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It’s the second Tuesday of Pride Month so it’s time again for three queer wins. As I keep saying Pride Month is about protest and fighting for our rights. So it’s important to celebrate as many of those fights as possible.

Starting in Florida, cause, DeSantis screwed up…

Orlando, Florida

Fri, April 24 - Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney, Monique Worrell was suspended back in 2023 because Governor Ron DeSantis didn’t like that she wouldn’t bow down to him.

In November 2024, she ran again, and won. And because of that she was the State Attorney in office when Florida removed the rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse memorial and those who created a chalk crosswalk in its place were arrested.

This had never happened before, as she said in a press conference announcing the charges, or lack thereof, so it took quite a long time to come to a conclusion.

And after all the time and scrutiny in the world, she determined they would not be prosecuted.

I highly recommend watching the entire press conference (only 10 mins on 2x) and hear that her office put into proving the state wrong.

I think a lot of people, especially in Red states, question why voting matters if it’s near impossible to get a Dem at the top of the ticket. But this is why. People like Attorney Worrell have more power than you think, and it’s only because of her that these charges were dropped.

And, yeah, seeing people like her doing good work aboslutely makes me feel less Doomed!

Kansas

Fri, May 15 - District Court Judge, Carl Folsom ruled that the ban on gender affirming care does likely violate the state constitution and issued a temporary injunction.

Back in May 2025, ACLU and ACLU Kansas filed a lawsuit against the new law banning gender affirming care on behalf of two minors and their mothers.

The bill restricted state funds for gender affirming care and banned healthcare providers from providing it.

Folsom agreed that the bill will cause irreparable harm to these girls and issued a temporary injunction, saying:

They cannot wait until they turn 18 years old to resume their care without experiencing worsening gender dysphoria, negative physical side effects, and negative mental health consequences, including a more limited ability to participate in their education and social lives.

There’s still a long way to go, but this is an encouraging ruling that certainly makes me feel more hope.

Colorado

Mon, June 1 - We love malicious compliance. And when SCOTUS specified exactly why they reversed Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, the legislature went right back to work and created a new ban that fit perfectly within their parameters.

The new law removes the two year statute of limitations to sue a conversation therapy provider for malpractice. It also says that the state will not fund conversation therapy practices, that do try to open.

Given the issues SCOTUS gave for why they ruled against the original law, this should be able to survive scrutiny.

Rep Alex Valdez, one of the four prime sponors of this bill said:

This law is for all of the LGBTQ Coloradans who were told something about them that was wrong because of who they were or who they loved. With the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, we are committed to offering survivors of this harmful practice the protections they deserve.

It’s not enough, but given the boundaries SCOTUS gave, it’s probably the best we can do for now. I’m so glad Colorado Dems didn’t give up and made sure to pass this quickly. That definitely gives me hope.

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And those are today’s stories. Remember, Pride Month is a month of protest, so let’s make sure to celebrate all those fighting for us every day!

If you made it to the end of this post comment 🏳️‍🌈 (Pride Flag)

And if you learned something comment what you learned and a ✏️ (pencil) because there is no chalk emoji

texas tech's quartback, brendan sorsby, was investigated for sports gambling. i know sports betting is all the rage right now, but athletes themselves are not allowed to do it. it is Rule Number 1 and it is the highest priority rule for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who governs all athletic programs at about 1,100 colleges in the US.

the invesitagetion of sorsby revealed that, not only did he place more than 9,000 sports bets when he himself was a collegiate athlete, but 40 of those bets were AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM when he was playing at indiana university. immediately, this threatens the integrity of the sport, and especially because indiana is the hottest team right now as the defending national champion.

the NCAA, which is largely a sham organization these days (they've truly lost their grasp and college athletics are the wild west now) actually enforced their Number 1 Rule and told sorsby his career is over, that he would never play college football again (and, subsequently, that he would never get drafted into the NFL because his college career was cut short).

well, because the NCAA is a husk of its former self, sorsby and texad tech immediately took this to court. MANY athletes have learned these past few seasons that if you can find a judge who's a fan of your team, you can get any NCAA ruling overturned. that's exactly what texas tech did. they filed a suit in Lubbock, where the university is located and where every judge is an alum of texas tech. so sorsby was granted an injunction and will now only be suspended for the first 2 games od the 2026 season (which are alwayd against no-name teams that will be destroyed regardless of who's suspended).

every other school in the country immediately went on the defensive because this is a very clear integretiy issue. so nebraska and georgia (sic em dawgs) released statements saying that all currently-scheduled competitions witb Texas Tech in ANY sport will be canceled and there will be no future schedulings. at least 3 of the major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12) , who account for almost all division 1 sports teams in the country, are also in discussions about cancelling comtests. Texas Tech is part of the Big 12, and there is serious talk of all other teams in the conference shutting texas tech out.

now would probably be time where i say that texas tech is one of the wealthiest programs in college football becaise there is a single billionaire alumnus pouring money into the program with hopes of essentially buying a championship. so texas techs integrity has always been questionable. anyway, the university president put oit a statement that he doesnt care that sorseby violated regulation and that texas tech will sue any school that refuses to play them because it jeopardizes their championship prospects if they're umable to play any games.

This effect is valence-agnostic, meaning it's as easy to form toxic new habits as it is beneficial ones. this is why my recommendation is coupling the trip with the establishment of an exercise habit and a concentration meditation habit, which are as far as I can tell the most effective habits to establish to train the mind-body into discipline in a healthy and sustainable manner while prioritizing wellbeing and personal autonomy.

Additionally, (but more speculatively) concentration meditation has been proposed to selectively lower the entropy of the brain, taking it further from a state of criticality, (Irrmischer et.al. Controlling the Temporal Structure of Brain Oscillations by Focused Attention Meditation. Hum Brain Mapp. 2018) meaning that the trip opens the door for positive change and then a subsequent concentration meditation habit, in addition to directly cultivating discipline, 'locks in' the positive habits gained in the period of neuroplasticity through a mechanism analogous to annealing.