Q Toon: Driven to Distraction

I was halfway through inking last week's cartoon when I came up with this idea, which is not how things generally work inside this old noggin. I liked this idea better, so I held onto it and hoped that the Trumpian firehose of outrageous fuckery this week would not include something I couldn't possibly not draw about.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his pet legislature, and Transportation Secretary Sean "Road Rules Real World" Duffy have all been on a tear this year destroying rainbow crosswalks and anything else painted on pavement that doesn't celebrate heterosexual cisgender white Christian males. They assure us that it has nothing whatsoever to do with discriminating against LGBTQ POC DEI FAFABs; oh, my heavens, no.

Rather, it's a matter of roadway safety. How are drivers supposed to keep their eyes on the road when they come across a blinding splash of color or a reminder that Black Lives Matter?

So over the course of several weeks in September, the Florida Department of Transportation came in the middle of the night, again and again, to sandblast painted pavement, tear up colored bricks, and leave municipalities with unsightly messes where public art once graced the roads. The state further threatened to withhold funding from any municipality that dared to repair those defaced rainbow crosswalks.

The rainbow designs may be gone, but Equality Florida sees a pattern, "This isn’t about safety. It’s a cowardly abuse of power and the latest in his campaign to ban books, whitewash history, and attack LGBTQ people."

Anyway, have yourself a happy little holiday, whatever distractions bedazzle you along your travels.

But please, unlike the drivers in today's cartoon, do try to stay on the correct side of the road.

Q Toon: Driven to Destruction

Pete Buttigieg's successor as U.S. Secretary of Transportation is a former reality show celebutante and congresscritter from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy.

It's not the same Transportation Department now.

In a development that could impact all 50 states and the District of Columbia, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on July 1 announced a “nationwide roadway safety initiative” that political observers say could be used to require cities and states to remove LGBTQ supportive rainbow-colored street crosswalks. ... 

A July 1 statement released by the U.S. Department of Transportation says Duffy sent a letter that same day to the governors of all 50 states that followed an earlier letter sent to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser informing them of the department’s “Safe Arterials for Everyone” initiative to be carried out by the Federal Highway Administration. ...

“Secretary Duffy also noted in his letter that intersections and crosswalks need to be kept free from distractions,” the statement continues. “This includes political messages of any nature, artwork, or anything else that distracts from the core mission of driver and pedestrian safety,” the DOT statement says.

Although the DOT statement and Duffy’s letter to the governors do not specifically mention rainbow crosswalks, the [South Florida] Sun Sentinel reports that Duffy stated in a July 1 social media post that “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”

One could just as easily argue that rainbow crosswalks enhance roadway safety, becoming more visible than the everyday white-only versions. Certainly they are no more distracting to motorists than, say, Christmas decorations or Chamber of Commerce banners displayed from light poles.

But erasing LGBTQ+ and minority presence from the public eye has been a sacred mission to Republican leaders, such as Florida's rabidly homophobic Gov. Ron DeSantis. If Sean Duffy has only insinuated intention to paint over rainbow crosswalks, DeSantis has explicitly demanded their removal.

A number of Florida cities have already complied with a new anti-rainbow crosswalk law; other communities are fighting it. A grass-roots coalition in Orlando hopes to save the rainbow crosswalk created as a memorial to the 49 victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. (The nightclub itself is due to be demolished.) Key West city council planned to discuss a resolution to protect its rainbow crosswalk at Duval and Pretonia this week.

If Key West is successful, someone can compare and contrast its accident rate with Pensacola’s.

Q Toon: Throwing Shade

VisitFlorida.com quietly deleted the LGBTQ+ page from its tourism website last month. Visit Florida®, a public-private organization that receives some state funding, has made no comment about axing the LGBTQ+ Travel section, but it's apparently all in keeping with the state's Don't Say Gay mandate.

The state's vociferously antigay governor claims no credit for Visit Florida's cowardly move, but is pleased nevertheless:

When asked about the change on the Visit Florida website, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said he was made aware of it after the fact, but celebrated its push away from identity politics. He noted, “We’re not going to be segregating people by these different characteristics… that’s just now how we’re operating.” 

