Donald Trump has ended rape protections for trans inmates in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and US prisons, in a move that further attacks the trans community.
Guidance was released this month by the Department of Homeland Security for several privately-run ICE facilities, where, as of 8 January, 68,990 people are being held – a record high.
The Department of Justice is also working to remove rules protecting LGBTQ+ people from sexual abuse in prisons.
According to reporting by the American Prospect, at least six ICE detention facilities, mostly run by private prison companies, have updated government contracts to remove safeguards against rape and other protections for trans inmates.
Multiple detention centres, including some in Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia and multiple facilities in Texas, have removed safety measures and halted medical care for trans prisoners.
The updated contracts cite Trump’s executive order “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism” as the reason for changes. Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility language has also been revoked in line with Trump’s orders.
Bridget Crawford, director of law and policy at Immigration Equality, said of the revised trans guidance: “Trans asylum seekers are typically in the US because they’ve already endured ‘incredibly high levels of sexual assault’.
“They’re coming here for protection, and they find themselves in immigration detention, which by law cannot be punitive, but we see that it is.”
At the end of last year, LGBTQ+ immigrants alleged that they faced sexual harassment, medical neglect, coerced labour and abuse at an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.
The Trump administration also admitted to “inadvertently” deporting a transgender woman back to her home country, despite of a court order that ruled she should not be removed there because of a risk of her being tortured.
Multiple politicians and celebrities, including US Congress’ first out gay immigrant member, Robert Garcia, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and pop star Sabrina Carpenter, whose single “Juno” was used on a deportation video, have called out ICE, with the fatal shooting of LGBTQ+ wife and mother Renee Nicole Good acting as a harrowing example of the brutality used by ICE agents.
Chicago LGBTQ+ activist Rick Garcia has died at the age of 69.
Garcia, who was a leader in the Illinois city’s civil rights movement, died on 12 January. His advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community dates back decades. In 1996, the Chicago Reader reported that he kept his sexual orientation a secret throughout high school and into college.
In 1976, he attended a speech by theology professor Father Louis Hanlon, who spoke about the “sin” of homosexuality. Garcia had none of it and spoke out against Hanlon, telling him: “Gay people are entitled to friendship, love, and justice, according to the American Catholic bishops. What you said was neither friendly, loving, or just.”
He pushed for similar protections at the Cook County level, which were enacted in 1993, and in 1992 he was a principal founder of the Illinois Federation for Human Rights, later renamed Equality Illinois.
Garcia was also at the forefront of advocacy for the passage of an Illinois law against discrimination based on sexual orientation, which was approved in 2005. He also pushed for marriage equality, which was signed into law in Illinois in 2013. In 2012, after parting ways as public policy director of Equality Illinois, he joined the staff of The Civil Rights Agenda.
‘A fierce and legendary activist’
A post by political strategist Richard Streetman announcing his death read: “While many knew Rick as a fierce and legendary activist who spent decades fighting for equality, justice, and dignity in Illinois and beyond, we knew him as a man of immense warmth, sharp wit, and a fierce commitment to his convictions.
“Rick dedicated his life to the belief that everyone deserves to live with pride and legal protection. His work helped shape history, but his true impact was felt in the lives of the individuals he empowered and the community he helped build.”
Comments under the post reflect an outpouring of appreciation for the good Garcia has achieved during his lifetime.
‘Such a powerhouse for the LGBTQ+ community’
One comment read: “Rick was one of a kind. A relentless fighter for equality and justice, he could be strong, angry, snarky, and defiant about the issues, while warm, loving and genuinely concerned about not just the communities, but the individual people for whom he fought. May his memory be for a blessing.”
Another comment read: “Such a powerhouse for the LGBTQ+ community. We laughed and worked on many similar causes.”
Statewide LGBTQ+ rights group, Equality Illinois, of which Garcia was a founder, remembered him as “a towering leader in the fight for civil rights across our state and nation”.
The post added: “Rick’s visionary leadership helped secure Chicago’s landmark 1988 anti-discrimination ordinance, his legacy lives on in the laws he helped pass, and the countless lives affected by his work.
“We honor Rick’s tremendous life, and remain committed to carrying forward the vision he helped create.”
A comment under the post shared that his death is a “major loss to the LGBTQ+ community”.
“Rick Garcia was a fearless activist at a time when our community had few allies,” a different comment shared.
