National

/ /

Federal judge blocks Trump admin’s gender-restrictive passport policy

,

A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the Trump administration’s move to cease offering the X gender marker on U.S. passports or allowing passport holders to change their gender marker.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, an appointee of President Joe Biden, granted a motion Friday for a preliminary injunction, which keeps the policy from being enforced while a lawsuit against it is heard, the Associated Press reports.

The State Department implemented the policy, which affects transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, in January in keeping with Donald Trump’sexecutive order recognizing only male and female sexes and denying that one’s gender can ever change — something that is at odds with the view of every major medical group. The policy does not affect existing passports but applies to new ones and renewals. Five trans people and two who are nonbinary filed suit against the policy in February in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

“The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny,” Kobick wrote, according to the AP. “That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard.”

Those who sued are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, its Massachusetts affiliate, and the law firm of law firm Covington & Burling. “We all have a right to accurate identity documents, and this policy invites harassment, discrimination, and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are,” ACLU lawyer Sruti Swaminathan said, as reported by the AP.

“This decision is a critical victory against discrimination and for equal justice under the law,” Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, added in a press release. “But it’s also a historic win in the fight against this administration’s efforts to drive transgender people out of public life. The State Department’s policy is a baseless barrier for transgender and intersex Americans and denies them the dignity we all deserve. We will do everything we can to ensure this order is extended to everyone affected by the administration’s misguided and unconstitutional policy so that we all have the freedom to be ourselves.”

“This ruling affirms the inherent dignity of our clients, acknowledging the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy would have on their ability to travel for work, school, and family,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at ACLU of Massachusetts, said in the release. “By forcing people to carry documents that directly contradict their identities, the Trump administration is attacking the very foundations of our right to privacy and the freedom to be ourselves. We will continue to fight to rescind this unlawful policy for everyone so that no one is placed in this untenable and unsafe position.”

Under Biden, the State Department made the X option available to all applicants in 2022 and made it easier to change the gender marker. It had issued one passport with the X marker in 2021 — to Dana Zzyym, an intersex and nonbinary U.S. Navy veteran in Colorado who had sued the department for only offering a male or female choice on the passport application. 

Kobick had expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s passport policy when hearing arguments three weeks ago. “It seems to deny that gender identity is something worth recognizing,” she said, according to Reuters. She also noted the “slew of government actions against transgender and nonbinary people.”

In defending the policy, the administration’s lawyers said it “does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution,” the AP reports. However, many judges have ruled that discrimination based on gender identity does violate these guarantees. And in the 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation is sex discrimination and therefore banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The high court’s ruling, written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, applied only to job discrimination, but it has been used to argue against discrimination in other areas of life.

The Trump administration further claimed that the policy would not harm passport holders because they remained free to travel, but many trans, nonbinary, and intersex people worried that having a gender marker that doesn’t match their appearance would cause difficulties when traveling.

/ /

College cleverly keeps its LGBTQ+ center open despite laws against DEI

,

Numerous colleges nationwide have shuttered their LGBTQ+ centers under political pressure to end all diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) programs, but not at Utah’s Salt Lake Community College (SLCC).

Peter Moosman was hired at SLCC in 2019 to help open up its Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center, an office supportive of LGBTQ+ and female students. The center is open to all students: It has a drop-in lounge, offers connections to community groups and resources, and hosts events, programs, and trainings for affinity months like LGBTQ+ History Month or Women’s Heritage Month.

Moosman, who currently serves as the center’s manager and as SLCC’s assistant director of cultural programming, oversaw the center exclusively until October 2024, when the Utah state legislature passed H.B. 261, a law that prohibits state-funded colleges from “discriminatory practices that favored certain identity populations over others.” Then, last February, the U.S. Department of Education sent out a letter pledging to end federal funding to any schools with DEI programs.

“By having programming or spaces or things that were exclusive to a certain identity group, it was considered discriminatory,” said Moosman, who spoke to LGBTQ Nation as a private individual and not as a representative of the college. Nevertheless, SLCC has shifted the center’s role, he explained, and its marketing now makes it explicitly clear that the center serves all students, just through a lens of gender and sexuality.

“Our center never excluded anyone from any programming, any services, any resources,” Moosman said. “We were not checking IDs at the door. We had a lot of straight students coming in and getting resources. We had a lot of cisgender students coming in and getting resources. So we were never engaged in the discriminatory practices that were outlined in H.B. 261.”