DeSantis' explanation doesn't bode well for Black and Hispanic travelers, Travel pages for whom have yet to be scrubbed from VisitFlorida.com. But don't expect an announcement ahead of time when that happens.

Outside of Florida, more LGBTQ-friendly politicians have taken the opportunity to welcome tourists to their states. Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the U.S.A.'s first openly gay elected governor, posted to Facebook:

Hello gay tourists! Since Florida doesn’t want you, come on over to explore what Colorado has to offer!

In Colorado, we really don’t care about who you date we just appreciate you supporting our economy and spending money in our great stores and restaurants. And you’ll have a gay old time!”

EnjoyIllinois wooed the LGBTQ+ buck with:

Lack of love in the Sunshine State?

Come to Illinois

Plan your LGBTQIA adventure. Take notes, Florida.”

Anthony Anthony, a Chief Marketing Officer for Connecticut's Office of Tourism so nice they named him twice, echoed Colorado and Illinois in a press release:

"We want to send a strong message to everyone, particularly to those in Florida — and across the country — who may feel their needs and identities are being sidelined, to know that in Connecticut you will always find acceptance.

"Here, diversity is celebrated, and we remain committed to ensuring everyone who visits or lives here feels valued, respected, and free to be yourself."

It is, however, unlikely that Florida withdrawing the welcome mat from LGBTQ+ visitors will dissuade many queer folk from heading to the Sunshine State. I've never been to Key West, but I understand that there is nothing quite like it in Minnesota. Besides, a boycott would only harm the very LGBTQ+ business owners who have staked their fortunes to attracting fellow travelers with disposable income.

The very business owners who might just want to reconsider their support for the public-private management of Visit Florida®.

Q Toon: Do Not Disturb

Red state colleges are welcoming students back to campus by emptying their libraries of books about feminism, LGBTQ+ experience, African-American and other minority studies, and anything else reeking of social justice. Students returning to New College in Florida last week discovered waste receptacles overflowing onto the ground with such books. 

University of Kentucky President Eli Capilauto also announced this week that UK has disbanded its Diversity office. This after he had criticized anti-DEI lawmakers in February, arguing, "Let’s not extinguish the thirst for knowledge because certain questions aren’t allowed because they are uncomfortable or challenging."

Elsewhere, George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Wyoming are among the other institutions of higher learning that have knuckled under to the demands of politicians who have decreed diversity, equity, and inclusion to be anathema. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are now literally thought crimes in Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Utah, and Kansas.

Those of you who know me know that I do not use the word "literally" figuratively.

Even private enterprise is succumbing to Republican Cancel Culture. Tractor Supply, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson have broken ties with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and announced that they will would strike any "socially motivated content" from their employee training materials. So I guess I won't need my Harley-Davidson tee shirts any more.

Not that little old me would be able to dissuade the farm equipment companies from chasing those lucrative red-state contracts to haul all those academic books and their dangerous ideas to landfills.

Q Toon: Florida Man Yells at Rainbow

Let me preface today's commentary by saying that I generally don't check the weather forecast for my cartoon's locale before sitting down at my drawing board. So I just want to make it clear that Governor DeSantis here is not rooting for this week's torrential rains to continue pummeling Florida. This cartoon is not about the weather.

Okay, now that that's out of the way:

🌈

Florida Republicans didn't want to see rainbow-colored lights illuminating their state's bridges in celebration of Pride Month in June. So they passed a law last month decreeing that Florida's bridges be lit up exclusively in red, white, and blue from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

They thus were able to pretend that the purpose of the law was a patriotic celebration — of the colors of the American flag. Or, if y'all'd rather, the Stars 'n' Bars. (Le tricolore? Mais non!) 

The diktat from Tallahassee is part of what Governor Ron DeSantis calls, without a trace of irony, "Freedom Summer." 

I suppose the rednecks up in Niceville are enjoying their freedom to tell the gays down in Key West how to decorate.

We'll see whether Key West gets its freedom back in time for LGBTQ History Month in October. 

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Earlier this week, prolific editorial cartoonist Clay Jones shared a comment left under one of his cartoons at GoComics, from a reader chastising him for using — stealing, even — popular cultural references in his work.

