Monthly Archives: December 2022

USAU Selected Indiana to Host 2023 D-III College Champs Before Backing Out Due to Anti-Transgender Laws

BY CHARLIE EISENHOOD via Ultiworld

The USAU EDI committee determined that Indiana should not host one of its major tournaments.

USA Ultimate initially planned to host the 2023 Division III College Championships in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but changed course after the organization’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee determined that USAU should not host it there due to Indiana laws targeting transgender people, Ultiworld has learned.

After a months-long bid process, USAU told Fort Wayne Ultimate (FWU) in early November that their proposal had been selected, said FWU President Jeff Ratajczak. He signed the attached letter of intent and waited for the official announcement from USAU. But in early December, he got word that there may be a problem: the USAU EDI committee was unsure about hosting a big national event in Indiana, due to the state’s new laws barring transgender women and girls from competing on public schools’ women’s sports teams.

FWU, the city of Fort Wayne, the tourist bureau, and other area entities supporting the bid sent in letters to USAU stating their commitment to inclusion, but on December 16th, USAU staff emailed Ratajczak with the news that USAU would not be moving forward with Fort Wayne. “We put together a bid that was perfect until it wasn’t all of a sudden,” said Ratajczak.

“As the decision was being considered to award the bid to Fort Wayne, we performed a final audit of anti-trans laws in Indiana and discovered that one was in effect, which led to us evaluating alternatives in the general area,” said USAU Director of Communications Andy lee. “This included Columbus, which had previously bid on – and was awarded – the D-III championships in 2020 before the pandemic cancelled it.”

The TD of the 2023 D-III College Championships, Rodger Oakes, said that USAU reached out to him in early December asking if he would run the event in Columbus. They had previously discussed it over the summer when it looked like Cincinnati was going to be the host for the D-I Championships. He agreed.

Lee said that USAU does not have a policy in place that strictly bars the organization from hosting its biggest national events in states with anti-trans laws. “It is one of many internal criteria we consider during our process of evaluating bids for national championship events,” he said. “As a [national governing body], we look at laws specific to the sphere in which we operate – i.e. sports inclusion/participation. Because these laws are inconsistent with our Gender Inclusion Policy, they can have a negative impact on the bid.” The USAU email to Ratajczak said that the organization won’t be hosting any of its six national championship events in states with anti-trans laws.

Anti-transgender laws, often targeting trans girls on school-based teams, have proliferated this year around the country. 19 states have passed laws limiting sports participation for trans girls in girls divisions.

There is precedent for USAU’s policy: in 2016, the NCAA pulled seven championship games out of North Carolina due to the state passing a “bathroom bill” law that required people to use bathrooms according to their gender at birth. The USAU College Championships were held in North Carolina that year. Amidst some calls for the governing body to change the location of the tournaments, USAU announced a number of efforts to protest the laws, including the use of rainbow-printed discs at the events. The controversial law fully lapsed in 2020.

The NCAA said last year that it will only host championship events in places that are “free of discrimination” in a show of support for transgender athletes, but many of its 2023 championships are set to be held in states that have passed anti-trans laws.

Ratajczak understands the challenge USAU faces — “It’s a tough spot for an organization like that to make a decision, especially when they’re in the social justice arena,” he said — but is frustrated by the decision.

“The thing that was super irritating is that they took it away from us to give it to Ohio, which has two bills that are likely going to pass the first quarter of next year that are anti-trans,” he said.

The Ohio house and senate have both already passed bills requiring public school students to play in the division of their gender at birth, but they failed during reconciliation votes earlier this month. The Ohio senate leader has already committed to reintroducing the bill in early 2023. Ohio republican governor Mike DeWine has publicly opposed the bills but has not committed to vetoing a measure that gets passed. Both Indiana and Utah’s governors vetoed similar legislation but had their vetoes overridden by the legislature.

Lee said that if Ohio were to pass anti-trans laws next year that USAU would not relocate the College Championships. “Instead, we will work to find other impactful ways to support the trans community locally during the event,” he said.

