A gay Kansas couple found what they thought was the perfect wedding venue, until the owner told them her “deeply held religious beliefs” prevented her from celebrating their marriage.
Wichita residents Ali Waggy and Jessica Robinson, who got engaged in July, toured the Barn at Grace Hill, a venue in Newton, earlier this month, the Wichita Eagle reported. Even before touring, Waggy said she knew she wanted to get married there, because “their barn is beautiful.”
After the tour, Waggy said she followed up with an email about moving forward with booking the venue, but she received a “heart-crushing” response from the venue owner, Amanda Balzer, the Eagle reported.
“While our deeply held religious beliefs keeps us from celebrating anything but marriage between a man and woman, we desire to serve everyone equally and do not want to keep anyone from using our building who would like to,” Balzer wrote, according to a screenshot of the email that Waggy shared in a Facebookpost Jan. 8. “Our hearts are to serve, regardless of race, creed, color, origin, sexual orientation, gender or marital status, while maintaining our convictions and beliefs as well. All couples legally permitted to marry in Kansas are welcome to use The Barn at Grace Hill. Sharing this with you is the only way we have found that allows everyone to move forward in the most authentic way possible.”
Neither the couple nor Balzer immediately returned requests for comment.
Waggy wrote on Facebook that she “cried all night” after receiving the email. She also asked friends for inclusive venue recommendations.
She didn’t expect that her post would go viral, having now been shared more than 600 times and received more than 700 comments.
“Everybody’s marriage, I think, deserves to be celebrated so if somebody’s going to openly tell you we’re not going to celebrate your marriage, then you need to go somewhere where you’re celebrated and not just tolerated,” Waggy told KAKE-TV, a local ABC affiliate.
In an updated Facebook post Thursday, Waggy shared there is a “happy ending” to her and Robinson’s story. She said she received a message earlier this week from Joy Amore-Bishop — the owner of a soon-to-be opened venue in Derby, Kansas, called Heritage Meadow Estate — who wanted to offer the couple the use of the venue for their wedding, which would have cost $12,000, at no charge.
“We get to keep our wedding date we had planned, & the venue is even more gorgeous than we could have ever dreamed!” Waggy wrote on Facebook Thursday. “But most importantly they support & celebrate ALL love! We are so incredibly grateful for her & her generosity.”
Amore-Bishop told KAKE-TV that she wanted to “overshadow any kind of negativity that they may have felt in the beginning.”
“Honestly it was like my mama bear heart that just wanted to wrap her in a hug and make her know that not everybody feels that way,” she told KAKE.
Waggy said in her post Thursday that as her experience with Robinson received more attention, she realized it wasn’t just about them or how they were treated.
“It was about using our voice to speak up, even when it was scary with the hope to raise awareness of our experience & save as many people as we could from feeling ‘uncelebrated’ in what should be one of the most exciting times of their lives; & I truly hope that’s what happens,” she wrote.
Two of the country’s largest transgender rights organizations are merging, telling NBC News that joining forces will allow them to better combat years of conservative efforts to roll back trans rights.
The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, a group that focuses primarily on federal policy reform, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, or TLDEF, which works to advance trans rights through litigation, will merge by this summer to become Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE.
“We’ll be able to operate with double the influence, double the power,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of NCTE, who will assume the same position at Advocates for Trans Equality. “At a time when states are considering a record number of anti-transgender bills, trans voices are needed now more than ever, and we have to be operating at a different scale.”
The merger comes amid what many advocates have described as a crisis for LGBTQ people, but especially transgender people. Conservative lawmakers introduced more than 500 bills targeting LGBTQ people last year, shattering the previous year’s record of 315. The majority of that legislation targeted trans minors, either by seeking to restrict their ability to play on school sports teams or limit their access to transition-related medical care.
From left, Kris Hayashi, former executive director of the Transgender Law Center; Andy Marra; and Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen at Capitol Hill.Courtesy Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund
Twenty-three states have passed laws barring trans students from playing school sports on teams consistent with their gender identities, as opposed to their sexes assigned at birth, and the same number have restricted or banned trans minors from accessing gender-affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Andrea Hong Marra, TLDEF’s executive director, who will become the CEO of Advocates for Trans Equality, said TLDEF has grown significantly since she joined in 2018 — from a staff of four to 27 and a budget of about $830,000 to $4.5 million — and has secured a number of significant legal wins for trans people. But, she said, one thought still keeps her up at night: “It’s not enough.”
Then came the wake-up call, Marra said. In February 2022, Texas’ Department of Family and Protective Services began investigating parents who were suspected of having provided their minor children with transition-related care — the first time state officials had ordered such investigations. She said she took Amtrak down from New York City to meet with Heng-Lehtinen at his home in Washington, D.C.
Heng-Lehtinen said they decided “we need something cataclysmic, and that’s how we came up with this idea of merging” the organizations, both founded in 2003.
The merger, Marra said, is not about business. Both organizations’ revenues have grown over the last few years, according to public documents. And all staffers at NCTE and TLDEF will keep their jobs through the merger, Marra and Heng-Lehtinen said.
“This is a values decision,” Marra said. “This is about strengthening our movement and giving trans activists a real opportunity to lead and drive progress towards equality and freedom.”
Heng-Lehtinen and Marra agreed that national nonprofit groups like theirs need to be doing more for trans people and that merging will allow them to do that.
Heng-Lehtinen said NCTE and other groups have secured major wins for trans people in recent years, which, in turn, led to increased conservative backlash. For example, the center worked for years to make the Transportation Security Administration’s screening process more gender-neutral to avoid invasive and humiliating searches that trans people have often faced and criticized. The State Department also began offering a gender-neutral X marker on passports in 2021, and nearly half of states have passed laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in public accommodations and housing. Public support for same-sex marriage has also remained high, at 71%.
“We have, little by little, seen the public understand more accurately what it means to be transgender and start to see us as full human beings,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “So the opposition really took note of this and tried to assess how do they roll back that tide, and that’s when they decided to go after trans kids, because they are the least understood out of the whole LGBTQ spectrum. And by attacking trans kids and exploiting the public’s lack of familiarity, they can make inroads to erode public support and LGBT rights writ large.”
Heng-Lehtinen said that when he took over, he wanted to address the concerns, which took time and affected the organization’s capacity. He said he worked to help change 100 of the policies in the organization’s employee handbook and overhauled how it approaches transparency and management. NCTE also worked to build close relationships with grassroots trans rights groups in states that face an onslaught of legislation targeting trans people.
He said the organization will also release more information about the results of its U.S. Transgender Survey soon. In 2016, the organization released its first U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest survey of trans people, which has been used by Congress and the Supreme Court. The group intended to release the second version of the survey in 2020, but the release was delayed by the internal strife and then the coronavirus pandemic. The survey was also delayed, Heng-Lehtinen said, because it received so many responses — more than triple the roughly 28,000 it received in 2015.
Bringing the organizations together, Marra said, will allow Advocates for Trans Equality and the movement for trans rights in general to better weather the kinds of storms trans people are facing.
“I think that this merger is going to create greater hope for not just the activists that give 125% each and every day, but also the kiddos and their parents at home in their communities across the country that are looking for the national voice for trans rights,” Marra said.