Drug and alcohol related deaths are significantly higher among queer people, a “deeply concerning” study has found.
The findings come from analysis by the Office for National Statistics in the UK, which cross-referenced 2021 census data with death registrations between March 2021 and November 2024.
Multiple studies have revealed that LGB+ people are disproportionately affected by addictions, including alcoholism and drug use. The study specifically used the definer LGB+.
According to the study, suicide and drug and alcohol overdoses are among the most significant causes of death for members of the LGB+ community.
The study revealed that there were nearly three times as many “drug poisoning” deaths among the LGB+ population compared with the “straight or heterosexual” group, with alcohol-related deaths being almost twice as high for those identifying as LGB+, compared with those who are straight or heterosexual.
LGB+ men were reported to have a higher risk of alcohol-specific death than their straight counterparts, while the risk of drug related death was 2.8 times higher for those who identify as LGB+, compared with their heterosexual counterparts.
Females who were part of the LGB+ community had a higher risk of death due to drug poisoning (3.4 times higher), while men experienced a 2.4 times higher risk than their straight peers.
Overall, the risk of death from any cause was found to be 1.3 times greater overall for people within the community, compared to those who are straight.
Among the leading causes of death for people within the community was inadequate blood supply to the heart (11.9 per cent) and intentional self-harm and events of undetermined intent (7.1 per cent). Self-harm was not listed within the top five causes of death for the straight population.
Mark Winstanley, chief executive of the charity Rethink Mental Illness, told The Guardian that the findings are “deeply concerning”.
“It is deeply concerning that the data shows suicide is the second leading cause of death among LGB+ people. The causes of suicide are complex, but we know that LGBTQ+ people face discrimination in many areas of their lives and encounter harassment, from physical attacks to online hatred.”
He continued: “Today’s data reinforces the urgent need to address the risk factors that LGBTQ+ people face, as well as ensuring that mental health services are available and accessible for this group.”
Trans athletes are back in the news again and, as such, so are the myths some use to try to justify their exclusion from sports.
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding two cases that could determine the legality of laws banning trans students from sporting events on Tuesday (13 January).
Several claims based on myths around physical ability in sport were used to justify bans in Idaho and West Virginia.
Here are some of the most common arguments used to ban trans women in sports, and why they’re nonsense.
‘Teams are sex-segregated because boys are better at sports than girls’
A woman playing tennis. (Getty)
This is untrue for multiple reasons, and is rooted in underlying misogynistic perceptions of women that date back to the 1830s.
While recorded depictions of sex-segregated sports date as far back as Ancient Greece, women were seldom allowed to play sports in the 19th century because of misogynistic perceptions of them as inherently weak and helpless, according to Goal Five.
Eventually, upper-class women were allowed to play tennis and golf at local country clubs and, by the turn of the century, women gradually fought for their right to compete. By the time of the early 1900s, many regulators introduced women’s-only categories over complaints that they were “intruding” on male spaces.
Thus, sex-segregation became the norm in the sporting world and has since persisted partly due to tradition, but also to allow opportunities for both female and male athletes. Not because of “biological” advantages, but because of issues such as the gender pay gap.
Sex-segregated categories are also not innate. Many argue the practice is increasingly untenable, according to The Society Pages, and leads to further misogyny over who can and can’t compete in the women’s category, such as the controversy over Caster Semenya, who is a cisgender woman.
‘Transgender women are taking away opportunities for cisgender women’
There are two fundamental problems with this argument. The first is that there are virtually no trans women competitors who are at the top of their respective sports. The second is that trans women are women and, as such, deserve to compete as much as their cisgender competitors.
According to WorldAtlas, the five biggest sports by number of fans are football (soccer), cricket, hockey, tennis, and volleyball. Of those sports’ respective annual rankings, none have ever featured a trans woman.
The only people taking opportunities away from women are the national and international sports bodies that have implemented bans on trans competitors, many of which still insist they believe that trans women are women.
Football legend Gary Lineker himself deplored the rising number of bans in May 2025, describing trans people as “some of the most persecuted on the planet”.
‘Excluding trans women from women’s sports isn’t transphobic, it’s just a game after all’
Protestor holds up a sign in support of trans people playing sports. (Getty)
Puzzlingly, excluding trans women from women’s sports is one of the most commonplace anti-trans beliefs among the general public.
