LGBTQ Nation

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Civil rights groups urge feds to investigate anti-trans policies in Texas schools

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The ACLU and six other civil rights groups filed complaints Monday against two Texas school districts, asking the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate policies they say unlawfully discriminate against transgender students, The Hill reports.

The policies at the center of the complaint include one censoring books that discuss “gender fluidity” and another forcing trans students to use bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender.

“The effect of the [book] policy, absent federal civil rights intervention, will be to stigmatize LGBTQ+ and particularly transgender, non-binary, gender diverse, and intersex students in Keller ISD, to uniquely deprive them of the opportunity to read books that reflect their identities, and to create an environment in which unlawful discrimination flourishes,” the complaint states.

Among the more than 40 books removed by the school district in response to the new policy were The Bible, a graphic novel depiction of The Diary of Anne Frank, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Opponents of the bathroom policy say that it would allow districts to ignore the gender listed on a student’s legal documents, including amended birth certificates.

“This policy seemingly allows Frisco ISD and its teachers and administrators to ignore and erase students’ gender identities in violation of federal law,” the complaint states. “School districts have no right to question students’ sexual characteristics such as genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes.”

The ACLU of Texas is encouraging impacted students to reach out.

According to the Texas Tribune, the complaints are just the latest filed by civil rights groups in opposition to anti-trans policies in Texas school districts. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a similar complaint against the state’s Carroll Independent School District over concerns it failed to protect students from discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, and race.

In the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, the school board recently adopted policies that effectively force teachers to deny the existence of transgender people. Its new guidelines prohibit discussion of “gender fluidity,” the use of gender-affirming pronouns, and the use of gender-congruent restrooms.

At the state level, Texas Republicans recently proposed creating a book rating system for school libraries. In a statement on the proposed legislation, PEN America called the system “a dangerous escalation in the movement to censor public education.”

In March, an investigation by the Texas Tribune and ProPublica exposed the explicitly anti-LGBTQ motives behind one Texas school district’s attempt to remove books from school shelves.

The policies are part of a national trend pushed forward by coordinated action from right-wing activist groups like Moms for Liberty. Similar book bans have been proposed or adopted in Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, and other states. Many states have likewise considered policies prohibiting trans students from using facilities that align with their gender, or otherwise restricting their rights.

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Herschel Walker’s new ad slams trans people barely a day after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar

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Barely a day after a deadly LGBTQ bar shooting killed two transgender people and three other patrons, Georgia senatorial candidate Herschel Walker (R) released a campaign ad slamming trans athletes. Democrats are pointing to Republican anti-LGBTQ campaigns like Walker’s as the type of rhetoric that led to the murder of five people at Colorado Springs bar Club Q on Saturday night.

The video featured Riley Gaines, a self-described 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer. In March, Gaines tied for fifth place with trans swimmer Lia Thomas. Gaines has been complaining about it ever since.

In Warnock’s ad, Gaines says, “For more than a decade, I worked so hard. Four a.m. practices to be the best. But my senior year, I was forced to compete against a biological male.”

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Walker says, “That’s unfair and wrong.”

Both are peddling a right-wing narrative that trans women are a threat to women’s sports, locker rooms, and other female “safe spaces.” This narrative has been used to push trans youth sports bans across the nation, even in states where no trans athletes are competing in school sports.

Gaines continues, “A man won a swimming title that belonged to a woman, and Senator Warnock voted to let it happen.”

The on-screen text then reads: “Raphael Warnock voted to allow biological men to compete in women’s college sports.”

Walker says, “Warnock’s afraid to stand up for female athletes.” Walker will face incumbent Sen. Warnock (D) in a December 6 runoff election.

Looking into the camera, Gaines says, “Herschel Walker stands up for what’s right.”

Walker then smiles at the camera and says, “I’m Herschel Walker and I’m proud to approve this message.”

In the ad, Gaines doesn’t mention that she and Thomas were both actually beaten by cisgender female athletes, or that the number of trans athletes in collegiate sports is actually very small. She also doesn’t mention that women’s sports are actually threatened by huge funding disparities, rampant sexual abuse, and media neglect, rather than by trans people.