USAU told Ratajczak that Fort Wayne should continue bidding on regional events. The organization hosted Great Lakes College Regionals in 2022.

Earlier this week, the 2023 D-III College Championships were publicly announced to be held in Columbus, OH, from May 20-22.

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Reference: https://ultiworld.com/2022/12/23/usau-selected-indiana-to-host-2023-d-iii-college-champs-before-backing-out-due-to-anti-transgender-laws/

Continue ReadingUSAU Selected Indiana to Host 2023 D-III College Champs Before Backing Out Due to Anti-Transgender Laws

Indiana lawmakers to consider ‘don’t say gay’ legislation in 2023

Of course they are.

From the Indianapolis Star:

Indiana lawmakers to consider ‘don’t say gay’ legislation in 2023
Arika Herron
Indianapolis Star

A controversial proposal to restrict discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools may be heading to Indiana.

During a legislative conference Friday, an Indiana lawmaker said that a version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill was being drafted for the upcoming legislative session.

Rep. Bob Behning, an Indianapolis Republican and chair of the House education committee, was speaking during a panel discussion with other legislative leaders previewing some of the educational issues that will be addressed by the legislature when the Indiana General Assembly convenes in January.

More:Legislative leaders brace for mild recession ahead of budget-writing session

He said one of his colleagues would file legislation “similar to what Florida did in regards to sexual orientation.”

Behning would not share the name of the lawmaker carrying the bill. He said he did not yet know if the bill would come to his committee or if he would support such a measure.

It’s unclear how much support “Don’t Say Gay” style legislation would have among legislative leaders, who struggled to coalesce their members around a position on similar issues last session and have seemed interested in turning attention toward workforce and economy issues after the past summer’s special session to pass a near-total ban on abortion in the state.

He did say he supports the general principle of parental rights in education, a concept used to drive other controversial measures last legislative session such as bills to restrict what teachers could say in the classroom about race, politics and history.

“Let’s teach kids the basics and not try to get beyond that in terms of what are parental responsibilities versus what are responsibilities of the school,” he said.

The Florida bill, formally titled Parental Rights in Education, was signed into law last spring. The measure bans classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

It also prohibits such teaching in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students, which potentially broadens the ban on discussions to all grade levels.

Parents can sue school districts over alleged violations.

The bill sparked national outrage and concerns about the impact it would have on LGBTQ students for whom schools may be the only place they can speak openly on LGBTQ issues.

A spate of other states has already followed in Florida’s footsteps. In 18 other states, lawmakers attempted similar legislation last year.

Gov. Eric Holcomb said on Friday afternoon that the bill was not on his agenda.

Bill is a ‘gut punch,’ LGBTQ advocates say

LGBTQ advocates in Indiana said they were bracing for the bill to be introduced in the Hoosier state but it was still a “gut punch,” said Chris Paulsen, chief executive officer of the Indiana Youth Group. IYG serves LGBTQ+ youth, providing a safe space, supporting self-empowerment and advocating for affirming communities.

“The damage even having the bill introduced will cause to young people is immeasurable,” Paulsen said. “We will see youth die by suicide because of this. I think it’s that dire and I’m sad that lawmakers don’t realize their actions have really bad consequences, even if the bill doesn’t pass.”

Paulsen said that LGBTQ+ youth often struggle with their mental health, particularly when they don’t have a safe and affirming space. One in four young people are kicked out of their homes when they come out to their families, she said and two of three still in their homes after coming out feel unsafe. Last year, the group served 440 LGBTQ+ youth that were in need of food, housing or clothing assistance. School may be the only safe and affirming place for some LGBTQ+ young people.

Culture wars here to stay at Statehouse

The mention of a “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Indiana is raising concerns that the legislative session will be dominated by culture war issues for the second year in a row. Bills targeting discussions of race and history in classrooms, sexually-explicit content in school library books and transgender students participating in school sports drew protests and prompted hours-long hearings dominated largely by those opposed to the measures.

