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What a Difference a Year Makes

President Joe Biden yesterday signed a law designating Orlando's Pulse nightclub as a national monument. Also yesterday, at a Pride commemoration event in the East Room, Biden declared, "Pride is back at the White House." Pete Buttigieg, the gay transportation secretary, spoke too, as did 16-year-old Ashton Mota, an Afro-Latino transgender teen. Faces in the room included Rachel Levine, a transgender assistant health secretary, and Bree Fram, a transgender lieutenant colonel.

A year ago, then-President Donald Trump had bravely proclaimed June as National Homeownership Month.

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Transgender Hubbub

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was trans week in Congress.

On Wednesday, the House debated the Equality Act, a bill that would extend civil rights protections to all of us LGBTQ folk. During the debate, rookie Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was recently stripped of her committee memberships for being the flakiest thing to come out of Georgia since Billy Carter, tried to block consideration of the bill, claiming it would elevate transgender rights above the rights of women and children, particularly in sports.

“Biological women cannot compete against biological men,” she said. “Biological little girls cannot compete against biological little boys, and they shouldn’t have to.” Earlier in the week, Greene had signaled this version of trans-panic would be her way of trying to scuttle the bill, describing the Equality Act as “a direct attack on God’s creation” that would ensure “men who dress and think they are women will have rights over all real girls and women.”

As a believer in Pizzagate, QAnon and false flag shootings, Greene has the credibility of Yosemite Sam.

But she and other conservatives in Congress know attacking trans people could be their best hope for stopping the Equality Act and maintaining their God-given, time-honored and heaps-of-fun right to discriminate against queers.

Another freshman House member made a splash on debate day. “I rise today on behalf of the millions of Americans who continue to be denied housing, education, public services and much, much more because they identify as members of the LGBTQ community,” said Illinois Democrat Marie Newman. “Americans like my own daughter, who years ago bravely came out to her parents as transgender. I knew from that day on, my daughter would be living in a nation where [in] most of its states, she could be discriminated against, merely because of who she is.”

It helps when a woman of the House has a transgender woman in her house.

Newman's speech went viral. Greene responded by tweeting "As mothers, we all love and support our children. But your biological son does NOT belong in my daughters’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams." Note the egregious misgendering.

Greene's such a flamethrower you could be excused for thinking she's the love child of Donald Trump and Donald Trump.

As luck, or irony, would have it, the offices of Greene and Newman are directly across from each other. Newman tweeted a video of herself hoisting the transgender flag so, she wrote, Greene "can look at it every time she opens her door."

Greene reacted by tweeting a video of herself putting up a poster outside her office that read “There are TWO genders: Male & Female. Trust The Science!”

Trust the science. This from the woman who claimed Jewish space lasers started California wildfires.

Anyway, if this keeps up, Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman might be needed to patrol that hallway.

The day after these fireworks, over in the Senate, Dr. Rachel Levine attended her confirmation hearing to be an assistant secretary of health. If she's approved, Levine would be the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.

Judging by his questioning of her, Sen. Rand Paul fears she's fixing to dispense hormone-blocking meds to every second grader in America.

The Kentucky Republican criticized Levine for advocating hormone therapy for minors, and he conflated genital mutilation with transition surgery. Credit to Levine for not losing her cool while being subjected to a transphobic tirade. Why, it's almost as if she knew it was coming.

For all the Rand Pauls and Marjorie Taylor Greenes, keep in mind their ugliness is on full display precisely because we're on the cusp of making real progress. The same day Paul unloaded on Rachel Levine in the Senate, the House passed the Equality Act. Greene couldn't prevent it.

Considering Greene has expressed support in the past for executing Democratic leaders, it wouldn't be surprising if she's out there right now trying to make a Jewish friend in order to get her hands on some space lasers.