of here. And then, if you are a first year teacher or a second year teacher, or if you're in college, what incentive do you have to come into education knowing that these people are going to underpay you, they're going to undercut you, they're not going to support you, and you have laws that have made you the enemy. Listen, our teachers are the beautiful people in our country. It is still the most noble profession that you can go into to give back to your community, to love kids

every day. Our most precious resource is in our classrooms. We've got to teach and treat our teachers in the same manner that we do our kids because we give them to them every day. That's that's who we are. And it's not only teachers, it's the educational community. Why is the bus driver making seven dollars an hour. Why is the cafeteria worker who's feeding that hungry kid making

less than a minimum wage. Why is the secretary who is in charge of giving all of the the you know, all the reports for the school back to the you know, to the school leadership. Why can't she pay her own bills. It's an educational village out there that is being disrupted every single day, and this LGBTQ bill is just one more insult. It's one more insult to where teachers are afraid to say anything in schools because we're being told what to say, when the state and how to see it.

That's not teaching. That's dictatorship and that should not be in the state of Florida. So how Frederick is aft fighting against all of the things, all the litany of things that have been laid out, because you know, when you look at what is happening in Florida, you see the fight that teachers are against stuff. In Chicago, you see what was happening in LA across the country right,

teachers are literally under assault. They're either having to form walkouts in order to have their needs be met, right, but they're to your point, being looked at as the enemy of the people, when in twenty twenty we were saying that they were essential and they were heroes. So what is AFT doing to help this fight, to help teachers stand up, form themselves, and then also to kind of to recruit in an environment where I'm telling you, if I were to be asked today to be a teacher,

I would say no, right right, well listen. So I am so proud of our union, the American Federation of Teachers. Our president is Randy Weingarten, who is a vanguard of our public schools, and she has been in and around this country, all over this country. We started the school year off with it Back to School for All campaign, where we went directly to parents knocking on doors saying, hey, we need your kids back in school. We know that they've been on virtual school, we know that they haven't

been in a classroom. We know that we've got to reacculterate them to the school policies and processes. But they've got to be in school. That's what we did at the beginning of school year. Literally, union members went door to door, knocking on doors in the hood and the suburbs, way out in the fields. You know, it didn't matter what the demographics were. We wanted kids back in school.

And in large part we did that. Ninety nine percent of our schools were open at the beginning of school and that was, you know, through the push from the federal government, through the police, from our unions and teachers literally saying bring these kids back to school and let us work the magic. And so we're continuing that effort now by joining with parents. Parents have the ultimate power as it relates to our schools, and that's where the power should be. And so we're linking up with parents

all over this country. We're letting them know that they've got to speak at school boards. They have got to know their school board members. They've got to you know, have a dialogue with their superintendence and the principles. They've got to demand that schools are equitable. They leave with education justice, and we understand that we have to teach the truth and give our teachers the latitude to do what they went to school to do what they know how to do, what they have the passion to do,

and so that's what we're doing. We're linking up with our community members, We're linking up with parents all over

this country. We're forming these collaborations and trying to make sure that we push and that's what we're doing from bottom up, from the top down, We're ensuring that we get people ready to vote because along these bad bills, these LGBTQ bills, and these these bad trans bills, and these bad voter suppression bills, we know that these same people who are promulgating this stuff, including governor desenters, don't want people to vote. They want to take people away,

and they have politicized education. And so if they have politicized education, then that means that we've got to get to the ballot box and put some people in place that will help all of our students, that will help all of our schools, that mean well about education. And so that's what we're doing. From the top down. We are challenging these voter suppression bills all over this country. We've linked up with partners and allies all over the country.

Our unions is stronger than ever. People are joining our union because they see the relevance if yes, we have a mass resignation out there and people looking for jobs, and yes there's truth and you know, people being scared of the pandemic. But let me tell you something. This generation of young people, this generation of workers, they want to fight. They want equity, they want justice, and they know wrongdoing and they know who's on the side or right.

