While speaking at the Politico Health Care Summit, out Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) expressed the need for the federal government to collect more data about LGBTQ+ people, especially when it comes to mental health.
Federally funded surveys, she said, rarely provide questions on LGBTQ+ identities.
“I think it’s so important people are counted. It’s hard to claim with great reliability how much greater risk gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender children and adults are at risk for suicide. It is really important that we get that data because it helps us make our arguments for greater resources and greater services.”
As The Hill reports, Baldwin also voiced plans to reintroduce the “LGBTQI+ Data Inclusion ACT,” which would require federal agencies that collect demographic data through surveys to include questions on LGBTQ+ identities. The House passed the bill last year, but it died in the Senate.
During her time at the health summit, Baldwin also emphasized the need for filibuster reform, though acknowledged it would be “difficult at this particular moment” to make it happen.
In April, Baldwin announced she is running for reelection to a third term in Congress.
In a statement, Baldwin said she’s “committed to making sure that working people, not just the big corporations and ultra-wealthy, have a fighter on their side. With so much at stake, from families struggling with rising costs to a ban on reproductive freedom, Wisconsinites need someone who can fight and win.”
She made history in 2012 when she became the first out gay senator in the nation and the first woman senator from Wisconsin. At the time, she declared, “I didn’t run to make history. I ran to make a difference.”
Last year, Baldwin spearheaded the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA), which repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, federally recognizes interracial and same-sex marriages performed by states, and requires states to recognize marriages performed in other states.
“Thank you to the millions of same-sex and interracial couples who truly made this moment possible,” Baldwin tweeted after it passed. “By living as your true selves, you changed the hearts and minds of people around you.”
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.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed two anti-trans bills targeting kids into law on Wednesday, one banning gender-affirming care for trans youth and one banning trans women and girls from playing on women’s sports teams.
S.B. 49, the “Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act”, is set to take effect on August 28 and bans all gender-affirming treatments (including reversible puberty blockers) until August 2027. Any healthcare providers who violate the law risk losing their license. Some states that have passed gender-affirming care bans have required trans youth already receiving this care to wean themselves off their medications and detransition, but this law allows those already undergoing care to continue.
“We support everyone’s right to his or her own pursuit of happiness,” Parson tweeted upon signing the bill. “However, we must protect children from making life-altering decisions that they could come to regret in adulthood once they have physically and emotionally matured.”
The anti-trans sports bill, S.B. 39, says both private and public schools all the way through college must require trans youth to play on sports teams according to their sex assigned at birth.
In his tweet about the bill, Parson declared that inclusivity was unjust “nonsense.”
“Women and girls deserve and have fought for an equal opportunity to succeed, and we stand up to the nonsense and stand with them as they take back their sport competitions. In Missouri, we support real fairness, not injustice disguised as social righteousness.”
LGBTQ+ advocates have roundly condemned the legislation.
“These bills represent a two-pronged approach to targeting trans youth and eliminating their stories, their perspectives, and their right to a happy, healthy childhood,” said Human Rights Campaign state legislative director and senior counsel Cathryn Oakley in a statement. “SB 49 tosses aside decades of scientific research and guidance from every major medical and mental health organization, representing over 1.3 million American doctors, in favor of the discriminatory whims of politicians in Jefferson City.”
Shira Berkowitz, senior director of public policy and advocacy for Missouri advocacy group PROMO said Parson has “showed just how little Missouri’s state government values LGBTQ+ lives and, in particular, transgender and gender-expansive youth. Berkowitz added that the laws are part of an “embarrassing history of elected leaders intentionally taking action to harm transgender Missourians.”
As GOP-led states continue to ban medically necessary care for trans youth and some adults, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) has signed an executive order protecting gender-affirming care.
“In the state of Maryland, nobody should have to justify their own humanity,” Moore saidwhile signing the order at a Pride event. “This order is focused on ensuring Maryland is a safe place for gender-affirming care, especially as other states take misguided and hateful steps to make gender-affirming care cause for legal retribution. In Maryland, we are going to lead on this issue.”
Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller said the order shows that “this administration is saying to all LGBTQIA+ Marylanders: You deserve to be your authentic selves, during Pride month and every month. You deserve to live safely, openly and freely; and receive the gender-affirming care you need.”
This is one of several moves state leaders have made this year to protect the more than 94,000 trans and nonbinary Marylanders. In March, Moore signed the Trans Health Equity Act, which requires state Medicaid plans to cover gender-affirming care. Among the treatments covered are hormone therapies, puberty blockers, and surgeries, as well as voice training, fertility preservation, and permanent hair removal.
Moore was also the first governor in state history to formally recognize March 31st as the International Transgender Day of Visibility.
The state also recently repealed an archaic law banning sodomy. Moore did not sign the bill overturning the Unnatural or Perverted Sexual Practices Act, but he allowed it to go into effect without his signature.
The Pride event at Government House – the state’s official governor’s residence – is the first to ever be held there.
“I want you to know that in this house, you aren’t just welcome, you are necessary,” said First Lady Dawn Moore.
Members of a culture-warring Florida school district spent a contentious eight-and-a-half hours at a school board meeting expressing their exasperation with the divisiveness plaguing the schools.
According to the Tampa Bay Times,topics at the meeting included book bans, LGBTQ+ rights, and the “overall direction of the … district and its closely divided board.”
Many speakers (there were over 100) denounced the right-wing propaganda claiming teachers are indoctrinating children to be LGBTQ+.
“No one is teaching your kids to be gay!” said former math teacher Alyssa Marano, who recently resigned from the Hernando school district. “Sometimes, they just are gay. I have math to teach. I literally don’t have time to teach your kids to be gay.”
The district gained notoriety in May when the Florida Department of Education began investigating a Hernando fifth-grade teacher, Jenna Barbee, for showing her class the Disney movie Strange World, which contains a scene where one of the male characters says he has a crush on a boy. Barbee has since resigned.
But Barbee is just the beginning. About 50 teachers are reportedly planning to resign due to the school’s hostile environment.
At the board meeting, teacher Daniel Scott decried the “draconian working conditions that are causing many such as myself to abandon this honored career.”
“I don’t feel that I can adequately provide a safe environment for my students anymore,” Scott said.
Students and parents also spoke, with one saying the school’s “war on woke” is actually a war on the students’ futures.
Amelie Howell, a sophomore in high school, held a sign that said “Education is not indoctrination” and told the board, “It feels like a lot of people are speaking for us. Nobody is asking what we want.”
According to the Times, meeting attendees also included Proud Boys and members of the anti-LGBTQ+ organization Moms for Liberty.
As part of his own war on so-called “woke” culture, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has been helping Moms for Liberty members get elected to local Florida school boards.
Shannon Rodriguez, a Hernando board member who was endorsed by Moms for Liberty, is the one who reported Barbee for showing the Disney film.
Both Rodriguez and fellow Board member Mark Johnson – whose campaign was focused on opposing critical race theory – have caused controversy in the district after campaigning to remove Superintendent John Stratton, whom they have accused of supporting “indoctrination.”
Stratton survived the vote of no confidence, with one board member, Susan Duval, saying you “could never find a better superintendent.”
Meetings like this are the product of a Florida culture war continually stoked by DeSantis, who recently announced his campaign for President.
Beginning with the 2022 passage of the Don’t Say Gay law – which prohibits class instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade – DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature have devoted their tenure to demonizing LGBTQ+ people and making schools less safe for LGBTQ+ students.
DeSantis and the Florida GOP have been so hostile to the LGBTQ+ community that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) – the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organization – joined Equality Florida to issue a travel advisory for the state.
On May 17, DeSantis signed a slate of laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, restrictions on such care for adults, a ban on all-ages drag shows, and an anti-trans bathroom bill.