Walker’s ad was released just after Sunday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual commemoration of trans people who lost their lives to violence and otherwise. This year, at least 32 trans people have died from violence – most have been Black women.

In response to Walker’s ad, Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, the state’s LGBTQ advocacy organization, wrote, “Shame on Herschel Walker — and shame on every politician using LGBTQ lives as political props.”

“There’s an undeniable nexus between this kind of baseless and hateful rhetoric and the violence leveled against our community this weekend in Colorado Springs and the violence being perpetrated against marginalized communities all across this country,” Bridges added.

Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of the LGBTQ media watchdog group GLAAD, wrote, “Airing this kind of rubbish under the guise of a political campaign was already deplorable enough—but in the wake of Saturday night’s massacre at Club Q, it’s simply unconscionable.”

“These ads should be pulled immediately from Georgia’s airwaves before more lives are put in danger,” Ellis added.

In April, Gaines went onto the Fox News program of white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ bigot Tucker Carlson to talk about her discomfort with sharing a locker room with Thoma (Though she didn’t mention whether she actually saw Thomas in the locker room).

Gaines has since become a right-wing darling for continually speaking out about the issue. Her voice has joined a growing chorus of those who cast trans people as a threat to women’s and children’s safety. This chorus not only inspires legislation that harms trans people’s well-being, it also inspires violence against the greater LGBTQ community.

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Christian conservatives campaign against lesbian polar bears in “Peppa Pig”

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The anti-LGBTQ One Million Moms (OMM) is circulating a petition against the beloved British children’s show Peppa Pig after it aired an episode featuring a young polar bear child with two polar bear moms.

The petition tells families to “Beware! Peppa Pig is now boldly glorifying gay marriage.”

It states that OMM is “concerned with the normalization of a sinful lifestyle choice during a children’s show.”

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“This type of sexuality should never be included in a cartoon designed for children, much less praised. It is especially distressing since this popular children’s program is viewed in 180 countries,” the petition said.

The petition is asking Hasbro, which owns the rights to Peppa Pig, to “stick to entertaining and providing family-friendly programming instead of pushing an agenda.”

The Peppa Pig episode in question aired back in September. The show has been on for 18 years but this was its first time featuring an LGBTQ couple.

In its episode called “Families,”  a character named Penny introduces her two moms.

“I live with my mummy and my other mummy. One mummy is a doctor and one mummy cooks spaghetti,” Penny says.

The episode came about in response to a petition to include a same-sex couple in the show that garnered almost 24,000 signatures.

And the episode caused international panic among conservatives. Far-right politicians in Italy denounced it, as did Russian lawmakers, one of whom called the cartoon pig a “tool of hybrid war.”

Federico Mollicone, culture spokesperson for the conservative Brothers of Italy party, declared that the nation “cannot accept gender indoctrination” and claimed that “once again the politically correct has struck, at the expense of our children.”

Senator Isabella Rauti, a member of the party, called the episode “gender propaganda” and stated that the “Brothers of Italy have long denounced the attempt at indoctrination by supporters of gender theories.”

In Russia, it was member of Parliament Alexander Khinshtein who denounced the show.

“LGBT is nowadays a tool of hybrid war, and in that hybrid war, we must protect our traditional values,” said Khinshtein during a speech. “We must protect our society and our children. Let me very quickly demonstrate what kind of propaganda is already being waged against our society.”

Now, seemingly a bit slow on the uptake, OMM is getting in on the action. The group is a division of the American Family Association, a Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group.

The group routinely campaigns against LGBTQ representation in commercials, television shows, and the media and states on its website that the goal is to “stop the exploitation of our children, especially by the entertainment media.”

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Nancy Pelosi says “MAGA Republicans” are to blame for anti-trans violence

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In the aftermath of the tragic shooting at an LGBTQ bar in Colorado Springs that left five people dead and 18 injured, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said MAGA Republicans are to blame for anti-trans violence.