The rest of us editorial cartoonists shared — stole, even — a good chuckle over that one. Most of us reference popular cultural stuff all the time. This isn't the first time I've resorted to a Simpsons meme; and I've also based cartoons on Calvin and Hobbes, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Peanuts, Monty Python, Dr. Seuss, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, and The Three Musketeers.

On the other side of the pond, editorial cartoonists can get away with aping Serious Art that would go over the heads of many readers stateside; Dave Brown of the Independent signals his readers that he has redrawn someone else's classic by showcasing the cartoon in a fancy gilt-edged frame. The rest of us could do that, too, except that it would be stealing the idea from Mr. Brown.

Down under, David Rowe redrew Manet and David paintings on successive days this week; Financial Times readers may have caught the references without spying the obligatory apologies in the corner of the cartoons. American readers would likely have missed the parodies unless published in the student newspaper of the School of Art Institute of Chicago.

Elsewhere, references to artwork are rife in editorial cartoons in other countries where keeping the cartoon wordless makes it saleable outside of the cartoonist's native language.

My own thought on all of this is that one shouldn't make the same reference over and over. Once one has parodied Edvard Munch's "The Scream" for Topic A (another choice I could have made for this week's cartoon), one should seriously consider not parodying "The Scream" again for a good long time. Unless you want to be known as That Guy Who Keeps Drawing The Scream.

Which, if you can pull it off, isn't ipso facto a bad thing. At least you won't have to worry whether readers will think your cartoons are about the weather when they're not.

Just make sure that someone else isn't already That Guy.

Q Toon: DEI ex Mockery

I told my editors I was looking for a cartoon topic this week that wouldn't be about the GOP.

But if you've been paying any attention to the news over the past couple of years, you know which party has decided that DEI — i.e., Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — is academia's latest threat to their homogenous worldview. Inspired by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas's Greg Abbott, it's Republicans who can't abide diversity, detest equity, and loathe inclusion.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox even called them "bordering on evil."

Last year, Republicans in Madison in my home state held up funding for the University of Wisconsin until the school knuckled under to their demands to stifle DEI: 

Shortly after the Universities of Wisconsin accepted a GOP offer to approve UW raises and building projects in exchange for new limits on campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos [R-Burlington] had a message. The move, he said, was just a first step in the GOP’s efforts to eliminate DEI. ...

“We finally have turned the corner and gotten real reforms enacted,” Vos said. “Republicans know this is just the first step in what will be our continuing efforts to eliminate these cancerous DEI practices on UW campuses.”

Instead, University regents had to promise to raise funds to establish a new campus leadership position to promote "conservative political thought."

Elsewhere, Republicans this year have proposed 50 bills in 20 states to limit or eliminate DEI programs at agencies that receive state funding. 

This is the second year Republican-led state governments have targeted DEI. This year’s bills, as well as executive orders and internal agency directives, again focus heavily on higher education. But the legislation also would limit DEI in K-12 schools, state government, contracting and pension investments. Some bills would bar financial institutions from discriminating against those who refuse to participate in DEI programs.

When Republicans in Congress opened a hearing titled "Divisive, Excessive, Ineffective: The Real Impact of DEI on College Campuses," Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) countered, "DEI offices exist to address student needs, to give strategic support to faculty [and] institutional leaders, to identify hurdles and assist faculty and staff in serving, educating and meeting the needs of increasingly diverse populations, many of whom are first-generation college students."

That hearing was chaired by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), who called DEI "a cancer that resides in the hearts of American academic institutions."

Bonamici questioned why Republicans felt a hearing on DEI was more important than forums on pressing topics like campus hunger or students’ civil rights. She also criticized as offensive Owens’s decision to compare DEI to cancer—though Owens was quick to point out that he, in fact, had survived prostate cancer.

Robin Vos, as far as I know, does not have that excuse. He just adheres to the same talking points memo.

Q Toon: Beware of the Leopard

The state of Florida reached a settlement with a coalition of concerned families, civil rights agencies, and educators who had taken the state to court over Republicans' "Don't Say Gay" law. 

The law remains in place, but the settlement clarifies that students and educators can discuss LGBTQ+ topics, given those conversations are not part of formal curriculum. The clarifications also state that students can write about such topics in their academic work.

Notably, the settlement includes clarification on library books, stating that library books with LGBTQ+ themes may not be banned under the legislation so long as they are not being used for instruction.

