Porterville steps back into LGBTQ hate

February 23, 2025

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It’s like déjà vu all over again. Porterville’s current Mayor, Greg Meister, has proposed a new city ordinance, which he is calling “Protect Women’s Safe Spaces”. In it, he wants to bar “biological men” from using women’s facilities, locker rooms, or playing in women’s sports. Meister is quoted in the Porterville Recorder saying the ordinance is “really drawing some lines for sure”.

In 2008, Porterville became the only city in California to adopt a formal position on Proposition 8, which would have inserted into the state Constitution limits that would only recognize marriage as between a man and a woman (it passed, but was later rendered moot as SCOTUS made marriage equality the law of the land with Obergefell v. Hodges)(In 2024, California voters removed the language of Prop 8 from the state Constitution with Prop 3). The city council voted to urge Porterville voters to support Prop 8.

In 2013, then Mayor Virginia Gurrola issued a proclamation recognizing June as LGBT Pride Month in Porterville. All hell broke loose. In a fiasco-ridden panic to rescind the Mayor’s Proclamation (a proclamation she was entirely authorized to issue), it took three months for the other council members to get their act together and not only rescind the proclamation, but to remove the Mayor and Vice-Mayor from their ceremonial positions.

In 2014, then Mayor Cameron Hamilton became the right-wing echo chamber’s darling for his infamous “grow a pair” remarks, when a student-led anti-bullying program called “Safe Zones” was brought before the Council for support, by councilmember Virginia Gurrola. The conservative majority on the council wasn’t having anything to do with what they thought was a LGBT positive proposal. They shot it down, and Mayor Hamilton earned his 15 minutes of fame on Fox by uttering his now-infamous line.

In 2019, glimmers of hope were seen in Porterville, as then Mayor Martha Flores issued a proclamation recognizing May 22, 2019, as Harvey Milk Day. It was signed by the Mayor, and council members Milt Stowe, Monte Reyes, and Daniel Penaloza. Vice Mayor Brian Ward (author and instigator of many previous anti-LGBTQ actions by the Porterville City Council) did not sign the proclamation. (He was out of town at the time, but rest assured he would not have signed it regardless, in my opinion)

Also in 2019, on October 15, (a few days late due to scheduling issues) Porterville City Council recognized October 11 as National Coming Out Day. That proclamation was signed by Mayor Martha Flores, Vice Mayor Monte Reyes, council members Virginia Gurroloa, Milt Stowe, and Daniel Penaloza. Mayor Flores did throw some cold water on the festivities, however, when she, in an attempt, I assume, to sound inclusive, mentioned that she had “it” in her own family, referring to homosexuality.

We thought Porterville had turned a corner. We should have known better.

In 2021, more animus towards the LGBTQ community was on display when the city council decided that it needed to regulate billboards in the city, after The Source LGBT+ Center put up a couple of advertisements for STI testing.

Fast forward to 2025, and with a new administration in power in Washington, D.C., Porterville has decided it hasn’t been demonstrating it’s LGBTQ animus strongly enough recently. The Mayor, therefore, has decided to jump on the ‘transgender women are the devil’ bandwagon. Even though it very likely violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, Meister wants the city staff and attorney to bring an ordinance before the council that would ban “biological men” from “women’s spaces”.

Here’s an email I sent to Mayor Meister and the other members of the city council:

From: Jim Reeves <jim.visalia@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2025 1:55:44 PM
To: Greg Meister <gregmeister@ci.porterville.ca.us>
Cc: Raymond Beltran <raymondbeltran@ci.porterville.ca.us>; Ed McKervey <edmckervey@ci.porterville.ca.us>; Stan Green <stangreen@ci.porterville.ca.us>; AJ Rivas <ajrivas@ci.porterville.ca.us>
Subject: “Protect Women’s Safe Spaces”

Greg Meister, Porterville Mayor, and members of the City Council:

If the anti-trans bathroom ordinance proposed by Mayor Meister passes, and should the person pictured below have reason to visit your city, do you REALLY want him to walk into the women’s restroom? 

Meet Luke Ireland, U.S. Air Force. Both of these pictures are from the Air Force Times, the first from about a decade ago, the other from about three years ago. 

He is a trans man, and your proposal would require him to use the women’s facilities in Porterville. This proposal is a solution in search of a problem. There are no verifiable arrests or convictions of a trans-woman sexually assaulting a cis-woman or girl in a bathroom or locker room. It’s just not a thing, but you seem determined to embarrass Porterville by adding to its already notorious reputation as anti-LGBTQ. I thought Porterville was making progress, but we’ll see if and when this comes up for a vote if that progress is real, or just fantasy. 