However, the law prohibits any activities that teach that any “individual’s personal identity characteristics, [are] inherently privileged, oppressed … [or] oppressive” or that “socio-political structures are inherently a series of power relationships.” These restrictions could potentially make it difficult for any college professional to discuss the role of political oppression against LGBTQ+ and women, especially when observing any affinity month like LGBTQ+ History Month.

Despite this, the Department of Education noted that schools can hold programs centered around “educational, cultural, or historical observances — such as Black History Month … — that celebrate or recognize historical events and contributions, and promote awareness, so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination.”

To comply with these directives, Moosman says the center now highlights contributions from women or LGBTQ+ historical figures rather than the specific oppressions they faced.

“We can talk about how these communities are thriving. We can celebrate achievements. We just can’t say something like, ‘Queer people are oppressed and need to be recognized,’” Moosman said. “A lot of what these bills and these laws and these mandates are forcing us into are semantics games, and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating.”

“A lot of what these bills and these laws and these mandates are forcing us into are semantics games, and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating.”– Peter Moosman, Assistant Director of cultural programming and manager of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Salt Lake Community College

Despite the frustration, Moosman has also seen some opportunities to engage people on gender and sexuality issues in a different and possibly more accessible way. 

The center used to provide LGBTQ+ awareness training that trained different campus departments on things like pronouns and the history and culture of the queer community. Now, the center offers a “Gender and Sexuality 101” presentation that looks at how gender and sexuality have been expressed in nature, history, culture, and biological differences. Moosman said presenters make it three-fourths through the presentation before they even mention any queer terminology.

“I’ve been teaching these courses for a very long time, and when we start the conversation like talking about ‘power’ and ‘privilege,’ which are kind of like these political buzzwords, I see people in the audience kind of like turn off, they shut off, or they get angry and defensive, and it derails our conversation,” Moosman said. “But when I have been able to change the language and use more neutral terms — instead of saying ‘privilege,’ talk about ‘accessibility’ or ‘opportunity’ — they stay engaged longer.”

While he’s not speaking as an SLCC representative, Moosman thinks it’s important to share the ways his school has been navigating these policies, both as a form of educational solidarity and also as a potential roadmap for institutions navigating similar political challenges.

“As I’m watching these LGBT centers shut down, it makes me sad, of course, because these centers are saving lives. These centers are serving students in a way that they’re not getting at home or elsewhere… but even more, I think we see nationally how quickly and how easily people are bending and breaking under this pressure, instead of trying to find new ways and pivot to continue to serve students through creative measures,” he said.

“How do we find creative ways to still engage, to still serve our communities, still show up and exist, especially when we are representing government entities… and being restricted through laws?” Moosman asked rhetorically.

Citing philosopher Cornel West, Moosman said that people need to develop the ability to be “protean,” which Moosman defines as “the ability to be flexible, to change without losing the core of our purpose and our passions.”

“We can continue to do what we need to do, while matching the energy of the situation, of the environment right,” Moosman said. “So institutions that are funded by federal dollars, institutions that are funded by state dollars, that are being forced to bend with these new laws and these new mandates, it’s going to require us, through many creative ways, to be protean.”

/

Publisher Keith St Clare who published the San Francisco-based magazine Vanguard Has Died

,

Keith St Clare, editor and publisher of the groundbreaking LGBTQ+ magazine Vanguard, has died at age 79.

He died March 25 in Richmond, Texas, where he was in an assisted living facility, according to The Bay Area Reporter. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease several years ago, his family said.

Vanguard, based in San Francisco, was originally published by an organization of the same name, beginning in 1965. The Vanguard group assisted young people, LGBTQ+ and otherwise, in the city’s Tenderloin district. St Clare took over the magazine in 1966, and the organization ceased operations the following year.

St Clare published Vanguard for 12 years. The magazine was notable for its inclusivity, friends and activists said.

“Keith St Clare was a pioneer and force on the cutting edge of the gay liberation rebellion,” August Bernadicou, executive director of the LGBTQ History Project, told The Advocate via email. “By giving a platform to the downtrodden and persecuted, Keith helped kick-start a blooming movement. No one was talking about hair faeries, transgender [people], drug dealers, bisexuals, and the like when Keith was publishing Vanguard. He gave a face to the faceless and a voice to the mute.”