Nor does the law apply to extracurricular activities and groups, such as Gay-Straight Alliances, some of which disbanded after the bill became law.

Governor Ron DeSantis nevertheless claims that the settlement is a victory for his side, because at least LGBTQ+-positive curricula still cannot be required in Florida classrooms. And homophobic parents can still opt their kids out of whatever offends their sensitive sensibilities.

To be sure, not everyone on the educators' side of things is happy with the settlement.

Teaching math at her alma mater in Florida, Katie Wood wants to leave Lennard High School better than how she found it. But under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, Wood’s future as an out trans woman at the school hangs in the balance.

“I can’t even call myself Ms. Wood,” the 3rd-year educator said, noting that her gendered title is one of several things she is barred from using solely due to her being a transgender person. “In many ways, I’m being forced to be back in the closet.”

Ms. Wood is not exaggerating. Elsewhere in Florida, a non-binary teacher was fired for titling themself "Mx." rather than Mr., Mrs., or Ms. The high school science teacher, AV Vary, had been using that honorific for 15 years; but when "Don't Say Gay" became law, their school claimed to have no choice but to send them packing.

In a related court case, a three-judge panel has ruled against another of Florida's attempts to enforce right-wing orthodoxy in education. The so-called "Stop WOKE Act" virtually forbade discussion of not only gender issues but also anything having to do with race. (Heaven forfend that Florida students ever hear anything about Rosewood and Ococee.)

The 11th Circuit Court found that the Stop WOKE Act constituted "the greatest First Amendment sin," but the DeSantis administration is considering appealing that ruling.

Because, as all Republican scholars remember from their schooldays, the Constitution begins and ends with the second half of the Second Amendment.

Q Toon: A Death in Oklahoma

Note: This cartoon and commentary have been edited to correct the name of the deceased.

No, I am finally offering my say on the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old student in Owasso, Oklahoma who identified as non-binary and died on February 8, a day after being beaten by other students in the girls' bathroom at their school.

Authorities are being somewhat cagey in addressing the cause of Nex's death; they had been released from the hospital after being taken there after the attack. Final autopsy and toxicology reports remain pending as of this writing. The Office for Civil Rights division of the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation this month into the Oklahoma school district following a complaint filed by the Human Rights Campaign.

Nex's family says that Nex had been bullied at school for a over a year. When they reported this assault to the police, the officer asked why they had not reported the bullying to the school, and Nex replied "I didn't really see the point in it."

My cartoon this week leads off with Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, who expressed his empty sympathy for Nex's family, but who, along with the state's other elected leaders, shares responsibility for the conditions that led up to this tragedy.

"Oklahoma lawmakers have put restrictions on gender-affirming care and barred transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Walters recently hired a rabidly anti-trans out-of-state social media figure to serve on the state’s Library Media Advisory Committee, a grotesque political stunt and a blaring insult to every LGBTQ+ person in the state."

That out-of-state social media figure is Chaya Raichik, a hate-monger in charge of the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ "Libs of TikTok." Last year, a post by Raichik compelled an Owasso High School teacher whom Nex "greatly admired" to resign.

No wonder Nex saw "no point" in reporting bullying to the remaining staff at the school.

At a legislators' forum with the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce on February 22, State Senator Tom Woods, Republican, said that while "his heart goes out" regarding the teen's death, "We are a conservative state —  supermajority — in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma."

Woods's statement reportedly met with applause.

The Trevor Project conducted a national survey of LGBTQ+ youth in 2022 regarding their mental health, breaking down the results by state. Here are some of the responses from Oklahoma:

The Trevor Project

Oklahoma can and ought to do better by these kids.

But naah. They're "a conservative state." So they won't.

Q Toon: A Christmas Scare-ol

Because of the lead time for my cartoons, syndicated to weekly, biweekly and monthly publications, this week's cartoon was my last chance to draw something with a Christmas theme. My focus was on the three Republican presidential candidates speaking out so harshly against transgender people in this month's Noise Nation hardly presidential debate.

Ron DeSantis: "I did a bill in Florida to stop the gender mutilation of minors, it’s child abuse and it’s wrong. [Nikki Haley] opposes that bill. She thinks it’s fine and the law shouldn’t get involved with it. If you’re not willing to stand up for the kids, if you’re not willing to stand up and say that it is wrong to mutilate these kids, then you’re not going to fight for the people back home.”