On Wednesday, the unions for the two nonprofits — NCTE United and the Union of Legal Workers for Trans Liberation — shared a joint statement on Instagram saying they are “excited to join forces” but noted that neither union was “involved in any planning of this merger.”The statement said management staffers were offered salary increases and bonuses if they chose to stay or three months severance pay if they chose to leave but “management has yet to propose any such benefits for the union.”
The unions added that they are concerned the combined organization “may intend to continue the practice exhibited by TLDEF and NCTE management of prioritizing management and executive level hires while ignoring staff needs for programmatic union positions.”
In response to the statement from their unions, NCTE and TLDEF said in a joint email statement that they have started working with the unions now that their intent to merge is public.
“We want bargaining to work as it should, and are committed to working with the unions as employees have a crucial role in shaping the new organization, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE), and fostering a workplace that is fair and just,” the email said, in part.
Ohio’s governor vetoed a bill Friday that would have restricted both transition-related care for minors and transgender girls’ participation on school sports teams.
In a news conference on Friday after his veto, DeWine said the “gut-wrenching” decision about whether a minor should have access to gender-affirming care “should not be made by the government, should not be made by the state of Ohio,” rather it should be made by the child’s parents and doctors.
Before vetoing the bill, DeWine told The Associated Press that he had visited three children’s hospitals in the state to learn more about transition-related care and spoke to families who were both helped and harmed by it.
“We’re dealing with children who are going through a challenging time, families that are going through a challenging time,” he said. “I want, the best I can, to get it right.”
The Ohio General Assembly, which is controlled by a Republican supermajority, can override the governor’s veto with a three-fifths majority vote.
DeWine’s veto follows weeks of fierce debate and lobbying over the bill. State Rep. Gary Click, a Republican and the bill’s primary sponsor, said this month that minors are “incapable of providing the informed consent necessary to make those very risky and life-changing decisions” regarding their health care, according to WCMH-TV, an NBC affiliate in Columbus.
More than 290 people signed up to speak at an opposition hearing for the bill this month, including a number of physicians, according to WCMH-TV.
One of them, Dr. Christopher Bolling, a retired pediatrician who spoke on behalf of the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told NBC News that the bill targets a very small number of adolescents. Bolling practiced for more than three decades and saw thousands of families before retiring last year. Of those, he said he only worked with 20 to 30 who had persistent gender dysphoria. He referred most of them to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where he said they reported having positive experiences.
Proponents of restrictions on transition care for minors have cited European countries restricting access to such care. However, Bolling noted that none of those countries have banned it; rather, they are questioning it, which he said all doctors do with all types of care. He said there might be disagreement among doctors regarding how to best treat trans minors, but that disagreement isn’t unique to gender-affirming care.
“You get two pediatricians in a room, we can probably talk about the treatment of an ear infection for four hours, and differences of opinions on how to do it,” he said. “There are going to be differences of opinions on how to do any complicated care and this is complicated care. Having legislators come in to say, ‘This is settled and this needs to be treated this way,’ at this point, is ridiculous. They do it under the guise of saying, ‘Well, we just want to take time and find out if it’s really safe.’ Well, if you’re banning it, you’re never going to figure out if it’s safe either.”
Last month, a number of people testified in favor of the bill, which also aimed to restrict trans student-athlete participation. Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who swam against transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, testified that Thomas was “not a one-off,” WCMH-TV reported.
“Across the country and across various sports, female athletes are losing not only titles and awards to males but also roster spots and opportunities to compete,” Gaines said.
Gaines didn’t elaborate on other instances of trans athlete participation that she believed were unfair. However, in 2021, The Associated Press reached out to two dozen state lawmakers who supported restrictions on trans athletes and found that it has created a problem only a few times among the hundreds of thousands of American students playing sports.
In the last three years, 22 states have passed restrictions on transition-related care for minors and 23 states have passed laws prohibiting trans athletes from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.
When a celebrity comes out publicly as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, it may no longer warrant a Time magazine cover or a prime-time television interview, but it’s nonetheless a meaningful revelation for the individual sharing their story and an important milestone for the community as a whole.
Psychologist Robert Eichberg, who co-founded National Coming Out Day with activist Jean O’Leary in 1988, spoke about the broader impact of a person coming out of the proverbial closet three decades ago: “Most people think they don’t know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact everybody does. It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes,” Eichberg said in a 1993 interview, according to his New York Times obituary.
National Coming Out Day is celebrated annually on Oct. 11, a date that was chosen to mark the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the nation’s capital. But lucky for us, LGBTQ people — celebrities or not — come out 365 days a year.
While it would be impossible to honor them all, here are just a few of the countless queer people who came out in 2023.
Noah Schnapp
Noah Schnapp in Paris, on Jan. 19.JM Haedrich / SIPA via AP file
“Stranger Things” star Noah Schnapp came out as gay in a TikTok video posted in January. In a written message that appeared on the video, the 19-year-old actor revealed that when he “finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years,” their response was simply: “We know.”
Bella Ramsey
Bella Ramsey in New York City, on May 1.Evan Agostini / Invision/AP file
“The Last of Us” star Bella Ramsey came out as gender-fluid in an interview published in The New York Times in January. The actor, who first rose to fame in HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones,” told the paper that her “gender has always been very fluid” and said if she sees “nonbinary” as an option on a form, she will tick it. However, she added, “Being gendered isn’t something that I particularly like, but in terms of pronouns, I really couldn’t care less.”
Jakub Jankto
Jakub Jankto of Cagliari during a match in Turin, Italy, on Aug. 21. Jonathan Moscrop / Sportimage/Cal Sport Media via AP file
Czech Republic soccer player Jakub Jankto came out as gay in a video shared on social media in February. “I am homosexual, and I no longer want to hide myself,” he said in the video, which has nearly 18 million views on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Sparta Prague, the professional club Jankto was playing for at the time, retweeted the video, saying, “You have our support. Live your life, Jakube. Nothing else matters.”
Alison Brie
Alison Brie attends the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Mar. 12.Leon Bennett / FilmMagic via Getty Images file
“Freelance” and “GLOW” star Alison Brie came out as bisexual in a video for BuzzFeed News in February, where she and her husband, Dave Franco, were reading thirsty social media posts from fans about each other. At one point, Brie reads a tweet to her husband: “Listen, I am bisexual for a reason, and that reason is strictly to be used in a threesome by Dave Franco and Alison Brie.” Brie and Franco high-five, and then Brie says, “That’s also why I’m bisexual.” Franco responds, “You’ve been waiting for this tweet from someone you don’t know who they are or what they look like?” Brie shrugs and says, “Yeah.”
Mo’Nique
Mo’Nique appears in “My Name is Mo’Nique” in 2022.John Washington Jr.
Comedian and actor Mo’Nique came out as queer in her Netflix comedy special, “My Name Is Mo’Nique,” which debuted in April. She told a tearful story about how she never came out to her grandmother due to her grandmother’s tense relationship with Mo’Nique’s Uncle Tina, who was assigned female at birth but presented masculine, according to the Gay Times. Later in the special, Mo’Nique revealed that she came out to her husband, Sidney Hicks: “I said, ‘Daddy, I want to be with another woman sexually.’ And he look at me, so beautifully and so patient and so loving, and said, ‘B—-, me too.’”
