The CEO of Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, says they have long been preparing for Donald Trump’s arrival in the Oval Office.
In an interview with The Advocate, Kevin Jennings said Trump is utilizing a “shock and awe” strategy, flooding the nation with outlandish moves all at once to intentionally overwhelm. But his team is not surprised.
“At Lambda Legal, we knew this was coming. So we have neither been shocked nor awed by what’s happening,” Jennings assured.
“We’ve seen this movie before,” he added. “We sued the Trump administration 14 times during his first presidency and won 12 of those cases — an 86 percent win rate. We’ve been preparing, and we’re ready.”
The organization is filing three lawsuits, he said, challenging Trump’s trans military ban, his executive order declaring there are only two sexes, and his crusade against DEI programs.
Beating Trump at his own game is very possible, Jennings explained, but not if people allow him to exhaust them to the point of complacency.
“When I travel and talk to people, I hear two emotions—one of which I understand, and one of which I reject. The first emotion is depression. People are depressed because of all this hatefulness. The second is resignation, which is when people feel there’s nothing they can do. That’s wrong.”
Hopelessness, he said, is what the Trump administration wants us to feel. “Once we lose our faith that America can be better, we’ve lost everything. We’ve lost the battle.”
Jennings said one way for LGBTQ+ people to engage is to become plaintiffs in the organization’s upcoming suits. He said those impacted by Trump’s executive orders should contact Lambda Legal’s national legal help desk both for advice and to learn about becoming a plaintiff. “We can’t just say this law is bad. You have to have someone who has been harmed by a law to challenge it.”
“We have lost the executive. We have lost the legislative,” he added. “Our only hope is the judicial branch.” He said more than half of sitting federal judges are Democrat appointees, which provides possibility for wins.
If being a plaintiff isn’t the right move, Jennings’ advice was to just do something to help.
“Whether it’s testifying before your state legislature or just sending a postcard to your congressperson. What they want is for you to feel powerless. Don’t give them that.”
The Trump administration has notified public schools at every level that it will not be enforcing the Biden administration’s revised interpretation of Title IX, which included the protection of LGBTQ+ students from discrimination.
In June 2022, President Joe Biden’s Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced that Title IX, the 1972 education law that prohibits discrimination in federally funded schools “on the basis of sex,” should rely on the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. That court decision found that Title VII’s ban on sex-based workplace discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The notice repealing this interpretation referred to Donald Trump’s executive order on “restoring biological truth,” which declared, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
The letter – sent from the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights – states that the order is “fatal” to the Biden interpretation of Title IX because it “directly contradicts the vacated rule’s novel and expansive meaning of ‘on the basis of sex.”‘ It then emphasized executive power: “As a constitutional matter, the President’s interpretation of the law governs because he alone controls and supervises subordinate officers who exercise discretionary executive power on his behalf.”
It also justified the order based on a January 9, 2025, Kentucky District Court decision that ruled Biden’s interpretation of Title IX is unenforceable, claiming “expanding the meaning of ‘on the basis of sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ turns Title IX on its head.”
The notice also aligns with another Trump executive order seeking to endtransgender-inclusive policies and anti-racist education in K-12 schools. The order calls to cut off federal funding to trans-inclusive and anti-racist schools, to force schools to out trans students to their potentially unsupportive parents, and accuses supportive teachers of “sexually exploiting minors” or “unlawfully practicing medicine.”
The Trump administration also declared in the letter that it will return to policies from Trump’s first term that provided stronger rights to students accused of sexual assault or harassment and limited schools’ liability in those cases.
“This is an incredibly disappointing decision that will leave many survivors of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ students, and pregnant and parenting students without the accommodations critical to their ability to learn and attend class safely,” Emma Grasso Levine, a senior manager at Know Your IX, said in a statement. “Schools must step up to protect students in the absence of adequate federal guidance.”
Department of Education employees themselves have also become victims of Trump’s war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). According to NBC News, dozens who attended a diversity training course that was encouraged by the Trump administration during the president’s first term have been placed on paid leave.
LGBTQ+ parents are reportedly scrambling to secure their parental rights before Donald Trump takes the oath of office.
Attorney Meghan Alexander told Advocate she usually receives about three calls a week from LGBTQ+ parents seeking second-parent adoptions. The week Trump won, she fielded 26 calls. Since then, they have just kept coming.
Project 2025, which is believed to be the blueprint for the Trump administration, essentially calls to eliminate LGBTQ+ rights and states, “Only heterosexual, two-parent families are safe for children.”
“The advice is the same as it’s been for the last couple of decades, which is to do a second-parent adoption,” Alexander explained. “Do not depend on the federal government or the gay right to marry to give you parental rights.”