Vivek Ramaswamy: "[T]ransgenderism is a mental health disorder. We don’t let you smoke a cigarette by the age of 18. We don’t let you have an addictive drink of alcohol by the age of 21. I just challenged Ron DeSantis to go one step further and support what I think is clearly within the authority to do using federal funds just like Reagan did in ’84 for the Highway Act that said the minimum drinking age needs to be 21. We can do the same thing when it comes to banning genital mutilation or chemical castration. I know Ron’s been unclear about on the federal level. I’m crystal clear. That’s where I stand. That’s a mental health disorder."

Nikki Haley, after DeSantis accused her of being soft on transgender people who poop: "What I have always said is boys go into a boys’ bathroom, girls go into a girls bathroom. But hold on one second. I also say that biological boys shouldn’t be playing in girls’ sports and I will do everything I can to stop that because it’s the women’s issue of our time."

I had to include Chris Christie in the cartoon, since he participated in the debate; but, following the example of Mike Johnson's January 6 videos, I obscured Christie's face. He was the one person there who stood up for transgender persons and their families in opposition to the other three candidates and one of the debate moderators.

Megyn Kelly: "Governor Christie, you do not favor a ban on trans medical treatments for minors, saying it’s a parental rights issue. The surgeries done on minors involve cutting off body parts at a time when these kids cannot even legally smoke a cigarette. Kids who go from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones are at a much greater likelihood of winding up sterile. How is it that you think a parent should be able to okay these surgeries, never mind the sterilization of a child and aren’t you way too out of step on this issue to be the Republican nominee?"

Chris Christie: "No, I’m not because Republicans believe in less government, not more, in less involvement with government, not more in government involvement in people’s lives. You know what, Megan? I trust parents and we are out there saying that we should empower parents in education, we should empower parents to make more decisions about where their kids go to school. I agree. We should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in in their homes without the government telling them what those values should be. Yet we want to take other parental rights away. I’m sorry. As a father of four, I believe there is no one who loves my children more than me. There’s no one who loves my children more than my wife. There’s no one who cares more about their success and health in life than we do."

Over the years, I have disagreed with Christie on a wide range of issues, but bravo to him on this one. It's all rather academic, however; he has no chance of becoming President of the United States.

Well, neither do any of the other three. Unless they suck up to that guy looming over them in the cartoon so much that they're his Vice President when a lifetime embodying the Seven Deadly Sins finally catches up with him.

Q Toon: Stumped Speechless

Here at last is my cartoon response to Fox Noise's cattle call in Milwaukee last week of eight of the Republican candidates hoping against hope that something, anything, will force Corrupt Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race.

At the moment, even though Trump is facing four separate felony trials going into the election, for everything from paying off a porn star to trying to subvert an election to sending a lynch mob into the halls of Congress, that seems like a long shot. Trump does not know the meaning of defeat.

Or truth, or integrity, or perfect, or democracy, or Constitution, or Corinthians.

My cartoon, of course, is riffing on Bret Baier's asking the candidates to raise their hands if they would support Trump as the nominee of their party even if he were convicted in one of those trials. Depending on whom you ask, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson was the only candidate who kept his hands down. 

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been most vocal of any of the eight in proclaiming that Trump is unqualified to be President again; but he sort of halfway raised a hand. Perhaps he was asking recognition to speak.

The other six definitely raised their hands: Tech Bro Vivek Ramaswami right away; Florida Governor Ron DesAntis after checking what the candidates to his right and left were doing.

It was a trick question anyway. Each candidate, in order for permission to be on stage at all, had to first sign a promise to support the Republican presidential nominee, whoever that trumps out to be.

Meanwhile, the only thing more universal among Republicans than slavish loyalty to Donald P0115809 Trump is their fear and loathing of transgender Americans. The candidates pledged to continue their party's assault on transgender student athletes especially:

"If you’re able-bodied in America, you work. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you got to jail. And if God made you a man, you play sports against men." — Sen. Tim Scott, closing statement.