DeSantis has gone to war with Disney over its opposition to the Don’t Say Gay law, has launched numerous blindsides attacking “woke indoctrination” in schools, and has taken control of the state’s education system with handpicked administrators and the power of the bully pulpit. His staff has regularly smeared LGBTQ+ people and allies on social media with vile slurs and insinuations of sexual abuse.
The Don’t Say Gay law – which has been expanded to all grades – has led to the banning of LGBTQ+ books in schools and the forced outing of students to their parents by school administrators.
In 2021, DeSantis signed a bill banning trans students from participating in school sports.
DeSantis has ranted against “woke gender ideology” and once claimed, “In the state of Florida, we are not going to allow them to inject transgenderism into kindergarten.”
LGBTQ+ students in Florida are so scared of repercussions that many have refused to speak with LGBTQ Nation about their experiences. A non-LGBTQ+ student told us that terrified queer students are learning to “shut up and keep their head low.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) has signed an education bill that includes several anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
S.F. 496 bans instruction on LGBTQ+ identities through sixth grade and requires schools to out trans youth to their parents. It also bans all books containing sex acts from school classrooms and libraries, which will undoubtedly lead to the banning of several LGBTQ+ books.
And despite the fact that Iowa has already banned gender-affirming care for trans youth, the bill explicitly establishes that parents and guardians have “the fundamental, constitutionally protected right, to make decisions affecting [their] child, including decisions related to the minor child’s medical care….”
The section clarifies that it does not authorize parents and guardians to “engage in conduct that is unlawful,” and as such, parents of trans youth still do not have the right to seek gender-affirming care for their kids.
Democrats and LGBTQ+ rights groups have blasted the bill.
“We need all Iowa trans kids to know, LGBTQ kids to know, that you belong here,” House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst (D), reportedly said as the legislative session came to a close.
After Reynold’s signed the bill, the Iowa Senate Democrats tweeted that the law seeks to “ban books and marginalize kids just because they’re different.”
“Censorship and singling out LGBTQ Iowans is wrong for kids, and wrong for our state,” the tweet concluded.
Courtney Reyes, the executive director of One Iowa, said in a statement that the law “will harm an already vulnerable group of children and will benefit no one.”
The bill was part of a slate of education bills signed by Reynolds last week. In a statement, she said the state has “secured transformational education reform that puts parents in the driver’s seat, eliminates burdensome regulations on public schools, provides flexibility to raise teacher salaries, and empowers teachers to prepare our kids for their future.”
“Education is the great equalizer and everyone involved – parents, educators, our children – deserves an environment where they can thrive,” she said.
Reynolds has made her anti-trans views a cornerstone of her tenure. She has also made “parental control” a centerpiece of her public messaging, claiming a far-left “woke” agenda is threatening the health and well-being of the state’s children.
While campaigning for reelection in 2022, she aired a TV spot highlighting what she called her values of faith, freedom, and hard work.
“Here in Iowa,” she declared, “we know right from wrong, boys from girls.”
At the end of March this year, Reynolds signed two bills targeting trans youth. One forbids minors from accessing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy and forces trans teens currently receiving gender-affirming care to de-transition. It also threatens the professional licenses of any medical practitioners who provide such care. Studies show that gender-affirming care is safe, reversible, and essential to trans people’s overall well-being.
The other prohibits people from using school restrooms that don’t correspond with the gender a person was assigned at birth.
Last year, Reynolds also signed an anti-trans sports ban.
In a historic ruling, the Supreme Court of Namibia has ruled that the government is required to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in other nations between citizens and foreign nationals.
In a 4-1 vote, the judges overturned a previous ruling from the country’s High Court that said these marriages could not be acknowledged.
The litigants spoke with LGBTQ Nation about their fight for equal rights.
