Daily Archives: June 3, 2022

Former Britain's Got Talent winners Diversity returned to Britain's Got Talent to address the controversy and thank supporters following their powerful Black Lives Matter performance in 2020. The routine, which portrayed the death of George Floyd in America and the protests that followed, featured dancer, choreographer and BGT guest judge Ashley Banjo having his neck knelt on by a white police officer and the group taking the knee in a statement against racism.

The performance was accused by viewers of taking a political stance during a flagship family entertainment show and became one of the most complained about TV moments. ITV stood by its broadcast of the dance, which garnered around 24,500 complaints to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.

Tonight (Wednesday) Diversity were back with another spellbinding performance about social media and connectivity during the third Britain's Got Talent semi-final show. And they took the knee again as a flashback scene and headlines about their much-talked-about Black Lives Matter routine were flashed on a big screen and rain poured down.

READ MORE: ITV Britain's Got Talent in 'weird start' as Simon leaves judging panel in row with David Walliams over dance act

A voiceover said: "Exposure to this type of connection can cause your entire outlook to change. It fills you with hope and joy. Sometimes it fills you with struggle and pain.

"You know what I've learned, you can't be angry at the rain. It simply doesn't known how to fall upwards this rain and sometimes people love you, sometimes they complain. You stand by what you believe in if you want to make change. Nothing but love for those that stood by our name."

@Sprincey1968 praised on Twitter: "Yet again another outstanding performance from @Diversity_Tweet. So glad they did a throwback to that performance where there was loads of totally stupid complaints. Keep on telling it like it is #BGT." @Alex05923602 wrote: "Big up Diversity for not changing their stance." @KiranLadva wrote: "Diversity are the best act to have ever walked out of Britains Got Talent - no arguments." And @dudeitsdivya wrote: "People who find Diversity boring or annoying for speaking out on race issues have the privilege of not having to worry about these issues in the first place #BGT so glad they stood their ground.

An ITV spokesman said at the time about their 2020 routine: "Britain's Got Talent has always been an inclusive show, which showcases diversity and supports strong storytelling in all forms and ITV stands behind the decision to broadcast Diversity's performance on BGT.

"Ashley and the group are a great example of the talent, creativity and diversity of modern Britain and their performance was an authentic, heartfelt response to many of the issues and events which have affected society in 2020."

Sharing examples of some of the vile comments he'd received, Ashley told his followers on Instagram: "No I dont mean 'criticism'... I mean 'Racism.' I mean hate ... I mean the very thing that makes every single second of that performance and every single complaint worth it."

Explaining the concept behind the performance, he said it was meant to round-up an extraordinary year including COVID-19, lockdown, the NHS and the spotlight shone on racism with the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed.

"Hindsight 2020 that is what the performance was about," he said. "It was something we wanted to bring to the stage to give people hope, not to shy away from the difficult conversations."

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Diversity return to Britain's Got Talent to take the knee again - Manchester Evening News

The seven-member band from South Korea doesn't shy away from speaking on social causes and is involved in multiple charitable causes. On Tuesday, they came together with the White House to raise the issue of crime against Asian-Americans

BTS band members, J-Hope, RM, Suga, Jungkook, V, Jin and Jimin , with US president Joe Biden at the White House. Image Courtesy: @bts_bighit/Twitter

The K-Wave was prevalent in the White House on Tuesday when BTS, South Koreas biggest pop sensation, met with President Joe Biden.

The band members J-Hope, RM, Suga, Jungkook, V, Jin and Jimin werent at the White House to show their dynamite moves, but to discuss the very serious issue of crime and intolerance against Asian-Americans that has persisted since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The bands visit to Pennsylvania Avenue coincided with the last day of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

A video, which has now received more 11 lakh likes, shared by the White House on Instagram shows the pop sensations meeting up with President Joe Biden, stating, Its an honour to meet you Mr President as the boys walk up to Biden in crisp black suits.

US president Joe Biden is heard saying, A lot of our Asian-American friends have been subject to real discrimination. Hate only hides, when good people talk about it, and say how bad it is, it goes down. So thank you.

Prior to their meeting with the US president, BTS had a press briefing with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Korean band BTS appears at the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing of the White House in Washington, as they visit to discuss anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination. AFP

Speaking to the press through an interpreter, Suga said, Its not wrong to be different. Equality begins when we open up and embrace all of our differences.