“[T]here’s a lot of crazy woke things happening in schools ... biological boys don’t belong in the locker rooms of any of our girls.”— former Gov. Nikki Haley, in response to a question

“I’m saying in North Dakota, we made a priority of protecting women’s sports and we’ve done that in our state." —Gov. Doug Borgum (who vetoed one anti-trans athlete bill in North Dakota but signed two others)

"There are only two genders." — Vivek Ramaswamy

I think we have finally found here one thing that might just possibly shake Republicans' unquestioning devotion to Trump — as absurdly incredible as his declaring himself a transgender student athlete would be.

But then, he does seem to think that he's 6'3" and 215 pounds.

And he does have the vocabulary of a third grader.

Q Toon: Appealing to the Basest

The Ron Desantis campaign retweeted a bizarre video last week that basically accused Donald Trump of being pro-gay.

Juxtaposing that one photo of Trump holding up a pride flag (upside-down) at a 2016 campaign rally with shots of DeSantis and hypermasculine memes of GigaChad, an oiled-up body-builder, Brad Pitt, and Christian Bale (Politico decodes what they all mean), DeSantis's account has since taken the video down, supposedly because of a music copyright violation.

Appealing to Trump loyalists in their bizarro upside-down universe, in which facts don't matter, ignorance is wisdom, divisiveness brings the country together, and second place wins elections, is surely a daunting task.

DeSantis is polling well behind Trump among Republican voters, so he has worked hard to demonstrate that he's the bigger asshole... because that's what they admire most about Trump. See how proudly DeSantis hates gays, transgenders, immigrants, books, higher education, New York, Massachusetts, California, and NBC? He's an intolerant bully with the social skills of a rabid possum, just like you!

This Week's Sneak Peek

We're saved! Hooray for Stinky Boots!

Ask Your Governor If It's Right For You

Much of the debate over Florida's new anti-transgender legislation involved their prohibition of transition treatment for youth. Now that those Republican bills have been signed into law, Floridians are discovering that they attack adults' health care, too: 

Lucas, 26, lost his access to treatment when the Orlando clinic that prescribed him hormone replacement therapy stopped providing gender-affirming care altogether. The couple also worries about staying in a state that this year enacted several other bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community. ...

The new law that bans gender-affirming care for minors also mandates that adult patients seeking trans health care sign an informed consent form. It also requires a physician to oversee any health care related to transitioning, and for people to see that doctor in person. Those rules have proven particularly onerous because many people received care from nurse practitioners and used telehealth. The law also made it a crime to violate the new requirements.

Another new law that allows doctors and pharmacists to refuse to treat transgender people further limits their options. ...

At least 19 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. But restrictions on adults haven't been part of the conversation in most places. Missouri’s attorney general tried to impose a rule in that state, but it was pulled back.

Florida is “the proving ground of what they can get away with,” Dunn said. [Lana Dunn, chief operating officer of SPEKTRUM Health Inc.]

The increased burden on transgender adults is not a bug of the new laws, but a feature. 

For the moment, a federal court has issued an injunction against the part of the law prohibiting the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors; but DeSantis's Florida is sure to appeal the case all the way to the Republican-stacked Supreme Court. Once Alito, Thomas, and the Trumply Trio have overruled Judge Robert Hinkle, carbon copies of the Florida law are sure to be rushed through other red state legislatures like the flu in a kindergarten.

This is only one front in the right-wingers' full-bore assault on the LGBTQ+ community, so I expect more and worse to come as they test "what they can get away with."

✍

P.S.: Any guesses as to which person around that breakfast table might be transgender?

Q Toon: Sense and Sensitivity

For the sin of displaying LGBTQ+ Pride merchandise, Target Stores have become the latest casualty in the Rabid Right's Kancel Kulture Kampaign.

Target announced earlier this week that the company was removing some LGBTQ-themed items from shelves and moving displays intended to honor Pride Month to the back of the store in response to a public backlash from the right. But what happened at Target goes far beyond just some people calling for a boycott.

As Target explained in a statement, some customers had knocked down Pride displays at stores while others outraged by Pride-themed merchandise angrily approached workers as well as posted threatening videos on social media. Target has been celebrating Pride Month for more than a decade, but as the company noted, “since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and wellbeing while at work.”

And to think that only thirteen years ago, Target was funding those antigay ingrates!

