LGBTQ Nation

/ /

Idaho’s Teacher of the Year flees state after being attacked for LGBTQ+ allyship

,

Idaho’s 2023 Teacher of the Year has fled the state after facing vicious attacks from right-wing parents. Fourth-grade teacher Karen Lauritzen told the Boston Globe it has been one of the worst years ever in her two-decade-long career. After being honored as Teacher of the Year, conservatives began attacking Lauritzen for her previous social media posts supporting LGBTQ+ people. The conservative Idaho Tribune called Lauritzen a “left-wing activist” who “follows drag queens on social media, promotes LGBT events, promotes transgenderism, Black Lives Matter, and is active in local politics, promoting liberal ideology.” The article also blasted her for liking posts on social and emotional learning […]

/ /

A generation full of fighters: Young progressives are rising up to defend LGBTQ+ equality

,

Run for Something, the progressive political organization dedicated to recruiting and supporting young candidates running for office down ballot, was founded in the ashes of Hillary Clinton’s losing presidential bid on the day Donald Trump was inaugurated. Clinton campaign veteran Amanda Litman and political operative Ross Morales Rocketto have been helping turn progressive under-40 candidates into winners ever since. According to National Press Secretary Juan Ramiro Sarimiento, about twenty-five percent of the group’s endorsed candidates for this election cycle are LGBTQ+, reflecting a level of diversity among Gen Z and Millennials not found in older generations. Sarimiento, who is queer […]

/ /

Biden administration urged to add gender-affirming care to proposed abortion rights protections

,

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project, are asking the White House to add gender-affirming care to new rules under consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services, strengthening health privacy protections related to abortion. The proposed changes to HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, would bar law enforcement officials from accessing information about abortion across state lines in pursuit of prosecutions in states where the procedure has been drastically limited. Like the right to abortion, access to gender-affirming care for minors has been severely curtailed or legislated out of […]

/ /

Ron DeSantis gaslights LGBTQ+ people: I’m not “demeaning” anyone!

,

Gov. Ron DeSantis – one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ governors in history – has yet again stood behind his widely mocked anti-LGBTQ+ campaign video by claiming he is not in favor of “demeaning” anyone.  While speaking to Bret Baier on Fox News, DeSantis took “responsibility” for the ad and yet also continued to defend himself. He said the issues the video brings up (like the fact that Donald Trump expressed support for trans people once, years before he was president) are “totally legitimate.”  “I don’t believe in demeaning anybody, and we have not done that since I’ve been governor,” he said. “These […]

/ /

Oklahoma Gov. signs executive order defining male & female as sex assigned at birth

,

Oklahoma’s Republican governor signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at limiting the rights of transgender people in the state, and trans women in particular. Known as “The Women’s Bill of Rights” by supporters, the order requires state agencies to define the words “female” and “male” based on a person’s sex assigned at birth. Specifically, it defines a female as a “person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova” and a male as a “person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female,” the Associated Press reports. It also defines the words “man,” “boy,” Oklahoma’s […]

/ /

Judge rules in favor of trans students after parents’ rights group sues for the right to misgender

,

A federal judge has ruled on the side of trans rights after a conservative group tried to overturn an Ohio school district’s anti-bullying policy.  The national conservative group Parents Defending Education (PDE) tried to get a preliminary injunction passed on the Olentangy Local School District’s prohibition on misgendering trans students. The policy includes students, teachers, and parents and it applies to out-of-school hours and social media as well.  PDE’s lawsuit claimed the policy is unconstitutional because “they compel speech, discriminate based on content and viewpoint, and are unconstitutionally overbroad.”  U.S. District Chief Judge Algenon L. Marbley disagreed, writing in his opinion that “ultimately, […]

/ /

Federal appeals court upholds trans rights in Indiana school bathroom case

,

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled in favor of three transgender students who were forbidden by their schools from using bathrooms matching their gender identities. The circuit court upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction that said the schools have to let trans students use facilities associated with their genders.  “Students who are denied access to the appropriate facilities are caused both serious emotional and physical harm as they are denied recognition of who they are,” said ACLU of Indiana lawyer Kenneth Falk. “They will often avoid using the restroom altogether while in school. Schools should […]

/ /

This drag performer is running to unseat a Florida state Republican

,

A Key West drag performer is running to unseat a Republican in the Florida state legislature, where GOP lawmakers have spent the last couple of years pushing their blatantly anti-LGBTQ+ agenda under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).   As Florida Politics reports, Michael Elgin Travis has filed to challenge incumbent state Rep. Jim Mooney, a two-term Republican who represents Florida House District 120. A ghost tour guide and bartender at Key West’s 801 Bourbon Bar, Travis also performs two nights each week in drag as Erika Rose at the Duval Street LGBTQ+ bar. If elected, Travis would be the first professional drag queen in the […]

/ /

Polling shows that knowing a trans person decreases transphobia

,

Recent polling shows that Americans increasingly support transphobic bathroom bills, but social science research suggests that this trend could be reversed if more Americans simply came to personally know transgender people. In a poll released last October, approximately 52% of Americans said they support “bathroom bills” requiring trans people to use facilities matching the sex they were assigned at birth. This was 17% higher than the 35% who supported bathroom bills when the same question was asked in 2016, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) reported. This increase is most likely due to the recent wave of transphobic legislation and rhetoric […]

/ /

Anti-abortion politics are threatening a vital HIV prevention program

,

Anti-abortion advocates in the U.S. are threatening to kill one of the most successful public health programs in history over unsubstantiated facts, unwavering opposition to a woman’s right to choose, and blatant anti-LGBTQ+ bias. Conservative rganizations, including the Heritage Foundation and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, are threatening U.S. lawmakers with the withdrawal of their support if they grant a routine reauthorization to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the hugely successful HIV prevention initiative in Africa. The far-right Family Research Council describes the 20-year-old program as “a massive slush fund for abortion and LGBT advocacy.” PEPFAR, […]

«‹ 47 48 49 50›»