A 2023 report from a coalition of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups explains that second-parent adoption “can be used to establish a legal relationship between a parent and a child OR to obtain an adoption decree for someone who is already a legal parent through another pathway to parentage, such as the marital presumption.”
Shelbi Day, Chief Policy Officer for Family Equality, told LGBTQ Nation when the report was released that even married LGBTQ+ couples cannot rely on the marital presumption and should take further steps to protect themselves.
She said that the presumption can be challenged in some states and that Family Equality “strongly suggests that parents take additional steps to establish legal parentage to ensure that children have legal stability and access to all of the rights and benefits of legal parentage no matter where people travel and no matter what happens between the parents in the future.”
This is also true even if both parents are on a child’s birth certificate, which she said “does not establish a legal parent-child relationship.”
Alexander dispensed similar advice to Advocate. She also said parentage orders are not as effective as second-parent adoptions, at least in Texas where she practices, because these orders have not been challenged extensively in the courts. Adoptions, on the other hand, have been repeatedly upheld.
LGBTQ+ family law expert Nancy Polikoff agreed, saying adoptions are better understood and more “universally recognized.”
“When we are looking at the possibility of cutting back on LGBT family recognition, states that are not inclined to recognize the legitimacy of parenting by LGBT people are going to be emboldened to deny that status whenever they can,” she said.
“Nobody is expecting Obergefell to be overturned anytime soon,” she continued. “Unfortunately, I think parentage is one of those places where if a court is just not going to be as protective in a particular state, I think they are going to have more leeway to discriminate under a Trump administration.”
In addition to many parents simply not knowing this is the best path to protecting there families, another barrier looms large: Second-parent adoptions can carry a hefty price tag.
“It makes me sick to think there are people who need this done and cannot get it done,” Haley Swenson told Advocate. Swenson and her wife, Alieza Durana, rushed to complete a second-parent adoption of their son after Trump won the election.
Unable to afford the $3,500 they needed to begin the process, they reached out to friends and family for help.
“It’s unclear what they want to do, and that lack of specificity is what’s really scary if you’re a queer parent because you don’t really know how to protect yourself,” Swenson said of the incoming administration.
“So since we know there was this one thing we could do to protect ourselves, and we hadn’t done it yet, it was like, ‘OK, there are so many unknowns — let’s at least take care of what we can.”
The best path toward obtaining legal parentage rights may vary by state. Check out this report for more information.
A Texas city infamous for placing a $10,000 bounty on trans people who use bathrooms and locker rooms that do not align with their sex assigned at birth has voted to make its policy even more strict.
On Tuesday, the Odessa City Council voted 5-1 to maintain its bathroom ban and allow individual citizens (whether or not they are Odessa or even Texas residents) to sue a trans person for a minimum of $10,000 in damages if they violate it (there is no cap on how large the bounty can be). It also approved an expansion of the law. Once applied only to public facilities, it will now apply to private ones as well.
“You are putting a target on the queer community’s back by offering a reward and taking money out of their pockets,” Odessa resident and business owner Bradley Burke told the council during public comments, as reported by Lonestar Live.
“The trans community is not a threat to Odessa or anyone in the bathroom,” added Matilda Mann-Morales, president of local LGBTQ+ group Out in West Texas. “We’re just trying to live out our lives. I don’t want the government in the bathroom.”
Speakers also argued that trans people have not historically posed any risk to people in the bathroom and are instead statistically far more at risk of being abused or harassed while trying to use facilities. Lonestar Live reported that Odessa police have not received any report about public restrooms in three years, and police in several states have said they have been unable to identify any cases of trans people harassing anyone in a public bathroom.
A letter from the ACLU of Texas to the Odessa City Council and Mayor Javier Joven, pointed out that the last-minute addition of private facilities in the legislation is a likely violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act because the city did not “provide adequate notice to business owners and Odessa residents that the local government was exposing them to immense liability on private property.”
The letter also pointed out that “the proposal to place a bounty of $10,000 per occurrence on anyone using a restroom on private property could bankrupt many businesses and Odessa residents, as well as flood the courts with frivolous lawsuits.”
The organization also urged the city council to reject the ordinance because it is discriminatory and does not “reflect the values” of Odessa: “Transgender people are part of the fabric of our community, our families, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods. Like everyone else, they are small business owners and homeowners and should be allowed to use their private property without undue government interference. But the sweeping proposed changes affixed to your upcoming council agenda trample on their rights and threaten to create a gender-policing witch hunt on both public and private property across the City.”