St Clare called himself the “high scribbler” of the magazine and said it was “a media outlet for social change,” the Reporter notes.

In an article on the LGBTQ History Project’s website, Bernadicou wrote, “What made Keith’s work remarkable was the subject matter and his courage in publishing it under his current name and address. Keith was gay liberation pre gay liberation.”

Born in San Antonio, St Clare went into the Air Force at age 17, was stationed in Japan for four years, and he made San Francisco his home when he returned to the U.S. in 1966.

“He changed his name in California,” his sister Lauralee Roark told the Reporter.“His father and mother didn’t ‘get him’ at all. He grew up a young gay man in San Antonio and was bullied for ‘being different.’ He was thin, neat, dramatic.”

After Vanguard ceased publication, St Clare was still involved in numerous community projects. “He went on to work in community theater, produce 186 episodes of the nationally distributed, youth-run TV show Young Ideas, and raise over 600 foster children,” Bernadicou wrote in his online article, which also includes an extensive interview with St Clare.

As a foster parent, “he took kids who were throwaways, runaways, and made that into his career,” Roark said in the Reporter article.

Phyllis Fisher, a lesbian who was having problems with her parents when she was a teenager, recalled being “the only female” at the time she went into foster care with St Clare. “He took me in when nobody else would,” she told the Reporter, adding, “He put his heart into the community.”

In addition, St Clare worked for the American Red Cross in Berkeley, California, in the 1980s, Roark said, and assisted survivors of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. She believes he made a film of that work.

St Clare also had a biological son, Michael Miller, whom he met in 2019 and with whom he remained in touch. “Keith kind of believed in his own reality and was against convention,” Miller noted to the Reporter. Speaking of St Clare’s time as a foster parent, Miller said, “There were a lot of doubters that a gay man could do that. He certainly didn’t believe in convention.”

Roark added that her brother was a citizen “like everybody else — that was his whole thing. It was so beautiful that he had that.” She plans to donate his tapes of Young Ideas to the University of California, Los Angeles, Film and Television Archive.

Besides Roark and Miller, survivors include another sister, Melanie Sills; Miller’s wife, Crystal, and their daughter; and many friends.

/ /

City tries to ban Pride over security & drag concerns. Organizers are fighting back.

,

The municipal government of Naples, Florida has refused to grant Naples Pride an event permit, citing increased security costs due to a probable rise in anti-transgender protests. The city also asked event organizers not to allow admittance to anyone under 18 years of age — so, Naples Pride is now suing the city government. The all-ages event is scheduled for June 7.

The city told event organizers that they’d need to pay $36,000 for security, much more than what’s required for similarly sized events or what had been charged annually since the event began in 2017, Advocate reported. The city based its cost on the number of anti-trans commenters who spoke at a two-day city hearing in opposition to an event permit.

Callie Soldavini, an attorney for Naples Pride, noted that the city tried to charge event organizers $44,000 last year if the event featured drag performers. Florida passed a drag ban in 2023, though federal courts overturned it as an unconstitutional violation of free speech. (The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case.) To avoid the fee, last year’s Pride event held its drag performances indoors, which limited the number of attendees.

Soldavini added that only about a dozen protesters showed up at last year’s Pride events; the protesters were “mostly non-violent, holding public prayers and quietly protesting the event,” the aforementioned publication reported.

“Forcing the show indoors — as if it were something shameful — undermined the performance’s intended message of acceptance and living as an LGBTQ+ person openly and without fear,” the organizers’ lawsuit stated. “Moreover, the reduced ticket sales caused a serious blow to Naples Pride’s fundraising and its ability to attract top-tier performing talent.”

This year, event organizers plan on holding its main performances in an outdoor stage in a local park. However, the city has requested that no one under the age of 18 be allowed to see the performances. Organizers have refused, stating that all the performances will be family-friendly.

“We’re only asking for [our constitutional rights] to be respected and enforced.”Callie Soldavini, an attorney for Naples Pride

“A lot of times we feel that City Council and the Naples Police Department are looking at us with annoyance,” Soldavani said, pointing out that the event makes some community members uncomfortable and attracts “members of registered hate groups” and “Christian nationalists” who “stir up all of these things that don’t represent what our community is.”