I want you to consider the following scenario:

A man decides to follow a woman (or a young girl) into a restroom in order to sexually assault her. He does not want to attract attention, so what does he do? Just walk in? Risky. He stands out dressed like a man. Maybe someone sees him following his target into the restroom. As the ordinances stand now, if he wants to get in without attracting attention, he’ll need to get into some kind of women’s wear. 

Under your proposed ordinance, it will be common to see people who look like men walking into the women’s restroom, because you’ve required trans-men to use them. Our bad guy can now just walk right in, and if anyone challenges him, he can claim to be a trans-man, who you required to use this restroom. Nobody will know the difference, unless you’re going to post genital inspectors at the door. 

Knock off the anti-trans discrimination and hate, Mr. Mayor. It’s a bad look for you, and sets Porterville back a decade.

Jim Reeves

Visalia

jim.visalia@gmail.com

I’ve received nothing back except the following, from the Vice-Mayor, Ed McKervery:

“Go read what HHS stated about this.

Thanks for your input”

Protest rallies are planned for the next City Council meeting, where the first of many actions to pass this proposed ordinance may occur.

The Tulare Stonewall Democrats plan a protest rally to “Standup For Our Trans Community in Porterville“, 4:30 pm, Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in front of City Hall, 219 N Main Street, Porterville.

The city council meeting starts at 6:30pm.

How do you take the “T” out of Stonewall?

February 13, 2025

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In the Trump administration’s ongoing attempt to make transgender people disappear, they’ve removed the “T” from LGBT on the Stonewall National Monument webpage. How incredibly ironic (and stupid) is that? Do they think we’ll forget who started the resistance to the police raid? Do they think they can tell the history of Stonewall without mentioning the “T”?

Martha P. Johnson is, at least apocryphally, credited with throwing the first brick (or rock, or bottle, or whatever it might have been), as police raided the Stonewall Inn in 1969.

The National Park Service, is of course, bending to the Executive Order that Orange Idiot signed recently. I don’t know how they’re going to be able to tell the story of Stonewall without mentioning transgender activists who led the fight. In moments of cynicism, I suspect they’ll figure out some way to credit the resistance to some obscure white guy, a bit like a recent movie tried to do. (whatever happened to that movie? I think it might have clunked it’s way down to the basement of forgotten films rather quickly.)

From the National Park Service’s Stonewall opening page:

“By the time of Stonewall…we had 50 to 60 gay groups in the country. A year later…1500.”
Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.

Check out our video series about the history of the Stonewall uprising, the LGB rights movement and Stonewall NM today!

Last updated: February 13, 2025

(bolding and italics added by me)

From another part of the Stonewall page on the National Park Service’s site I ran across the following:

(Someone missed some banned language and letters here.)

Stonewall National Monument

Stonewall National Monument

Read the President’s Proclamation delcaring (SIC) Stonewall National Monument

The Stonewall Inn, a bar located in Greenwich Village, New York City, was the scene of an uprising against police repression that led to a key turning point in the struggle for the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans. In a pattern of harassment of LGBT establishments, the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn in the early hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969. The reaction of the bar’s patrons and neighborhood residents that assembled in the street was not typical of these kinds of raids. Instead of dispersing, the crowd became increasingly angry and began chanting and throwing objects as the police arrested the bar’s employees and patrons. Reinforcements were called in by the police, and for several hours they tried to clear the streets while the crowd fought back. The initial raid and the riot that ensued led to six days of demonstrations and conflicts with law enforcement outside the bar, in nearby Christopher Park, and along neighboring streets. At its peak, the crowds included several thousand people.

The events of Stonewall, as the uprising is most commonly referred to, marked a major change in the struggle for “homophile rights” in the U.S., with lesbian women, gay men, bisexual and transgender people beginning to vocally and assertively demand their civil rights. Stonewall is regarded by many as the single most important catalyst for the dramatic expansion of the LGBT civil rights movement. The riots inspired LGBT people throughout the country to organize and within two years of Stonewall, LGBT rights groups had been started in nearly every major city in the U.S. Stonewall was, as historian Lillian Faderman wrote, “the shot heard round the world…crucial because it sounded the rally for the movement.”

Today, the site of the uprisings in Greenwich Village is recognized as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) by the National Park Service and is considered significant under NHL Criterion 1 because of its association with events that outstandingly represent the struggle for civil rights in America. This NHL includes the bar, Christopher Park, and the streets where the events of June 28-July 3, 1969, occurred. The Stonewall Inn is located at 51-53 Christopher Street, New York City, New York and is open to the public.