Chloe Veitch
Chloe Veitch at the VIP Watch Party and Celebration for “Love Is Blind: The Live Reunion” in Los Angeles on April 16.John Salangsang / Variety via Getty Images
Chloe Veitch, the star of Netflix’s reality series “Too Hot To Handle,” came out in April in an interview with The Sun. She said “doing breath work forced me to dig deeper.” She added, “I realized, ‘This is what’s bothering you — you’re bisexual and you haven’t told anyone.’ I’ve definitely been battling it, to be honest. I mean, being in and out of little flings with girls. I felt like it was my dirty little secret so it has taken the weight off my shoulders.”
Lauv
Lauv performs during the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball in Washington, D.C., in 2022.Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images for iHeartRadio file
Lauv, the singer-songwriter known for his song “I Like Me Better,” came out in a TikTok in June. The video shows Lauv in what appears to be the back of a car under the text, “When ur dating a girl but ur also a little bit into men.” He added in the caption, “Does it have to be that big of a deal? i havent done much aside from kiss so tbh don’t wannna jump the gun but tbh i feel things and i dont wanna pretend i dont.” Many of his fans were supportive in comments, with one writing, “Lauv is lauv is lauv.”
Miss Benny
Miss Benny attends The Out100 Party in Hollywood, Calif. on Nov. 9.Presley Ann / Getty Images for Out.com file
The lead of Netflix’s show “Glamorous,” which also stars Kim Cattrall, came out as a transgender woman in a June essay for Time magazine. Miss Benny revealed that her character, Marco, would also transition in the show. She said she was afraid to come out as herself on a show featuring a trans character at a time when dozens of states have considered bills to restrict trans rights. “But then I am reminded that this fear is exactly why I wanted to include my transition in the show: Because I know that when I was a terrified queer kid in Texas, it was the queer joy I found in droplets online that guided me to my happiness,” she said.
Adore Delano
Adore Delano performs in San Francisco, on Aug. 12.Annie Lesser/imageSPACE / imageSPACE/Sipa USA via AP file
Former “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestant Adore Delano came out as transgenderin July. In a video shared with her millions of Instagram followers, Delano said she initially came out as trans when she was a teenager but went back in the closet when she competed on “American Idol” in 2008.
Shinjiro Atae
Shinjiro Atae in Hollywood, Calif., on March 27.Frazer Harrison / Getty Images file
Japanese pop star Shinjiro Atae came out as gay at a fan event in Tokyo in July. “For years, I struggled to accept a part of myself … But now after all I have been through, I finally have the courage to open up to you about something,” he told his fans, according to the AP. “I am a gay man.” Atae, who is now based in Los Angeles, performed for 15 years in the popular group AAA before taking a break in 2020.
Gabby Windey
Gabby Windey on “The Bachelor.”Craig Sjodin / ABC via Getty Images file
Former “Bachelorette” star and Denver Broncos cheerleader Gabby Windeyrevealed that she’s in a relationship with writer and comedian Robby Hoffman. In an Instagram post shared in August, Windey included several photos of herself and Hoffman and cheekily wrote, “Told you I’m a girls girl!!”
Wayne Brady
Wayne Brady at the American Music Awards, in Los Angeles, in 2022.Chris Pizzello / Invision/AP file
“Let’s Make a Deal” host Wayne Brady came out as pansexual in an interview with People magazine that was published in August. LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD defines pansexual as a descriptor for someone “who has the capacity to form enduring physical, romantic, and/ or emotional attractions to any person, regardless of gender identity.”
Ncuti Gatwa
Ncuti Gatwa in London in 2022.Samir Hussein / WireImage
“Sex Education” star Ncuti Gatwa came out publicly as queer in an interview with Elle UK published in August. Gatwa, who played one of the Kens in this summer’s wildly popular “Barbie” blockbuster, shared a touching story about meeting “another queer Rwandan person” at Manchester Pride several years ago. At the time, he told the magazine, “I thought I was the only one in the world.”
Joe Locke
Joe Locke in London on July 13, 2023.Fred Duval / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via AP file
“Heartstopper” star Joe Locke plays an openly gay teenager who faces bullying for who he is in the popular coming-of-age series based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novels, but Locke didn’t publicly discuss his sexuality until August.
“People have assumed and written it,” he told Teen Vogue of his sexuality, “and I haven’t ever corrected anyone because I haven’t felt the need to. But I’ve never specifically stated my sexuality.”
He told the magazine that he can’t recall when he first knew he was gay, but that he’s been openly gay since he was about 12.
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens.Colin Young-Wolff / Invision / AP file
Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens seemingly came out in an Instagram post in October about his late partner, Evans Richardson, to whom he dedicated his latest album, “Javelin.” Stevens wrote that Richardson, who died in April, “was one of those rare and beautiful ones you find only once in a lifetime — precious, impeccable, and absolutely exceptional in every way.”
Jade Jolie
Jade Jolie at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Titans” in Hollywood, Calif. in 2022.Araya Doheny / Getty Images file
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 5 contestant Jade Jolie came out as transgender in a short post on X in October, writing, “Deciding to choose myself and move forward with my transition.”
Che Flores
Che Flores referees a basketball game in Phoenix on Nov. 21.Chris Coduto / Getty Images file
Che Flores became the NBA’s first out nonbinary and transgender referee after coming out in October. Flores, who uses they/them pronouns, told GQ being misgendered as she/her “felt like a little jab in the gut,” and that after coming out they could be more comfortable in the world and at work. “I just think of having younger queer kids look at somebody who’s on a high-profile stage and not using it,” Flores told GQ. “And I’m not using the league to an advantage in any way. This is just to let young kids know that we can exist, we can be successful in all different ways.”
Karan Brar
Karan Brar at the premiere of “Murder Mystery 2” in Los Angeles on March 28.Charley Gallay / Getty Images for Netflix file
Karan Brar, who starred in the comedy “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and the Disney Channel’s “Jessie,” penned an emotional essay for Teen Vogue in November in which he came out as bisexual. He wrote that his yearslong struggle with his sexuality and grief over the loss of his friend and fellow Disney star Cameron Boyce led him to develop a “deeply unhealthy relationship with alcohol” until he checked himself in to an inpatient treatment center in 2020. “I still keep things close to the vest online, but the gap between who I am and who I appear to be is shrinking,” Brar wrote. “It’s not closed yet, and it may never be.”
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish performs in Leeds, England on Aug. 25.Matthew Baker / Getty Images for ABA file
Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish said she was surprised when she found out people didn’t know she isn’t straight. The 22-year-old described being attracted to women in a November interview with Variety, saying of women, “I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real.” Earlier this month, she told Variety at an event that she didn’t intend for her comment to be major news. “But I kind of thought, ‘Wasn’t it obvious?’ I didn’t realize people didn’t know,” she said. “I just don’t really believe in it. I’m just like, ‘Why can’t we just exist?’ I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I just didn’t talk about it. Whoops.”
Becky Hormuth and her transgender son, Levi, thought they were protected after a Missouri law banning transition-related care for minors took effect in August.