And so we want people to know that the unions are on the on the right side of history, and we're going to continue to fight every single day. If it's the school board members, if it's these ancillary groups that are out there, if it's these right wing uh, you know, very non conservative group, but hate groups. We've seen more hate. And we started off talking about the LGBTQ.

But why why do you not like people who are different from you because they're a different color from you, because the active because they love a little different than you. They're people we want the same things, you know, and people all we should lead with love in our classrooms, in our leadership styles, in our communities. We should want

what's best for our fellow man and woman. And some of these hate groups out there, and some of these you know, right wing folks don't want that, and so we get into the half and the half nots, And so we're union that wants everybody to have and we believe that we have enough in this country to do

that if we do it through our schools. Frederick, I can't thank you enough for making the time to join woke F and also for the work of recruiting retaining the magic workers in our communities, because I believe that without teachers, without teachers that lead with love, that see all of their students as equal, that sees their parents and caregivers as part of a larger fabric of our community, we're never going to beat back against the hate that

you just spoke about. And so I commend you. I hope that you all will come back and spend more time with us on woke F to talk about, you know what other what people can do in their own communities to support their teachers, their administrators, and their schools, whether or not they have kids in the system or not, because I think that it is really important. Frederick Ingraham, thank you so much for making the time to join woke F. We appreciate you. Thank you Daniel for having me.

I appreciate you, folks. I am very excited to be joined by staff attorney in the Southern Regional Office of LAMB the Legal, Carl Charles, who can help us understand. Help us understand, Carl, the legal nightmare that the LGBTQ plus community is facing. You know, what often happens is that egregious laws like this don't say gay bill will come out of Florida, and the majority of us who don't live in Florida who are queer will be like, well,

I don't live there. That's unfortunate. Those people should move right. But what we are noticing is that when these laws pop up in places like Texas, in Florida, in Tennessee, they have a ripple effect across the country, particularly in the twenty eight states that are run by Republican governors. Tell us what is happening in Florida with this legislation and what LAMB the Legal and other that I know that you work in coalition with are paying attention to

at this moment. Thanks thanks Daniel, and thanks so much for having me on to discuss this really incredibly important issue. And I think your framing is exactly right. It is a nightmare, and it's one for all of us, not just for those of us who live in the states

where these bills are cropping up. So, as you mentioned, we are seeing really an unprecedented number in the last few legislative sessions of bills that target specifically trans and gender nonconforming young people in many different aspects of their lives, but largely in schools. And this bill is of course targeted to young people in schools, not just trans and gender nonconforming, but all young people who attend school of any kind at the primary or secondary level in Florida.

And really the reach, the scope of the harm that this bill could cause is really hard to measure, to be honest. You know, there's of course the most clear and acute harm, which is going to be to the LGBTQ students in schools across Florida, whose teachers are as if this bill passes, will be essentially chilled, right and fearful of discussing anything related to sexual orientation or gender identity.

And I want to point out for your audience, for your listeners a really important part of this bill and what connects to what you said about how this bill is connected to the other bills that are being proposed in other states. This bill has done something I don't want to say clever, but it frankly it is right. As compared to a bill that the legal was involved in striking down in South Carolina, a bill that explicitly targeted any discussion of lgbt people. We were involved in

getting getting that stricken. But this bill doesn't specify, right, doesn't specify homosexuality, It doesn't say anything about LGBTQ. So you could read this bill, and a judge could read this bill and note that there's nothing in the bill language that explicitly targets someone's non heterosexual such orientation out

to be excluded. So theoretically one could read this bill and say, oh, this just says you can't discuss such orientation or gender identity of any kind, including heterosexuality, with children in primary school. Right. But we all know, right, we all know how this bill is going to be interpreted.

We know how it's going to be, the discretion it's going to allow to people who oppose equality for LGBTQ people, we know how it's going to be utilized, and the provision that allows for essentially parents, right parents to be the law enforcement officers of this bill and to bring suit against schools is going to have such a chilling effect on allied and lgbt educators across the state of Florida.

