 Ghostland. I'm Ann Charles. I'm Linda Cremlis. This is Tuesday, October 6th, and we're taping in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unseated indigenous land. So now you'd like some headlines, wouldn't you? I would. And maybe a trivia question? Well, do we have one? Yes, we do. Okay. And out in the mountains, October 1986, front-page news, the Vermont Republican Party at their annual meeting. They did something to their platform. What was it? And remember, it's the Vermont Republican Party. So for some headlines coming out of Canada and going into the Canadian Parliament, they have reintroduced a bill that would impose a ban on the use of conversion therapy. And they are reintroducing it. It was a bill that had been originally slated in March, but because of COVID, the process got derailed, needed to be reintroduced as they're starting their session over again. And one of my concerns is what we're seeing frequently with conversion therapy bills. The bill does not apply to those seeking guidance and support from counselors or faith leaders, so that there is this religious exemption that seems to be put in place. But with minors, you can't do it, period. So it would need to be an adult approaching a community of faith saying, please do this for me. The other piece coming out of Canada is François Arnaud, who played César Borgia in the Showtime series, he came out as bisexual. And he did it just before September 23rd, which was, and I didn't realize it, International Bisexual Visibility Day, which kind of indicates, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of promotion from within our communities. We still may have a lot of work to do. And here was one of his statements, because when he was talking about it, you know, he was talking about how much narrative do you give? Sort of how much backstory. And he said this, silence has the perverse effect of perpetuating those stereotypes, making by guys invisible and leading people to doubt that we even exist. So he said, when he would talk about an ex-girlfriend, there was this presumption that, of course, and that he needed to add this to that narrative so that people got it. Yeah, that. So and then I'm going to talk a little bit about the upcoming election. I'm going to go, I'm actually going to go down through the list of LGBTQ plus candidates. We have a few. We have 14. And it keeps growing. But here's one of the things I want to mention to people. You all should have gotten your mail in balance by now. If you haven't, you need to get in touch with the town clerk and say, where is it? And did you sign it? Yeah. Thank you. Per Jim Condos, the Secretary of State, please, if you're mailing them back in, get them into the mail on or before October 24th, which is a week before election day to ensure it has time to get there, because in Vermont, it needs to be received on or before election day. If it's received after it doesn't count. This is Medicare open enrollment day from October 15th to December 7th. This is changing your Medicare coverage, you know, those supplemental plans if you didn't sign in for Medicare B. But this is also the ACA Obamacare open enrollment from November 1st to December 15th. And until the Supreme Court hears the challenge, Obamacare is still the law of the land, you are entitled to health insurance. The census, the census, and it will make Linda happy will continue until October 31st for per federal appeals court ruling. Boy Scouts of America, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If you are somebody who is abused in the Scouts, you have only until November 16th to file a claim. And that means your need to go out and find one of the law agencies handling these cases to have your claims submitted. Let me ask you, when they go bankrupt, does that mean that the organization dissolves or it goes bankrupt and just keeps going? It means that they're relieved of their financial debt. So if you are somebody who was victimized in the Scouts, being included in the suit, whatever assets they have, you're entitled to, or you're entitled to a portion of. You know, anything filed after that bankruptcy, they have no more money, they have no more resources, you're not going to get anything. Sunday, October 11th is National Coming Out Day. What do you have planned for your next step in coming out? October, it's a busy month. It is LGBTQ plus History Month. Yes, and I would like to add, if I may, that a very important project that has been conducted by historian and archivist Eric Marcus has just started its eighth season. So it's called Making Gay History. You can go online and find seven seasons of interviews with very important historical figures. They're audio interviews. And in the eighth season, he's been able to collaborate with the Studs-Turkel archives. So he's got the lineup. It's really exciting. Lorraine Hansberry. And the first episode is available. And I watch, I listen to it, and it's with Christopher Isherwood. It was fabulous. His memoir, it was 1976, I think, his memoir, Christopher and his kind had just come out, and he was talking about all of it. Berlin in the 30s. And so Eric Marcus is really a trailblazer. And he's been doing Making Gay History podcasts for years. So tune in. You'll really, in the past, I've listened to Barbara Smith and Morty Manfred, an early gay activist. And, you know, so please tune in. And for more of a sort of local, you might go on to the