Right-wingers, including Republican office holders and presidential candidates, are openly working to make anything LGBTQ+ "toxic," and they won't stop with books and rainbow tees. Or who appears on a beer can. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been bogged down in a losing battle against the lawyers of Disney World, one of the largest and most prominent employers and tourist attractions in his home state, and why? Were they a menace to public health and safety? Were they sucking money out of the state treasury? No, it was because Disney Inc. dared to criticize his "Don't Say Gay" law. 

So the DeSantis and the Florida legislature went on the warpath against Disney with a single-minded fury, only to end up looking like Kendall Roy sitting at the end of the pier.

Disney, it turns out, has better lawyers than DeSantis and his entire legislature put together.

And a stiffer spine than the folks at Budweiser and Target.

 

Q Toon: Pride 2023

I like to come up with an LGBTQIA+ Pride themed cartoon in time for monthly publications' June issues. This year, it just feels impossible to come up with anything upbeat, let alone funny.

Pride celebrations have been cancelled in several Florida communities this year due to the "hostile environment" created by Governor Ron DeSantis and his legislature's intentionally vague law criminalizing drag performances. 

Florida is by no means alone in promulgating DeSantis-style Cancel Culture. Event organizers have cancelled similar celebrations in Kansas, and organizers are concerned that a legislation in Tennessee may yet force them to cancel events in Memphis and Knoxville.

The onslaught of viciously anti-LGBTQ legislation being regurgitated from one red state to the next makes this a bleak Pride season. 

Who knew that we would come to miss the crass Pride Merch commercialism of 1992 to 2016?

Q Toon: Gender Gendarmen

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants the medical records of all transgender students at his state's institutions of higher learning.

DeSantis asked to see a breakdown of the medical data of students who received gender-affirming care from public entities. This includes anyone in the general public who sought gender-affirming care at the hospitals located at these public universities. In addition, he wants their ages and the dates they received gender-affirming care. The deadline to submit those records was February 10. ...

When Insider asked why the state has requested the health data of transgender college students from public universities, the state's deputy press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said: "We are committed to fully understanding the amount of public funding that is going toward such nonacademic pursuits to best assess how to get our colleges and universities refocused on education and truth."

Leaving aside for the moment the question of why DeSantis thinks students getting medical care hampers colleges' and universities' ability to focus on education and truth, how turning over patient records to the governor is not a violation of HIPAA confidentiality rules is beyond me.

Officials at the University of South Florida announced that they would comply with DeSantis administration's demands, but assured students that their privacy rights would be maintained by redacting information that would identify who the transgender students are.

But as one USF student explained, 

“Even if it’s technically legal because it doesn’t have names, it’s still immoral. Because it’s a small community and (the data is) sorted by age and very specific personalized treatment plans, you can dox someone with this. You can find people out and harass them, with the Florida sunshine law.”

Given Mr. DeSantis's record to date, I'm guessing that facilitating the doxing of transgender students is not a bug in his plans, but a feature. 

Q Toon: Tedious

It seems like eons ago that we coined the term "Obama Derangement Syndrome" to describe Republicans' irrational, virulent response to anything and everything about Barack Obama: from their embrace of birtherism even in the face of overwhelming evidence that our 44th President was indeed born in Hawaii, to their revulsion against his wife planting a vegetable garden, to their howls of shock and horror that time he wore a tan suit.

When the electoral college elected as president Donald Berzelius Trump, the most prominent flogger of birtherism's dead horse, right-wingers quickly purloined the idea of "Trump Derangement Syndrome" — as if there were something pathological about Americans being upset over having our country run by a solipsistic, self-serving, lying, cheating, boorish grifter who was using the presidency as a Keep Out Of Jail Free card while billing taxpayers to put up the Secret Service in his own personal hotel chain.

So, now that the party that was just fine and dandy with all that is now falling all over itself proclaiming transgender folks to be the biggest danger to the republic since affordable health care, I'm stealing "Derangement Syndrome" back.

Q Toon: And They Brought Books!

Let me just say at the outset that I realize how much I was risking drawing a cartoon on Sunday that might be considered in bad taste by Thursday. Unimaginable disaster threatens the state of Florida.

I mean, isn't having to be forever associated with Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump punishment enough?