It's really going to be stark. And I want to just add one more thing, which is to say, the broader harm here is to all students, right, not just LGBTQ students who don't see their identities or their lives

throughout history mirrored in any kind of meaningful way. It's two heterosexual students and sis gender students who need to be learning about the diversity in their communities and their worlds to be able to be the kinds of people who grow up and want to get to know their neighbors and live in harmony and support of one another, and know what it means to be a global contributing citizen in the world right, not just relegate to whatever

particular bubble they grew up in. So I view it as a really large scale harm to all students across the educational system of Florida. And to answer the second part of your question, lamb illegal and folks on the ground like a quality Florida and many other groups in the state of Florida are working around the clock to

really oppose this bill. First, you know, in the legislature, lobbying legislators, trying to do what they are able to do to say, here, here's the myriad harms that this is going to cause to so many children in our state, and here's here's going to be the ripple effect. But beyond that, I think we're really sort of focused on opposing and trying to stop the bill from moving any further. But I do have to tell you, I think many of us share some some educated cynicism and skepticism that

this bill might pass, right. I mean, we've seen and I want to connect this to similar censorship issues that we have seen just exploding, especially in Florida, and things

that have been used as a dog whistle. Right, So we've seen critical race theory opposition bills us to basically again hamstring and chill the speech of educators who all want to discuss anything having to do with with with the oppression of black people in the United States, right historically, the civil rights movement, anything related to race and racism, That's what those kinds of bills are targeting and we view this bill is very, very similar and linked up

with this kind of refusal of people to engage in the uncomfortable realities of the history of our country and also the current lives and lived experience of people who are not white straits as gender and man right, And so that's really the connection that we're seeing as well. You know, carl I brought this up in another interview that I did, and this resonates here as well. I learned recently that children in China are not taught about

the Tianamen Square massacre. That there is no mention whatsoever that generations upon generations following that massacre that happened that the world watched, and that we are taught in our history books. Right, they are not. It was a law that was passed by right the leaders of China that said you weren't allowed to teach about it. It didn't happen, it didn't exist. The parents of those students were not allowed to mourn publicly. They were never allowed to mention

those children's name. If in fact, you have ever heard about the Tianamen Square, it is either because you grew up elsewhere right and left China, or it was passed down in some type of oral history. This is exactly the same thing that is happening in the United States,

a country that we say as a democracy. When you walk into court right and you are making a case against what is happening, and you use the right word, you said clever, because it's the same way that they wrote the bill in Texas around abortion very clever, right, Because what do they know If we don't mention these actual things, if we don't write it in black and white, and it's just an insinuation, then you can't prove an insinuation.

And until there is actually a case right, there is nothing, There is nothing to be fought against right or four. So how do you fight when they are now steps miles ahead of these past suits that we've seen, how do you fight well? So you make another really important connection to what we're seeing happen in state legislatures, particularly around abortion rights and access. And the law in Texas

is a great example of this right. You leave it to citizens to enforce it, and you created in such a way that makes it fairly immune from legal challenge until a certain point. Right. And so you know, our opponents have learned that the way to embed racism in our laws is to not say anything about race, right, to make it, on its face very neutral, and that makes it a lot more difficult to when you go into court and you're bringing legal challenges, you have to

the bar for disparate impact. Right, It's a legal theory called disparate impact is you have to, really the bar is extremely high to show that this law has been disparately enforced against a certain group of people. It's an incredible challenge, and colleagues who work in the civil rights

space know this across the board. Right. The way to insulate things from legal challenged is to be clever about the words that you use in the text of the law so that it can be interpreted in a neutral way, which makes it not immune, but it gives it a great deal more ability to evade legal challenges, right, and makes it harder to establish standing on behalf of plaintiffs who are harmed. So you just hit the nail on the head. I can't say anything more than just that.