“This Court accordingly found that the approach of the Ministry to exclude spouses, including the appellants, in a validly concluded same-sex marriage… infringes both the interrelated rights to dignity and equality of the appellants,” stated the ruling.
The lawsuit was brought by a Namibian woman who married a German woman, as well as a Namibian man who married a South African man (South Africa is the only African country where same-sex marriage is legal). The non-Namibian spouses could not obtain resident rights in the country, so the couples sued.
Homosexuality remains illegal in the Christian-majority nation, though according to Africa News, the 1927 sodomy law is almost never enforced.
“Today’s verdict and outcome clearly indicates that Namibia is moving towards recognizing diversity in this country irrespective of people’s political or social positioning,” LGBTQ+ rights activist Linda Baumann told Reuters.
“Today after a six-year battle, we finally won, and the court has ruled that the Ministry of Home Affairs has to recognize these marriages by foreign spouses to Namibian spouses,” Carli Schickerling, a lawyer who represented the couples, told VOA.
Baumann also spoke with VOA and cautioned that there are so many more rights to fight for.
“It is important to understand the status of this case; it’s couples that are coming back to this country to claim their right to equality, their right to dignity and their right to family. To answer that question about same-sex marriages, I believe that a lot of LGBTQ people in this country, we experience a number of inequalities in service, in benefits, in having the right to say something over your partner.”
She hopes this ruling will lead to other rights for same-sex couples as well.
Jamie Alexander is the epitome of a supportive parent. Since his daughter Ruby came out as trans as a young child, he has done everything in his power to ensure she is loved and affirmed and can lead a happy life as her authentic self.
And that includes launching an entire company so that Ruby would have something to wear to the beach.
Tanius Posey said some negative comments have come from trans people who think he’s making them “look bad.”
Ruby had been having trouble finding a bikini that fit her well. For her own safety, her parents had insisted she wear board shorts to the beach. But Ruby eventually grew frustrated and just wanted to wear a bikini like her friends.
There wasn’t much on the market to meet Ruby’s needs, so Alexander decided to change that. Three years ago, he launched Rubies, which sells form-fitting bras, underwear, and swimwear for trans girls. It’s slogan: “Every girl deserves to shine.”
“One of the design points for Rubies was creating underwear and swimwear that feels the same as clothing cis people are wearing,” Alexander told LGBTQ Nation. “If you’re not physically comfortable, that gets in the way of you feeling comfortable overall.”
Over the past three years, Alexander has sent out more than 10,000 packages to trans girls in over 40 countries. He has spoken on panels, guided employee resource groups, and Zoomed directly with parents seeking advice on supporting their own trans children.
Alexander has also done several collaborations with LGBTQ+ groups, most recently partnering with Alexander Switzer’s Affirming Wardrobe, a program (through Switzer’s nonprofit Valid USA) that works with schools to supply gender-affirming clothing and undergarments to middle, high school, and college students.
In addition to running an Affirming Wardrobe in Tucson, Arizona at the University of Arizona Lutheran Campus Ministries, Alexander has largely worked with schools in Northern California, namely with the Oakland Unified School District.
He met Alexander when Rubies donated some merchandise to the organization, and the pair quickly knew they wanted to continue working together.
“I really liked what he was doing,” Alexander said, adding that working with Switzer has allowed Rubies products to reach a different cohort of young people – those without supportive parents that must seek out gender-affirming attire themselves.
Last month, in honor of the Transgender Day of Visibility, Alexander donated a slew of merchandise to Switzer.
“It’s a great opportunity for me to expand even further [and reach] older youth and be able to do some good, help these people in another critical time in their journey,” he said.
Both Switzer and Alexander praised the immensely positive effects their work has had on the kids they serve.
“A lot of kids have withdrawn from doing activities they love,” Alexander said. “And I don’t know about you, but for myself, you know, being able to go swimming at the beach, go to camp and feel comfortable, it’s kind of an essential part of growing up. So people say it’s life-changing for them and their kids.”