“Whether spouting dangerous rhetoric from cable news desks or openly bullying schoolchildren from the halls of power, MAGA Republicans are cruelly undermining the safety and well-being of our transgender community,” Pelosi said in a statement released on Sunday to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

She also touted House Democrats’ work enacting “fully-inclusive federal hate crimes protections with the historic Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.”

She concluded, “Heartbroken for so many beautiful souls murdered by hate and guided by relentless activists across the country, let us renew our resolve to build the future that our children deserve.  Together, we will forge a safer, more just America – one where all of its people can freely and proudly exercise their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In a separate statement focused on the Club Q shooting, Pelosi called the attack “despicable.”

“Our hearts break at the senseless slaughter of… five beautiful souls and the many more injured or forever traumatized, at what was a sanctuary of safety and solidarity.”

Pelosi said the attack contributed to “further shattering the sense of safety of LGBTQ Americans across the country.”

“While Democrats have taken important steps to combat gun violence this Congress, this deadly attack is a challenge to our conscience and a reminder that we must keep fighting to do more.”

“Thank you to the heroic individuals who stopped the gunman and to the brave first responders at the scene.  May it be a comfort to the loved ones of those murdered and the Colorado Springs community that all of America mourns with them during this devastating time.”

Pelosi is far from the only one who has been calling out the dangerous anti-LGBTQ rhetoric the Republican party has been spreading.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also criticized the GOP’s “anti-LGBTQ campaign” from this past year in connection to the shooting.

“After Trump elevated anti-immigrant & anti-Latino rhetoric, we had the deadliest anti-Latino shooting in modern history,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Sunday. “After anti-Asian hate w/COVID, Atlanta. Tree of life. Emanuel AME. Buffalo.”

“And now after an anti-LGBT+ campaign, Colorado Springs. Connect the dots, GOP.”

Ocasio-Cortez also attacked Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who has been one of the most anti-LGBTQ members of Congress this past session and is also a staunch opponent of gun control legislation. Boebert has spent her first term in Congress attacking LGBTQ people and portraying them as a danger to children. She has opposed all gun control legislation and even rose to fame from the gun-themed restaurant she owned where the waiters carried guns.

“The news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful,” Boebert wrote over the weekend. “This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers. This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”

“Lauren Boebert, you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this. Look inward and change.”

Chasten Buttigieg also sharply condemned Boebert.

In a separate tweet, Buttigieg explained his position more: “Republicans continue to run on and spread anti-LGBTQ ideology and hatred while refusing to lift a finger on gun violence. This is preventable, but only if they start seeing LGBTQ people as equals, and themselves as leaders.”

“You encourage this type of hatred,” he responded. “Get off Twitter and start looking inward.”

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Police killed a transgender mother of two while conducting a mental health wellness check

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One night, someone called 911 to ask police in Malvern, Pennsylvania to conduct a mental wellness check on Maddie Hofmann, a 47-year-old transgender woman.

The caller said that Maddie had sent an email that sounded like a suicide letter. When police checked on Hofmann, they ended up shooting her three times inside her own home. She died from the injuries.

Her death left behind her wife, Rebecca Hoffman, and their two children, ages 9 and 4. Her wife and family are still searching for answers and accountability.

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“[My wife] belonged on medication, not on a shelf,” Rebecca told The Philadelphia Inquirer, referring to a box of Hofmann’s ashes.

Maddie struggled with anxiety and depression and spent years going on and off medication. Weeks before the shooting occurred, Maddie had shared several concerning tweets, including one of her holding a firearm.

Maddie’s sister, Emily Flynn, said that both she and her sister were Korean adoptees raised by white parents. This resulted in some mental distress, Flynn said. Maddie had just begun finding healing and a voice for the painful isolation she felt in a predominantly white community.

Because Maddie was her family’s main income earner, Rebecca had to ask her mother for funds to cover her wife’s funeral and other living expenses. After what the Inquirer described as a “months-long back-and-forth” with Social Security, Rebecca finally received a check for her deceased spouse’s benefits.