Pride Center site and look for access to the panel discussion following all we've got about disappearing women's space. And you might see a familiar face. October is also Hispanic Heritage Month. October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And looking at the Pride Center site, Say Space is one of the sponsors for a visual and speak out on October 29. However, what I did not see on the listing on the site currently is if this is an in-person event, and if so, where or if it's a virtual event and how one could participate. So now you're going to take me to strange and exotic places. I feel like the pendulum has swung back quite a bit in the last two weeks in terms of transgender rights in England. You may recall I gave a glowing optimistic of that big, you know, pride thing they had right there in England. No, the that was something but the account of transgender rights and movements toward education and so forth. And there was a fierce debate about the Gender Recognition Act that was inaugurated under Margaret Thatcher and it was being revised. So there's bad news from there that I will report on. Government, okay. On the ground in Poland, I have several Polish stories that are discouraging. More bad news. A journalist who condemned anti-LGBT violence and corruption in Honduras has been murdered. His name is Luis Almondares. I have a picture of him for you to see now. The Egypt police are arbitrarily arresting and torturing LGBTQ people. This is a new report from Human Rights Watch. The Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, dies at 54. He was originally cured of AIDS but then died of leukemia. So that's very sad news. There are more encouraging stories as follows. Japan Airlines gets rid of ladies and gentlemen for gender neutral greetings. And I have more information about that. That's very cheery. My favorite story maybe of the episode is that Fran, it's not particularly LGBTQ related, but France is going to ban the use of wild animals in circuses and marine parks. I'll expatiate about that in one of my segments because that's fabulous news. It's about time. I'd like to show you a picture now of Uruguay where thousands of people are marching for LGBT rights. So you see the picture there and much of the article explains how socially distanced and messed the marchers were. But this picture doesn't seem to reflect that. So my thinking is even though the news source says this is the picture of the march, I think it might be some other picture of a Uruguayan march because I don't see too many masks and no social distancing here. Apropos of Pride, the first Pride march was held in Zaporizhye, Ukraine. There were 500 people who marched and 750 police officers and National Guard members there to protect them. So no one was injured presumably. And my last picture is of the first transgender deputy prime minister from Belgium. Her name is Petra D. Sutter and she's a candidate of the Green Party and this is a good breakthrough in Belgium. So I have more matters to discuss in greater detail. But now let's turn to Linda. Hi we have the national news. Well at least some of it. Members of the LGBT community have been making Proud Boys trend on social media. Shepard Smith, a gay journalist, talks about life after Fox News. Transnurt, this is a sad story again from Puerto Rico. Trans nursing student Michelle Ramos-Vegas shot to death in Puerto Rico. Her death makes the sixth known victim in Puerto Rico. And the 30th this year in the United States. She was 33 years old. Her body was found by the side of the road in the town of St. Germain. She was shot three times in the head. You know this has just got to stop. And then Rachel Maddow was roasted for tweeting God blessed the president. Her sympathetic reaction asking her followers to pray for Trump who just walked Joe Biden for wearing a mask caused outrage. I was a little outraged. I watched the episode. It was very jarring to hear that. An anti-LGBTQ alliance defending freedom has filed two suits in Virginia. A 24-year-old man was dancing with a female friend for a TikTok video in Lower Manhattan when an unknown assailant called him a homophobic slur and punched him repeatedly in the head. New fest to feature an all-trans reading of Brokeback Mountain. We'll have more about that. Republican Super PAC runs a ad calling a gay candidate creepy. This is very exciting. Viola Davis just woos as lesbian blue singer Ma Rainey. And I cannot wait to see that. We'll have more information about that. Legendary I Am Woman singer Helen Reddy has died. Was she a lesbian? No but you know I Am Woman. You know it deserves a mention. Yes everybody sings it all the time. That's a good one for the show. A gay musician was kicked out of church, has been flooded with supportive messages only named as Gabriel was a member of his church music group and played weekly services was told to leave when he was found wearing gay pride gear. On Fox News, Pete Buttigieg lays into Mike Pence ahead of the BP debate. He said you have in Pence a professional Christian who is going to have to defend the character of a president who sent hush money to porn stars. Lesbian cops who's her bosses claiming white discrimination. Atlanta out on film LGBTQ festival of his queer bold cinema. We'll have more about that. Phoenix mayoral candidate Marissa Hamilton has an anti has anti LGBTQ comments on Facebook which were very hateful and she should be disqualified