“Right away when a kid tries on their first bikini… They get that, you know, that twirl, like ‘Hey, I feel like myself.’”
Switzer, a trans man himself, told LGBTQ Nation that based on feedback he has received from the Oakland Unified School District, trans students who have access to the Affirming Wardrobe have had better attendance and even improved grades.
“They’re more interactive with their peers, they’re happier. They’re showing up for school every day. They’re showing up for club meetings, for events in the community… It’s really brought a lot of people, a lot of students, a lot of kids just so much joy.”
Both companies hope to continue expanding their reach as much as possible. Switzer is hoping to do so through college campus ministries.
“I grew up in the Christian church and was loved and welcomed, and then I was queer and I was a sin… So I strayed away from being with any kind of religious groups for 11 years and then [found] this very welcoming group of young people… They were super excited and welcoming of the idea of the Affirming Wardrobe. So with the partnership of the other church that we work with, they were able to give me space there.”
“Now we’re looking to connect with additional campus ministries at additional colleges to try to open space at their church or their college. I connected with my pastor, and we’re going to reach out to the over 100 different groups throughout the different universities.”
And now that Ruby is 15, Alexander has been expanding the company’s product line to grow with his daughter. He introduced a bra last year, for example, and he is working on creating other, more teen-centered undergarments as an increasing number of older kids also show interest in the brand.
“There’s always more to do,” he said. “Much more to grow Rubies into for sure.”
While both founders have experienced the inevitable backlash that accompanies supporting a marginalized group, they said they do their best to focus on the positive.
“The backlash, it just sort of falls off me,” said Alexander. “I knew going into this that there are some people that hate on the trans movement. They’re going to be there irrespective of what I’m doing. I really don’t focus on them at all. Rubies is really about celebrating these great people, the great community, the kids, it’s all positive…. What Rubies and I personally try to do is really just bring some joy to this community.”
“We don’t want you to be shocked,” Switzer added. “We want this to be normal. We’re just giving our kids what they need to succeed.”
He recalls a special Affirming Wardrobe program in San Francisco that paired 18 trans and gender nonconforming kids with 18 drag artists for a shopping spree at the LGBTQ+ thrift store, Out of the Closet.
“Just helping them shop and find what really makes them feel comfortable. We had a shy, shy youth come in that at first was very hesitant. And after, they had just the biggest smile on their face. They just broke out of their shell. And it was just… it drives the work.”
As someone who regularly witnesses the positive impact trans kids experience when their gender is affirmed, Switzer has a message for the GOP legislators seeking to limit trans kids’ freedom: “Just leave us be. Let us do what’s going to make us happy. We’re not hurting anybody. We are doing things within our lives to fulfill what we need to be to be happy.”
At just 54 years old, Rue Landau is already a living, breathing piece of LGBTQ+ history.
As a member of ACT UP during the height of the AIDS epidemic, she fought on the frontlines for better access to health care for people with HIV and AIDS. In 2014, while serving as executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, Landau and her wife, Kerry, became the first same-sex couple in Pennsylvania to get a marriage license.
The leaders did not acknowledge why Sims wasn’t their top choice.
Now, Landau could further embed herself in the fabric of Pennsylvania’s LGBTQ+ history as she seeks to become the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to the Philadelphia City Council.
“I’ve been working my whole career, fighting for social justice and equity,” Landau, a Democrat, told LGBTQ Nation. “All of the work I’ve done has naturally led up to this point. We’re facing tremendous challenges here in the city of Philadelphia, and I believe that I have the vision, the track record, and the relationships to get things done.”
Landau began her career as a civil rights attorney at Community Legal Services, where she defended low-income renters against evictions. She then spent 12 years directing Philadelphia’s Commission on Human Relations as well as the Fair Housing Commission, where she focused on advancing the city’s civil rights laws.
During her tenure, she helped create laws to advance wage equity, create reasonable accommodations for pregnant people, and strengthen anti-discrimination protections, including specifically for LGBTQ+ people.