A YouGov poll from February 2025 found that 74 per cent of the UK public think trans women should be excluded from women’s sports, while 60 per cent feel the same way about trans men in men’s sports.
This viewpoint is likely so common because of a perception that sports are nothing more than unserious games detached from real life. That, in turn, makes the transphobia easier to digest because it isn’t viewed as ‘real’ transphobia.
The issue here is that sports are not detached from reality. Sporting is a $417 billion industry that has real sway over people’s perceptions of reality. Its influence is why riots are so common following major sporting events.
Sports are so influential, in fact, existing tension between El Salvador and Honduras turned into a brief war, known as The Football War, in 1969 after riots over the results of a 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier. While the roots of the conflict ran much deeper, it contributed to the build-up of the war, which took place between 14-18 July 1969, hence its other name, the 100 Hour War.
Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s undeniable that sports have a huge influence over the world, from its culture to its politics. When trans people are denied the right to play, they are denied the right to participate in a major part of global society.
‘Trans women are injuring cis women during sporting events and are dangerous’
This claim is common among more anti-trans pundits and groups, many of whom are trying to demonise trans people across all walks of life.
The most notorious example used is volleyball player-turned anti-trans pundit, Payton McNabb, who was injured playing high school volleyball against a trans competitor in 2022. McNabb has since become an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). The IWF have been accused of aggressively lobbying for trans-exclusionary policies.
According to a 2023 study, 214,000 female volleyball players aged 14 to 23 have been injured since 2012. Nowhere in the study does it say trans people are vastly responsible for these injuries.
There is no evidence whatsoever that suggests trans women are inherently more dangerous or prone to injuring someone than cis competitors. None at all.
‘Sports bans are okay because there aren’t that many trans athletes’
Trans rights activists outside the Supreme Court during its oral hearing on sports bans. (Getty)
This argument was used by solicitor Hashim Mooppan while speaking to the US Supreme Court on behalf of the Trump administration.
Mooppan argued that laws banning trans women from competing in women’s sports should be permissible because trans athletes represent a tiny fraction of student athletes.
A report from the National Collegiate Athletic Association found that, in 2024, there were fewer than 10 of the 550,000 student athletes nationwide are out as trans.
The issue with this argument is that it could be, and is, just as easily used to justify why trans people should be allowed to compete.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has used that argument to justify overturning trans sports bans, arguing that the sheer public scrutiny against trans athletes far outweighs any possible damage they could cause, if any at all.
‘Trans women have an inherent, unchangeable advantage over cisgender women in sports’
This is the big one – virtually every single justification for banning trans women from women’s sports purports that, because they are assigned male at birth (AMAB), they have an inherent advantage.
One major logical problem with this is the state of women’s sports right now. If trans athletes, who have the same level of training as their cis counterparts, have an underlying advantage, surely every top-rated woman in sport would be trans?
A 2024 study backed by the International Olympic Committee found that, conversely, trans women could be in many ways disadvantaged in sporting competitions due to changes induced by feminising hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Endocrinologist Dr Joshua D Safer told the ACLU in 2020 that a person’s genetic make-up, such as their sex chromosomes, are not good indicators of athletic performance.
“There is no inherent reason why [a trans woman’s] physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.”
This argument’s misogynistic foundations are best displayed when trans women are banned from non-physical sports such as chess or snooker. In 2022, British Open snooker champion Maria Catalano claimed trans women should be banned from competitions because cisgender women’s brains are “wired differently”.
Brazilian tennis player João Lucas Reis da Silva is set to make history again, this time at the Australian Open.
Silva, who arrived in Melbourne this week, made history in late 2024 when he came out as gay by sharing a sweet snap of his partner Gui Sampaio Ricardo to celebrate his birthday.
The 25-year-old then became the first out gay tennis pro to compete in a Grand Slam event.
He is now set to continue making history by competing in the qualifying rounds of this year’s Australian Open as the first gay man to do so.
At the time of his coming out, Silva was ranked outside the Top 400 in the world. Since then, he has climbed more than 200 spots to a career-high ranking of No. 187 in the world, and in June last year he won his first ATP Challenger title in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In order to qualify for the Australian Open, Silva must win three matches to make the main draw. Even if he loses in the first round of qualifying, he will be paid at least Aus$40,500 (£20.2k/$27k).