But Rebecca hasn’t been able to read the police incident report or access body-camera footage, leaving her to rely on police accounts when explaining to her young children what happened.

“[My older child] wants to know if [police] didn’t do the right thing because they didn’t know what to do and maybe if someone told them, then they would know what to do next time,” said Rebecca. “But then he also is asking, Did they know the right thing but they just didn’t want to help his [parent] because his [parent] was different?”

In response to the shooting, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office said that Maddie had aimed a Glock 19 9mm handgun at police during the wellness check. As a result, no officers were charged in her slaying.

Malvern Mayor Zeyn Uzman said police officers in the local department took a three-hour course in 2021 that covered recognizing and responding to people with mental health issues and other special needs.

“Given the factual circumstances of the event and the incident lasted only 57 seconds, any additional training or policy changes would not have prevented this tragic occurrence,” Uzman told the Inquirer.

After her sister’s death, Flynn launched a GoFundMe campaign to provide for the well-being of Maddie’s children and to raise awareness to prevent similar incidents. Additional funds “will be used to start a foundation or scholarship fund for trans youth in the foster care system in Maddie’s name,” the campaign states.

The shooting is not only an example of trans people’s higher rates of negative encounters with law enforcement and judicial officials; it’s also a grim reminder that people in mental health crises make up about 25 percent of fatal police shooting victims in recent years, a Washington Post investigation noted. Many of these people died after police conducted wellness checks over fears of a possible suicide attempt.

Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

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Democratic governor signs law punishing HIV transmission with up to 10 years in prison

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Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Wolf (D) just signed a new law that makes it a felony to pass on a communicable disease when they “should have known” that they had it, the HIV Justice Network reported.

Opponents of the law worry it will be used to punish people with HIV or other STDs who unknowingly transmit it to sexual partners. Such HIV criminalization laws have disproportionately been used to target Black men and other men of color.

While the offense, a third-degree felony, has to be “intentional,” one could see an arrestee being charged with it if they accidentally spit onto an officer while talking or bleed onto an officer during a violent arrest.

The law also charges people with a second-degree felony if they knew or “should have known” that they had a communicable disease after transmitting it to someone else. The offense is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines.

This not only would apply to anyone who transmits HIV; it could also apply to people who unintentionally transmit hepatitis, influenza, chickenpox, and COVID-19.

The bill has been opposed by the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, the Anti-defamation League of Pennsylvania, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania HIV Justice Alliance, the Positive Women’s Network-USA, the Sero Project, the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, Advocates for Youth, and many other groups.

“As a person living with HIV who was born and raised in Pennsylvania, the passing of HB 103 serves as a reminder that as we get closer to ending the HIV epidemic, we have a long way to go to end HIV stigma and the criminalization of people living with HIV,” said Louie Ortiz-Fonseca, Director of LGBTQ Health & Rights with Advocates for Youth.

Medical professionals have said that HIV criminalization laws do nothing to stop the spread of the virus and may even encourage people not to get tested for fear that the knowledge could subject them to criminal penalties.

A 2018 Williams Institute study on HIV criminalization in Georgia found that “Black men and Black women were more likely to be arrested for HIV-related offenses than their white counterparts.” While 26 percent of HIV-related arrests were of white males, 46 percent of HIV-related arrests were of Black males. Additionally, 11 percent of those arrested were white females, while 16 percent were Black females.

As of 2022, 35 states have laws that criminalize HIV exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many of the laws were passed at a time when little was known about HIV and millions were dying from the virus.

“Many of these state laws criminalize actions that cannot transmit HIV – such as biting or spitting – and apply regardless of actual transmission, or intent,” the CDC wrote. “After more than 40 years of HIV research and significant biomedical advancements to treat and prevent HIV transmission, many state laws are now outdated and do not reflect our current understanding of HIV.”

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This organization wants Odessa Kelly to be the first out Black woman elected to Congress

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Glynda Carr has devoted her life to helping progressive Black women gain political power.