“All we’re doing is asking to celebrate our celebration as we have done since 2017 in a manner that we have the constitutional right,” Soldavani said. “We’re only asking for those to be respected and enforced.”

Event organizers have already raised $50,000 to hold the event. Their lawsuit is being represented in court by members of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

/ /

Southern LGBTQ+ history group to establish permanent archive, expand reach

,

At a time when LGBTQ+ history is being erased, one group devoted to this history is expanding.

Invisible Histories, a nonprofit with the mission to preserve and share the history of LGBTQ+ communities in the U.S. South, is establishing a permanent archive in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“In a time when our histories are at risk of being erased, we are doubling down on our commitment to safeguarding and amplifying the voices of Southern LGBTQ people,” Dr. Maigen Sullivan, co-executive director of Invisible Histories, said in a press release. “By establishing a permanent archive in Charlotte, we are creating a lasting space where our communities can see themselves reflected in history. We won’t be silenced. We won’t be erased.”

The archive is scheduled to open in 2026. The organization is currently finalizing funding, securing a location, and preparing to transfer its collections from Alabama to North Carolina.

The group, founded in 2016 by Sullivan and co-executive director Joshua Burford, maintains digital and physical archives and has held both online and physical exhibitions around the South.

The new archive in Charlotte will not only house its materials but will also be a research center for scholars, students, and community members. It will be a hub for exhibits and educational programs as well.

Invisible Histories’ collections have usually been placed in institutions such as museums, universities, and libraries. While it remains important to include LGBTQ+ materials in mainstream collections, the press release notes, the display of these materials is now under threat due to the push against diversity coming from the federal government and elsewhere. By holding these collections directly, Invisible Histories will be able to assure they “remain in the hands of those who value and protect them,” as the release puts it.

Besides setting up the permanent archive, the group is expanding its reach into North Carolina, South Carolina, and the entire state of Florida, building on its existing efforts in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle. Collecting materials from additional areas will mean that more LGBTQ+ histories across the South are documented, preserved, and made accessible.

Invisible Histories also continues to engage in projects across 13 Southern states through its Queer History South network, which provides training and support for people and organizations dedicated to preserving LGBTQ+ history throughout the region.

/ /

Out gay Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs law repealing marriage equality ban

,

Marriage equality is officially the law of the land in Colorado after Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a law repealing a provision in the state constitution that banned marriage between same-sex couples. 

Polis, an out gay man, signed SB25-014 into law Monday, also known as the Protecting the Freedom to Marry act. The bill repeals the provision in Colorado statute that states that marriage is valid only if it is between a man and a woman, which has been unenforceable since the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges.

“Colorado is for everyone, no matter who you are or who you love. Last November, the voters got rid of outdated language in our constitution that banned same-sex marriage,” Polis said in a statement. “This is a long overdue step in the right direction and today’s law I’m signing ensures that Coloradans can marry who they love in our Colorado for all.”

Colorado voters approved an amendment to the state constitution in 2006 that stated only the union of one man or one woman could be considered a valid or recognized marriage. Voters later passed an amendment to overturn the ban in 2024 with 63 percent in favor.

The new law ensures that even if the Supreme Court reverses Obergefell, marriage equality will still be legal in Colorado. Marriages between same-sex couples would still be recognized federally under the Respect for Marriage Act, which mandates that the federal government recognize same-sex and interracial marriages, and that all states recognize those performed in other states. However, the act does not require states to allow marriages between same-sex couples, allowing them to enact bans. 

While the Supreme Court has made no official move to reconsider marriage equality, nine states have recently introduced resolutions asking the court to hear the case again, citing similar constitutional amendments banning marriage between same-sex couples that were nullified by Obergefell. 

Democratic State Senator Jessie Danielson, who introduced the bill in tandem with Democratic Representatives Brianna Titone and Lorena García, said in a statement that the law is especially important now as marriage equality comes under attack.

“The freedom to marry who we love is a fundamental right,” Danielson said. “I cannot sit back and allow Coloradans to have their marriages and families put at risk. It’s especially important now, as the Trump Administration attacks the LGBTQ community, to secure everyone’s right to live safely in our state, and marry whomever they love.”

/ /

Fact Sheet: Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court Case About Banning LGBTQ-inclusive Books

The Supreme Court of the United States is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.