Another member, V, added, We hope today is one step forward to understanding and respecting each and every one as a valuable person.

While the scene at the White House on Tuesday was that of fun, the issue that brought the group to the White House was not. The rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination since 2020 has included the March 2021 killing of eight people at Atlanta-area massage businesses, including six women of Asian descent.

Anti-Asian sentiment and violence in America have grown during the coronavirus pandemic in a phenomenon many blame on fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Just in 2021, hate crimes against Asians shot up 339 per cent, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

The South Korean sensations have been lauded for this effort, but its not their first. Through their careers, the band has had long-time involvement in charitable causes and have spread messages of hope and positivity worldwide.

The band has never been shy to speak about current social issues. Over the years, BTS has built a reputation as being one of the most socially conscious groups across the world. Their lyrics have touched on subjects such as mental health, consumerism and the education system.

BTS at the UNGA

In 2021, BTS delivered a thoughtful speech and then performed their hit single Permission To Dance at the 76th United Nations General Assembly, after they were appointed as the Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture.

BTS addressing the youth said, We think that instead of the lost generation, a more appropriate name would be the welcome generation. Because instead of fearing change, this generation says, Welcome! and keeps forging ahead, they said.

They also mentioned the importance of getting vaccinated and closed the speech on a hopeful note.

We think the day we can meet again face to face is not far away. We believe that every choice we make is the beginning of change. We hope that in this nascent new world we can all say to each other, Welcome! they said.

UNICEFs Love Myself campaign

In 2017, the band joined forces with UNICEF to promote LOVE MYSELF an anti-violence campaign working to create a safer world so young people can live happier lives, without living in fear of violence.

It not only donated proceeds of their album to the cause, but also inspired their fans, known as the ARMY, to pitch in. As of November 2018, the campaign had officially raised $1.4 million in total for the cause.

Black Lives Matter

The seven men from South Korea also extended their lending hand during the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2020. America was witnessing massive protests and violence in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd with community members and activists demanding for justice.

It was then that the seven of them donated $1 million to the organisation.

Kailee Scales, managing director for Black Lives Matter, had reacted to the news, We are moved by the generosity of BTS and allies all over the world who stand in solidarity in the fight for Black lives.

Inspired by the groups action, the BTS Army set a #MatchAMillion goal and made it happen with donations to BLM that surpassed $1 million.

Adopting animals

In December 2018, the Korean Animal Welfare Association announced that Jin had made a birthday donation for animals in need. He had made a personal donation of 322 kg worth of pet food to the shelter.

Donating to Sewol Ferry victims

The group and their label donated $100 million Korean won (approximately $85,000) to the Sewol Ferry Disaster 416 Family Council in 2017, according to Soompi.

The move came following the devastating death of 250 students who drowned after the MV Sewol ferry capsized during a school trip in South Korea.

While this isnt an exhaustive list of all their donations, it clearly shows that the boys have their hearts in the right place and only want to bring about a positive change.

Rock on, BTS, rock on!

With inputs from agencies

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From anti-Asian hate to Black Lives Matter, how South Korean band BTS has spoken up for the right causes - Firstpost

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Photo c/o St. Pete Pride

Tampa Leigh represents Blaque/OUT Magazin. a monthly digital publication that firmly centers Black and Brown Queer qulture worldwide.

Intersectionality became my life and was fated to also be my work. I am a native New Yorker, where LGBTQ+ laws and protections are groundbreaking on paper but not so profound in practice. Where just like the South or the West or anywhere in between, being Black as well as being Queer can get you killed.

I came to my new home armed with experience, passion and purpose. I was ready to take on my new Floridian world and to be entirely honest, St. Pete Pride. I had turned several other Prides and organizations. I, along with a team of dedicated staff and determined volunteers were able to change the look of entertainment, of staff, of the color of the people at the table. We had made the orgs we interacted with, for the most part, Blacker, broader, less cis and less male focused. I was determined that the same could happen in St. Pete. Each time we can make the big, queer world big enough to fit everyone, we make the world a better place.

Generally speaking, its easy when you are the big fish in the small pond to take up all the air, resources and recognition in the room. St. Pete Pride had intentionally or unintentionally done that for many years. But its often less malice and more lack of intentionality that causes such oversight and exclusion. I was actually told at one point last year that there were no people or programs that supported, represented or served the QTPOC community in this area. Over the last year I was honored and grateful to learn that wasnt true. As is everywhere, there are endless Black and Brown folks fearlessly doing the work to make that big queer world big enough to fit us all. Id like to introduce a few.

