#Trump's #TransgenderRights rollbacks prompt allies to adjust travel warnings

by Avery Lotz, March 23, 2025

"Several European countries have adjusted travel guidelines for citizens seeking to enter the U.S. as the Trump administration has implemented several rollbacks on #transgender rights.

"The big picture: #Finland, #Denmark and #Germany urged cautionary planning for #trans and #nonbinary travelers seeking to enter the U.S. following an executive order requiring the federal government to recognize only two sexes: male and female.

- The advisory changes come as citizens from several European countries and beyond have been detained by U.S. immigration authorities over issues with travel visas.

[...]

"The Trump administration has made rolling back rights for transgender Americans a key priority of its early days in office, targeting military service, gender-affirming care, sports participation, federal recognition and other aspects of everyday life.

- References to trans Americans — and other minority groups — have been wiped across federal websites.
- However, many of the administration's measures have hit legal barriers in court."

Read more:
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/23/allies-issue-usa-travel-guidlines-transgender?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
#TransRightsAreHumanRights #HumanRightsViolations #Fascism #CharacteristicsOfFascism #Authoritarianism #GenderFascism

Looks like the American Association of University Professors agrees with me!

#AAUP, Allies Sue over #Trump Policy of Arresting and Threatening to Deport #Students and #Faculty for #LawfulSpeech

"The national AAUP; chapters at #Harvard, #Rutgers, and #NYU; and the #MiddleEastStudies Association today filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members who participate in #ProPalestinian #protests and other protected #FirstAmendment activities.

"We believe that the administration’s ideological-deportation policy violates the First Amendment by targeting constitutionally protected speech that Americans have a right to hear and engage with. The policy has created a climate of fear and repression on campuses around the country. We are represented in the case by the #KnightFirstAmendmentInstitute at #ColumbiaUniversity, #AhilanArulanantham, and Zimmer, Citron & Clarke LLP.

"Following executive orders issued by President Trump in January, the federal agencies that enforce immigration laws have arrested and detained several people associated with U.S. colleges and universities, including a legal permanent resident, on the basis of constitutionally protected speech and association.

"Today’s filing argues that the ideological-deportation policy has created a climate of #repression and intense fear on university #campuses, 'terrorizing students and faculty for their exercise of First Amendment rights in the past, intimidating them from exercising those rights now, and silencing political viewpoints that the government disfavors.'

"'The Trump administration is going after international #scholars and students who speak their minds about #Palestine, but make no mistake: they won't stop there. They'll come next for those who teach the history of #slavery or who provide #GenderAffirming health care or who research #ClimateChange or who counsel students about their reproductive choices. We all have to draw a line together—as the old labor movement slogan says: an injury to one is an injury to all,' says AAUP President Todd Wolfson.

"'The First Amendment means the government can’t arrest, detain, or deport people for lawful political expression—it’s as simple as that. This practice is one we’d ordinarily associate with the most repressive political regimes, and it should have no place in our democracy,' says #JameelJaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute."

Source:
https://www.aaup.org/news/aaup-allies-sue-over-trump-policy-arresting-and-threatening-deport-students-and-faculty-lawful
#RightToProtest #SilencingDissent #USPol #CharacteristicsOfFascism #law
#immigration #FreeSpeech #MarcoRubio #Trump #FreedomOfAssembly #Authoritarianism #Palestine #CriminalizingDissent #HigherEducation

So, all this talk from #Trump about protecting women is BULLSHIT! If they really cared about protecting women, they would allow #ReproductiveRights and #BodilyAutomony! All the hate directed at #TransAthletes is not to make cis women safe, it's to make #TransPeople feel UNSAFE! Don't be fooled by the #Fascist regime!!!

So, I've been bullied and have defended others who were being bullied, and the advice I would give ANYONE being bullied is NOT to give in! That just empowers the bully!

Under threat from #Trump, #ColumbiaUniversity agrees to policy changes

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Updated 7:19 PM EDT, March 21, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — "Columbia University agreed Friday to put its Middle East studies department under new supervision and overhaul its rules for protests and student discipline, acquiescing to an extraordinary ultimatum by the Trump administration to implement those and other changes or risk losing billions of dollars in federal funding.

"As part of the sweeping reforms, the university will also adopt a new definition of antisemitism and expand 'intellectual diversity' by staffing up its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, according to a letter published Friday by the interim president, Katrina Armstrong.

"The announcement drew immediate condemnation from some faculty and free speech groups, who accused the university of caving to President Donald Trump’s largely unprecedented intrusion upon the school’s academic freedom.

"'Columbia’s #capitulation endangers #AcademicFreedom and #CampusExpression nationwide,' Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York #CivilLibertiesUnion said in a statement.

"Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled $400 million in research grants and other funding over the university’s handling of protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. As a precondition to restoring those funds — along with billions more in future grants — federal officials last week demanded the university immediately enact nine separate reforms to its academic and security policies."

https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-funding-trump-fa70143c715df8fd4ef337c0e1ccf872?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
#CharacteristicsOfFascism #USPol #TrumpIsABully #Resist

'#Delusional' #Trump Threatens to Send #Tesla #Vandals to Prison for 20 Years... in #ElSalvador

"If genuine steps are taken to remove U.S. citizens convicted of crimes to prisons in El Salvador," said one legal expert, "this removal would violate not only U.S. law but the U.S. Constitution."