The law grandfathered in those who had already been receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapy prior to Aug. 28, meaning they, in theory, would be able to continue their treatment. Levi, 16, began receiving testosterone in November of last year.
However, Missouri’s new law also allows providers of transition-related care for minors to be sued by their patients until they turn 36. As a result, the hospital where Levi had been receiving care for more than a year informed patients in September that it would no longer be providing such care, citing the “unsustainable liability” the law creates for health care professionals.
“We both just sat and cried together on the floor of his bedroom,” Becky said of the reaction she and Levi had upon hearing the news. “He connected with those doctors, and they’re like family to us — they know him personally. His big worry was, ‘Who’s going to help me now?’”
The Missouri law that affected Levi’s care is part of a national effort by Republican state lawmakers to restrict LGBTQ rights. More than 500 state bills targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people have been introduced in 2023, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union. Of those bills, 75 became law, according to an NBC News analysis of the ACLU’s data.
The plurality of those laws — 21, including Missouri’s — are restrictions on transition-related care for minors, while 11 of them bar transgender student-athletes from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identities. Ten of the laws limit classroom instruction on LGBTQ issues and/or the use of pronounswithin school that don’t align with a person’s birth sex, and eight restrict which restrooms trans people can use in schools or other publicly owned buildings. The remaining laws restrict drag performances in front of minors, define a person’s sex in state law as that which was assigned at birth, and create additional barriers for trans people to change the sex on their birth certificates, among other measures.
Though 2023 was a record year for legislation targeting LGBTQ people, some advocates and experts say those who support LGBTQ rights are still coming out ahead, since just 75 of the approximately 500 bills proposed have become law, or about 15%.
Becky said she has been planning for Missouri’s trans health care restrictions since the spring, when state officials started trying to limit minors’ access to transition-related care. At the time, she said, she didn’t know whether Levi would be grandfathered in. She hasn’t missed a refill for Levi’s testosterone and has rationed it so they have enough for next year.
Becky and Levi Hormuth will have to travel nearly five hours to Chicago to access transition-related care.Courtesy Becky Hormuth
Sitting in his mom’s car outside of his therapist’s office one day last month after school, Levi said he was worn out from the back-and-forth over whether he will have access to his health care.
“I’ve been hit with multiple waves of depression recently, and I’ve been lacking in my schoolwork because of all this,” he said.
In the spring, in addition to ensuring she has plenty of testosterone for Levi, Becky said she also reached out to the gender development program at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago — a nearly five-hour drive from their home — to get on its waitlist in anticipation of Missouri passing the ban. She said she hopes Levi will have his first appointment there early next year.
The Hormuths and others affected by laws targeting LGBTQ people have been waiting for judges to rule on lawsuits filed against the measures.
So far, judges have issued temporary blocks, either partial or full, against gender-affirming care restrictions passed this year in Florida, Georgia, Montana and Indiana. Judges have upheld restrictions on gender-affirming care passed this year in Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas.
The plaintiffs in the Tennessee case appealed to the Supreme Court last month. If the court decides to take the case, it would be the first time it has considered a restriction on puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for minors.
In the meantime, Levi said, the climate at his school has become more hostile. In one case, he said kids threw things at him on the bus and called him slurs. The incident was caught on camera, Becky said, and Francis Howell School District, where Becky is also a teacher, found that two students violated a district policy against harassment based on race, gender, sexuality and other protected categories when they made derogatory comments about Levi’s gender identity and threw objects at him, according to a letter provided to NBC News that the district sent to the Hormuths.
Jennifer Jolis, a spokesperson for the district, said it cannot comment on matters involving specific students due to privacy laws.
Restrictions on school instruction, sports participation
Educational institutions — from public elementary schools to private colleges that receive state funding — have become ground zero for the conservative-led effort to limit LGBTQ rights and access to information about the community. State bills signed into law this year have affected classroom instruction, extracurricular participation and access to sex-segregated school facilities, among other things.
Eleven states now have laws affecting what teachers can say about LGBTQ issues and how they can show up at work, with all but one of these measures having been passed this year.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds the signed Parental Rights in Education act flanked by elementary school students at Classical Preparatory school in Spring Hill, Fla., on March 28, 2022.Douglas R. Clifford / Tampa Bay Times via AP
When the law was initially signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March 2022, it prohibited “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.” The measure was then expanded in May to prohibit such classroom instruction from prekindergarten through eighth grade, restrict health education in sixth through 12th grade, and restrict what pronouns teachers and students can use.
After signing the first iteration of the bill, DeSantis said it ensures children will get “an education, not an indoctrination.” The expanded version, he said earlier this year, ensures teachers and students won’t be “forced to declare pronouns in school or be forced to use pronouns not based on biological sex.”
One of the three teachers who sued the state, AV Schwandes, who also goes by AV Vary, was fired in October for using the gender-neutral honorific “Mx.” instead of “Ms.” or “Mr.” in emails and other school communications.
Schwandes began using “Mx.” at the start of the school year, and a few weeks later the principal at Florida Virtual School, where Schwandes taught high school science, requested that Schwandes use a traditional honorific. When Schwandes refused, they received a directive, which they provided to NBC News, that said they had to change their courtesy title to comply with the law.
In mid-September, when Schwandes initially refused to change their honorific to “Ms.” or “Mr.,” they were suspended. They said they then suggested other gender-neutral titles they could use such as “professor,” “teacher” or “coach,” but Schwandes said staffers in the human resources department told them professor was a title used in college environments and not K-12 schools. Schwandes was terminated six weeks later, on Oct. 24, because they would not change their title.
The Florida Virtual School said in an emailed statement: “As a Florida public school, FLVS is obligated to follow Florida laws and regulations pertaining to public education. This includes laws … pertaining to the use of Personal Titles and Pronouns within Florida’s public school system.”
In addition to their lawsuit, Schwandes filed a complaint last month with the Florida Commission on Human Relations and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging the school discriminated against them based on their gender identity and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, the largest education workers union in the state, said he has heard from many LGBTQ teachers who are afraid of displaying photos of their families on their desks. He said what he hears from teachers the most is that the parental rights law and others restricting education in the state make it harder for them to do their jobs.
“The biggest question we get from teachers is if a student raises an issue that’s relevant to the class discussion, but it’s talking about gender or gender identity or sexual orientation,” Spar said. “Do we have to stop that conversation? And that’s where a lot of the confusion comes in.”
Currently, 23 states have laws on the books restricting which school sports teams transgender athletes can join, with about half of those laws being passed this year. Proponents of these measures say they help ensure fairness in women’s sports, while critics say they lack scientific evidence to prove trans women have an unfair advantage and that they marginalize trans students.
A Florida high school made national headlines last month when hundreds of its students staged a walkout after their principal and several other school officials were reportedly reassigned due to a trans student’s participation on the girls volleyball team. Earlier this week, the school was fined and put on probation, while the student has been barred from participating in any school sports for 11 months.
Students at at Monarch High School in Coconut Creek, Fla., staged a walkout after school officials were reportedly reassigned due to a trans student’s participation on the girls volleyball team. NBC South Florida
The laws specific to education have also trickled down to affect schools’ internal policies and school boards.