It matters. Who is at the table always matters.

It matters. Who is at the table always matters. Each of us carries blind-spots and without full representation in every space, something always goes unseen. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work must come with overwhelming humility, the ability to name and acknowledge what you havent done and a sincere, fearless willingness to make it right. That must come even in the face of opposition, misunderstanding and embarrassment. For those who step in first to integrate that school, to come out in a crowd, to fight that legislation.... to take that seat, must do so fearlessly and in our community and working to embody the principles of our ancestors with grit and grace. Look them up, support their visions and if your party, panel, presentation or event that centers Queerness doesnt include one or all of themyou didnt try hard enough.

The corner St. Pete Pride is turning is long overdue. The letting go of we dont see color" and the adopting of celebrating, commemorating and uplifting a profound, important and inherently unique Black Queer qulture is a new one. This year St. Pete Pride will feature Ballroom (think POSE), one of the pillars of Black Queer qulture. There will be the first-ever official Juneteenth celebration to highlight Black, Queer history and a party to celebrate and honor Black Queer Woman in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Black Lesbians group.

Im proud to have played even a small part in that and I look forward to a future where its a conversation we no longer even need to have because its just what St. Pete Pride is. But even the baby steps matter. There is too much fighting that needs to be done in this state to be living in division. No one is free, until we are all free. And I hope to hear Black Lives Matter being shouted just as loudly as We Say Gay this Pride parade. May St. Pete Pride one day be the organization leading both of those chants.

BlaQQueer Unity Council Orgs & Members

Rocky Butler 9 Colors InitiativeThe 9 Colors Initiative supports youth by empowering the community through unity. Currently operating as a referral agent and community advocate for the LGBTQ community we strive to ensure equality, wholeness, & community engagement.

DeAndre Yummy BrownYummy translated his joy of dance into a storied career that has stretched 15+ years. Browns mastery of Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Lyrical, Vogue, Hip-Hop and other forms of dance were cultivated as a student at institutions such as The University of the Arts. Cultural-based training in churches and organizations like Hype Elite, YCDT with Traci Young-Byron, Iconic House of Ninja and Iconic House of Prodigy only served to enrich his style, versatility and range. In the next ascension of DeAndres dance life, he stepped into his most recent form of artistry within the Black Queer Ballroom scene. Browns passion for showcasing his art and educating at a worldwide level just fuels his quest for bigger and more transformative stages.

Cadin Small, Choya Randolph, Dominique Euzebe, Quin Killiings, Brook Carter The Blunt Space Incorporated A nonprofit corporation and media hub for art, advocacy, and culture. We aim to be a safe haven and provide resources to marginalized voices within the arts! Writers, Poets, Advocates, Journalists, Dreamers, Creators and Revolutionaries. They see the Council as an opportunity to truly be unified on one front about the events and initiatives that advocate for the intersectional identities of being Black and Queer. It means organizing, supporting, and communicating with one another to better serve the community we hold close to all of our hearts! Tamara LeighBlaque/OUT Magazine, Blaque/OUT Consulting & Tampa Bay Black Lesbians Blaque/OUT Magazine is a monthly digital publication that firmly centers Black and Brown Queer qulture worldwide. Blaque/OUT Consulting provides workshops, trainings, process and procedure evaluation and education for schools, businesses and orgs around creating safe spaces and understanding intersectionality. Tampa Bay Black Lesbians is a safe community space to build relationships, create and attend events with other Black Queer women in TB, Pinellas County and surrounding areas. You can find the group on FB, IG and TikTok.

Antonio MilesEvolve Tampa BayA passionate educator and sexual health advocate. He is also the proud Executive Director of EVOLVE Tampa Bay; Tampas unique non-profit organization, that provides empowering monthly events that uplift Black and Brown same-gender loving men. His work also reaches into the field of sexual health care, as the Program Manager for Positively U, Inc, a non-profit the focuses reducing the rates of HIV and other STIs through education, advocacy and care. Antonio, is laser-focused on creating connections across the bay area that foster creative, safe and affirming spaces for queer people of color.