The link to the President’s Proclamation, however, leads to this page:

Now, I don’t think Trump himself is all that worked up about transgender people. It’s his minions, especially Elon Musk, who are driving this. Musk has misgendered and dead-named his trans child, so I suspect much of this erasing is coming from his personal hatred of transgenderism. He’s not a person used to not getting his way, and he’s striking out and hurting whoever he can. And he doesn’t care who gets hurt.

Oh, BTW, don’t let NPS know they missed some of the forbidden words on this page. Let us hope they’re there because someone at NPS’s IT office knows the Orange Idiot’s minions wouldn’t think to look past the splash page. shhhhhh

Even the FAA? Even the FAA.

February 10, 2025

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On 2/4/205, Chief Operating Officer, Air Traffic Organization, Timothy L. Arel of the FAA sent out the following order:

Screenshot

The Orange Idiot’s administration has decided that “Notice To Air Missions” was too inclusive and equitable for it’s administration, so it ordered the change back to “Notice To Airmen”.

Here’s the email I sent to Michael R. Beckles, Director of Policy at the FAA:

Mr. Beckles,
I am disappointed that the deliberate divisions being sown by the new Administration have been allowed to reach into the FAA.
To change “Notice To Air Missions” back to “Notice To Airmen” is a sad reflection of misogyny and disrespect being allowed to infiltrate FAA.
I assume, of course, that you are aware that women are pilots, and have been for as long as flying machines have existed. I would have included the current occupant of the office of President in that statement, but with him I’m not sure of much of anything.
While I’m aware that the President appoints the Director and Deputy Director, I have long believed the FAA was an independent agency, not manipulatable by the day-to-day political winds that blow through Washington, D.C. I was apparently incorrect in that belief.
As I said, disappointing.

Jim J. Reeves, Jr.
jim.visalia@gmail.com
Visalia, CA

I suspect the powers-that-be won’t be impressed by my email, but at least it will be logged somewhere. Maybe some historian decades from now will run across it, and wonder.

The Orange Idiot and his minions continue their attacks on everything decent and good in our country. It’s almost like a Russian dictator was pulling strings, and reviewing videos.

It’s going to be a long four years.

Note to media: knock it off!

November 15, 2024

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The 2024 vote

I just read another media post claiming Hair Furor(HF from here on out)* won the election in a “landslide”.

No such thing happened. Media outlets, stop spreading this nonsense!

Yes, the Electoral College was lopsided, but that’s a false perspective.

The difference between HF and Kamala Harris was 1.8%. Hardly a “landslide”. It was a ‘win by the skin-of-his-teeth’ margin.

HF was elected by only 23% of the American population.

He doesn’t have a “mandate” for change, and we’re already seeing buyer’s remorse setting in from the MAGA crowd.

So just stop it, already.

*Donald Trump

It’s a bit disappointing

October 23, 2024

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I’m disappointed in the Visalia CIty Council. They basically vetoed the Planning Commission’s decision to revoke the Conditional Use Permit that allowed Rookies Sports Bar and Grill to have live entertainment. After years of escalating police responses to the sports bar, the council did not support the findings of city staff and the police department, and decided to “re-negotiate” (my term, not the Council’s) the rules under which Rookies will be allowed to continue (resume?) live entertainment.

The bar was declared a “public nuisance” back in 2021, and even after numerous contacts since with the city about the problems, it has been experiencing increasing numbers of incidents requiring police response. The process of dealing with Rookies has been ongoing, resulting with the Planning Commission’s decision recently to revoke the Conditional Use Permit (first issued in 2011) to allow live entertainment. The revocation does not close Rookies, it can still operate as a restaurant and bar, which is its primary, legally permitted, business model. Only the live entertainment is affected.

It sure looks to me, standing here on the outside looking in, like the owner of Rookies has had plenty of time to correct the problems the city has been dealing with since before 2021, but has failed to do so. Some think his position on downtown association boards (private entities, not part of City government) has granted him special status, allowing him to use those positions to get special treatment. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s easy to suspect something is going on. There’s a lot of smoke around this situation, and you know what they say about smoke.

To “renegotiate” the deal with Rookies after the Planning Commission did it’s due diligence in acting to revoke the CUP (Conditional Use Permit), sends a message to other potential trouble spots downtown that they can get away with thumbing their nose at the city.

Kudos to Councilman Soto for being the only ‘no’ vote on the motion to “renegotiate” the CUP. (Nelsen recused himself, and left the Council chambers while the issue was being discussed and voted on.)

We’ll have to see how this shakes out. Stay tuned.

