🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)Feb 26

#Trans folx in #Kansas given 1 day to surrender their (now invalid) IDs and driver's licenses to the state. As of tomorrow (Thursday), driving while trans is a class-B misdemeanor ($1000 fine and up to 6 months in jail).

The zero-grace-period execution means driving to turn in your license is a crime.

Oh yeah, this bill also enacted a bathroom bounty program allowing private individuals to sue trans folx for using the restroom.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sends-letters-to-trans-people

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-advancing-anti-trans-bill

#AntiTrans #Authoritarianism #FuckTrump #FuckRepublicans #ProtectTransFolx

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses

"The legislature did not include a grace period."

Erin In The Morning
Show threadSimon WaldmanFeb 26
@alice ....and yet European countries still (so far as I understand it) refuse asylum claims on the basis that "The USA is a Safe Country".
Show threadHenrik Pauli
@swaldman @alice I honestly don't get why we still list the US as "safe to travel" in the travel advisories either.
Feb 26 at 9:07amWeb
Show threadSimon WaldmanFeb 26
@phl @alice I've always assumed it's because it would be diplomatically awkward to do otherwise.
Show threadHenrik PauliFeb 26
@swaldman @alice Last time I said this in a chat I got a similar answer — it makes sense, and yet it doesn't. Especially in the shadow of all the anti-EU/Europe rants we've heard and the active threat against Greenland.
Show threadCullen ThomasFeb 26

Most countries do not accept refugees from their political allies, it's true. However, there is a kind of work-around in place in many places—please excuse my brain dump but this is something that more people need to know about. To have refugee status approved, you usually need to have your claim addressed in a court of some sort, depending on where you're claiming asylum. When a refugee resettlement agency knows that a claimant didn't come from one of their jurisdiction's designated "refugee generating" countries, but that situation is likely to change, they may schedule the court date for several 🎉years🎉 in the future. Of course, this can also happen because the system is overwhelmed and there's a backlog. Either way, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a very distant court date.

In many of the more civilized nations, once you've got an asylum claim court date scheduled, you enter a special protected class where you get access to state programs such as public schools and healthcare and are allowed to work legally, find housing etc, at least up to that court date.

This can create bureaucratic headaches. But it can also supply a few years of necessary safety during periods when the originating country's political situation is most... dynamic. By the time the court date actually rolls around, the politics may have clarified themselves.

@phl @swaldman @alice

Show threadJürgen HubertFeb 26

@swaldman @phl @alice

Yeah, pretty much. German political leaders always stressed the "Transatlantic Friendship/Alliance", and it would be awkward to admit that this now belongs on the dung heap of history.

And this doesn't even count the European political leaders who were extruded from the American business machine, such as our own Friedrich #Merz (a #Blackrock veteran).

Show threadWesDymFeb 26
@phl Outdated info, maybe. Most public guides are based on info from no less than 1-2 years old. 2 years ago, I would have agreed. Today, I'm repeatedly telling people to stay away from here, and if they're here to get out if they can.
Show threadHenrik PauliFeb 26

@wesdym Most people in my friend bubble, inside or outside the US, are doing the same. That's not the issue really. Neither are the travel guides written by someone or some company a few years ago.

But governments have official travel advisories they regularly update — supposedly to protect their citizens — if there's something going on in a particular destination that is worthy to mention. Health & safety issues of all kinds.

I'm having a hard time believing EU countries forgot to in a year.

Show threadWesDymFeb 26

@phl If I update something right now, today, I have to do that from other sources, who by logical necessity did the same earlier. And the same is true for most of them, down who knows how many steps, each of which adds more time. Most of those are doing so based on a schedule of weeks or months, and that can easily add up to years.

Any information you have from such guides has come through a long train of sources, and is not only not current, but CAN'T be.

Show threadWesDymFeb 26

@phl They didn't forget. It just takes longer than most people realize.

There's also the issue of polity. Calling another country dangerous is a move you can't take back, and which will have real economic and political effects. You have to think very seriously about doing it. Official guides are inherently conservative about such things for that reason.

That's why we have to make ample use of spaces like this one, to get across urgent messages in a shorter time.

Show threadHenrik PauliFeb 26

@wesdym All of the countries (be, de, nl, hu, ee) I looked at so far have had recent updates to the advisories.

Germany has exactly 0 comments for the US while it has a long "Teilreisewarnung" for Japan (partly because of the Fukushima exclusion zone). Hungary lists the US as "fully safe", Japan is "visit with caution; with a region not recommended for visit" (the second part just as with Germany, Fukushima). Belgium had some comments about the US, but it was completely OK for the Dutch too.

Show threadHenrik PauliFeb 26
@wesdym So yeah it's probably all just policy and politics. Again, I understand that part less and less with how much bile we're receiving from Trump. It's not like actually protecting our citizens with official information would make that much worse than it already is. He'll think up some garbage tomorrow for another reason anyway.