Silva’s impact is undeniable, with Tony Hagen from the Gay Tennis Podcast telling QNews in August last year: “It marks a significant step towards greater LGBTQIA+ representation and acceptance.
“In men’s tennis, openly gay athletes have been extremely rare. His participation helps break down stigma and pushes the sport toward greater inclusivity and diversity.”
His openness has helped pave the way for other players to come out.
In December last year, Switzerland’s Mika Brunold came out as gay in a heartwarming message posted to Instagram.
He shared that he decided to share his statement with the world “to take a step for myself, but also because I think it’s not talked about enough in sports”.
Brunold added that in an “ideal world” no one would need to “come out at all”.
A majority of US citizens think Republicans are too concerned with “transphobic ideologies” and transphobia.
A YouGov poll published earlier this week suggests that US adults believe transphobia among the GOP is at least somewhat of a problem.
64 per cent of the 1,107 adults surveyed said that they believe transphobia is a problem among Republicans, with 44 per cent saying it is a major problem.
Transphobia was the second-highest issue that respondents believed Republicans had taken too far, just behind hostility towards immigrants at 68 per cent.
White supremacy and conspiracy thinking ranked highly too, with 62 per cent and 71 per cent thinking both respective issues are a problem among conservative politicians.
Concerningly, a surprising 60 per cent of respondents said they believe “trans ideology” was a problem among Republicans, while 61 per cent said “gender ideology” was an issue, though the survey results did not thoroughly explain what these issues mean specifically.
Republicans have been at the forefront of pushing transphobic policies as political attacks against the community have ramped up over the past few years.
In 2025, 125 anti-trans bills were passed, 382 failed and 513 were still active, according to Trans Legislation Tracker.
Since 2023, a staggering 1,659 bills targeting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans people, have been proposed among US state legislatures, according to ACLU. 211 of those bills have passed into law.
Anti-trans legislation includes bans on gender-affirming care for trans under-18s despite experts widely considering the treatment as “life-saving”.
Bans on trans healthcare for trans young people cover almost 40 per cent of trans youth in the US across 27 states.
While Republicans are mostly to blame for the waft of anti-trans legislation, concern over rising transphobic rhetoric across a section of Democratic politicians was also expressed by members of the US public.
45 per cent of respondents say they believe transphobia is a problem among members of the Democratic Party, while 55 per cent say it’s not an issue.
Conversely, 37 per cent say they believe so-called “wokeness” is a major problem among Democrats, while 34 per cent share the same belief for “trans ideology”.
The US has twice been the only country to vote against UN human rights policies over what it has branded “globalist” woke ideology.
Last month, deputy US representative Jonathan Shrier denounced a set of resolutions protecting humanitarian workers as “nothing more than a globalist wish list of divisive cultural causes”.
The resolutions, dubbed the “Safety and Security of Humanitarian Personnel and Protection of United Nations personnel and the “International Cooperation on Humanitarian Assistance in the Field of Natural Disasters, from Relief to Development” would both implement fundamental human rights protections in line with UN mandates on human rights development across its nation states.
In the lead-up to a vote on the resolutions, US representatives claimed the resolutions contained “highly controversial” language which they believed conflated “LGBTQ and other sexual rights” with reproductive healthcare.
The north American country was the only member state to vote against the resolutions in both votes over December, according to LGBTQ+ Nation.
Justifying the decision, Shrier said in a statement that the Trump administration refused to “advance radical gender ideology in the UN”, claiming the policies “distract from and directly undermine the real work to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world”.
“This text reads as nothing more than a globalist wish list of divisive cultural causes including climate, sexual and reproductive health, gender, and the perverse donor-recipient industrial complex,” he continued. “It is completely at odds with the Trump Administration’s bold and pragmatic foreign policy.”
He further accused UN members of becoming “obsessed” with what he described as “gender insanity and other terrible ideas.”
“There is a notion that slightly reducing instances of this absurd language is somehow enough to remedy the affliction. it is not,” he said. “We must remove all of this insanity from our work.”
The US’ dissent marks the first time in three decades that the annual resolutions have failed consensus adoption.
Christina Markus Lassen, Denmark’s delegate acting on behalf of the European Union, urged members not to politicise the respective resolution’s basic and fundamental protections at a time when humanitarian workers are increasingly under threat from attacks.
“This sobering reality puts millions of lives at risk, triggering a massive humanitarian crisis around the globe,” she said.