Last month, a Texas high school removed a trans student from his lead role in the school’s production of “Oklahoma!,” citing a new school policy that said students must play theater roles that match the sex on their birth certificates. After backlash from the largely conservative local community, the Sherman Independent School District reversed that decision and reinstated the student, Max Hightower, and other students who weren’t trans but had lost their roles playing characters that didn’t match their birth sex.
The rise and fall of drag bans
This year was the first to see state lawmakers file bills restricting drag performances in front of minors and/or in public spaces, which supporters of the legislation argue are necessary to protect children from inappropriate entertainment.
Lawmakers in at least 16 states introduced restrictions targeting drag in 2023, according to an NBC News analysis. Just six became law, and so far, they have been the least likely to hold up to judicial scrutiny.
Trans rights activists march past the state Capitol during a protest of anti-drag laws in Nashville, Tenn., on Feb. 14, 2023.John Amis / AP Images for Human Rights Campaign file
Judges struck down two laws in Tennessee and Texas and temporarily blocked a restriction in Florida and another in Montana that specifically regulates events at public libraries where drag performers read to children.
Laws in Arkansas and North Dakota were so watered down during state legislative debates that advocates no longer consider them to be targeting drag.
Bracing for 2024
As Becky and Levi continue to grapple with the effects of Missouri’s trans care ban, they are anxiously looking ahead to the next legislative session in January. Becky said she fears 2024 could usher in more legislation targeting Levi and other LGBTQ people in the state. She cited recent reporting by independent journalist and advocate Erin Reed, who found that Missouri lawmakers have prefiled at least 21 bills targeting LGBTQ people.
“Some days when I wake up, I have that constant worry, because today is another day that’s gone by or going by, and it’s another day that’s closer to January,” Becky said.
It’s not just state laws that have her anxious about the new year: The school board for Levi’s district is also considering a policy to ban trans students from using the bathrooms that align with their gender identities. This led Levi, a senior, to decide that he won’t return to school for his last semester and will instead take his final credit either over the summer at his high school or at the local community college. As a result, he will miss homecoming, prom and graduation. Becky said she and her husband plan to sue if the bathroom policy is passed. The Francis Howell School District Board of Education did not return a request for comment.
Jolis, the district spokesperson, said the district does not comment on threatened or pending litigation, though she did confirm that a policy addressing restroom and locker room access had been proposed.
Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and director of the school’s LGBTQ Politics Research Initiative, said the country likely hasn’t seen the end of legislation targeting LGBTQ people because it’s heading into an election year.
Early tracking of next year’s bills shows Magni could be right. Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist for the ACLU, said the nonprofit is tracking 212 bills targeting LGBTQ people that have either been prefiled for the 2024 session or carried over from the 2023 session.
Magni said many of the bills that have become law in the last several years have succeeded in part because their supporters frame them as protecting children. He said the reason the majority of the bills did not pass is likely because they were not intended to pass in the first place. He said many Republican officials use them to drum up media attention, fundraise and drive voters to polls.
At the same time, he said, the fact that 2023 is still a record year for the proposal and passage of anti-LGBTQ laws shows that the tactic is spreading across states because Republicans now believe such legislation is necessary to be accepted by and supported within their party. In 2022, conservative lawmakers introduced more than 300 bills targeting LGBTQ people, and just 29 became law (less than 10%), according to the Human Rights Campaign. In 2021, lawmakers introduced more than 250 such bills, and 17 became law (about 7%), according to the HRC.
“This became a sort of vicious cycle in which no one wanted to be left behind,” Magni said. “They don’t want to be seen as less conservative or less active on these, and so in some cases in some states, we see the introduction of bills just more to not fall behind in these conservative ranking credentials rather than hoping that it will become legislation.”
Phillip, Amy and Max Hightower fought for Max to be reinstated to his lead role in a Texas high school production of “Oklahoma!”Courtesy Phillip Hightower
Phillip Hightower, whose trans son, Max, was removed and then reinstated in his school’s production of “Oklahoma!,” said he and his family won their fight for Max because more parents spoke out once they realized they had support, both within their mostly conservative community and across the country.
“Once it started to gain traction nationally, they felt safer,” he said.
Quoting 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” Hightower said, “We’ve got friends out there. They’ll come if they know there’s hope.”
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, a transgender teen at the center of a legal battle over transgender participation in West Virginia sports, after a hearing in Richmond, Va., on Friday. Shuran Huang for NBC News
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, sat in a courtroom Friday morning while lawyers argued over a law in her home state of West Virginia that would ban her from running on the girls’ cross-country and track teams at her middle school.
The hearing in front of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals was the most recent update in her more than two-year legal battle, which began in May 2021, when she was 11, a month after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill that bars transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams in middle school, high school and college.
The appeals court will decide whether the law will take effect, and its decision could also start a chain of events that could land Becky’s case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Becky has been allowed to run on her school’s cross country team and throw discus and shot put on the track and field team since the appeals court reinstated a previous injunction against the law in February. The state of West Virginia appealed that verdict to the Supreme Court, which in April rejected reinstating the ban during the lawsuit.
Becky Pepper-Jackson and her mother, Heather Jackson, after a hearing in Richmond, Va., on Friday. Shuran Huang for NBC News
Becky’s mom, Heather, said Becky will often stay late at track and field practice. Sometimes she’ll even practice discus and shot put in their backyard in the rain.
“She likes to do the best in everything, be it algebra or running or shot put or discus,” Heather said. “She tries to excel in everything that she does, just like any other kid.”
Becky said she’s continued her fight after all this time because she loves playing sports.
“I want to keep going because this is something I love to do, and I’m not just going to give it up,” she said. “This is something I truly love, and I’m not going to give up for anything.”
‘It shouldn’t be that hard to be a kid’
Running has always been a family sport for Becky. She has run with her mom and her two brothers since she was a small child, though her running routine has changed slightly since one of her brothers went to high school and Heather is waiting on a knee replacement.
In the meantime, Becky, who is in eighth grade, has thrown herself into discus and shot put. She said she does two types of training for it. Sometimes, she works on her form while throwing lighter or bigger discs or spheres. Most of the time, she said she and her teammates go into what’s called “the pit,” and they get to throw with the high school students. She said she likes how discus and shot put are “polar opposites.”
“With shot put, it’s more like just throw it really hard and hope for the best. You have to be really aggressive,” Becky said. “But in discus, it’s very graceful and all about speed instead, which is what I like best about it.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va.Shuran Huang for NBC News
West Virginia was among the first states to restrict some or all trans student athletes from playing on school sports teams consistent with their gender identities. Just days after Justice signed the bill in April 2021, he was unable to provide an example of a trans student athlete in the state trying to gain an unfair advantage.
Rather, Justice relied on his experience as a sports coach to justify the law. “I coach a girls’ basketball team, and I can tell you that we all know what an absolute advantage boys would have playing against girls,” he told MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle at the time.
Heather said she and Becky decided to file the lawsuit because, “if she didn’t start the fight, who’s going to?”
She said their lives haven’t changed much over the last two years, though they are more aware of their surroundings when they’re out in public, since their photos are online and some people might recognize them.