As co-founder and president of the organization Higher Heights, she has worked for over a decade to help Black women get elected to positions across the country.

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The organization offers training for those interested in running for office or working on campaigns at every level, from school board to Senator. The connected federal PAC, Higher Heights for America PAC, focuses on supporting Black women running at the federal level, for statewide executive roles, and for mayor of the top 100 cities.

Carr describes Higher Heights as “a political home for Black women” and a place to “collectively harness our political power from the voting booth to elected office.”

In the midterms, Higher Heights for America PAC has endorsed Odessa Kelly, who could become the first out gay Black woman in Congress.

Kelly, a progressive Democrat and local organizer, is running in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District. Her Trump-endorsed opponent, incumbent Rep. Mark Green (R), has called being transgender a disease and was one of the Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Green has represented the district since 2019, but Carr said Kelly is “running a very solid race.”

“She has nationalized this race, as oftentimes Black women have done,” Carr said.

“We’re excited about Odessa because her story translates across this country… She is running in the deep South. She is a young activist and someone that has been active and engaged in her community.”

Kelly was running in the 5th Congressional District before switching to the 7th earlier this year due to redistricting efforts that both Kelly and Green have called unfair.

While Green did not explain why he believed the new lines were unfair, Kelly told Tennessee Lookout that the new districts spliced up Nashville “in an effort to suppress the Black vote.”

In a 2021 interview with LGBTQ Nation, Kelly said she was running for office because she “needed to.”

“I couldn’t sleep at night thinking about the impact of what this seat has on not just the community here in Nashville, but the collective impact that someone in a congressional seat has across the country.”

A Nashville native, Kelly grew up in a working-class neighborhood and spent fourteen years working for the city’s parks and recreation department, where she was eventually forced to work part-time due to budget cuts. While there, she witnessed the families she worked with struggle to obtain healthcare, pay rent, and put food on the table.

“I was bothered by the fact that we have public policies that trap people into poverty instead of building pathways out of poverty,” she said.

This frustration led Kelly to become the co-founder and executive director of Stand Up Nashville, a nonprofit that focuses on racial and social justice work through an economic lens. Her work is well-known in the Nashville community.

Carr touted Kelly’s deep understanding of the issues facing her community, her ability to connect with voters, and her intersectional identities.

“Decision-making tables, may they be corporate tables, nonprofit tables, or elected office, those decision-making tables make better decisions when they are diverse. That’s not only based on race, gender, political ideology, but lived experience, and so we’re excited about Odessa because her story translates across this country.”

Carr added that Higher Heights has been focused on creating a culture shift around the way Black women candidates are perceived and talked about.

“Some of our biggest success has been creating the environment for Black women to vote, run, win, and lead. A lot of our culture shift work and our narrative work has been around making sure there is space to talk about Black women’s political power and Black women’s leadership.”

Carr’s most important message: Vote.

For the midterm elections on November 8, voters can visit Higher Heights for America PAC’s #BlackWomenRun Database – a comprehensive guide to the over 500 Black women running for state and federal office across the country.

“Our day-to-day lives are tied to public policies, from the regulation of our food to if there’s a street light in the front of your house,” Carr said.

“When you sit out of an election cycle, you actually are contributing. That ‘no’ vote contributes to who is representing you. So the charge is for us to be informed voters, to hold our elected officials and those asking for our votes accountable, and to be prepared not only to vote but to organize our house, our block, our church, our sorority.”

“We can do that by electing representatives that will help make our democracy truly look reflective of the American tapestry, and that’s by electing more women, more candidates of color, and for us, helping to elect more Black women across this country in 2022.”

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Here’s how all 9 LGBTQ House members are expected to do in the midterm elections

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The nine out LGBTQ members of the U.S. House are also all chairs of the Equality Caucus, the congressional group that pursues LGBTQ legislation and issues statements against anti-queer discrimination. All nine are up for re-election, and the House’s Democratic majority and the future of LGBTQ rights hang in the balance.