Mahmoud v. Taylor is about a small number of LGBTQ-inclusive children’s books included in the classrooms of Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools. The books were chosen and evaluated by education professionals. Six parents (three couples) sued the school district board of education claiming their religious freedom was violated by not having an option to opt out their children from classrooms where the books might be part of curriculum, including when offered as nonmandatory supplemental learning materials.

Context to know and report:

  • In 2022, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland expanded their curriculum book collection with nine inclusive picture books for children. An MCPS committee selected the titles and completed the necessary evaluation forms, which were then reviewed by a content supervisor, according to district protocol. 
  • The school board stated in legal filings, “the books are made available for individual reading, classroom read-alouds, and other educational activities designed to foster and enhance literacy skills.
  • A district official said the books were to be integrated “into the curriculum in the same way that other books are used, namely, to put them on a shelf for students to find on their own; to recommend a book to a student who would enjoy it; to offer the books as an option for literature circles, book clubs, or paired reading groups; or to use them as a read aloud.”
  • The district’s communications director, Jessica Baxter, said the books tell “joyful stories of folks who happen to be part of the LGBTQ+ community,” and that they “celebrate and positively portray LGBTQ+ identities.” 
  • Three couples filed a lawsuit against MCPS in 2023, objecting to the books and claiming the district infringed on their religious rights by not allowing them to opt out their children from potential exposure to the books.
  • The plaintiffs are represented by Becket, formerly known as Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a legal group with an anti-LGBTQ history that includes representing a school that fired a 15-year veteran teacher for being gay and marrying her partner of 25 years. Southern Poverty Law Center describes Becket as a “hardline” group that promotes legislation and lawsuits to justify anti-gay discrimination. Becket has also vigorously pursued banning access to abortion and access to contraception.
  • People of faith support LGBTQ people and equality, and LGBTQ people are also people of faith. 67% of adult Americans say being LGBTQ should be accepted by society, including 59% of religiously-affiliated adults. 
  • Two-thirds of U.S. Catholics, Protestants and other Christians oppose using religious beliefs as an excuse to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
  • UCLA’s Williams Institute: 2.6 million LGBTQ adults are raising children under age 18.

24% of all LGBTQ parents live in the Northeast U.S., which encompasses Maryland. 31% live in the U.S. South. Approximately 5 million children in the U.S. are being raised by an LGBTQ parent. 20% of LGBTQ people in Maryland are raising children.