from running. She is parroting far right conspiracy theories by QAnon. US Supreme Court will not hear Kim Davis who she was the person in Kentucky who refused to give marriage license to gay couples. Lambda legal asserts that marriage equality is at risk and we'll have more about that. Serana San Diego a Puerto Rican LGBTQ icon has died at 73 and last for the headlines is Boys Town name change in Chicago gets mixed reactions from residents but will now be known as North Halstead. The name Boys Town has been in use since the 1980s. So are you going to watch Netflix production of Boys in the Band? Yeah I did too. Is that on now or is it coming on? I didn't see a release date. I just saw the promo saying it was coming. I will probably watch it. Yeah I saw someone who so it's available in some Netflix because I saw someone reported on it that was good. So I'm going to talk about the elections and I'm going to combine two segments into one so I may seem windy to you all. I'm going to go down through the individual races and you know the first one I'm going to talk about is Kathleen James. She's running for a house seat Bennington 4. She is an incumbent. This is a two-seat district and both she and the other incumbent are seeking re-election so but she does have opposition. stiff opposition? Not living in the area I can't tell you. When I've talked with some of these candidates one of the things that they've said is this is somebody who has run before or this is somebody who is known within the community. So I mean it's like Bill Lippert you know he had a difficult primary. You know he is running I need to find him really quickly in Chittenden 4-2 so one-seat district and the person who is running against him is a Republican who has run against him in several previous elections. So it's somebody that has name recognition has growing support within the community. So it's really difficult to gauge exactly what does that mean. Okay then there's Ember Quinn who is the Chittenden district. She is not an incumbent this is a two-seat district and unfortunately both of the current Republican incumbents are seeking re-election and this has been a traditionally Republican district so Ember could use your support. In Milton. No well that's Chittenden 10 people who live in that district will recognize that. But it might be useful for the general audience to know. The other is Emma Mulvey Stannick which is a house seat Chittenden 6-2 this is a part of Burlington. She is not an incumbent this is a one-seat district. She has no opposition and in the primary she defeated the long-term Democratic incumbent. And then Brian Sheena who is an incumbent Chittenden 6-4 two-seat district both he and his other progressive Democratic incumbent are seeking re-election they have no opposition. Tiff Blumow who I know you will be telling us the correct pronunciation at some point but Tiff is not an incumbent this is a two-seat district. There is opposition but this is also an open two-seat district. Historically Democratic both of the Democratic incumbents who were long-term legislators both chose not to seek re-election this year. So this will be an interesting one to watch. Who's your opponent do you know? Not off the top. No there are two Democrats and two Republicans and an independent in this race and none of them have strong name recognition for me. Okay so this is truly an open seat election. Taylor Small. Chittenden 6-7 this is Winooski. Taylor is not an incumbent this is a two-seat district. Taylor and Hal Colston who is the other Democratic incumbent are seeking election. There is an independent candidate. Jim Ellers right? Exactly and people are seeing it as being only a marginal campaign because Jim is also running in several other races. So John Kalaki Chittenden 7-3 this is a one-seat district he is an incumbent he has no opposition and we adore John. David Glidden this is Franklin 3-1 this is St. Albans City. He is not an incumbent it's a two-seat district and current and both of the current incumbents are seeking re-election one is Democratic one is Republican and sometimes what happens in Vermont communities of a fairly large population they may split their vote it's like if you look at the Caledonia Senate you know there is Jane Kitchell who is a Democrat and Joe Benning who is a Republican and they share the district. However one of the things that we have also seen is if you have two strong candidates with good name recognition you could flip a district. So we're going to be watching what happens with David who is known to the community. It tends to be a kind of a conservative area. Historically it has been a split different district. Kathy Keenan was a representative for here for years and she was a strong progressive Democrat. So there are two very strong political perspectives and they seem to both be represented so we'll see what happens. The other is Kate Donnelly who is LaMoyal 2 this is the Hyde Park area. She is not an incumbent and it is a two-seat district. There is opposition and one of the Democratic incumbents is seeking re-election one isn't. So this has been a Democratic-held area. Emily Kornheiser in Wyndham 2-1 this is Brattleboro it's a one-seat district. She does have opposition. But Emily right now has been doing a lot of work within the community particularly outreach to women low income. So her name recognition has been growing over the past year. And then there is Heather Superknot. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit. Windsor 4-1 this is Barnard Pumford area. She is not an incumbent it is a one-seat district. She does have opposition. The Democratic incumbent chose not to see re-election. One of the things about Heather that might get her a bit more traction because her Republican opponent is known within the community. When elected Heather will be one of the few farmers serving in the legislature. And then on the Senate side we have Brian Campion who's running out of Bennington. He is an incumbent. It's a two-seat district and both he and his Democratic seatmate are seeking re-election. They do have opposition and Becca Ballant you know out of Wyndham County. Two-seat district both Democrats are seeking re-election. There is opposition. When elected there is a very good chance Becca will be the first woman and out lesbian president pro tem of the Vermont Senate. And as I made some brief references our next upcoming interview show on October 17th. We may be interviewing three of these first-time candidates for the House. So what exactly? So with that. Okay let's go to Poland. No. I think we're going to the UK first. Maybe. Well we're going to the world first. In actually the UN member state world. In which 13 states have are still criminalizing transgender existence. Nigeria, Oman and Lebanon are among the nations with explicit anti-trans laws according to the latest review by an LGBT rights group that monitors such things. Others even though 13 people explicitly make it illegal others use morality and indecency laws to crack down on the trans community. The research that was revealed in this report details trans legislation and policies in 143 UN member states and 19 other jurisdictions. Many other countries apply seemingly innocuous regulations covering offenses such as public nuisance and decency morality and loitering to police trans communities according to this report. The upside is that 96 UN member states now have provisions for legal gender recognition. Some of the more shining nations when it comes to legal gender recognition are based in the global south such as Argentina. Eight years ago as we know or we may not know but now we'll know Argentina joined a handful of countries that let trans people change their gender on official identity documents without physical or psychological tests. Now we'll get to that in more detail momentarily. The report also highlighted some positive developments for trans people over the last two years. Nine countries have taken steps to make it easier for people to change their name and gender classification on official documents such as birth certificates since 2018. Now 25 nations with more to follow show us a better example of how to respect the basic human rights of trans and gender diverse people. This report concluded. Contrary to this it really is a positive trend. I mean the headline was glaring and frightening but on balance in the world things are looking up except in the UK. As I said in the intro in 2004 the UK under the Thatcher government the UK established the Gender Recognition Act and they decided to revise it in 2015 under the leadership of this woman Equalities Minister Liz Truss and she was viewed when she appeared she was viewed by great with great suspicion by the LGBT community and rightly so. So now as a result of this re-evaluation of the Gender Recognition Act they've come up with some recommendations that are just really political. Proposals under Theresa May. I'm sorry did I say Margaret Thatcher. I meant Theresa May in 2000. Oh may a culpa. OK well now I've got it right and please entirely different hairdo. OK well Theresa May wanted people to self-identify by their chosen gender by signing a statutory declaration with how having to provide evidence of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. They suggested that another suggestion that was on the table was to overturn you have to according to the current law you have to live in your chosen your gender that you want to have affirmed for two years. And so these are draconian provisions. Two years ago this consultation was launched and people responded with great enthusiasm toward loosening these rules about a medical diagnosis and two years in your gender identity and so forth. However they have decided to drop all those suggestions and in the decision the Liz Truss says that she wants to lower the price for gender affirmation surgery and she wants to oh I'm sorry the cost of trans people to change their birth certificates is going to be lowered. It was a hundred eighty dollars and she's also going to cut down the lines for gender affirmation surgery and she's presenting this as a balanced outcome but trans you know LGBTQ people are really outraged describing it as a failure of leadership. Countries including Ireland Portugal Norway and Argentina have a self ID allowing trans people to legally change gender by a legal declaration and without doctors involvement. There was popular support for this almost two-thirds of the 102,000 respondents said they backed removing the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. More than three quarters said they supported scrapping the need for trans people to say they've lived in their gender for a specific time period. The opponents including I hate to say a JK Rowling and in fact there was turmoil about this and 200 people some writers and publicists