Latest / The Roundup / Border Patrol controversy, anti-trans ballot fights and a $4 million Pride lawsuit

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Border Patrol controversy, anti-trans ballot fights and a $4 million Pride lawsuit · The Roundup

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Lookout News Roundup, your weekly news podcast from the desert Southwest, brought to you by the region's only LGBTQ accountability news outlet, and I'm your host, Joseph Darius Chafari.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the second full week of October, and I'm here with all the headlines for this week.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're starting in southern Arizona, where a protest against border wall construction turned into a seven-hour standoff.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lookout reports a protester who locked themselves to a gravel truck in Low Keel says a Border Patrol agent threatened to take them to, quote, a place where nobody can hear you scream, according to multiple witnesses.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: The standoff came two days after agents raided the protest camp, arrested at least 20 people, and cut down a cottonwood activist called Grandmother.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Border Patrol says agents responded to alleged violations and an alleged assault on a federal officer.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Staying in Arizona, the congressional candidate who says she was raped while repairing a campaign sign is now facing attacks from conservative podcasters.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Phoenix New Times reports the hosts of the Charlie Kirk show called Bernadette Green Placentia's account a quote hoax and a politically motivated Hail Mary.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: New Times says six people close to her corroborated details of what she described.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Her communications director called the attempt to discredit a survivor disgusting.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Also in Arizona, trans youth on Medicaid are losing coverage for gender-affirming care.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: LGBTQ Nation reports Arizona and Virginia, both led by Democratic governors, will no longer cover the care for minors now that a new Trump administration rule took effect Tuesday.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Other Democratic-led states, including California and Maine, are covering it with state-only funds, while Democratic attorneys general challenged the rule in court.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Arizona youth who started hormones or puberty blockers on or before October 13th will keep coverage for six months.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: The advocate reports former Arizona Senate candidate Carrie Lake implied that James Talarico, an LGBTQ ally, took time off the campaign trail for gender-affirming surgery.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Tallerico's campaign had already said he was recovering from the flu, which hit him harder because he has type 1 diabetes.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The nine-day gap between his public appearances didn't even line up with the recovery time in Lake's own post.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now over to Colorado, where a fight from more than 30 years ago is shaping this year's ballot.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lookout reports propositions 134 and 135 follow the same strategy as Amendment 2, the 1992 anti-gay measure that earned Colorado the nickname its hate state moniker by putting LGBTQ rights directly to voters.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The measure now would restrict trans students in school sports and ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: One of the measures' backers say passing them would make Colorado the first blue state to adopt such a law by popular vote.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And money is pouring into Colorado's ballot fights.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Colorado Sun reports millions of dollars from conservative groups that don't disclose their donors have flowed in to oppose two tax measures, Amendment 87 and Proposition NN.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: On the trans youth measures, Families Not Politics, the coalition opposing Propositions 134 and 135, they've raised about$1.7 million, while the communities backing them haven't reported raising much at all.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now onto national news.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The administration argues the lower court substituted its own judgment for the Bureau of Prisons, while the prisoners say the Bureau never gave a reasoned explanation for ending care it had provided for decades.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: In Pennsylvania, a transgender preschool teacher says he lost his job after he got pregnant.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Lehighvalleylive.com reports Drew Zeligman filed a federal lawsuit Friday saying the Goddard School in Upper Salkin Township fired him for being trans.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: According to the lawsuit, co-workers treated him coldly after learning he was trans and he wasn't invited back after going on leave to have his baby.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: In Michigan, a federal jury has sided with two former TV news directors who were fired over a memo about Pride Month coverage.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: MLive reports the jury awarded$4 million to Stanton Tang and Amy Fox, who sued Wood TV 8's parent company, Nextstar Media Group.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They argued they were wrongly portrayed as anti-LGBTQ after the memo leaked to other outlets.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, a new study finds AI image tools lean on stereotypes about what gay people look like.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Writing in the conversation, a researcher with Rochester Institute of Technology found that OpenAI and Google's image models refused to say whether a face looked gay or straight, but readily edited photos to make people look them that way.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Google's Gemini compiled more than 99% of the images most of the time, and both models altered faces to look like someone with a criminal record when asked.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the roundup for this week.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget you can get this exact news roundup and more by going to lookoutnews.org and subscribing to our newsletter.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: You'll also get our other newsletters, including our weekly events calendar, to help plan your weekend legislative newsletters covering what's happening in the Capitol in your neck of the woods.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay safe, stay informed, and look out for each other.