In addition to granting the right to sue, the ordinance also invokes criminal penalties for individuals who use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The provision states that a “person violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed guilty of a Class C misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars” and that anyone who refuses to use a bathroom aligned with what the city perceives as their biological sex, even after being asked to leave by a building owner, may be guilty of misdemeanor trespassing.
The bounty defines biological sex based on birth certificates, either at the time of birth or corrected if there was a clerical error. This means that any transgender individual who gets their birth certificate updated to reflect their gender identity would still be violating the law if they used bathrooms that align with their gender.
This ban lacks any exceptions for disabled people who may be accompanied by a person of a different gender and may open the door to lawsuits targeting anyone who is gender non-conforming.
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 Lookoutthat 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.”
To mark the 12th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is hosting a weeklong celebration to praise its accomplishments. But in the name of health equity for transgender people, who are adversely affected by HIV/AIDS, HHS is also asking for more.
In a letter shared exclusively with LGBTQ Nation, the HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is asking the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) to leverage its existing infrastructure and resources to not only continue providing direct HIV/AIDS care to transgender people, but to provide gender-affirming care as well.
Established thirty years ago, RWHAP serves low-income people with HIV. Today, approximately 50% of those diagnosed with HIV receive support through it annually.
Rates of HIV viral suppression among transgender patients of RWHAP are lower than the organization’s overall average – 84.5 percent versus 89.4 percent. As such, the letter says more must be done to ensure transgender people are not left behind.
“HRSA’s HIV/AIDS Bureau sent this to Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program service providers to reaffirm the importance of providing culturally-affirming health care and social services to the transgender community as a key component to improving the lives of transgender people with HIV and eliminating health disparities,” Dr. Laura Cheever, Associate Administrator of the HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau, told LGBTQ Nation.
“While not a new policy or approach to the services delivered by the program, The letter builds on initiatives that support patient-centered, trauma-informed, and inclusive environments of care for Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program clients. The goal is to help reduce medical mistrust and other barriers to antiretroviral therapy adherence for transgender people with HIV.”
The letter asserts that “providing gender-affirming care is an important strategy to effectively address the health and medical needs of transgender people with HIV.” The program, it says, already serves about 11,600 trans people (2.1% of those served overall) that would benefit from these services.
It goes on to say that funds directed toward RWHAP are allowed to be used for certain types of gender-affirming care and support, including hormone therapy, behavioral and mental health services for those experiencing discrimination and/or gender dysphoria, and cost-sharing assistance for insurance coverage, which would give trans people greater access to the care they need. It also said several RWHAP AIDS Drug Assistance Programs already provide access to hormone therapy.
Because it is an outpatient ambulatory health care program, though, the letter says RWHAP cannot provide surgeries or inpatient care.
The letter also urges RWHAP to provide other types of support to transgender people living with HIV/AIDS, such as housing, case management, and treatment services for substance abuse.
The letter, signed by Cheever, emphasizes the need to “provide affirming, whole person care to transgender people with HIV.”
“This is true especially of Black and Hispanic/Latino/a transgender women who are disproportionally impacted by HIV and other intersecting social and health challenges,” it says.
“While transgender Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program clients receiving HIV medical care have reached higher viral suppression rates than the national average, we recognize that we need to do more to support this community,” Cheever said in a press release.
“To help achieve the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, including achieving health equity and ending the HIV epidemic, we will continue to support and share evidence based, evidence informed, and emerging interventions that focus on the specific needs of this community to improve the health and lives of transgender and gender diverse people with HIV.”
Also in recognition of the 12th anniversary of the ACA, HHS is hosting a weeklong celebration, with each day focusing on different communities the ACA has reached.
Today’s focus is “Celebrating Health of LGBTQI+ and Communities of Color.” According to HHS, the ACA has reduced the number of uninsured LGBTQ people by almost 50% since 2010.
Since taking office, the Biden administration has also restored an ACA provision banning discrimination in its health care programs on the basis of sex, which includes sexual orientation and gender identity.
HHS also said the ACA has also helped community organizations dedicate more resources to HIV/AIDS care through RWHAP.
A teacher at a Christian K-12 school has resigned and pulled her own son out of the school after the administration asked parents to sign a contract condemning homosexuality and comparing it to bestiality and pedophilia.
“Not only could I not sign that as a parent, I couldn’t agree to be a teacher in a school that had that vocabulary and language around some of the most vulnerable kids that we interact with,” Helen Clapham Burns, who worked at the Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane, Australia, said on the news program The Project, while close to tears.
Burns also expressed devastation that she had to pull her son from school and away from his friends.
“We have been in trauma and stress this weekend as I am having to blow my son’s world apart, because he’s not going to get to do year 11 and 12 with his mates. I have to find him a new school,” she said.