signed a condemnation of JK Rowling's Rawlings anti-trans position. Did I say they they are a con you write a condemnation and the only writer I recognized was Jeanette Winterson. There were 80 people who supported the transphobic position and the only person I recognized here is Tom Stoppard so that makes me kind of sick because I love his plays but so there's been ferment in the UK and the trans opponents say that they're concerned about the privacy and fairness when it came to trans people accessing women only areas but in the United States women's rape groups said that in 2016 200 municipalities that allowed trans people to use rape crisis facilities in domestic violence shelters saw no rise in sexual violence or public safety issues as a result so some people are just happy it's over but it's it's a bad outcome similarly I last week last meeting I reported good news about LGBT instructions being mandated in the schools but now the government has issued gender identity guidance for teachers in England they shouldn't tell children that they might be a different gender based on their personality or the clothes they wear which the guidance published on Thursday notes that teachers in England must not reinforce harmful stereotypes well I couldn't get behind that and resources used to discuss topics involving gender and biological sex should be age appropriate and evidence-based we are aware that topics involving gender and biological sex can be complex and sensitive matters to navigate the problem here is schools have been discouraged from working with organizations that produce material suggesting that non-conformity the gender stereotypes should be seen as anonymous with having a different transgender identity and this is a creepy provision because it evokes the transphobic canard that there's pressure for people to transition and you know the this hoax has been perpetuated widely in the United States particularly by this best-selling book called tomboy that's getting a lot of play in the national media saying my daughter's not trans she's a tomboy suggesting that there's pressure to transition if you aren't gender conforming which is availed transgender anti-transgender message if you ask me in a statement about all this guidance for the schools mermaid a charity that supports transgender children said it isn't for any adult to tell a child or young person what their gender identity is in fact all too often we see damage done when grown-ups try to force children and young people to be something they're not either non-trans trans non-binary so it's a failure of leadership and the implementation of this of these educational guidelines is kind of muddled there's a campaign group called transgender trend which is transphobic and is very glad that this guidance has been issued Stonewall is a very prominent LGBTQ charity and activist group but teachers have been advised not to consult Stonewall when they're planning their curricula so mixed message from the UK even though I was very rosy last time and I mixed up Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May I'm not going there well they were both concerned yeah well Whitman used to say the words of my book nothing the drift of it everything so that's the story from the UK now I can go on to Poland well I think you want to do that the second segment or fine that's fine um so this is kind of members of the LGBTQ community have been making pro boys trend on social media by posting images of gay pride in pictures of themselves with loved ones the trend is an effort is an effort to shut down post of a far right group who is anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant among other charming things the pro boys however deny that they are an anti-gay group so okay they're just racist yeah yeah thugs Shepard Smith a gay journalist talks about life after Fox News and what warms his little gay heart is um now that he is working for CNBC before he left Fox last year he often didn't get any support from his employer's surprise because he wasn't cardling Trump he bumped heads with his Fox bosses and colleagues even the president turned on him for telling his audience the truth so good luck to you mr. Smith anti-LGBT alliance defending freedom has filed two lawsuits on behalf of clients who say that Virginia's new inclusive civil rights law infringes on their religious liberty and freedom of speech the Virginia values act took took effect on July 1st and banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and new fest to feature in all trans reading of broke back mountain the event will be live streamed and free on october 18th with donations suggested to benefit new fest and the new york city anti-algae uh the new york city anti-LGBTQ violence project they are and i have a picture of these uh four um actors who are uh in this um production Leo shang ian richards alexander gray and brian michael smith so i think that would be interesting to see i'm on the new fest mailing list good and a michigan lawmaker and rising star in the democratic party who is running for congress in one of the nation's most contested seats discussed drug use in sex in a now deleted blog where we also published derogatory comments about women and creepy remarks about children in underwear however john holey is seeking the democratic nomination of michigan's this congressional district and was last week endorsed by democratic congressional campaign