  • PEN America has documented more than 16,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, predominantly targeting books by and about LGBTQ people and books about people of color and race and racism. In its latest report Cover to Cover in February, the organization found 29% of all banned titles during the 2023-2024 school year featured LGBTQ+ characters, people, or themes.
  • PEN America has tracked tactics used to ban books across the country. Religious freedom arguments are the latest way to try to get books, especially with LGBTQ themes and characters, banned. Mahmoud v. Taylor has the potential to dramatically escalate book bans across the country by giving legal cover to discriminatory censorship, particularly targeting LGBTQ narratives.
  • The American Library Association (ALA) tracked414 book ban attempts against public school and library materials, encompassing 1,128 unique titles, in the first eight months of 2024. 
  • The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the plaintiffs’ appeal after their requests to force the school district to provide opt outs while the case was being litigated lost in both the lower federal trial and appellate court. Federal Court of Appeals Judge Steven Agee noted there was no “evidentiary link showing that the Storybooks are being implemented in a way that directly or indirectly coerces the Parents or their children to believe or act contrary to their religious faith.”  
  • The Supreme Court reached out to take this case at a very early stage and potentially decide it on a group of parents’ claims despite the fact that the case had not yet proceeded to the point where there was a record of how the books were actually being used in the classroom.
  • The authors and illustrators of books at issue in this lawsuit issued a statement in support of inclusive books: “We stand in support of the Montgomery County School District. We oppose censoring or segregating books, like ours, that feature LGBTQ+ people. All families deserve to be seen and heard. To act otherwise is harmful and sends a devastating message to students: that their lives and families are so offensive and dangerous that they can’t even be discussed in school.”
  • The books include the picture book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a celebration of family featuring a girl who finds that her favorite uncle’s marriage means she’s gaining another uncle, not losing one. The book was selected as a best picture book honoree by Kirkus Reviews. Author Sarah Brannen told Mombian’s Dana Rudolph: “Children need to see themselves in books. The books in the lawsuit need to be in the school and accessible to all the children in the school, without interference… we all know by now that banning books is the first step toward banning people.”
  • The authors of Jacob’s Room to Choose (about making schools and restrooms safe for all children) wrote in Time: “We believe that people have a fundamental right to practice and express their faith, but not when it harms others. Allowing families to opt their children out of reading our books hurts the children whose lives and families are reflected in those books. “Opt-out” policies starkly communicate to classrooms of children that behaving decently to all human beings is optional and tells kids who are different that they and their families don’t merit the respect of all their classmates.”
  • There has been prior precedent in the federal circuit courts ruling in favor of access to inclusive books. For example, in 2008, The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by two Lexington, Mass., couples, leaving in place a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision that, like four other federal circuit courts of appeals, held that participation in public school instruction cannot alone burden the right to free exercise of religion absent some “coercive effect.” The First Court held that merely exposing a child to ideas that conflict with the religious beliefs of their parents “does not inhibit the parent from instructing the child differently.”
  • Opt-out policies are costly for taxpayers, student education, and schools: “The administrative burden of having to notify parents, collect their responses, answer any questions they may have about the material, and determine what the opted-out students will do during class time when the LGBTQ books are read may dissuade schools from including LGBTQ books in the first place.”
  • Center for American Progress: Book bans “require tens of thousands of hours from teachers, librarians, and administrators to review the books and implement a system of censorship—all at a time when school resources are already stretched thin, and states across the country are facing teacher and staff shortages.”
  • First Book Research & Insights: A poll of 1,500 teachers and librarians revealed “book bans are negatively impacting their ability to teach,” undermine their expertise, and “contribute to a sense of erasing people and history.” Of the respondents, “72 percent noted that when students’ access to books is restricted, their reading engagement declines.”
  • EveryLibrary Institute: Polling and surveys reveal “a significant majority of the public opposes book bans, with a substantial majority of voters in some surveys supporting state legislation to protect individuals’ rights to read freely. Some surveys show that as many as three-quarters of voters believe that ensuring people have access to diverse books is essential. More than half of Americans appear to feel that book bans infringe on their right to make decisions for their children.”

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

  • GLAAD offers the Book Bans: A Guide for Community Response and Action toolkit to inform the public about book challenges. This resource includes guidance on ways to organize, engage with the media, and prepare for public hearings.
  • The American Library Association (ALA) website features a banned books portal to share their research and data on book bans, spotlight each year’s most challenged books, and offer book résumés to help people in their efforts to defend the right to read. 
  • PEN America tracks book bans in schools throughout the country and shares their findings in a report. Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves details the efforts to remove books from school libraries, shows where book challenges are occurring, and explores the subject matter of censored titles. PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists books banned in the 2023-24 school year.

The National Coalition Against Censorship’s Youth Censorship Database of K–12 student censorship incidents includes book challenges in schools and libraries, as well as censorship of student art, journalism, and other types of student expression in schools.

/ /

Trump administration to pull federal funds for Maine prisons over trans inmate

,

The Trump administration is pulling funding from the Maine Department of Corrections over a transgender woman who is being housed in a women’s prison, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an interview Tuesday.

“We pulled all nonessential funding from the Department of Corrections in Maine, because they were allowing a man in a woman’s prison,” Bondi told Fox News. 

Bondi did not provide an amount during the interview, but Fox News reported it would be $1.5 million.

The inmate Bondi was referring to is Andrea Balcer, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2018 for the murder of her parents and family dog. Balcer’s attorney argued that she was going through a gender identity transformation and that her parents were not accepting. Balcer had no criminal record before the killings on Oct. 31, 2016, at her family home in Winthrop, Maine. She was 17 at the time.

Balcer is currently incarcerated at the Maine Correction Center’s Women’s Center, according to the Maine Department of Corrections’ online inmate database.

“We will pull your funding, we will protect women in prison, we will protect women in sports, we will protect women throughout this country,” Bondi said in the interview.

The Maine Department of Corrections released a statement Tuesday saying, in part, that it is “evaluating the impacts to services from these funding terminations.”

The department noted that the funding will affect three grant programs: Improving Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Outcomes for Adults in Reentry; Second Chance Act Addressing the Needs of Incarcerated Parents and Their Minor Children; and Smart Probation: Innovations in Supervision Initiative.