Jon Queally, Mar 21, 2025

"President Donald Trump on Friday morning said anyone caught vandalizing Tesla cars or dealerships would be sent to the notoriously violent prisons of El Salvador for a 20-year sentence, a threat characterized by critics as 'delusional' as well as overtly #unlawful.

"'People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes the funders,' Trump stated overnight, adding in all caps: 'WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!'

"Several hours later, Trump took up the issue again on his TruthSocial platform, saying: 'I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20-year jail sentences for what they are doing to #ElonMusk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!'

"#CivilRightsAttorney #SherrilynIfill said the threat, which follows on Trump's highly controversial deportation of alleged gang members to El Salvador last week, should not be taken lightly.

"'Remember that this is where his discussions with El Salvador began,' said Ifill in response to Trump's rantings on Friday. 'The #MigrantDetentions there are the dry run. He wants to ship U.S. prisoners to El Salvador. We cannot sleepwalk through this.'

"The #TeslaTakedown movement has gained steam over recent weeks, with people nationwide angered by Elon Musk's wholesale assault on cherished government agencies and programs. The world's richest man, #Musk, has been empowered by Trump to spearhead his invented Department of Government Efficiency, or #DOGE.

"As Axios reports, in response to the popular anger directed at Tesla, "Trump has put the full weight of the U.S. government behind defending and promoting 'first buddy' Elon Musk's car company, which has seen both its sales and stock price slump."

Read more:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-tesla-el-salvador
#USPol #CharacteristicsOfFascism #Oligarchy #Authoritarianism #CorporateFascism #ResistDOGE #Resistance

#Trump signs order gutting #DepartmentOfEducation

Trump signed the order in a ceremony while flanked by schoolchildren.

By Katherine Faulders, Rachel Scott, and Arthur Jones II
March 20, 2025

"By dismantling ED, President Trump is implementing his own philosophy on education which can be summed up in his own words, 'I love the poorly educated,'" - Bobby Scott, D-Va.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-expected-sign-order-gutting-department-education-sources/story?id=119967268
#CharacteristicsOfFascism #BadDOGE #ResistDOGE #Authoritarianism #USPol

#PortlandME teachers, parents join national #protests against #Trump’s cuts to #education

Teachers from Deering High, Rowe Elementary and Presumpscot Elementary held a 'walk-in' Wednesday in a show of support for public education amid cuts to the U.S. #DepartmentOfEducation.

by Riley Board, March 19, 2025

"'Education is a right, that is why we have to fight,' a group of educators, parents and teachers chanted outside Deering High School early Wednesday morning. To a chorus of loud honks from passing cars on Stevens Avenue, they waved signs opposing staff cuts to the federal Department of Education and other actions President Donald Trump has taken that could affect public education.
The group of about 80 were participating in a nationwide walk-in organized by the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union. More than 100 similar events took place across 26 states; the event was scheduled for Wednesday because it’s the day that federal elected officials are returning to their home districts as Congress goes to recess.

"'Now is the time to send a message: Their decisions in Washington, D.C., matter here at home,' the NEA said in a statement on its website."

[...]

"Kerrie Dowdy, president of the Portland Education Association, the union that represents teachers in the district, said the vast majority of all American students, including 95% of students with #disabilities, attend #PublicSchools.

"'All students benefit from programs run by the Department of Education, and we’re here today to protect our students and to protect our public schools,' Dowdy said."

Original article:
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/03/19/portland-teachers-parents-join-national-protests-against-trumps-cuts-to-education/

Archived article:
https://archive.md/vf7Ki#selection-2055.0-2059.186
#MaineResists #USPol #BadDOGE #ResistAuthoritarianism #ResistFascism #RESIST #CharacteristicsOfFascism

#Appeasement Is Failing: Why Fighting Back Against #Trump Is The Only Option

If there’s any lesson so far in Trump’s second term, it’s that playing nice isn’t just bad optics — it’s a losing strategy.

"Justin Hansford, a Howard Law professor and founder of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, argued that #capitulation had only emboldened Trump. 'The more that they cave in, the more damage that gets done,' said Hansford."

by Jessica Washington, March 15 2025

"Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., capitulated to President Donald Trump and the GOP over the budget this week, sacrificing one of Democrats’ last pieces of leverage as Trump bulldozes the federal government and jails activists. Schumer defended voting yes on the GOP budget that would neuter the legislative branch, arguing that he had no choice but to give in or face a government shutdown. He’s not the first to make that kind of decision.

"Leaders of businesses, universities, and nations across the globe face the same question: Should they fight Trump, or hope that by giving him what he wants he’ll somehow do less harm?

"Far too often, these leaders have chosen appeasement over #resistance — and, in return, gotten nothing."

Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/03/15/appeasing-trump-doesnt-work/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/j1U1P
#ResistFascism #ResistTrump #Authoritarianism #CorporateFascism #CharacteristicsOfFascism #USPol