committee the official campaign arm of the democrats of the democratic campaign committee the official campaign arm of the democrats in the house of representatives an up-and-comer in the party holey has been endorsed by vice president hopeful senator kamala harris michigan govern gretchen wittner and firebrand squad member representative roshita tiab to leave but so he's a homo he's anti-woman and homophobic no i'm getting to it okay because i'm very confused right now this is what he's being accused of by the republicans oh he had these blogs when he was in college anti-woman you know they said it was the anti-woman he he what he said was he he mentioned the word breeders well you know that was considered by the republicans to be an anti-woman um really yes they want they may want to check source on that one i know um you know he he used the term breeder um you know it's all it's all kind of ginned up i mean you know he maybe said a few things in college that were borderline you know but it was a long time ago well you know 10 or 15 years ago anyway but what did he say they were breeders well he said something about people uh let me see the greener dough is a progressive campaign committee along with senate oh so this is just who he was um uh yeah he he said something about little girls in underwear who were doing this like fashion show thing so they called them a pedophile oh i see um he's he called him creepy yeah they called him creepy that's why yeah yeah yeah well that's where their campaign was going the republicans by calling him smear campaign yeah smear campaign basically so viola davis as lesbian blue singing my rainy my rainy is a highly anticipated netflix film uh called my rainy's black bottom that's where we saw her in new york yes no we saw it in london london that's based on the august wilson play davis plays the lesbian blue singer legend may rainy the movie will be released in december on netflix and i have a picture they didn't have a um trailer they didn't have a trailer but i do have a beautiful picture and um so you can take a look at that now it was a great play yeah it was a great play and it should be a great movie and it's on netflix so everybody stay tuned for that and then former us representative katie hill paid a high price for being a visible bisexual presence on capitol hill so much so that she resigned her office but she has to stop being an advocate for bi visibility recently by politician a by politician did reach out to her for advice about coming out andrew gillum the former mayor of tallahassee florida he came out as bisexual in september so keith i have a few more if we get to it but if not no i took i took a little longer so i could go down through all of the lgbtq plus races so that people could get some additional information about who candidates were what they were facing and where they might put support good so let's move to and then and she can okay she can do a story or okay i could talk about poland yes i have spent a lot of time this morning reading about all the developments in poland which are pretty bad in general um on the ground you know as we know there are a hundred lgbt what they call lgbt nearly a hundred local governments representing a third of poland's territory declare themselves lgbt zones um that free zones oh yes thank you lgbt free zones i thought i was going to have to get my passport updated damn okay let's head out to poland a 2020 report um estimates that the number of queer people under the age of 25 who attempt suicide increased from 30 30 percent in 2016 to 45 percent in 2020 84 percent of young lgbtq people are now having suicidal thoughts so these uh policies have an impact um in april 2019 the ultra conservative lgbt group fumdaha pro drove a car around the city of uh nesno a catholic stronghold in western poland reading uh what the lgbt lobby wants to teach kids masturbation consenting to sex first sexual experiences and orgasm stop pedophilia since then these cars and vans have become a common site in big cities um it's the most aggressive homophobic campaign i have seen in my life said a lawyer for an lgbt group um last year this lawyer tried to sue fumdaha pro for spreading false and homophobic content about the alleged link between pedophilia and homosexuality the court ruled against it so none of the city schools and public institutions therefore have spoken out against the group now we may recall that on august 8th 48 people were arrested including margo who became a poster child for lgbtq resistance um that particular episode has been described as the polish stone wall um after her arrest uh software developer named linus luandowski um saw he arrived at his scene at the scene of one of these vans and tried to cover up the banner um with swirls of orange colored graffiti it was filmed by a reporter from for a white wing channel and um luandowski was arrested therefore he was one of the 34 arrests 48 arrested uh during the protests after margo's detention she is a founding member of the queer activist group stop the bullshit um in english translation founded one year ago its members organized dance events to block these vans with some activists called homo foe buses and information stalls on lgbtq issues more recently they are the people who put the rainbow flags and anarchist symbols on statues and war saw which made the conservative government pretty angry many people believe that what the trucks