Landau said her experiences working for the city taught her the importance of having an LGBTQ+ leader who is also trusted by other communities.
“It enabled me to be able to build coalitions across communities that did not happen before… To me, creating coalitions with our LGBTQ community and other communities throughout Philadelphia is going to make us all stronger and safer and make for a stronger city, and that is how we will build Philadelphia back post-pandemic and create the brighter better Philadelphia that we need.”
If elected to City Council, Landau’s priorities would be public safety (namely, tackling the gun violence epidemic), neighborhood investment, and affordable housing.
“I believe with more investments in our neighborhoods, in our schools, our rec centers, our libraries, our people, our cleaning and greening spaces, that’s the first start to helping with issues of public safety,” she said.
“And I want to increase community policing, increase de-escalation tactics, get far more mobile health crisis units on the street and active, and connected to all of that is the fact that we are the poorest large city in America. We must tackle our poverty crisis in order for people to feel hope and to thrive. For me, one of the big measures there is affordable housing.”
Landau certainly has her work cut out for her in the race. More than 20 candidates are running in the May 16 Democratic primary for the council’s seven available at-large seats.
Landau said it would be “incredible” to be the council’s first out member, but she also acknowledged the closeted leaders – like the late John C. Anderson – who have served before her.
“I stand on the shoulders of their greatness,” she said, adding that her victory “would mean that we finally had a seat at the table.”
“It would mean that our community didn’t just have advisory roles for legislation and policy, but that we really had a hand in crafting it with a seat at the table. It would also mean that I was a role model to other people. And as a parent, I can tell you that our young people need role models.”
Landau said Philadelphia is more or less a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, but that areas near the city – like Bucks County – have become caught up in the right-wing’s relentless vendetta against LGBTQ+ people.
Last year, the ACLU issued a 72-page complaint accusing Bucks County’s Central Bucks School District – one of the state’s largest – of creating a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students. The complaint alleged that the district had propagated the removal of Pride flags, instructed teachers not to honor a student’s pronouns, and advocated for censorship of books with LGBTQ+ themes.
If elected, Landau vowed to reach across city lines to speak up for the surrounding LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s wonderful if we can maintain our safe borders here in Philadelphia,” Landau said. “But I think that we need to be the strongest voice in the state. We often are, but [we need to be] now more than ever… And we need to reach over to our counties and across the state and help them lift up all of their LGBTQ communities as well, to reach out to their elected officials, and to make sure that those areas remain safe for our communities as well.”
Above all else, Landau wants voters to see her as a coalition builder.
“I’ve been a fighter for social justice and equity my entire career… I bring people together. I have resolved conflicts. I’m a coalition builder, and I am working to make stronger communities and a stronger Philadelphia.”
Residents have been left stunned after antisemitic and anti-trans flyers were recently distributed across multiple Atlanta neighborhoods.
According to Fox 5, the flyers appear to have come from a group called the Goyim Defense League, which the Anti-Defamation League describes as “a loose network of individuals connected by their virulent antisemitism” whose “goal is to cast aspersions on Jews and spread antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories.”
Doctors could get up to 10 years in prison under the new law.
One of the flyers said Jews are behind “the rise in transgenderism” and included photos of trans leaders superimposed with Jewish stars. The flyer also warned of a “4000% explosion in kids identifying as transgender” and said kids are being “forced to unlearn boy-girl differences.”
Other flyers declared “every single aspect of feminism is Jewish” and “every single aspect of the Jewish Talmud is Satanic.”
“We just need to be more open and kind,” one resident, Caroline Joe, told Atlanta News First. “It’s kind of cowardly actually to just come into a neighborhood and distribute information like that.”
“I think the best places for those messages are in the trash can,” said another resident, Brian Davis. “I think we need to start treating people better, and I encourage whoever did this to go out there and find a Jewish person or a Black person or a gay person and befriend them.”
