feature image photo by Simona Granati – Corbis / Contributor via Getty Images
Sorry this is a bit of a downer today!!!!!! Go outside, eat a popsicle or another sweet treat, and do something nice for yourself today, that’s my Thursday advice for you!!!!
Queer as in F*ck You
Italy Begins Stripping Lesbian Mothers of Their Parental Rights. I hesitated to make this the lead story today, because every times I read about it or think about it, it fills me with overwhelming despair. I’ve been thinking a lot about lesbian motherhood, pregnancy, family, what my own future might hold, what my options might be. But if this news is stirring something in me, I should listen to it, not push it down, so I finally landed on leading AAA with it. Some context leading up to this moment: Back in March, Italy’s new right-wing leadership under prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s announced it would be stripping parental rights for same-sex couples. Access to starting a family for queer parents is already strictly limited in the country: Same-sex couples cannot adopt; surrogacy is illegal; IVF is only available to straight couples. Some LGBTQ+ couples travel out of country to seek fertility treatments. In this latest crackdown, queer parents who are not the biological parent of the child will be removed from their children’s birth certificates. It took me so long to just type out that sentence. Italian law officially does not recognize the possibility of a child having two mothers. In the city of Padua, 27 parents have been notified they would be erased from their children’s birth certifications, and other families in Milan, Florence, and Fiumicino have received similar letters, though the mayor of Padua is going against government orders and still issuing birth certificates to two-mom families. I’ll be clinging to any and all stories of resistance on this front.
More dispatches from abroad, this one from Hungary: A Bookstore Got Fined For Selling Heartstopper.
How Solitary Confinement Is Used as a Weapon Against Trans People.
Montana City Allegedly Withholds Pride Parade Permits over Anti-drag Law, Lawsuit Says.
Okay, let’s transition into some more uplifting stuff:
Mikki Kendall Remembers the Indelible Work and Full Complexity of bell hooks.
Stonewall Veteran Miss Major Is on the Road, Urging Trans People to ‘Stand Up and Fight’.
Meet Four Queer Artists Helping to Shake Up Country Music. And then read Em Win’s piece for Autostraddle’s Pride package about EIGHT queer artists shaking up country music 🥰
Saw This, Thought of You
How Fannie Lou Hamer’s Disability Informed Her Fight for Voting Rights.
https://twitter.com/bekah_soul/status/1681754931701731335?s=12&t=NPXnc512YlmS4m4rQrPusw
Hollywood Bosses Are Trying to Scare Striking Workers Into Folding. They Won’t Win. My buddy Josh wrote this, and it’s a really excellent primer on the two simultaneous strikes happening right now, but I especially love that it ends on a note of steadfast solidarity, hope, and determination in the face of the AMPTP’s bullshit.
Speaking of the strikes, is anyone else following this tree-cutting saga?! Universal really proved themselves to be CARTOON VILLAINS: SAG Files Unfair Labor Practice Against Universal After it Trimmed Trees on Picket Line Without a Permit.
Political Snacks
The Humiliation of Ron DeSantis.
One More Thing
A poem for you:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CnSwoLtIfws/