A mystery, a hunt, then success!

October 15, 2024

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On September 8, I wrote about the City of Visalia and it’s Charter. I noticed in one section it said (Deleted November 4, 1974). No mention of what that section was, or why it was “deleted”.

Under Article XVI, Section 21 said simply “(Deleted November 4, 1974)”

Well, I needed to know what that was all about.

I cogitated about it for a while. A mystery that kept bugging me, begging to be solved. Last Monday I decided to track down the truth, if possible. Looking online hadn’t turned up the missing section, and it had been 50 years since the change was made. The local newspaper doesn’t have online access for historical stuff, and while I had the date of the vote taken to approve changes to the Charter, I didn’t know when the City Council had acted to put the measure on the ballot. That could have been almost any time in 1974, to have time to get it on the mid-term election ballot in November. I really didn’t want to sit in front of the micro-fiche reader at the library, scrolling through the newspapers for every day that year! (Are micro-fiche readers and their films still a thing?)

The hunt had to be done the old-fashioned way – sleuthing in person.

I headed down to the library to see if they had a copy of the original charter, but they were closed for Indigenous People’s Day (It might be called something else, too, but never mind that…)

Next stop – The City Clerk’s office. I was surprised to find the offices open, since it was that holiday. I also expected it might take a while to find that for which I was looking. I was afraid that the relevant documents would be in that warehouse where the US Government stuck the Ark of the Covenant, as seen in one of the Indiana Jones’ movies, or in Warehouse 13. The City Clerk thought it might take some digging, too. The Assistant City Manager came by as we were discussing the Charter, and since he’s new to the city as well, he didn’t know anything about the change. The Clerk took my info, and told me she would research it. I expected I might hear something back in a week or so, if I was lucky. Surprise, surprise, they found and emailed me the original text before I even got home! Talk about service!

The original Charter contained the following:

Article XVI. Miscellaneous Provisions:

Section 21.

Neither the City Manager nor any person in the employ of the City shall take any active part in securing, or shall contribute money toward the nomination or election of any candidate for a municipal office.

Seems in 1974 the City decided to do a bit of tweaking to the Charter, and since the only way it can be changed is a vote of the people, it was on the ballot in November 1974. The above section was deleted. (I’m assuming it was due to infringing on people’s rights to support the candidate of their choice, even though they were city employees.) Some other wording was added, looks like to clarify some minor things that had changed in the previous 50 years.

It’s been 50 years since that update, and I think it’s time to do another refresh.

I noticed references to the City Manager (and other offices as well) as “he” or “his” throughout the Charter. We don’t have a “he/him” City Manager now, so time to change the masculine pronouns to gender-neutral.

(the fact that changing masculine pronouns in city documents will undoubtedly raise the blood pressure of those who see such things as “woke liberalism” is a bonus in my book!)

Thank you to the new City Clerk, Jennifer Gomez, for digging this up for me!

Mystery solved!

(even if it was a bit anti-climatic. I was hoping for some good, scandalous dirt! oh well…)

RIP, VTD

December 30, 2023

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Well, it’s finally happened.
My first relationship with the Visalia Times-Delta was as a paperboy in the 1970’s. My route at the time was the largest in the city, which had a population of less than 50,000 back then. I wish I could say that having a paper route taught me how to handle money, but sadly it did not. But that, perhaps, is a story for another blog.
As an adult, I’ve read the paper frequently if not daily, written many letters to the editor, had a couple of my community blog posts appear in the printed edition (Hate in a small town – 9-22/23-2013, and It’s not easy to make SPLC’s hate list – 5-15-2015), and even had them request I write a column (Connecting LGBT community and government – 7-16/17-2016) that appeared in print. They even paid me for that last one.
But that was then, this is now.
Sitting at the computer today, I realized it had been months since I logged into my account at VTD, one I pay for monthly.
I went to the page, logged in, and found the weekend edition online. (I stopped the paper edition a couple of years ago, keeping only the online subscription)
There were exactly two items in the entire paper related to Visalia.
One obituary, and the weather. No other local news. At all. Not even any local sports.
For some time now, the VTD has been fading. It’s a shadow of it’s former self. A shadow on a heavily overcast day. Almost not there.
I cancelled my subscription right then.
I’ve found that the Sun-Gazette and the Valley Voice newspapers have better local coverage than the Times-Delta, and have for some time. I also subscribe to the Fresno Bee‘s online presence.
The Visalia Times Delta has (for some time now) become simply another version of USA TODAY.
RIP VTD

“Shoving it down our throat…”

December 12, 2023

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One of the most common refrains those of us in the queer community hear is something along the lines of, “we don’t care what you do in the bedroom, just don’t shove it down our throats!”