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At St. Pete Pride 2022, I hope to hear 'Black Lives Matter' being shouted just as loudly as 'We Say Gay' - Creative Loafing Tampa

STAUNTON, VA, June 02, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ Black Lives Matter protestors gathered outside of the Augusta County Sheriffs Office for nearly three months last summer in response to two police shootings in two weeks. For several weeks the police ignored the protestors who were permitted to protest without interference by the police, until reading explicit chat logs from the Sheriffs close friends child sex solicitation arrest, which was immediately followed by the sheriff ordering arrests. Each protestor who dared to speak out about the Sheriffs corruption found themselves in handcuffs.

I have never seen a case this ridiculous in my decades of practicing law. Ive never seen a prosecutor move to disallow a defendant to call any witnesses, said Amina Matheny-Willard, Counsel for the Accused, Owner and Managing Director of Amina Law. However, I have seen all too often the root cause of the cancer infecting the Augusta County Sheriff and Commonwealth Attorneys offices. Its a culture and practice of white supremacy and targeted acts of violence to assert and maintain dominance. It has absolutely no place in American policing.

On Friday June 3, 2022, the protestors will each stand trial in the Augusta County General District Court. Each of the protestors have plead Not Guilty and plan to fight the charges on June 3rd. The protestors will introduce evidence that the Augusta County Sheriff regularly uses racial epithets, that he lied to federal agents, and that he hid his close friend from arrest on drug distribution charges. Current and former police officers familiar with the Sheriffs corruption will testify at the trial. The Commonwealth fought to keep the Defense from calling any witnesses, fearing that the Sheriff might be embarrassed. A judge has already ruled that Defense witnesses must appear at trial.

I was arrested and jailed for saying a curse word but in fact I was arrested and jailed because I had the nerve to ask questions about the sheriffs association with a convicted human trafficker with arrests for child sex solicitation. Nothing in the Constitution permits the Augusta County Sheriffs Office to place someone in jail for speaking out against the governments own corruption. The Sheriff likes to call me and my friends the n word, said Cameron Turley, Accused Activist. I wish he would say it to my face. Racist cowards always find something to hide behind, and the sheriff hides behind his badge. If I dont fight now, then our very freedoms are at risk. How many people dont fight? Ive decided no matter the cost, I simply have to stand.

The trial details are as follows:

WHAT: Trial Commonwealth v. Turley et. al.WHEN: June 3, 2022 at 9 a.m.WHERE: Augusta County General District Court

Amina Matheny Willard and her clients are available for all media inquiries, including this Friday after the hearing.

About Amina Law

Amina Matheny-Willard PLLC stands apart from any other law firm in the country in that Amina specializes in fighting police corruption and misconduct. A fierce defender of the Constitution, Amina Matheny-Willard PLLC fights for justice and against systems of oppression to secure individual rights. You can learn more about Amina Matheny-Willard PLLC by visiting the firms website at http://www.aminalaw.com.

Press release service and press release distribution provided by http://www.24-7pressrelease.com

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Black Lives Matter Protestors Stand Trial Against Sheriff Accused of Racism and Corruption in Western Virginia - Digital Journal

On June 2nd a gathering in Port Jervis, New York will witness the unveiling of a plaque memorializing the lynching 130 years ago, on June 2, 1892, of Robert Lewis, a local Black citizen. Though scantly remembered for most of the 20th century, the horrific incident was infamous in its time, seen as a portent that lynching, then surging uncontrollably below the Mason-Dixon Line, was about to extend its tendrils northward.

There had been a sharp rise in the reported number of Black people killed in this manner: 74 in 1885; 94 in 1889; 113 in 1891. The year 1892 would see the greatest number, 161, almost one every other day. The nations newspapers were rarely without news of a lynching somewhere, a barbaric crime that Black leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and T. Thomas Fortune attributed to white resentment of African Americans social and economic advance toward equality and full citizenship, by the presumption that Black people were inherently criminal, and by white mens reflexive anxiety about Black male sexuality and white women.

But what perplexed white Port Jervians and other New Yorkers was why a lynching had occurred in a village near to New York City and with so modest an African American populationroughly two hundred men, women, and children, or 2 percent of its approximately nine thousand residents. Although Port Jervis was hardly free from the common social and economic inequities of the era, and its normalized racism, it had no flagrant history of anti-Black violence.

Situated at the confluence of the Delaware and Neversink Rivers, where the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania meet, it was a largely peaceful, orderly burg, surrounded by water and mountains, attractive to city folk who came in summer to fish for trout, canoe in the scenic Delaware, or enjoy a breeze on the verandas of the local boardinghouses.