The contract says that “any form of sexual immorality (including but not limiting to adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, pedophilia and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society,” and says the school has the right to “exclude” any student from the school who doesn’t agree with these principles.
The contract also includes a refusal to acknowledge students’ gender identities other than the sex they were assigned at birth.pedophilia%2F&sessionId=df86bf620bd25003d0dae8b1a52d02400722bd6b&siteScreenName=lgbtqnation&theme=light&widgetsVersion=75b3351%3A1642573356397&width=500px
But Burns isn’t the only angry one.
Over 80,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the school amend the enrollment contract.
“Citipointe is using their religious beliefs to openly discriminate against queer and trans students,” the petition states, “as well as threatening to take away their education. Sign the petition to show Citipointe that we will not stand for such blatant transphobia and homophobia.”
The school’s principal pastor, Brian Mulheran, defended the contract in a statement, saying that Citipointe has “always held these Christian beliefs and we have tried to be fair and transparent to everyone in our community by making them clear in the enrollment contract.”
On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters who believed that President Joe Biden had secretly and successfully stolen millions of ballots across multiple states to usurp the presidency stormed the Capitol with the intent of stopping Congress from accepting the states’ election results.
The crowd chanted for the death of Mike Pence – who was presiding over the Senate that day – and fashioned a makeshift noose as elected officials were swept to safety by the Secret Service and Capitol Police.
He has been charged with unlawfully entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds as well as violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds.
After the charges were announced, Shroyer released a video claiming his innocence and that he was merely at the Capitol as a journalist.
Yet the complaint filed against him quotes his appearance in a video that day saying, “Today we march for the Capitol because on this historic January 6, 2021, we have to let our Congressmen and women know, and we have to let Mike Pence know, they stole the election, we know they stole it, and we aren’t going to accept it!”
Mark Sahady
Mark Sahady is the Vice President of the far-right conservative group Super Happy Fun America (SHFA) and was arrested after the riots for entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disruptive and disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
On its website, SHFA describes itself as “a right of center civil rights organization focusing on defending the Constitution, opposing gender madness and defeating cultural Marxism.”
It’s tagline: “It’s Great to be Straight.”
In 2019, Sahady was an organizer for the group’s infamous Straight Pride Parade in Boston, the city where he would be arrested in January 2021.
Gina Michelle Bisignano
Gina Bisignano, allegedly at the MAGA riots Screenshot/Twitter
Gina Michelle Bisignano, a Trump supporter who made headlines in 2020 for shouting anti-gay slurs at an anti-mask protest, was arrested last January for participating in the Capitol riots.
“You’re a faggot,” Bisignano, said in the viral video from December 2020. “I said it. I don’t give a shit. You’re disgusting. You’re a New World Order Satanist.”
Bisignano owns Gina’s Eyelashes and Skincare salon in Beverly Hills and was taken into custody by the FBI on charges of civil disorder, destruction of government property, and aiding and abetting in connection with the January 6 riots at the Capitol.
“Everybody, we need gas masks, we need weapons,” a woman believed to be Bisignano shouts on a megaphone in a video posted to social media during the riots. “We need strong, angry patriots to help our boys, they don’t want to leave. We need protection.”
In another video, a woman who identifies herself as Bisignano at the MAGA riots said, “I’m a patriot!”
Suzanne Ianni
Screenshot, NBC10 Boston
Suzanne Ianni, the operations director of Super Happy Fun America, was arrested for entering a restricted building or grounds as well as disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
The international news agency Agence France Presse captured photographs of Ianni inside the Capitol on January 6, MetroWest Daily News reported in July. Ianni also reportedly helped organize 11 buses of protestors that traveled from Massachusetts to Washington to denounce President Joe Biden’s victory.
Kevin Tuck
Pastor Kevin Tuck Screenshot
After police officer Kevin Tuck was charged for participating in the riots, he began ranting on YouTube about how he believes it’s unjust that people are getting arrested for rioting in Congress.
“Patriots were fed up – fed up,” he said about that day, calling himself “Pastor Kevin.”
“Patriots are being arrested left and right for trespassing. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He told conservatives to “rise up” and said that the GOP is supporting “alternative lifestyles.”
“The Republican Party is weak,” he said. “We need to rise up and be conservative again. Do you remember what conservative means, Republicans? Hear me out: We are embracing the homosexual lifestyle as if this is normal.”
“Was that your motivation for going to Washington?” she asked. He said he couldn’t answer without talking to his attorney first.
Prosecutors say that Tuck texted his family immediately after the insurrection: “We stormed the Capitol, fought the police, took the flag. It is our flag.”
Tuck was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, entering and remaining in the Gallery of Congress, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