“At school, her friends still treat her exactly the same, her teachers treat her exactly the same,” Heather said. “She’s just a regular kid that just wants to play, so that hasn’t changed at all.”
Ahead of the hearing Friday, Heather said they were hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, jokes with her mother, Heather Jackson, outside court. Shuran Huang for NBC News
“We don’t like to be in the spotlight,” Heather said. “We’re just country people from West Virginia, so it’s a little overwhelming. I’m nervous for her, because I know what joy she gets from doing her sports, and every kid needs sports. It’s just a moral foundation they need to get. They learn responsibility, they learn camaraderie, they learn that people depend on them. And I see how much fun she has.”
In the last three years, 23 states in addition to West Virginia have passed similar restrictions on trans student athletes, with many of their supporters making arguments similar to Justice — that trans girls have an inherent advantage over cisgender girls, or those who aren’t transgender. Courts have temporarily blocked laws in West Virginia, Idaho and Arizona. A court has also permanently blocked Montana’s law as it applies to colleges, but not for K-12 schools.
Becky said it’s been “disappointing” to watch state after state pass trans athlete restrictions during her lawsuit. Heather said she gets upset “because it seems to be the issue du jour.”
“Politicians are out there fighting for votes, and they just jump on a bandwagon without ever researching it for themselves, when if people would just do their own research, the biology and the science is out there to prove what we’re looking for,” Heather said. “We just want to be accepted, and she just wants to be a kid. It shouldn’t be that hard to be a kid.”
An ‘equal and fair playing field’
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, which are representing Becky, argue that West Virginia’s law is discriminatory and violates Title IX, a federal law that protects students from sex-based discrimination, and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
During Friday’s hearing in front of the 4th Circuit, Becky’s lawyer, Joshua Block of the ACLU, said Becky has received puberty-blocking medication, which has prevented her from going through testosterone-driven puberty and receiving any potential physical advantage. West Virginia’s law, he argued, “goes out of its way to select criteria that do not create athletic advantage but do a perfect job of accomplishing the function of excluding transgender students based on their transgender status.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va.Shuran Huang for NBC News
The law “could have been drafted to actually adopt criteria that are relevant to athletic performance, but it doesn’t,” Block argued. “It picks criteria that define being transgender.”
Lindsay See, the solicitor general for West Virginia, argued that the district court, in ruling in favor of the law, “got it right that sports is a uniquely strong case for differences rooted in biology and call for sex-based distinctions to help ensure an equal and fair playing field.”
See also noted that experts for both the state and the plaintiff established that there is at least a slight inherent physical difference between trans girls and cisgender girls even prior to puberty. This, See argued, justifies the law. However, Block argued in rebuttal that the state’s expert conceded that any differences before puberty are “minimal.”
Block estimated that the court could release its decision in the next three to six months.
“We really hope that the judges were able to recognize this for what it was, which was discrimination against trans girls solely based on the fact that they’re trans,” he said in a phone call after Friday’s hearing.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, 13, and her mother, Heather Jackson.Shuran Huang for NBC News
Regardless of how the court decides, an appeal is almost guaranteed. Whichever party does appeal will have the opportunity to appeal to the entire 4th Circuit or to the Supreme Court. The ACLU is also litigating a similar law in Idaho and is awaiting a decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Depending on the outcome, that case could also be appealed to the high court.
One of the 4th Circuit judges acknowledged the stakes of the outcome at the end of Friday’s hearing.
“I want to thank all counsel for their arguments today, realizing we’re probably only a waystation on the way to the Supreme Court,” Judge G. Steven Agee said.
Brian Kerekes, a high school statistics teacher in Florida, said he froze like “a deer in headlights” when a student asked him a personal question at the beginning of the school year this month.
He said the student looked around the classroom, saw a small Pride flag, then asked, “Are you gay?”
Kerekes said that his identity is no secret and that he is one of a few out gay teachers in his school. But under a new state law that restricts the instruction of LGBTQ topics, he feared that his answer could somehow be illegal, he said.
“I said something to the effect of, ‘I don’t think I can tell you that,’” Kerekes said. “And she’s like, ‘Why not?’ And I said, ‘It’s kind of the state law now.’”
Brian Kerekes.Brian Kerekes
Kerekes said the exchange is just one example of the variety of difficult situations that he and his colleagues in Osceola County have had to navigate under Florida’s recently expanded Parental Rights in Education act, or what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Battles over what content is appropriate for children — in books, history classes, health classes and elsewhere — are dominating school board meetings and state legislatures across the country. In most of these debates, one side portrays LGBTQ-inclusive curricula and transgender-inclusive school policies as inappropriate or harmful for minors, with some conservative activists and elected officials going so far as to describe such content as “grooming,” resurfacing a decades-old moral panic about queer people.
Nowhere has that battle been more pronounced than in Florida, which made national headlines in the spring of 2022 when the state Legislature debated — and Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, ultimately signed — the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill. Initially, the measure prohibited “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” DeSantis signed an expanded version of the law in May that prohibits such instruction from prekindergarten through eighth grade and restricts health education in sixth through 12th grade.
Seventeen states enacted more than 30 new LGBTQ-related education laws in 2023, which will all be in effect for the 2023-24 school year unless they are blocked in court, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
In addition to Florida, five states — Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina — enacted restrictions this year on LGBTQ-related instruction in schools. Currently, 11 states have laws censoring discussions of LGBTQ people or issues in schools and several additional states have laws requiring parental notification of LGBTQ-inclusive curricula, according to the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, an LGBTQ research think tank.
Iowa’s prohibition on the instruction of LGBTQ-related topics in kindergarten through sixth grade includes additional provisions that require school libraries to conduct regular reviews to ensure books don’t include sexually explicit material, allow parents to opt their children out of sex education and mandate school staff to immediately inform parents if they believe a child “has expressed a gender identity that is different” than the sex on the child’s birth certificate.
Ten states enacted new laws that bar transgender student athletes from playing on the school sports teams that align with their gender identities, bringing the total to 23 states, according to MAP, with the majority of these state measures applying to both K-12 schools and colleges.
Seven states have new laws that bar schools from requiring teachers (and, in some cases, other students) from using pronouns for students that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth. Florida’s expanded Parental Rights in Education act also bars transgender teachers from sharing their pronouns with students.
Five states have enacted laws so far this year that bar trans students and school staff from using school facilities that align with their gender identities, bringing the current total to nine states with such laws, according to MAP.
Florida also enacted a law that prohibits colleges and universities from spending state and federal funds on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The law also restricts courses that could promote “social activism,” such as race and gender studies.
‘Educated, not indoctrinated’
Supporters of restrictions on LGBTQ-related content argue that it is inappropriate for children, and that parents should be allowed to determine their children’s access to such information.
“Parents deserve the first say on when and how certain social topics are introduced to their children,” Iowa state Rep. Skyler Wheeler, the Republican who sponsored the state’s parental rights law, said in March after the bill passed the state House, according to the Des Moines Register.
He added that “parents should be able to send their children to school and trust they are being educated, not indoctrinated,” nearly quoting language used by DeSantis when he signed the original version of Florida’s parental rights law.