Other delegates, including those from the UK and Indonesia, expressed further concern that a failure to pass the resolution would result in even more humanitarian deaths, particularly in regions such as the Gaza Strip.
Ten people in France have been found guilty of cyberbullying first lady Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, by claiming she is secretly a transgender woman.
A court in Paris on Monday (5 January) ruled the defendants, which includes eight men and two women aged between 41 and 65, had spread false claims about her gender and sexuality alongside making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between the couple.
The court noted “particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious” comments made by the defendants about Macron’s gender, amid a wide-ranging conspiracy theory that she is secretly a trans woman who was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux – which is, in fact, the name of her brother.
The court decision comes as the Macron’s pursue a separate defamation case in the United States against far-right influencer Candace Owens, who has repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory about Brigitte’s gender including releasing an eight-part audio and video series on the topic. The defamation complaint, which is 219 pages long, was filed in Delaware state court in July 2025 and names both Owens and her business entities, which are incorporated in the Democratic state.
The defendants were also accused of linking the age gap between the French president, 48, and first lady, 72, to a peadophillic relationship. The couple met when he was a 15-year-old student at Le Providence, a Catholic school in northern France, and she was his drama teacher, then aged 39. They married in 2007 after Brigitte divorced her first husband, when Macron was 29 and she was 54. Their relationship has been the subject of much press and public scrutiny.
Brigitte Macron is the wife of Emmanuel Macron, the current President of France (Edward Berthelot/Getty Images)
Some of the posts made by the defendants were said to have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
The first lady did not attend the trial hearings in October but reportedly told investigators after filing the legal complaint that the false claims she is trans have “strongly affected” herself and loved ones.
Her daughter, 41-year-old Tiphaine Auziere, also testified that the faux claims had impacted her mother and their whole family, saying there had been a “deterioration of her health” and a “deterioration of her quality of life”.
“She’s constantly having to pay attention to what she wears, how she holds herself because she knows that her image can be distorted,” she said, as per French outlet Le Monde.
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Auziere also said: “Not a day or week goes by when someone does not talk about this to her … What is very hard for her are the repercussions on her family … Her grandchildren hear what is being said: ‘Your grandmother is lying’ or ‘Your grandmother is your grandfather.’
“This affects her a lot. She does not know how to stop it … She’s not elected, she has not sought anything, and she is permanently subjected to these attacks.
“I – as a daughter, a woman and a mother – would not wish her life on anyone.”
The defendants were given sentences that ranged from cyberbullying awareness training to suspended prison sentences of up to eight months.
At the time of writing, Brigitte Macron has not yet commented on the outcome of the case but speaking with TF1 on Sunday evening (4 January) defended her action against cyberbullying, saying such people are “playing with my family tree”.
“A birth certificate is not nothing. It is a father or a mother who goes to declare their child, who says who he is or who she is,” she said of the conspiracy theory about her gender.
“I want to help adolescents to fight against harassment, and if I do not set an example, it will be difficult.”
There’s a good chance you may have heard the term homonationalism used in political or public debate recently.
In fact, just a couple of days ago, Spiked published an article claiming that homonationalism is “on the rise” and suggesting that it is linked to the fact that “across Europe, gay voters are moving rightwards.” But what exactly does the term mean?
First coined by Rutgers University professor and Gender Studies scholar Jasbir Puar in her 2007 book Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times, the phrase has skyrocketed in usage over the past two decades and has yet to reach its peak, according to Google.
While the term’s specific meaning is incredibly nuanced, especially in the historical context that Puar first used it, the term broadly refers to the selective acceptance of LGBTQ+ people as a way to promote nationalist ideologies or actions.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Communication summarises the phrase as the “growing embrace of LGBT rights by (mostly Western) nations, as well as the parallel complicity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and associations with nationalist politics.”
A stretched of US Armed Forces members at a Pride march. (Getty)
Puar coined the term while analysing how the United States attempted to justify its invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and other second- and third-world nations during its “war on terror” in the early 2000s following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
During its campaign, the US government attempted to deter widespread criticism by appropriating pro-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and constructing a narrative that the largely Muslim nations were inherently homophobic.
The majority of historical examples, Puar notes, are of Western nations using homonationalist rhetoric to justify Islamophobia by positioning Western “modernity” and liberal democracy as inherently superior compared to non-Western nations.