The corrupt former president is reportedly miffed that Governor DeSantis stole his idea to kidnap fifty Venezuelan refugees in Texas and fly them to Martha's Vineyard — after the summer season is over, no less — luring them with false promises of jobs, housing, and getting to meet the Kennedys. 

Oh, sorry, I'm confusing Ron's stunt with the White Citizens Councils' reverse freedom rides of 1962. DeSantis did not actually promise the Venezuelan refugees that they would meet the Kennedys.

The townies of Martha's Vineyard, and perhaps a few well-to-do stragglers who hadn't yet left for the season, pitched in to welcome their Venezuelan guests, providing food and shelter until enlisting help from the military base at nearby Cape Cod. Right-wing media crowed, See? Them damn Yankees don't like Mexicans any more than we do! Not one Kennedy even showed up!

Well, we Yankees hear that you've got a teacher shortage down there in Dixie Land. We can send you plenty of teachers who far exceed the negligible standards your governor has set for educators these days. 

Competent? Why, they're absolutely fabulous!

Q Toon: Definition of Character

Yes, folks: even the dictionary is suspect in Florida schools.

A school district in Florida could not accept a donation of dictionaries amid a new state law aimed at combating "wokeness" in classrooms.

The Venice Suncoast Rotary Club was prepared to give its annual donation of dictionaries to the Sarasota County Schools ahead of the new school year. But the district stopped all donations and purchases of books for school libraries until at least next year.

This came after HB 1467 took effect in July. The law requires school districts to have all reading and instructional materials reviewed by a district employee with a "valid educational media specialist certificate." ...

The Venice Suncoast Rotary Club told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that they have donated about 300 dictionaries a year. After donating a total of 4,000 dictionaries to date, this is the first time they were denied.

I'm sure that Gubbner DeSantis will call this an overreaction; but since this anti-wokeness purge is an overreaction in the first place, surely an abundance of caution is called for.

After all, Florida and Texas have rejected math textbooks for not adhering to right-wing orthodoxy. If Johnny has seven apples and gives Susie two, that sounds too much like socialism.

Meanwhile, North Carolina's ignoramus Lieutenant Governor thinks that teaching history and science in elementary schools is dangerous, so they're verboten, too. 

(Don't even let's get started on foreign language education...)

And in Oklahoma, an English teacher was disciplined for displaying a QR code for the Brooklyn Library to their class – not assigning any subversive literature or putting actual books on the shelf, just letting their class know how to find books for themselves. Initial reports said they were fired, although the school district later said it was expecting them to return to class the next day pending a review of the incident. Instead, they quit.

For all the right-wing blather about leftist thought police demanding "political correctness" and coddling liberal snowflakes, it turns out that it's those right-wing thought police imposing their own political correctness by force of law.

Who's the snowflakes now?

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Although my original intention had always been to draw the stars of this week's cartoon in puritan outfits, I toyed with the idea of continuing a reference from a couple weeks ago by drawing Ron DeSantis in Spanish Inquisition garb.

I rejected that idea for two reasons. First, I didn't think that a cardinal's hat and cassock would be recognizable in grayscale. There is only one newspaper that I know of that still prints my cartoons that way, but it's worth taking it into account.

Second, it would mean having to clothe the third speaker in the uniform of a third rigidly intolerant stereotype. The most obvious would be an Iranian mullah or Afghan Taliban; but as Patrick Chappatte and others have found, some people interpret such depictions as a slam against Islam as a whole.

As a gay man and a feminist, I find antigay, misogynist Islamic fundamentalism reprehensible. And certainly, the targets of my cartoon would be more annoyed by being compared to the Taliban than to the Pilgrims. Yet anti-Asian hate is a real thing, and one does have to take care not to feed into that. 

Editorial cartooning often involves drawing how This is like That, even though This and That are completely separate things. In the end, however, I decided that there was no need to draw our home-grown christofascisti as non-Christians. I may well revisit the DeSantis Inquisition someday. But for now, I think I'll stick to drawing imams and the Taliban when I'm actually criticizing imams and the Taliban.

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Oh, by the way, dear reader, since you've read this far, I won't make you look it up:

This Week's Sneak Peek

It's a good thing I don't have to draw Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson together in a cartoon.