Lewis, well-known in Port Jervis as the bus driver for a local hotel, was alleged to have beaten and sexually assaulted Lena McMahon, a young white woman, as she sat at the riverside reading a book. Before he was dragged up Suffolk to East Main and hanged from a tree by a white mob, Lewis reputedly confessed to attacking McMahon, but named her white boyfriend as an accomplice.

Sensational news stories of violent crime in large cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago might have been consumed by readers and as quickly forgotten. Not so with the troubling bulletin of a lynching at Port Jervis. Because such incidents occurred almost exclusively in the South, the fact that a lynching had taken place in a community only sixty-five miles and a two-hour train ride from Manhattan, and had attracted a crowd of two thousand people, brought immediate national condemnation.

In recent years, due to the efforts of a small group of current and former residents, and the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been new interest in the lynching, arguably the most troubling incident in the towns past. But years of silence about the crime have left many residents, Black and white, substantially unfamiliar with it. This collective lack of remembering (or remembrance) cannot but seem determined, a result of the towns shame over the lynching itself, as well as the ensuing humiliation when, after vowing to punish and hold to account those responsible, the local courts and community failed to do so. Lingering bitterness at having been singled out for national censure, and the lack of overt efforts by whites to mend relations with fellow Black citizens, have been exacerbated by a far more slow-motion calamitythe loss of Port Jerviss prominence as a Northeast rail and industrial hub.

The commercial district of Port Jervis today retains its low-rise, storefront appearance, with eaves and cornices out of the Victorian era. A twenty-minute walk will take one by many of the places involved in the Robert Lewis lynching, from the home of Lena McMahon to the banks of the nearby Neversink, where she was allegedly attacked; to the now-abandoned Delaware & Hudson Canal, along which Lewis was pursued and captured; and to the lynching site on East Main Street, where white merchants, railway workers, lawyers, doctors, hoteliers, and factory workers, most of whom knew one another, and many of whom knew Robert Lewis, beat him repeatedly and then hoisted by a rope until he was dead.

On a quiet summer morning, when no cars are about, it can seem that a portal to the past might open for a moment and beckon one through.

# # #

My research and writing on civil rights history have, since the 1980s, been guided largely by a confidence in the forward advance of racial progress, a faith never unanimous among citizens of the United States but for many years broadly assumed. While no one seriously believed Barack Obamas presidency would usher in a post-racial nation, there was a sense that the successes of the modern civil rights movement and the laws and policies it inspired, though not comprehensive and not attained without suffering and immense struggle, had at least moved the country to a place of enlarged racial understanding and opportunity.

Today, instead of guarded optimism, there is a weary pessimism that, as the Port Jervis lynching signaled in its time, the assault on and devaluing of the lives of Black Americans are neither a regional nor a temporary feature but a national crisis and, for the foreseeable future, a permanent one. Much like at the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s, when postCivil War idealism was supplanted by Southern whites bare-knuckle tactics of exclusion and intimidation, so now do we find ourselves confronting the abandonment of hard-won gains from the New Deal, the civil rights and environmental movements, and other progressive causes. Voting rights, gained courthouse to courthouse by Black Southerners and civil rights workers, have been gutted by the Supreme Court, and conservative forces continue to seek creative new ways to curtail and impede them, targeting Black people and other minorities, as one North Carolina judicial opinion noted, with surgical precision.

Each fortnight brings a new report of the killing of a Black person by police. Jim Crow, a term once seemingly relegated to the nations past, has found new purpose in expressing the harsh structural conditions of post-prison life for persons formerly incarcerated, as well as large-scale efforts by states to make voting inaccessible to Blacks and other minority citizens, while seizing ever-greater control of whose votes get counted. These elements of racism and white supremacy must be challenged and addressed in the name of moral decency, and to preserve the future of American democracy.

Nor can we look away from the connection between the nations lynching legacy and the recent resurgence of armed vigilantism in America. The crowds of whites who once amassed outside Southern jails demanding that sheriffs relinquish Black prisoners, or who forced their way inside to abduct them, have as their 21st-century counterparts the white militiamen, the Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and Proud Boys, who invade state-houses and the Capitol in Washington, plot the kidnapping of elected officials, and seek to intimidate voters, legislators, and peaceful protesters. This mobocratic spirit, a phrase Abraham Lincoln used as early as 1838 to describe vigilantisms corrosive effect on America, frightfully insinuates that mob violence is a legitimate means of effecting political change.