DeSantis defended the expansion of the law after signing it in May, saying teachers and students would “never be forced to declare pronouns in school or be forced to use pronouns not based on biological sex.”
“We never did this through all of human history until like, what, two weeks ago?” DeSantis said of people using pronouns that are different from those associated with their assigned sex. “Now this is something, they’re having third graders declare pronouns. We’re not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida. It’s not happening here.”
Students and educators ‘are under assault’
Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country, which represents public school teachers and staff, said the laws have created a culture of fear among educators nationwide.
“We are in a moment where our students are under assault, teachers and other educators are under assault, parents are under assault,” said Pringle, who taught middle school science for 31 years. “People are afraid. They’re afraid for their livelihood. They’re afraid for their lives.”
Pringle noted that the teacher shortage is “chronic and growing” across the country because teachers are dealing with unprecedented challenges, including the effects of the pandemic, burnout and low pay.
She pointed to a 2022 NEA survey that found 55% of its members said they were planning on leaving education sooner than they intended because of the pandemic, compared to 37% in 2021. On top of that, she said teachers have told her they feel like the public doesn’t respect their expertise, and the new laws are an example of that.
“That’s at the heart of what’s happening right now, where people who haven’t spent a day in our classrooms are telling us what to teach and how to teach and who to teach,” Pringle said. “We spend our lives trying to create those culturally responsive, inclusive, caring, joyful environments for kids, because we know that’s at the heart of them being able to learn every day.”
Michael Woods, a high school special education teacher in Palm Beach County, Florida, said he has encountered a number of difficult situations under the state’s new law. He has been advising a student for three years who uses a different name and pronouns than those assigned at birth. He said he’ll have to tell that student that he can no longer refer to them that way until they return a state-mandated form signed by their parents.
Michael Woods.Michael Woods
“We’re essentially telling kids, in my opinion, as a gay man, ‘You know what, go back in the closet,’” Woods said. “We’ve taken something as simple as a name that a student calls themselves and made it shameful.”
Lola, a 12-year-old seventh grader in Winter Haven, Florida, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said the state’s new education-related laws have made kids in their school afraid to come out or talk about their identities publicly.
“A lot of students come out to me, because at school I’m openly queer and nonbinary,” Lola said.
They said students have also asked them questions about their family, because they have two moms, and in three cases, Lola said teachers told them they can’t discuss their family on school premises.
Lola, right, with their mother, Tsi.Tsi Smyth
Lola’s discussion with their classmates would not break the law, which specifically mentions instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from school staff. But Kerekes said teachers are avoiding LGBTQ subjects entirely out of fear that something they say or do could be interpreted as illegal or reported by a parent, who could sue the school district under the Parental Rights in Education act.
“I’m just talking about my parents,” Lola said. “Students shouldn’t be getting in trouble for talking about their life just because it’s different from the norm.”
Because of the part of Florida’s law that bars students from using bathrooms that don’t align with their assigned sex at birth, Lola said they have to walk to the nurse’s office, which is in a separate building, to use a unisex bathroom.
Lola said there are other trans kids at school who are too shy to ask to use a different bathroom, so they’ll avoid using the bathroom for the entire school day.
Advocates say legislation that removes LGBTQ-inclusive books and curricula or allows teachers to use the wrong pronouns for students harms their mental health, while supportive policies do the opposite.
Research released Thursday by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that LGBTQ middle and high school students who had access to one of four school-related protective factors — gender-neutral bathrooms, LGBTQ-inclusive history lessons, a gender-sexuality alliance (GSA) club or teachers that respect their pronouns — had 26% lower odds of attempting suicide.
In Osceola County, Kerekes said he has inherited his school’s GSA club from a teacher who left last year. Some teachers in Florida, including Woods, have stopped hosting club meetings temporarily because they’re not sure how the new law affects them, but Kerekes said he will continue his school’s and hopes to have the first meeting this week.
More than 100 transgender men have entered the Miss Italy pageant this week, according to an activist leading a protest against recent comments by the pageant’s organizer, who said trans women wouldn’t be allowed to compete.
The comments came after another European pageant, Miss Netherlands, crowned its first transgender winner, Rikkie Valerie Kollé, this month. About a week later, Patrizia Mirigliani, the official organizer of Miss Italy, told an Italian radio station that Miss Italy wouldn’t allow trans women to compete.
“Lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news using strategies that I think are a bit absurd,” Mirigliani said, according to the Italian news outlet Il Primato Nazionale.
She added that Miss Italy has historically allowed only people who were assigned female at birth to enter, “probably because, even then, it was foreseen that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women,” according to Il Primato Nazionale.
Trans activist Federico Barbarossa, who lives in Bari, a town in southern Italy, said that he became angry when he saw Mirigliani’s comments but that he was “also kind of amused by it, because I was like, ‘Yeah, well, I was assigned female at birth, but they would reject me because I look like a boy, and they would consider me as a boy,’” he said in an interview with NBC News.
Barbarossa decided to enter the pageant under his deadname, or the name he was given at birth, as a form of protest in solidarity with trans women. Barbarossa shared a screenshot of an email he received confirming his registration on Instagram, and then the local LGBTQ nonprofit group he works with, Mixed LGBTQIA+, shared his entry on Facebook with a statement encouraging other trans men to do the same.
The campaign went viral online, Barbarossa said, and he estimates that more than 100 trans men have entered the pageant so far. He said some told him they haveeven been called to selections, which is the next step in the process to find contestants across the country.
Miss Italy organizers “really have to go through every single application,” Barbarossa said. He hopes the protest will “maybe lead them to think better next time.”
“I like to think I’m a little part of Italy’s progress in this sense,” Barbarossa said.
Mirigliani and Miss Italy organizers didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
More beauty pageants have started to include trans women in recent years. In 2018, Angela Ponce became the first trans woman to compete in the Miss Universe pageant. Then, in 2021, Kataluna Enriquez became the first trans woman to compete in the Miss USA pageant after she was crowned Miss Nevada. Some countries, such as Mexico and Thailand, have held separate beauty pageants for trans women.
Federico Barbarossa.Courtesy Federico Barbarossa.
Barbarossa said he thinks beauty pageants try to exclude trans women in part because they simply don’t understand them or have false ideas about what it means to be trans.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating after a deputy threw a transgender man to the ground, punched him and held him down as the man called for help. During the encounter, which was caught on recently released surveillance video, the man could be heard telling the deputy that he couldn’t breathe and at one point said, “You’re going to kill me.”
Emmett Brock, 24, told NBC News he was driving home from his job as a teacher in February when he passed a deputy who appeared to be having a heated conversation with a woman on the side of the road. Brock said he gave the deputy the middle finger as he drove by, and that a patrol vehicle started following him, but the deputy never turned on the vehicle’s sirens or lights.
Emmett Brock.Courtesy Emmett Brock
He said the vehicle tailgated him through several blocks of a residential neighborhood, so he called 911 to ask if he was being pulled over even though there were no lights or sirens.
“I was told if there were no lights and sirens, then I wasn’t being pulled over and could continue to where I was going,” Brock said.