This is usually in response to something innocuous, like a queer couple holding hands in public while walking down Main Street, or perhaps when a rainbow flag is flown from a home or business during June. Proclamations by City Councils or County Board of Supervisors really set some people off.

Oddly, however, that is a one-way outrage street.

Christians love to “shove it down our throat” when they’re proselytizing about their god. Today’s example is courtesy of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors.

During today’s (December 12, 2023) Board meeting, they approved the addition of “IN GOD WE TRUST” to the chambers. Board Chair Dennis Townsend, District 5 (Porterville area), recently proposed adding the phrase to a wall in the chambers, supposedly as a nod to the United States Motto, saying in the November 28th meeting that “… in god we trust is how our nation was founded, and even in that it is not specific” to any particular god.

However…

Maybe I missed it in the multitude of gods believed in over the years, and the somewhat smaller group with active believers around the world and in Tulare County today, but, as far as I know, only one particular god is referred to as GOD. That’s the Christian god, also known as Yahweh or Jehovah.

So to claim the Christian god is not necessarily the one being referred to when “IN GOD WE TRUST” is prominently displayed is disingenuous. It’s also not the case, in spite of fundamentalist Christians going on otherwise, that this nation was founded as a Christian nation, and with the Bible being a primary source of the nation’s underpinnings.

On June 10, 1797, President John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli, after a unanimous vote to approve by the United States Senate. Article 11 of that treaty states, in part, that “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…” There are other instances of the founders making it clear they were not Christians and were not basing the new nation on that faith system. Many were deists, and had a belief in a god, but not necessarily the Christian version.

And yet, “IN GOD WE TRUST”.

Kudos to Supervisor Amy Shuklian for her actions which changed the sign from an obvious Christian proselytization to something more in line with the alleged homage to the United States. She proposed, and was successful in adding, “E Pluribus Unum” to the signage. In the final vote Supervisor Shuklian voted against the installation, but was outvoted by the rest of the Board.

If the goal was really to show respect for the founding of the United States, and display something that encompasses that which the nation is really based upon, I think this would have been more appropriate:

But that doesn’t shove anything down anyone’s throat, does it?

Hamas attacks Israel

October 8, 2023

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Photo: AP News

The terrorist organization Hamas launched an attack against Israel that has left hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead. Israel has said it had no intelligence that would lead them to believe an attack was being planned.

I don’t buy that.

Mossad is one of the premier intelligence agencies in the world. Their association with the CIA and MI6 makes me think, despite movies that pit each agency against each other for dramatic effect, that they had to have known something was imminent. How could Hamas moved, secured, and kept hidden that many rockets and guns without someone being aware of it and letting Israel know?

Maybe it’s my cynicism in my old age, but I suspect this story will unravel to become one of the most damning conspiracies in recent history. Why do I think that? Well, sit back and let me ‘splain it to you, Lucy.

Here’s my scenario:

It all goes back to Trump and Jared.

We know Trump provided access to secret intelligence documents to unauthorized individuals. Jared (Kushner, son-in-law of President Trump, just in case you didn’t know the name) was “in charge” of the Middle East “peace process”. We know nuclear secrets of one of our allies (presumed to be Israel) was given (you can’t even give it the prestige or precedent of calling it a “leak”) to unknown agents (assumed to be Saudi Arabia). I think it’s safe to assume a lot of other information was included in this incident.

Jared was rewarded with 2 billion dollars.

Saudi Arabia has had several years to infiltrate Gaza with weapons, provide intelligence and support, and plan an assault on Israel.

All of that is bad, but here’s where my inner cynic really gets wound up.

I think Mossad knew Hamas was planning an attack. If they didn’t, they’re incompetent, and the entire upper leadership should not only be sacked, but charged with criminal negligence.

I suspect Netanyahu new there was an attack coming, and let it happen.

Why?

Because that would give him the political power to do what he’s always wanted to do: Destroy the Palestinians.

I think his government knew. I think the CIA knew. I think MI6 knew. Maybe not how big the attack was going to be, but they had to know something was cooking and ready to boil over. Netanyahu and his government let it happen to be able to respond with the full force of their US-supplied military.

This weekend’s attack and the (totally justified) Israeli response has set the peace process back at least 50 years.

Let’s hope it doesn’t lead to World War III.

Happy Pride 2022!

June 1, 2022

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Happy Pride! Make it a good month. Here in California, it’s going to be a hot one… and the weather will be on the warm side, too.

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