Glenn Youngkin’s Staff Quietly Remove LGTBQ Resources Page in Cave to Far Right

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s officials discreetly removed an entire Health Department web page listing resources for LGBTQ kids after Ben Shapiro’s media outlet inquired about a couple of items listed on the site.

In May, right-wing outlet The Daily Wire, which Shapiro co-founded, had inquired about two websites linked on the state Health Department page, reports The Virginia Mercury.

One site, Queer Kid Stuff, describes itself as “an edutainment company on a mission to spread queer joy to LGBTQ+ kids, parents, caregivers, educators, their loved ones, and allies.” The other, Q Chat Space, offers “live, chat-based discussion groups for LGBTQ+ and questioning teens ages 13 to 19 … facilitated by experienced staff and volunteers from youth programs at LGBTQ+ centers across the United States.”

Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist sent an inquiry on May 31, asking about the sites. “How are resources selected by the Virginia Department of Health?” Lindquist wrote in his email at 9:12 a.m. “Queer Kid Stuff has previously promoted child transgenderism. Does the Virginia Department of Health take a stance on the medical transitioning of minors? Is the Virginia Department of Health aware that the QChat Space, which is marketed to those as young as 13 who identify as LGBT, has a special quick escape feature that allows users to swiftly exit the site?”

He had given a two-hour window for response, which apparently set off a frenzy within the state government to remove the entire LGBTQ Resources for Youth page instead.

Emily Yeatts, a supervisor for the Health Department’s Division of Child and Family Health, and Rachel Brown, the Health Department’s adolescent health coordinator, drafted a response to Lindquist’s questions, detailing their goals “to be a trusted source of public health information for all Virginians” and adding that all “Virginians includes people of all ages, races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and ability statuses.”

“VDH does not have a ‘stance’ on medical transition; as a state agency, VDH provides information, and the administration takes a position on issues.… QChat Space is not managed by VDH, but we can share that ‘quick escape’ features are typical for a variety of websites, particularly websites that could put a person at risk for violence from others. Intimate partner violence/sexual violence/domestic violence webpages often have this feature. LGBT people are at increased risk for violence,” the officials also wrote.

But the detailed statement was never used; instead Director of Communications Maria Reppas told staff she was “working with leadership on this one.” While officials never responded with comment to Lindquist’s questions about the two specific resources, it seemed that the intention of “leadership” was indeed just to quietly get rid of the entire web page.

“Did someone request this?” asked Yeatts in an email to other staff members after the web page was removed. “This request did not come from the program.”

Vanessa Walker Harris, director for the Office of Family Health Services (which manages content on the Health Department web page) expressed similar concern in a separate, concurrent email.

“I’m noticing that the referenced webpage is no longer accessible and I’m having a bad case of deja vu,” Walker Harris wrote. “What am I missing? I’m very concerned that staff were directed to remove the webpage without engaging [subject matter experts] in response to a politically motivated inquiry, yet again.”

Indeed, the Mercury revealed that the office of John Littel, the secretary of health and human resources, ordered the removal of the whole site—with little concern to inform any other relevant parties.

Youngkin’s administration has removed information from the government health website without consulting any subject-matter experts at least three times in the past year and a half, The Washington Post reports. Information on abortions, sexual health, and pregnancy, and more, all unilaterally removed at the behest of far-right interests opposed to people’s civil rights and bodily autonomy.

In this way, Youngkin—whom, like Ron DeSantis, portions of the mainstream press have professed to be a moderate vessel of the Republican Party—is in fact just a friendly Americana face masking the far-right agenda to vilify LGBTQ people and kids and make them feel as isolated and desperate as possible.

Vivek Ramaswamy wants to end birthright citizenship—a longstanding American policy codified in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution—and take away young people’s right to vote, all in one fell swoop.

The presidential candidate made the call Thursday night on CNN, after being asked about his opponents, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, vowing to end birthright citizenship. “For a period of time, I think it’s going to be necessary,” Ramaswamy said.

But the young gun was not satisfied just being in agreement with the leading duo in the Republican race-to-the-repressive-bottom.

“I’ll actually go one step further on this, Abby, is that I don’t think someone just because they’re born in this country, even if they’re a sixth generation American should automatically enjoy all the privileges of citizenship until they’ve actually earned it,” Ramaswamy told CNN’s Abby Phillip. “So one of the things I’ve said is that every high school student who graduates from high school should have to pass the same civics test that every immigrant has to pass in order to become a citizen of this country.”

Surveys in the past have shown that most people would likely fail a basic multiple choice citizenship test; one survey found just 36 percent of respondents actually passing such a test. And given Republicans’ all-out assault on public school education, it’s unclear what their plan would be to up those numbers.

After publishing, Ramaswamy senior adviser Tricia McLaughlin said the proposal refers “to civic duty voting via constitutional amendment.” According to Ramaswamy’s website, this would mean raising the voting age to 25, while still generously “allowing all Americans to vote at age 18” only if they serve at least six months in the military or as a first responder, or pass the citizenship test.