Brock pulled into a 7-Eleven in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb, and Deputy Joseph Benza parked behind Brock’s vehicle, according to video from the store’s security cameras that Tom Beck, Brock’s attorney, provided to NBC News.
Brock exited his vehicle and, as he closed his car door, Benza said, “I stopped you,” the video shows. Brock responded, “No, you didn’t,” with the knowledge that he had called 911 to check, he said. But then he said the deputy’s hands were on him, and he immediately panicked and thought, “I’m going to die.”
Benza grabbed him, threw him to the ground and then held Brock for three minutes while repeatedly punching him in the head, the video shows.
“You’re going to kill me,” Brock is heard yelling. “You’re going to f—ing kill me. Help! Help! Help! I’m not resisting!”
Brock said he’s 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 115 pounds, and he estimated Benza is about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds.
“His entire body weight is on top of me, and he flipped me over and threw me on my head,” Brock said, adding that his glasses broke immediately. “I’ve never even been in a fight, I’ve never had a speeding ticket, nothing like that. So I’ve never been punched before, and to have these full-force blows from behind from this deputy that is so much bigger than me, it was just, there’s no way I’m getting out of this alive.”
After the struggle, Benza arrested Brock and put him in the patrol vehicle.
Benza said he pulled Brock over because there was an object hanging from his rearview mirror, and it appeared to obstruct the driver’s forward view in violation of a California code, according to an arrest report Beck provided to NBC News.
Benza wrote in the arrest report that he activated “my patrol vehicle overhead lights, which include a fixed forward-facing red lamp,” though the overhead lights were not on when Benza pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot behind Brock, the video shows.
Benza wrote that he got out of his car and told Brock he “stopped (detained) him,”Brock said he didn’t, and “it appeared he was about to walk away from the car and myself.” He added that Brock’s “rejection of my traffic detention and his apparent intent to distance himself from his vehicle further raised safety concerns.”
“I know from my training and experience that those who possess contraband items inside vehicles commonly attempt to disassociate themselves from their vehicles when law enforcement is present,” Benza wrote.
Benza added that he feared Brock was going to punch him and that Brock “continuously tried to bite” him. He said he punched Brock “approximately eight times in rapid succession.”
“My punches had their intended effect,” Benza wrote, adding that Brock subsequently stopped trying to bite him and wrapped his arms around his own head.
Benza did not reply to a request for comment.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in an emailed statement that it “takes all use of force incidents seriously.”
“The Department is investigating the information and allegations brought forward by Mr. Brock and his attorney,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, we cannot comment any further at this time due to the pending litigation in this matter.”
Brock was booked at the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station, which is part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where he said he told staff he is transgender.
“And the jailer began to just badger me with questions,” Brock said, including, “So, you’re actually a woman?” and “Do you have a penis? If you don’t have a penis, then you’re definitely a woman.”
“I’m seeing him get angrier and angrier every time I deny that I’m a woman,” Brock said. He feared the jail would increase his bail if he argued, so he decided to just nod his head and say “OK.” He added that the gender markers on all of his identity documents say male.
The male jail employee then brought in a female employee who told Brock she was going to need to “see everything,” Brock recalled. So she brought him to a nearby bathroom and he showed her his genitals and explained what surgeries he has had and the effects of testosterone before being placed in a women’s holding cell.
“I’m not sure what I could have shown her on my body that would have been enough for them,” Brock said. “I just felt so demeaned. I felt humiliated. I felt small. Here are these police officers, these sheriff’s deputies telling you to do something while you’re in their custody, and if you don’t want to make it worse for yourself, and you don’t want your bail to be higher and you don’t want to be stuck there longer, you have to comply with anything they say. You are completely powerless.”
The sheriff’s department did not respond to questions regarding Brock’s allegations.
Brock said he was booked on three felony charges of mayhem, resisting arrest and obstruction, along with a misdemeanor charge of failure to obey a police officer. He said he lost his teaching job three days later due to the pending charges and is still unemployed. He said his girlfriend and his parents have been supporting him, but that he is also accruing debt.
Prosecutors have since decided to pursue two misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and battery on an officer, according to arrest records.
Brock said he has anxiety every time he drives his car, because he fears someone from the sheriff’s department will know the make and model of his car and pull him over. The arrest also took one of his greatest sources of fulfillment: his job. He worked as a 12th grade English teacher at an alternative school for at-risk youth.
“That was my self-worth. That’s where I got my fulfillment in life, was helping others, teaching these students and being there for them,” he said. “So when I lost that I just, that was my happiness, and it’s been a lot of depression and hopelessness.”
He said people have asked him if he regrets giving the deputy the middle finger as he drove by, but he said he doesn’t.
“I felt like that’s what I could do in that moment to stand up for that woman,” he said, adding that the deputy appeared to be harassing the woman. “I regret that he reacted so poorly and so angrily and then he beat me for that. But I don’t regret expressing my First Amendment right.”
As the country and world become more aware and accepting of LGBTQ identities, an increasing number of people are coming out as nonbinary, which means their gender identity is neither exclusively male nor female.
A Pew Research Center survey published last year found that about 1.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender or nonbinary. Transgender means someone’s gender identity, or the personal sense of their gender, differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, which is based on their external sex characteristics.
Transgender can be thought of as an umbrella term, and nonbinary exists under that, though not all nonbinary people identify as transgender. Some nonbinary people also identify with other terms that describe identities outside of the male-female binary, such as genderfluid, genderqueer or bigender.
Younger adults are more likely than older adults to be trans or nonbinary. Pew found that 5.1% of adults under 30 are trans or nonbinary, including 2% who are a trans man or trans woman and 3% who are nonbinary.
Two national surveys of LGBTQ people ages 18 to 60 found that 11% of them identified as nonbinary, according to a June 2021 reportfrom the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA School of Law.
Though the term nonbinary has gained increasing mainstream recognition over the last decade, nonbinary people are not new or a trend. Out & Equal, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ workplace equality, created a resource that traces nonbinary identities back to 2000 BCE.
Different cultures also have their own terms for nonbinary identities, according to GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group. Some Native American people, for example, use the term two-spirit to describe people who are neither exclusively men nor women.
Nonbinary people can use any personal pronoun, including “he” and “she.” Many use the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” and some use neopronouns, such as “xe,” “xir” and “xirs.”
According to a 2021 Pew survey, a quarter, or 26%, of Americans say they know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns, up from 18% in 2018.
Nonbinary people can dress in various ways, and some will pursue social and/or medical transition, while others won’t. Nonbinary is also different from intersex, which refers to people who are born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that falls outside of what people would typically describe as male or female.
International Nonbinary Day is celebrated annually on July 14 and is an opportunity to honor and recognize the nonbinary community.
The day was first celebrated in 2012, after nonbinary writer Katje van Loon wrote a blog post suggesting the nonbinary community be honored on July 14, which falls halfway between International Women’s Day (March 8) and International Men’s Day (Nov. 19).
“We can feel invisible in a world that still hasn’t completely understood what we are. So it’s nice to have a day that recognises our existence,” Loon wrote. “I want people to be happy with themselves. And if having a day helps you be happy with yourself, that’s great. That is the best outcome I could have hoped for from that one-off blog post that I wrote 10 years ago.”