The FBI told the news agency that while they are of the situation, the distributors of the flyers do not appear to have broken federal law and are exercising their first amendment rights.
The flyers were found in the district of City Councilmember Lilliana Bakhtiari, the first nonbinary official elected in Atlanta. Bakhtiari called the flyers “vile” and “repugnant” and said their office “has been in regular communication” with the Atlanta Police and leaders of the affected communities.
“I will continue to extend myself – and my platform – as a resource to any person targeted on the basis of exclusion,” they said.
A statement from the Atlanta Police Department said it is “not aware of any criminal acts related to the flyers. However, their distribution has led to a heightened level of awareness throughout our department, and we have increased patrols around where the flyers were found.”
Georgia state Rep. Saira Draper (D) told Rough Draft Atlanta she is “appalled and disgusted” and that “this is not an isolated incident of hate.”
“As a state legislator, I can’t help but view this incident and our legislative policy choices as related. During the 2023 legislative session, the Georgia General Assembly failed to pass proposed legislation to curb rising rates of antisemitism.”
“Concurrently, the General Assembly prioritized the passage of legislation that discriminates against and harms transgender children and their families. There is a direct line between these policy decisions and creating an environment that emboldens hate groups and normalizes discriminatory rhetoric. It’s not enough for leaders to say they don’t tolerate hate; our policy agenda must do the same.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (D) also condemned the flyers, saying he is “deeply disturbed.”
On Thursday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) vetoed a slate of anti-trans bills passed by the Republican-dominated legislature.
One bill seeks to ban trans people from using bathrooms and other public facilities that align with their gender identity, and another attempts to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. A third would ban trans students from rooming with cis students on overnight school trips, and a fourth would require trans prisoners to be housed based on their sex assigned at birth.
She was accused of using “inappropriate and uncalled-for language” while defending trans youth.
In a statement on her vetoes, Kelly blasted the bills for taking away trans people’s rights and for their potential to hurt the Kansas economy.
“Companies have made it clear that they are not interested in doing business with states that discriminate against workers and their families. By stripping away rights from Kansans and opening the state up to expensive and unnecessary lawsuits, these bills would hurt our ability to continue breaking economic records and landing new business deals. I’m focused on the economy. Anyone care to join me?”
For at least three of the four bills, the legislature appears to have enough votes to override Kelly’s vetoes. The bill on gender-affirming care is the only one that may not, as 14 House Republicans voted against S.B. 26, which would ban all forms of gender-affirming care – including reversible puberty blockers – for those under 18.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) praised Kelly for vetoing the legislation.
“Today, Governor Kelly did the right thing,” said HRC state legislative director and senior counsel Cathryn Oakley. “By vetoing a series of bills designed solely to discriminate against LGBTQ+ – particularly transgender – Kansans, she rejected the politics of hate and division being perpetrated by the state legislature, all while keeping her focus on the issues that really matter. She’s right that discrimination is bad for business, bad for Kansas, and bad for this nation.”
Earlier this month, the Kansas GOP succeeded in passing an anti-trans sports ban that many worry will lead to invasive and traumatic genital examinations of student-athletes.
Lawmakers overrode Kelly’s third veto of the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which bans transgender girls and women in kindergarten through college from participating in girls’ and women’s school sports.
“It breaks my heart,” Kelly said in the wake of the bill’s passage. “I’m sorry that they distracted themselves with this really awful bill.”
“It won’t increase test scores. It won’t help any kids read or write,” she wrote in her veto message. “It won’t help any teachers prepare our kids for the real world. Here’s what this bill would actually do: harm the mental health of our students.”
Kelly has long championed LGBTQ+ rights. When she first became governor in 2019, her first official act in office was to sign an executive order to restore protections for LGBTQ+ state employees.
“Discrimination of any kind has no place in Kansas,” Kelly said on her official Twitter account. “It will not be tolerated.”