These issues remain as deserving of our concern as they did 130 years ago, when America turned its gaze to Port Jervis.

Nothing illustrates the need to revisit the unfortunate history of the Port Jervis lynching more than the opening in 2018 of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which honors the memory of more than four thousand African Americans killed by lynch mobs between 1877 and 1950. Lynching has for too long been associated exclusively with the South, of which Montgomery is a historic capital, and with images of Ku Klux Klan night riders and angry white crowds gathered outside rural courthouses. While the Southern lynching epidemic did not replicate itself fully in the North, as some feared, Port Jervis proved an augury of early twentieth-century white-on-Black terroristic violence in places as diverse as New York City, rural Pennsylvania, Chicago, southern Illinois, and Duluth, Minnesota. And it is impossible not to see lynchings vestiges in the biases of our own times: racial profiling and police brutality, the readiness to subject Black citizens to summary justice, as well as prejudice in the courts and in the nations penal system, including the use of the death penalty.

Today parts of the country are engaged in an effort to redefine the nature of policing, with the particular goal of stopping the far-too-numerous instances of deadly force used against African Americans by officers of the law as well as vigilantes. We say the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, and many others. We must also acknowledge the traumatic and terroristic toll such murders and their endless online video repetition have on Black citizens, particularly children.

On June 10, 2020, in the immediate aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, a peaceful, locally organized Black Lives Matter march took place in Port Jervis, attended by hundreds of Black and white residents and accompanied by local police. At the same event, members of a committee called the Friends of Robert Lewis spoke with marchers about the effort to establish in Port Jervis a memorial plaque and signage bearing details about the 1892 Robert Lewis lynching, as one step in a developing commemorative and educational effort.

There is no hero in this story, Ralph Drake, the groups white founder, who grew up in Port Jervis, observed of the long-ago tragedy. The town must become the hero, in confronting its legacy.

The Black Lives Matter march through the streets of Port Jervis, the work of the Friends of Robert Lewis group, and the Montgomery memorial, remind us that it is a national reckoning that is due, and that the historic confidence of any section of the United States in some immunity to racial injustice remains, as it was in Robert Lewiss time, a false faith indeed.

Adapted from A LYNCHING AT PORT JERVIS: RACE AND RECKONING IN THE GILDED AGE by Philip Dray

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How a Lynching in New York 130 Years Ago Reverberates Today - TIME

She defended her position on Twitter in June of 2020, writing:

If sex isnt real, theres no same-sex attraction. If sex isnt real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isnt hate to speak the truth.

While Im firmly in the trans women are women camp, I am very much aware that not everyone not even all liberals is there with me.

I had a brief discussion at a cocktail party a few months back with a feminist who sees Rowling as a hero, saying things others dare not. This person also condemned the idea that trans girls should be allowed to compete against other girls on sports teams, because, until the point of transition, they were men whose bodies were being flooded with testosterone, the original performance enhancement drug.

Even the #MeToo movement now seems to be battered by allegations that it, too, has gone too far. Its not just that Johnny Depp won his defamation suit against his former wife Amber Heard on Wednesday. Even before that, Heard was being ripped to shreds on social media. As my colleague Michelle Goldberg recently pointed out, Heard was far from a perfect victim, and that made her the perfect object of a #MeToo backlash.

In a statement released after the verdict, Heard wrote that the disappointment she felt was beyond words, but that Im even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. She continued: It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated.

In fact, that #MeToo backlash has been an issue of concern for years, and it was about more than a salacious celebrity story. In 2019, Harvard Business Review published an article on the results of research from the University of Houston that found:

More than 10 percent of both men and women said they thought they would be less willing than previously to hire attractive women. Twenty-two percent of men and 44 percent of women predicted that men would be more apt to exclude women from social interactions, such as after-work drinks, and nearly one in three men thought they would be reluctant to have a one-on-one meeting with a woman. Fifty-six percent of women said they expected that men would continue to harass but would take more precautions against getting caught, and 58 percent of men predicted that men in general would have greater fears of being unfairly accused.

Now we see some renewed energy emanating from the left on other issues, like abortion and gun control.

The fact that the Supreme Court seems poised to overturn Roe v. Wade is, for many, evidence that the conservative justices have gone too far. And the recent mass shootings, including the massacre at a Texas school, may have convinced some parents that the sheer ubiquity of guns in this country has gone too far.

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Opinion | The Age of Too Far - The New York Times