Here are all nine LGBTQ House members and how they’re expected to do in their races.

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David Cicilline (D-RI)

Rep. David Cicilline
Rep. David Cicilline Shutterstock

Cicilline is chair of the House Equality Caucus and a reliably progressive Democrat. He’s running his sixth reelection campaign, this time against Allen Waters (R).

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Cicilline is expected to win his seat once again. The Cook Political Report rates the district as solidly Democrat, according to The Providence Journal.

Angie Craig (D-MN)

Angie Craig Campaign

Craig is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, a pro-business and fiscally moderate congressional caucus, and sits on the House committees for agriculture, energy, commerce, and small business.

She is running against Tyler Kistner (R), a candidate she beat in 2020 by about two percentage points. Her district is considered a “toss-up” by several political pundits.

Sharice Davids (D-KS)

Rep. Sharice Davids
Rep. Sharice Davids Provided

Davids, a 42-year-old, is not only the first out lesbian elected to the U.S. Congress from Kansas. She’s also one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress.

This year, the centrist Democrat faces off against Amanda Adkins (R) in a newly gerrymandered district that eliminated Democratic voters and added Republican ones, possibly endangering Davids after winning with a clear majority in 2020.

Mondaire Jones (D-NY)

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Jones and Torres were the first out gay black members of Congress. However, Jones has already lost his re-election race. He was beaten in the Democratic primary by Daniel Goldman. Goldman will face Benine Hamdan (R).

Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY)

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloneyy
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney U.S. Congress

Maloney is the leader of the Democratic Party’s House campaign arm. His race is considered one of the most important because of his high profile within the party.

Maloney is facing a competitive race against Mike Lawler (R). The Cook Political Report recently moved their race to a “toss-up,” endangering the Democratic leader even though President Joe Biden (D) won the area by 10 points in 2020.

Chris Pappas (D-NH)

chris-pappas
Flickr/Team Pappas

The 42-year-old incumbent serves on the House Committees for Transportation, Infrastructure, and Veterans’ Affairs.

His opponent is Karoline Leavitt (R), a 25-year-old staffer for former President Donald Trump who also served as Trump’s assistant press secretary; Trump has endorsed her. A recent poll showed Pappas beating Leavitt 49 to 43 percent in the Democrat-leaning district.

Mark Pocan (D-WI)

Rep. Mark Pocan
Rep. Mark Pocan

Not only is Pocan co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, he’s also chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He has voted against the sale of U.S. guided missiles to Isreal and also endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for president in 2020.

Pocan is facing off against Erik Olsen (R). The Economist forecasts Pocan as having a nearly 100 percent chance of winning.

Mark Takano (D-CA)

Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA)
Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) LGBTQ Victory Fund

Takano, the first out LGBTQ Asian American elected to Congress, is co-chair of the Equality Caucus and also a member of the Progressive Caucus, the Arts Caucus, and the Asian/Pacific-American Caucus.

Takano is running against Aja Smith (R), a candidate he defeated once before in 2018. Takano is expected to easily beat her, in part because his district leans heavily Democrat.

Ritchie Torres (D-NY)

Congressman Ritchie Torres endorses Andrew Yang for his candidacy for Mayor of New York City on Jan. 14, 2021
Congressman Ritchie Torres endorses Andrew Yang for his candidacy for Mayor of New York City on Jan. 14, 2021 Shutterstock

Torres, the first out gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress, has spent his career fighting for public housing, poor people, and LGBTQ rights.

Torres is running against Stylo Sapaskis (R). Torres is expected to win seeing as his district is solidly Democrat.

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Darling of the “detransition” movement comes out again as transgender

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Like the ex-gay movement that rose to prominence in the early 2000s and then came crashing down as leaders recanted their “conversions,” the detransition movement is showing similar signs of a crack-up.

Ky Schevers is just one of the prominent voices of the detransition movement to reconsider her choice to reject her gender evolution and publicly denounce transition. She began her transition in college but ended it after coming to the belief that gender dysphoria was a false idea caused by misogyny and trauma, a theory she shared widely in interviews and online.