Advocacy groups criticized the move.

“If the federal government truly cares about women, all women, they would not withdraw funding for essential programs that lead to public safety in our communities,” Jan Collins, assistant director of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, said Tuesday. 

Maine has already been a target of an attempt to pull federal funding. The Department of Agriculture has paused federal funding for certain state educational programs over the state’s compliance with Title IX, the law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.

At issue is Maine’s allowing of a transgender athlete to participate in women’s sports. It comes after a public confrontation between Maine Gov. Janet Mills and President Donald Trump, which ended in Mills telling the president, “We’ll see you in court.” The federal government then launched an investigation into Maine’s policies, which found that Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association and a high school in the state were in violation of Title IX. 

Last week, the federal government issued a “final warning” to the state, saying it will send the case to the Justice Department if all parties do not sign an agreement by April 11. 

Maine officials previously said they did not intend to comply.

/ /

Florida district won’t renew teacher’s contract for using student’s preferred name

A Florida school district said it won’t renew the contract of a teacher who used a student’s preferred name, instead of legal name, without parental permission, in violation of state law.

Melissa Calhoun is a literature teacher at Satellite High School in the coastal city of Satellite Beach, Florida. According to her LinkedIn profile, she’s worked for the Brevard County Public Schools district for the past 12 years. 

Unless the state intervenes, Calhoun, who did not immediately return requests for comment, could be one of the first educators to lose a job under Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, or what critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Brevard County Public Schools conducted an investigation after receiving a complaint from a parent who said Calhoun had used a name other than their child’s legal name without the parent’s permission, according to a statement shared by Janet R. Murnaghan, a spokesperson for the district. 

“This directly violates state law and the district’s standardized process for written parental consent,” the statement said. “Based on the teacher’s own admission that she knowingly did not comply with state statute she received a letter of reprimand. Teachers, like all employees, are expected to follow the law.”

Satellite High School in Brevard County, Fla.
Satellite High School in Brevard County, Fla.Google Maps 

Since the state will be reviewing Calhoun’s teacher certificate based on the complaint, the district said it will not renew her annual contract, which expires in May, until the issue is resolved. 

Dozens of students staged a peaceful walkout Thursday to protest the district’s decision not to renew Calhoun’s contract, according to NBC affiliate WESH of Orlando. 

“We’re here to really show support for Ms. Calhoun and to show that we are not OK with what is going on,” sophomore Brianna Knight told WESH. “We truly are upset that we are losing such a positive teacher.”

Calhoun’s supporters also started a petition asking the Brevard County School Board to reinstate her. As of Friday afternoon, it had garnered more than 22,000 signatures. 

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education law in March 2022. At that time, it prohibited “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” 

A year later, he signed an expanded version of the measure that prohibits sexual orientation or gender identity instruction in prekindergarten through eighth grade, restricts reproductive health education in sixth through 12th grade, and bars schools from requiring students or employees to refer to each other with pronouns that do not align with their assigned sex at birth. It also prohibits transgender school employees from sharing their pronouns with students, among other restrictions. 

In July 2023, a few months after DeSantis signed the expanded measure, the Florida Board of Education passed new rules to ensure schools were following the law and to “strengthen and enhance the safety and welfare of students in K-12 public schools and protect parental rights.”

Among those rules was a requirement that school districts receive parental permission before staffers can call a student by anything other than their legal name, including a nickname, even at the student’s request.

At a school board meeting this week, several parents spoke both in favor of and against the district’s decision not to renew Calhoun’s contract.

“There was no harm, no threat to safety, no malicious intent,” one parent of a student in the district who also said she was one of Calhoun’s colleagues said during the meeting, WESH reported. “Just a teacher trying to connect with a student, and for that, her contract was not renewed despite her strong dedication and years of service. I ask you, how can we justify this?”

School board member Katye Campbell said during the meeting that people might think the rule is “silly,” but that it’s important. 

“The parents are the number one decision-makers for their children,” Campbell said, The Washington Post reported. In response to a question about students’ rights, she said the district shouldn’t interfere in families’ decisions “unless we legally have a reason to.”