Sen. J.D. Ford, an Indianapolis Democrat and the Statehouse’s first openly gay member, said the Florida bill was divisive and urged lawmakers to keep culture war issues at bay.

“We have so many more priorities in our state to deal with,” he said, “I don’t think that rises to the level of importance.”

Behning said he did not know legislation similar to the “anti-CRT” or “divisive concept” bills that failed last year would come back but does expect a bill banning books with sexually-explicit content from school libraries to come back.

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Bloomington Drag Queen Story Hour Recieves Violent Threats

Shared From: VinePair: “The Culture War Has Come to Craft Brewing. Time to Pick a Side.”

WORDS: DAVE INFANTE

The threats started pouring into Switchyard Brewing Company last Friday in earnest. People whipped into a frenzy by local and national right-wing agitators on social media bombarded the Bloomington, Ind., craft brewery via email and phone. Accusations flew foul and furious.

“You name it, we heard it,” Kurtis Cummings, the brewery’s founder, tells Hop Take in a phone interview. “People stating that there would be huge crowds protesting this event, that we’re indoctrinating children, that we’re pedo[file]s, that we’d better make [admission] 18 and over or bad things are gonna happen.”

“Shut it down,” they told Cummings about the family-friendly drag brunch the brewery had scheduled for this past Sunday, its fourth such event. “Or else.”

One of the leading lies enraging the nation’s red-assed bullies these days is the manufactured moral panic — spoon-fed to them by Tucker Carlson, the Facebook algorithm, and the guy who owns Twitter — that drag queens are sexual predators engaged in a nefarious, wide-ranging plot to “groom” children for illegal pedophilic relationships. There’s no evidence for this, of course; it’s just a convenient, homo- and transphobic myth with which conservative kingmakers focus the base’s Eye of Sauron upon challengers to the status quo. False though it is, it’s a powerful call to arms in the deliberately relentless right-wing war on the LGBTQ+ community in general and trans people in particular. As such, reactionaries radicalized online march on venues both public and private that have the temerity to host drag brunches, advertise their allyship on social media, or even simply offer gender-neutral bathrooms.

Craft breweries, which have often marketed themselves as progressive, inclusive, community-oriented oases, tend to do all these things. Unfortunately, there may come a day when the culture war arrives at their taproom doors, like it did at Switchyard’s this past weekend. Now, not then, it’s time to decide what their values are and how to live them — and to prepare accordingly.

“I’m a person who prepares for the worst and hopes for the best in pretty much everything in my life,” says Marley Rall, the founder of the Brewmaster’s Taproom in Renton, Wash. “But never once [did I ask myself] what’s your plan for when people decide that they want to shoot at your business because you have a human being reading books to children?” Last week, right around the time Cummings & co. started getting inbound pressure in Bloomington, someone appears to have done just that, firing a round through the front window of the kid- and dog-friendly craft beer bar Rall and her team have operated in the Seattle suburb since 2016. The attack followed rising online furor among local right-wing groups about the drag queen story hour she’d scheduled for this past Saturday.

Brewmaster’s Taproom has hosted similar events for the past year and a half, eliciting just a handful of angry phone calls or emails, says the founder, speaking to Hop Take by phone. But in a sign of the times, this past weekend’s event drew “hundreds of phone calls, tons of emails,” and a bullet.

The stakes could not be higher, nor the urgency. Just last month, a shooter killed five people at Colorado Springs’ Club Q in an attack that appears to be motivated by the sexual orientation of the LGBTQ+ venue’s patrons and staff. (Incidentally, it was the co-founder of a local craft brewery, Atrevida Beer Company, who heroically helped take down the attacker.) It was a vile act of violence, with echoes of the hateful 2016 slaughter at Orlando gay club Pulse that claimed 49 lives. But given the right-wing punditry’s ongoing project to paint LGBTQ+ people as perverted political enemies of heteronormative American life, it’s unsurprising. The beer industry must take note. If right-wing activists are willing to call in bomb threats on a children’s hospital, harass parents at public libraries, and murder members of the queer community and their allies in private venues, they’ll be willing to do the same to a craft brewery — or worse.