Now Schevers – who is transmasculine and uses she/her pronouns – has regrets about her place in the detrans movement. From 2013 to 2020, she regularly wrote and made videos about her detransition. She was featured in several major publications – even interviewed by anti-trans journalist Katie Herzog – to promote the idea that transgender identity isn’t legitimate and that gender dysphoria was a mix of internalized sexism and trauma response for her.

But now she’s speaking out against the movement she once supported.

“Trans people deserve access to support, and it makes no sense to shut down people’s access to medical transition just because some people end up detransitioning,” she told Slate.

The number of people reporting detransition is small. According to a study this year from UCLA’s Williams Institute, 1.3 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender, or 0.05 % of the population. Another 300,000 youth, ages 13-17, do so, as well.

Of those who transition, about eight percent report detransitioning, according to a 2015 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality, and most – 62 percent – of that eight percent said detransition was temporary. A 50-year survey in Sweden revealed about two percent of the trans population regretted undergoing gender-affirming surgery.

Schevers said the detransition movement she helped spark became overtly transphobic and repressive and left no room for doubt or questioning individuals.

While she came to believe her own gender dysphoria was in check, it came roaring back over time. “My sense of being a woman unraveled, and I was feeling more like a dude or a gender weirdo,” Schevers said. “But I was fighting against these feelings because I’d built a life in the detransition community, and I knew a lot of the other women in the community wouldn’t be happy with it if I came out as trans.”

The detrans movement assigns a variety of reasons to what they consider the false concept of gender dysphoria and provides attendant solutions to the non-existent problem.

Detrans promoters liken the urge to transition to drug or alcohol addiction, encouraging sufferers to avoid triggers and commit to abstinence, concepts adopted from 12-step programs. They characterize dysphoria as internalized misogyny stemming from a lack of self-love. One theory, known as “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” describes being transgender as a social contagion spread among adolescent girls online, like accusations of witchcraft among young women at the Salem witch trials.

Schevers says of her own dysphoria, “I tried to explain it in a radical feminist framework, and find the root causes, and do everything to make these feelings go away, and that didn’t really work. The only thing that did work to make them go away was accepting them. I had to make a move to accept them.”

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DNA evidence could help D.C. police solve the 1987 murder of a lesbian woman

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D.C. police have used DNA testing technology that could help solve the 1987 murder of a lesbian woman.

On May 13, a 35-year-old woman named Greta Denise Rainey was found raped and strangled in her Capitol Hill apartment. Eighteen months before her death, a 22-year-old named Florence Eyssalenne was also found raped and murdered in her apartment, which was next to Johnson’s.

At the time, investigators took DNA samples as part of a police rape kit. Now, using contemporary DNA-testing technology that wasn’t available at the time, police have tested the samples and formed a DNA profile of an unidentified male suspect.

“Essentially, the identity of this person is still unknown to us, however, we can say the individual is a male. We believe him to be of African American descent,” D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Captain Kevin Kentish told WRC-TV.

Kentish added that investigators may even look into whether the DNA samples match those donated by users of genealogy websites. However, he added, “That may take a little longer, so we don’t want to put all our eggs in that one basket.”

In the days following Rainey’s murder, D.C. police arrested her then-girlfriend Roxanne Johnson as a suspect, though it’s unclear what evidence compelled them to do so. Four months later, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. dropped the charges against her for unknown reasons. Johnson, who has always claimed innocence, said her landlord later evicted her because her arrest made other tenants nervous, The Washington Blade reported.

Johnson said she had left the apartment to go to work when the murder took place. She didn’t know how someone entered the apartment. Police said there were no signs of forced entry in either Rainey or Eyssalenne’s apartments.

Eyssalenne’s brother, Bernard Eyssalenne, has said he’d never given up on the hope of finding his sister’s killer. “I’ve always stayed in touch with all the investigators,” he said.

Police are offering a $50,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction in the two cases. People with information can call 202-727-9099.

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