/ /

Pro-LGBTQ Candidates Prevail in Wisconsin’s Spring Election; Voters Reject Campaigns Targeting Transgender People

Voters in Wisconsin have elected two candidates who support LGBTQ equality in the state’s hotly contested Spring Election. Susan Crawford was elevated to the state Supreme Court and Jill Underly will return as State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Both candidates defeated opponents and campaign ads that targeted LGBTQ people, including a late surge of ads and text messages that baselessly spread fear about transgender people.

The Grio also reports that voters in La Crosse, Wisconsin, made history on Tuesday when they elected the city’s first Black and first out gay mayor, Shaundel Washington-Spivey.

La Crosse Mayor-elect Shaundel Washington-Spivey via WXOW
La Crosse Mayor-elect Shaundel Washington-Spivey via WXOW

A high number of voters turned out, with reports that polling places needed to print more ballots to accommodate. The race was billed as a “litmus test,” ABC News reported, for voters to “get the chance to weigh in on President Donald Trump’s agenda,” and express their opinion on the actions of Trump’s billionaire donor and “DOGE” leader Elon Musk.

Musk and related political action committees contributed more than $20million to Brad Schimel’s campaign, making this the most expensive judicial race in history. Musk personally campaigned in Wisconsin to offer two voters one million dollars each.

GLAAD and Fair Wisconsin had documented the LGBTQ and equality records of the supreme court candidates.

Crawford’s election secures a pro-equality majority on the court, which could decide on abortion access, voting rights, and accurately representative voting districts for the state legislature.

Schimel made several appearances at Alliance Defending Freedom events, LGBTQ Nation reported. The group was designated an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Schimel aired an anti-trans ad during the campaign attacking Crawford for supporting transgender rights.

Crawford defeated Brad Schimel by 10 percent (55% and over 1,300,000 votes / 45% and over 1,050,000 votes). Crawford spoke out against Musk’s attempts to influence the election. “I’ve got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world,” Crawford said. “And we won.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eYZg-9UonbY%3Ffeature%3Doembed

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly beat Brittany Kinser by five percent (52.9% and over 1,100,000 votes / 47.1% and over 1,000,000 votes). Underly spoke in support of LGBTQ students during the campaign: “Schools should be inclusive spaces where all students feel safe, supported and able to fully participate in extracurricular activities. Excluding transgender students from sports not only harms their mental health and well-being but also goes against the principles of fairness and equal opportunity in education.” Kinser had campaigned to exclude trans students from school sports, and advocated for private school vouchers that compete for funding with public schools.

Jill Underly; photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
Jill Underly; photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner

“These results are a victory for LGBTQ+ rights in Wisconsin, and a victory for every Wisconsinite as we build a more fair, more inclusive state,” said Abigail Swetz, Executive Director of Fair Wisconsin.

“They show a strong commitment to a Wisconsin that lives up to our state motto “Forward.” Thank you, Wisconsin, for voting for equality and against the cynical use of our LGBTQ+ community as political pawns.”

“Wisconsin voters spoke out on behalf of LGBTQ people and for future elections to be fair and free of interference from self-serving billionaires,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said.

“Lies and fearmongering about transgender people do not win elections. Wisconsin sent a message of support for the health and safety of each person, and reaffirmed that every vote and every voter matters.”

“Susan Crawford’s victory is a rejection of extremism and a clear message that Wisconsinites want to protect our civil liberties, reproductive rights, and environment,” said Milwaukee LGBTQ activist and GLAAD Media Institute Alumni Kat Klawes.

Kat Klawes, Milwaukee LGBTQ Activist, Citizen Action Climate Action Policy Coordinator, and GLAAD Media Institute Alum
Kat Klawes

“Voters turned out in historic numbers, so many that some polling places ran out of ballots because they know what’s at stake: the right to control our own bodies, breathe clean air and live in a democracy where every vote truly counts.”

Approximately 207,000 LGBTQ people live in Wisconsin. Due to a varying patchwork of local laws, only 21% of Wisconsin’s population is protected from discrimination based on gender identity, with 12% partially protected in limited areas such as employment, housing, or public accommodations.

“The identities we hold matter, and while race is a social construct, at the end of the day, who we are in our lived existence needs to be understood, appreciated and respected for what it is,” LaCrosse’s newly elected mayor said.

“I just look forward to making sure that we bring this community together across difference, across socio-economic status, across race, gender, sexual orientation, all of those things to ensure that we truly build a community that’s for everybody.”

1 2 3 4›»