How do governments use homonationalism?
It’s important to emphasise that progress on LGBTQ+ rights is not a prerequisite of homonationalism. In fact, nations that use the tactic often have a poor track record on LGBTQ+ rights, despite claims to the contrary, and will rarely actually take meaningful actions to improve things – for example, same-sex marriage remained illegal in the US for nearly 15 years after the “war on terror” began.
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Homonationalism also typically only extends support to white, cisgender, gay or bisexual men, and tends to ignore more marginalised groups such as non-white queer women or trans and non-binary people.
While the tactic is most prominently used against Muslims, Western nations have also used it to justify actions against actions in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, political scientist Emil Edenborg warned against Ukrainians using homonationalist rhetoric to dehumanise Russians, arguing that it mirrors the problematic nature of Russian nationalism by positioning LGBTQ+ rights as “evidence of ‘our’ national superiority.”
More recently, the term has seen particular usage while discussing Israel’s justification of the war in Gaza following the 7 October attacks in 2023.
Israel has routinely used homonationalism to justify the Gaza genocide. (X/Twitter/Israel)
The Israeli government ramped up its homonationalistic rhetoric following the attack as a tactic to justify its continued campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 71,200 Palestinians, including 20,000 children.
In November 2023, the official Israeli state X/Twitter account posted images of an IDF soldier holding a Pride flag in what appears to be war-torn ruins, with the caption: “The first ever Pride flag raised in Gaza.”
Same-sex marriage is currently illegal in Israel, where 56 per cent of citizens believe it is morally unjustifiable.
Homonationalism has also been linked to pinkwashing – defined as the act of a nation state or private institution promoting LGBTQ+ rights to divert attention from human rights abuses – and femonationalism, an unrelated term which describes how nationalist ideologies side with feminist discourse to justify racism or Islamophobia.
Critics of homonationalism have argued that its usage can often obfuscate the complex experiences of LGBTQ+ groups living in countries that use the tactic by inadvertently lumping them in with the nation state.
Others argue that criticism of homonationalistic rhetoric must consider the ways that colonialism, racism, and class influence islamophobic or nationalistic ideologies rather than assuming the tactic relates only to gender or sexuality.
Actor and rapper Will Smith is reportedly being sued by a male tour violinist over accusations of sexual harassment, wrongful termination and retaliation.
Musician Brian King Joseph, part of Smith’s Based on a True Story: 2025 Tour, claims Smith exhibited “predatory behaviour.” He also alleges Smith was “deliberately grooming and priming” him for “further sexual exploitation”.
Smith, 57, is best known as part of a hip hop duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff, as well as starring in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Men in Black.
Joseph names Smith and Treyball Studios Management as defendants in the suit, as reported by Variety. He is pursuing them for wrongful termination and retaliation in a suit filed in California’s Superior Court on Tuesday (30 December). Joseph is demanding a jury trial.
Smith allegedly told Joseph: “You and I have such a special connection that I don’t have with anyone else.”
Joseph also alleges that during a Las Vegas tour date, his bag and hotel room key went missing. He further states that his hotel room has been “unlawfully” accessed.
‘Joseph is demanding a jury trial.’
According to the lawsuit: “Among the remaining belongings were wipes, a beer bottle, a red backpack, a bottle of HIV medication with another individual’s name, an earring, and hospital discharge paperwork belonging to a person unbeknownst to Plaintiff.”
Also, he states a note read: “Brian, I’ll be back no later 5.30, just us <3 [heart symbol], Stone F.”
Joseph said he concluded that “an unknown individual would soon return to his room to engage in sexual acts.”
Joseph’s suit outlines that tour management members were “the only individuals with access” to his room. Furthermore, Joseph notified hotel security and Smith’s representatives. Also, he reported the incident to a non-emergency police line.
Joseph claims that the incident led to being“shamed” by a member of Smith’s management team. Furthermore, his contract was terminated, implying that he had fabricated the event.
Joseph’s suit claims that the termination led him to suffer from PTSD and economic loss.
‘False, baseless and reckless’
Smith’s attorney, Allen B Grodsky, denied Joseph’s allegations. Grodsky released a statement to the Daily Mail: “Mr Joseph’s allegations concerning my client are false, baseless and reckless.
“They are categorically denied, and we will use all legal means available to address these claims and to ensure that the truth is brought to light.”
