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October has been a hell of a month, and I needed a little time to regroup after Cohost went read-only on the 1st. I hope all my former chosties have been hanging in there now that Eggbug has migrated to warmer climes. (In the midst of it all, I’ve also gotten to watch my New York Mets climb all the way to the National League championships this week, so at least it hasn’t all been bad.)

I’m not going to be as precise about the scheduling of this newsletter as I was on Cohost, but I’m aiming to send out new editions roughly every two weeks or so, life permitting. Thanks for your patience!

Here are October’s top stories so far:

The Republican Party’s anti-trans fearmongering has reached a fever pitch.

GOP candidates and conservative PACs spent at least $65 million on anti-trans advertisements across the U.S. since the start of August, according to an analysis in the New York Times this week. Leading the charge, of course, is the Trump campaign, which bought $15.5 million worth of ad time for their “Kamala is for They/Them” ads during the MLB playoffs, college football, and NFL games. (You can imagine how I felt seeing them for the first time during the Mets-Brewers series.)

It’s still unclear if anti-trans rhetoric will pay the dividends Republicans are expecting, but that hasn’t stopped conservatives from going all-in on intolerance. In Virginia, Senate candidate Hung Cao went on a wild mid-debate rant about drag queens to emphasize that he wanted “alpha males and alpha females” that will “rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds.” Has anyone introduced Cao to Armie Hammer?

On a personal note, the brain trust over on Xitter have worked themselves into a froth over unverified allegations of sexual assault against Tim Walz, allegedly at an Indigo Girls concert in the 1990s I reported on back in August. According to my notifications, a bunch of them have decided I am the source of this “planted” story and clearly working with the Democrats to cover up pedophilia. Unfortunately for them and their reading comprehension, we actually just aggregated this fluff story from one sentence of an interview in the New York Times (which is embarrassing enough for me, as I said on Cohost at the time). To be frank with you, I don’t have much faith in anyone’s ability to “follow the money” if they can’t “follow one hyperlink.”

Things are also getting real weird for trans kids in Pennsylvania.

A district court judge ruled in late September that the Mt. Lebanon School District must allow parents to remove their children from any lessons or classroom activities about transgender identity. It was “constitutionally impermissable” for a first grade teacher to not inform parents before reading two trans-positive picture books to her class, the judge ruled, awarding partial relief to a group of parents who sued the district in 2022.

Across the state in Hanover, Emory H. Markle Middle School administrators cut hallway-facing windows in the school’s gender-neutral bathrooms, an $8,700 expense that board president Matthew Gelazela claimed was necessary for teachers to monitor for vaping and other misconduct. Gelazela enacted the plan to install the windows over the summer according to a plan provided by the right-wing Independence Law Center — which is tied to the Pennsylvania Family Institute, itself an affiliate of the Family Research Council. Thankfully, since we ran this story, the walls have reportedly been boarded up, though it’s unclear whether windows will still be installed.

According to a new CDC study, trans youth reported disturbingly high rates of bullying in 2023 — so spare a thought this week for trans and gender-variant kids, especially in places like PA.

Trans Lifeline released a report calling for 988 to divest from the police.

988, the national mental health crisis hotline, has a big problem, according to Trans Lifeline researchers: it’s a vector for state violence and trauma. If a 988 caller is found to be an “imminent risk” of harming themself or others, operators are required to call the police, possibly resulting in violence and forced hospitalizations — a process researchers said “compromise[s] the safety, privacy, and autonomy” of people in mental health crises, and can cause “life-altering and sometimes lethal harm.” Read Trans Lifeline’s full report here.

This isn’t the only red flag we’ve seen from 988, even after its LGBTQ-specific hotline service launched in partnership with The Trevor Project. As I reported last year, hotline workers contracted through Vibrant Emotional Health were laid off without warning just before the end of Pride Month.

Culture Corner!

My latest full-length feature for Them is a dive into the very bisexual history of Harley Quinn! This is for everyone who needs something to wash out the taste of Folie a Deux. This was a delight to put together, and I’m happy to say that I got my editor to watch Batman: The Animated Series for the first time as a result. Some folks on Instagram got peeved that the headline calls Harley a “villain” and not an “antihero” but she’s still a villain on Caped Crusader so if you were fixin’ to send me an “um actually,” please consider not doing that.

This one was for my Legend of Zelda-loving girlfriend: Ethel Cain is officially Skyward Sword’s strongest defender. I’m being told that she’s right and she should say it. Btw, if you’re an American Football fan and you haven’t heard Cain’s cover of “For Sure,” you should probably get on that with haste.

Also, Heartstopper is back! I don’t care if it makes me basic, I love Alice Oseman’s (mostly) fluffy lil high school romance and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the final chapter. Comics are great!

Coming Soon!

Keep your eye on Them in the coming week! I’ve got an interview with Nicole Maines about her new memoir dropping in the next day or two, followed by a deep dive into the history of the Heritage Foundation. We’ll see if I can scare up another surprise before Halloween…!

See you next time, let’s go Mets, and thanks for reading tgirl journalism!

-samantha