I just you know, I can't believe, Carl, I cannot believe that the right wing is smarter than us. I cannot believe that conservatives have found a way to make it so we live in this quote unquote neutral society, and yet we actually know who is being harmed, we

know what it is that they're doing. And are we to assume that the judges that are on these benches are quote unquote neutral, because again, like you can't just look at this in black and white and say, oh, well, until there is something bad that happens, we're just going to let this slide. We're talking about generations of whitewashing, of straightwashing, of ciswashing. We're talking about erasure, right, and what that looks like down the line. And so where

do we go from here? It's a great question. I think that I think it goes back to your remarks to open our conversation today, which is we all of us right concerns people who are watching what is happening unfold, cannot be content to say I feel bad for those people over there, right, because we are seconds away from those people over there being this person right here, right, And so we cannot, we really cannot afford to have that mentality that the problems happening or the issues in

our country are happening in a state I would never live in, right. I mean, I moved to Georgia almost well a year and a half ago from New York City, where I had been for almost seven years. And it's just not sufficient to say I will never end up in a place like that, Right, we have to make

a difference and take action where we are. And so I think having a I don't mean to say that people don't have this, but I think it's incredibly, incredibly important in this moment that we take a concerted effort, a concert we make a concerted effort to invest in communities that we aren't a part but are connected to

by virtue of what is happening there. Right, we have to get involved and figure out ways to support people who are impacted by these bills and ensure that we don't allow those same We don't allow the same sort of landscape to be built in the places where we are. Right.

If we're so sure that this could never happen where we are, well, then we better be damned sure we're we're creating and maintaining a place where that's not going to happen, right, Because I think people have sort of lull themselves into a bit of complacency when we talk like that, and then we see things happen in places that we wouldn't expect them to. Right. I'm thinking of my home state of Colorado, which, even though it didn't pass, there was still a bill presented to the legislature about

banning gender affirming healthcare for transient people. Right, So that the fact that these kinds of things happen means that we still need to be committed to doing what we can where we are to ensure that doesn't happen, and finding ways to tap into and support people who are doing work on the ground where these things are really sort of being, where the alarm is really being sounded,

where they are likely to or have extreme potential to pass. Carl, I can't thank you enough for the work that you're doing, for the work that lamb Illegal has always done, UM for for for so many, so many decades, UM and for queer people like myself. UM. Tell people who are listening how they can support your work, how they can how they cannot just sit around and say, well, at least I'm not living there. What can foot what can

regular people do to help aid this effort? Thanks, Danielle, and I have to extend that gratitude back to you. For the work that you do on this show, educating folks across the country, making sure that people know about the issues, both nationally but locally. I think that's a real incredible asset that you bring to this space. So let me extend that gratitude back to you and say that I feel very honored to do the work that I do at LAMB Illegal. There's a number of different

ways folks can get involved. We are a national organization, but we have six regional offices, one in Atlanta, Georgia, where I am. We're also in Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, California, Chicago, Illinois,

New York City, New York, and Washington, DC. And we tackle a host of issues that of course have a national impact, but we do a lot of work regionally as well, and we sort of break up the country into those we break up the states into those regions, so folks in our Southern regional office, we have our eyes and ears on the ground in Florida, in South Carolina and Alabama. So I would encourage folks to check out our website, which is www dot LAMB legal dot org.

We have a whole host of information that gives folks avenues to plug into groups that are doing the work locally in their communities, but also gives folks tools to do advocacy on their own. Behalf right to be advocating in their at their school board meetings, right if they're considering running for office. Things to think about when you're trying to look trying to figure out how to tackle

issues that are confronting LGBT people in your community. Our website has a real wealth of information there, and we also have contact information for our regional offices. If you or someone you know about is experiencing discrimination on behalf of your LGBTQ identity, If you're concerned about what your child is experiencing in their school related to their identity,

please reach out to us. We have a team of attorneys whose staff a help desk at ridiculous hours of of the day and into the night, so that we are learning about the things that are happening to LGBT people across the country, so that we can be challenging things early and often. Appreciate you so very much, and I hope that you come back again and join us on wok F. Thank you, Carl, thanks so much, Thank you, Danielle, take care of. That is it for me today at

Woke f Daily. As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.