say many of the people believe what the trucks say because the local priests are saying it the local politician is saying it and because there's no sex education in the schools the attacks against lgbtq communities have found themselves facing a new front um involving these charters to um these non-legal and binding charters for to produce zones free of lgbtq ideology um there is a group however of these activists including margo who took a queer tour and went to the southeastern city of debika and set up their stall police officers surrounded them and made them leave while the towns mayor told them their actions were illegal so this queer tour goes to all these lgbt free zones and tries to talk to people i mean what an act of courage um the margo um also the organization she heads got 80 000 dollars in donations but the bank won't release it to them so they're really uh up against it um there was can banks do that yes um we freeze assets of foreign governments all the time the yes the polish crowdfunding platform jutka refuses to let the group withdraw the funds so um this writer recently spoke to margo and her life partner who's non-binary and they said they're trying to back off because they have death threats and that they were going to a pizza party and after they were going to go order pizza and go to a house party but after the party um they were attacked and beaten up by um thugs thugs so the morning after um they've been assaulted twice after the party later that evening um the partner lou had been attacked the man had keys in his hands so lou had bruises and swelling the situation is getting worse on many fronts in poland and the problems are really important to me she said so if it gets worse i have this stupid mindset of i have to work harder because it's not enough many of my friends and i are in a situation where you physically can't do anything more and in a related story poland is trying to spread its hate to other countries in eastern europe um first of all they've elected more right wing people probably hide over from here to the government um and they've begun a push in the region to replace the istan bowl bowl convention with a family rights treaty uh the istan bowl convention is part of the um e use attempt to further lgbtq and women's rights but isn't the country like poland kind of really still split i mean it was a close election so it's not like they they don't have any i mean they don't have any of the power support but i imagine that as far as people are concerned since the election was so close that there must be you know some support there for for for these polish lgbtq people well there is resistance and um but they're showing up you know in the government more and more right wing people are being put in place but this gives me an opportunity to speak of the european union and to show this picture of the supporters in the european union um who are posing on september 30th they're um posing in front of the european union headquarters in support of the lgbtq people in poland but poland has elicited three governments in the region the check republic slovakia and slovenia poland has invited them to join them in an efforts to create join their hate groups there are alternative convention to the istanbul convention and um the istanbul convention is very forward-looking feminist pro-lgbtq so all right and every time i do a eastern european story i look up and see who's in the european union hold that's good all of these member countries all these are member countries of the european union well they should get rid of them um if they can't follow the rules right well the other countries have the other countries haven't committed though slovenia slovakia and the check republic well we'll see what they do you'll keep us posted i'm sure of course i will i just have a couple of one quick thing that well too actually just quick things i wanted to get out before we leave atlanta has an out lgbtq film festival uh and queer cinema and this year is the first year the festival is oscar qualified there are 24 narrative films 15 documentaries 15 short films 27 countries are represented and you can check out the full slate of films get your pens ready at state of films and programs online as films arts entertainment georgia so i think you know that and and you know having them be qualified for the uh oscar is pretty good and um one last quick thing um lamb de legal um is worried about marriage equality since thomas and alito are already creating a longer list of things they'd like to get rid of and with this new justice coming on they should have it in the bag so and they've already made comments that they think that it was not the right decision right right exactly so on that cheery note talking about the republican party 1986 vermont republican party their platform they withdrew the support for the equal rights amendment they put out an alternative proposal instead of equal rights using the term equal protections and rather than using the word sex gender because because they wanted to make it clear that the party party platform does not include support of gay rights the only people who will profit from the eras passage we can only assume are the homosexuals and lesbians we're in a different category there we go well in sight in uh you know all that's been going on this week with the president and everything else uh hanging in there folks and always remember to resist