Yet another successful pair of Republican talking points: seizing the right to vote from young people, and forcing people to join a military that has used trillions of American dollars to wreak carnage across the world, and leave its foot soldiers out to dry upon their return.

Anyhow, Ramaswamy’s brilliant proposal to seemingly strip citizenship from so many Americans came after Phillip noted that both of Ramaswamy’s parents are immigrants, and so birthright citizenship “was in play” for him when he became a citizen.

Yet, instead of making the citizenship process easier to navigate, Ramaswamy instead wants to make it harder for anyone to be a citizen. More than that, the presidential candidate’s formulation lays out tiers of citizenship—a matrix in which, until one passes this test, they would be a second-class citizen. While this country already treats scores of people—immigrants, LGBTQ people, laborers, the homeless, and young people—as such, Ramaswamy thinks that unfair treatment should be legally bound.

Oklahoma’s far-right superintendent of public instruction thinks that schools should teach students about the Tulsa race massacre, so long as teachers don’t actually acknowledge that the white supremacist attack was about race.

Ryan Walters took office in January, and prior to that, he served as the state’s secretary of education. Walters is anti–“critical race theory,” a Republican bogeyman used to attack critical thought about racial justice. Last month, he called for schools to promote Christianity in the classroom—including by displaying the Ten Commandments—as well as “Western heritage,” which many scholars recognize as coded language for white supremacist ideology.

Walters held a public forum Thursday night, during which someone asked him how teaching about the Tulsa race massacre doesn’t violate his ban on CRT. “I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist,” Walters said.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals. Oh, you can. Absolutely, historically, you should. ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’ But to say it was inherent in that because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person.”

In case it wasn’t obvious by the event name alone, the Tulsa race massacre was unequivocally about race. In 1921, mobs of armed white vigilantes razed the Greenwood District in Tulsa, a thriving Black neighborhood known as Black Wall Street.

The attackers, some of whom had been deputized and armed by city officials, murdered Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses over the course of two days. The massacre is considered one of the worst incidents of racially motivated violence in U.S. history.

The rest of the forum went pretty terribly for Walters. Attendees loudly mocked him and his policies. One pointed out the irony of holding the forum in a public library after pushing book bans. He was also called out for his opposition to teachers unions.

Bidenomics continued its underacknowledged winning streak in June by creating 209,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported this morning, led by hiring by government, health care, “social assistance” (childcare workers, social workers, home eldercare aides, etc.), and construction. Unemployment ticked down from 3.7 to 3.6 percent (although seasonally adjusted, it’s the same as May).

The job-creation number was somewhat less robust than the 240,000 predicted by a team of experts surveyed by Dow Jones. But even that was a sort of triumph, because by the insane rules of economics reporting too much job creation constitutes a catastrophically tempting invitation for the Federal Reserve to jack up interest rates. Even so, stock futures fell this morning in response to the good news.

Everybody should calm the hell down. Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June meeting, released earlier this week, showed, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, that the Fed intends to keep raising rates. What today’s job numbers show is that the Biden economy is proving much harder to push into recession than the Fed reckoned on. I’d like to tell you why, but I don’t know. Nobody does. But the bottom-line reality check: That is very good news.

The House of Reps caucus continues to grow.

On Thursday morning, Representative Jamaal Bowman posted a video to Twitter bench-pressing 405 pounds for three repetitions.

“Be sure to always center your health and well-being as we fight to save democracy and humanity,” the New York representative tweeted. The caption seemed to be a reference to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s interesting video posted last week, in which the presidential candidate squeezed out non–fully extended pushups and 115 pound incline bench presses while donning only a pair of blue jeans.

While Bowman has not shied away from posting videos of himself lifting weights in the past, the most recent video seemed directed at Kennedy and any individuals who view the anti-vaxxer’s muscles as reason to trust him as an authority on health and wellness. The presidential candidate has projected himself as being health-centered in a way that other politicians are not (though Kennedy and his fans readily compare him to Biden, but not to Trump or DeSantis, curiously).

Bowman’s video gestures toward what is obvious: Being physically active is not tied to one strain of politics. You can lift weights and be needlessly contrarian against vaccines, like RFK Jr. You could also lift heavier weights and embrace the rigorous scientific method that helped create such world-changing vaccines in the first place.

A fair chunk of people hailing Kennedy’s candidacy do so on the grounds of his big muscles, or his apparent willingness to stand up against the establishment. He looks healthier than other politicians. He questions their authority. He’s against the grain. He’s a free-thinking, anti-establishment maverick. In “manosphere” terms, Kennedy is perceived as an “alpha.”

No politician warrants unconditional praise or fandom. But if anyone does warrant intrigue or admiration for being a maverick who also happens to lift a lot of weight, perhaps RFK Jr. fans could mull things over. After all, Bowman—a school principal who ousted a 32-year career politician and has bothered conservative and liberal power interests alike while advocating for anti-war, pro-worker, and pro–green energy policies—might be higher up on the list than a guy whose main character trait is spreading flimsy arguments against giving people medicine for life-threatening diseases.