Elon Musk and the GOP: the party of LGBTQ Child Abuse

So recently Elon Musk promised to move all of his businesses out of California.

@elonmusk
This is the final straw. Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

Quote

@jason

Jul 16

So the state is the parent in California now @GavinNewsom? x.com/libsoftiktok/s…

12:13 PM · Jul 16, 2024

And why exactly is that? This is why.

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Transcript.

Recently, Elon Musk tweeted that he  intends to relocate operations for two of his companies — Twitter, which Musk is still  vainly insisting the rest of us refer to as X, and SpaceX — from California to Texas.  Musk has whined and complained about various aspects of California for  years, but according to his tweet, the last straw was Governor Gavin  Newsom signing bill AB-1955 into law.

“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom  about a year ago,” Musk wrote in a reply to his tweet announcing the move,  “that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave  California to protect their children.”

Boy, that law must be pretty bad. AB-1955  is titled the “Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act,” which  — now you know it’s just gotta be terrible, right? With an aggressively positive title like that?

And yes — Support Academic Futures  and Educators for Today’s Youth — the first letters spell “Safety.” An  aggressively positive title that is also an acronym — this bill must be  bad news! Okay, what’s it actually say?

From the summary at the top of the bill: “This bill would prohibit school districts,  county offices of education, charter schools, and the state special schools, and  a member of the governing board or body of those educational entities, from  enacting or enforcing any policy, rule, or administrative regulation that requires  an employee or a contractor to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual  orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent  unless otherwise required by law, as provided.”

Okay. So, basically, the bill makes it illegal for employees of school districts to out LGBTQ students without the consent of the student. Given how mistreated and misunderstood  queer people, especially queer young people, are in this country, that sounds like a good  and, sadly, necessary idea. But! That’s just the summary! The devil’s in the details. I bet  the actual text of the bill hides all sorts of horrors — horrors so horrible they’ve driven  the mighty Elon Musk from the Golden State!

“SEC. 2. The Legislature finds  and declares all of the following: “(a) All pupils deserve to feel safe, supported,  and affirmed for who they are at school.”

Okay, but what else?

“(b) Choosing when to ‘come out’ by  disclosing an LGBTQ+ identity, and to whom, are deeply personal decisions, impacting health  and safety as well as critical relationships, that every LGBTQ+ person has the  right to make for themselves.”

That’s . . . I bet paragraph (c) is gonna  have the dangerous stuff that parents will be fleeing the state to protect their children from — it’s always C!

“(c) Parents and families across  California understand that coming out as LGBTQ+ is an extremely  personal decision and want to support their children in coming  out to them on their own terms.”

. . . Can I get that (d)?

“(d) Parents and families have  an important role to play in the lives of young people. Studies  confirm that LGBTQ+ youth thrive when they have parental support and feel safe  sharing their full identities with them, but it can be harmful to force young people to share  their full identities before they are ready.”

Can I get a . . . what comes after (d)?

VD, if you’re not careful — but, all kidding aside, the SAFETY Act is not a dangerous bill, it’s an attempt to protect the privacy and well-being of LGBTQ kids and to give some legal backup to public school employees — teachers, counselors, et cetera — to provide a safe harbor at school for queer kids who don’t have one at home.

If you read the bill in its entirety  — and I recommend that you do, if this interests you — I’ll put a link to it in  the description of this video, or you can just search for “AB-1955” and you’ll find it — it’s  not long — if you read it, you’ll see that not only does the bill strengthen legal protections  for the safety and privacy of LGBTQ students, as well as protections for school employees who  support them, it also mandates the development of expanded resources to provide support for parents  and families of LGBTQ students, including support groups and safe spaces for parents and families  of LGBTQ kids, suicide prevention resources, and support for physical and mental health care  providers with experience treating and supporting parents and families of LGBTQ kids” — it’s  not about the state coming between parents and children — it’s about the state recognizing that  queer kids need support, affirming that public schools are allowed to provide that support, and  putting community resources in place to encourage everyone to get on board with that mission,  including the parents and families of LGBTQ kids.

Who could possibly have a problem with this?  Bigots, mostly — like Elon Musk. Scroll through Musk’s Twitter account — and I recommend that you  don’t, there’s nothing there of any substance or value, but if you want to get a sense of the man  and where his head is at, go ahead — and you’ll see, in between posts supporting Donald Trump  and embarrassing retweets of AI images depicting