Thankfully, at both Switchyard and Brewmaster’s Taproom, the crowds of community supporters who took up positions outside the businesses seemed to deter counter-protesters on the day of the events. “I think a lot of people drove by, saw how much support we had, and chose not to stop,” says Rall. In Bloomington, home to Indiana University and holder of a perfect LGBTQ+ rating from the Human Rights Commission, Cummings saw a few “‘Proud Boys’ or protesters, complainants, whatever you want to call them,” sitting in their vehicles outside the brewery, but that was about it. He’s relieved that the day wound up being “anti-climatic.” In Renton, Rall has a plate-glass window with a bullet hole to replace, which will cost her a paycheck this month. “It’s part of choosing to be a business owner, those are decisions you shouldn’t go into lightly,” she says.

Having stood firm with their communities in the face of their respective reactionary backlashes, I asked Cummings and Rall for their advice to peers across the craft brewing industry who may find themselves on the receiving end of attacks from the United States’ increasingly unhinged right wing in the future. Both emphasized that credible, specific, localized threats to staff and performer safety had to be handled with much more caution than the generalized vitriol flowing in from around the country. (As I’ve argued before, craft brewing workers who feel like their bosses aren’t prioritizing their well-being in decision making regarding drag events or anything else should unionize with the quickness.)

They also warned that right-wingers would try to to frame breweries’ decisions to host queer-friendly events as politically and financially self-serving. Conservative operatives tried to paint Switchyard’s event as a launchpad for Cummings’ “Democrat” political ambitions (he ran and lost a challenger campaign for state representative this year against an otherwise unopposed 12-year Republican incumbent, and characterizes himself as a political centrist), and alleged the shot fired into Brewmaster’s Taproom was a false-flag event orchestrated by Rall to drum up business (she denies this, noting the sales revenue from the event fell short of the cost of the window.) The concept of monetizing victimhood is a popular conservative fiction — “Soros hires protesters” et al. — and Republican foes in the craft beer business can expect similar attacks.

As far as tactical advice, Cummings says, “the No. 1 thing to do is develop a plan” for emergencies that might arise from that decision, from nasty phone calls to threats of immediate physical harm. Distribute it carefully, the former first responder tells Hop Take. “Share it with local [law enforcement] agencies, share it with the staff, share it with performers. Do not share it on the internet, because you don’t want the bad guys to know what you’re preparing.” Rall tells Hop Take that building community relationships — something many craft breweries already do in the course of normal business as both a moral and economic imperative — is vital. Being raised Jewish in Hawaii, a state where less than 1 percent of the population identifies as Jewish, taught her the importance of “supporting others, because everybody at some point in life is going to be in need of help and support.” “Make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, and your community will see that and be there for you,” she adds. Rall considers drag events a non-negotiable part of operating a local business, but cautions against craft breweries doing them as one-offs. “This is not just a flash-in-the-pan situation.”

Cummings agrees. “You need to take a deep dive into what your business’s guiding principles are, and what you stand for.” If being a “change agent” is part of a brewery’s mission, go forth — but know that change is hard, and its opponents violent.

This is an unfortunate but clarifying crucible for the industry. The progressive values so many craft breweries profess (and that most, I think, genuinely believe!) have never been this crosswise with such a volatile, violent sociopolitical force as the contemporary American right. Frankly, the industry has not always lived up to those values: Even after 2021’s “reckoning,” the industry is still mostly white and male, with transgressors being quietly welcomed back into the fold after making minimal amends. But what’s past is prologue, as they say. Now that the culture war rages right outside the taproom door, brewery owners, workers, and customers face a serious choice. Should they tone down their programming and support in the face of hatred and ignorance? Or make the emergency plans, invest the extra money on security, spend a few hours on a weekend to show up in force and safeguard their local queer communities and themselves?

Craft breweries of all sizes, in all markets, have long held themselves out as beacons of progress and bastions of tolerance. Now they must decide whether those things are truly worth fighting for — and if so, they must make clear-eyed preparations for the battle before it arrives.

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