LGBTQ+ people are significantly more likely to report being stopped, detained, and falsely accused by law enforcement compared to non-LGBTQ+ people, and it’s keeping them from calling for help.
A recent review of more than 25 years of research on interactions between LGBTQ+ people and law enforcement by the Williams Institute found that LGBTQ+ people were more likely than non-LGBTQ+ people to face mistreatment from police. LGBTQ+ people were more likely have been stopped (51 percent vs. 42 percent), searched (27 percent vs. 16 percent), arrested (20 percent vs. 14 percent), and held in custody (19 percent vs. 14 percent) over the course of their lives.
“Experiences of police mistreatment may discourage LGBTQ people from reporting crimes or engaging with law enforcement,” Joshua Arrayales, lead author and Law Fellow at the Williams Institute, said in a statement. “Reporting crimes is essential for accurate crime statistics, proper allocation of crime prevention resources, and support services that address the unique needs of LGBTQ survivors.”
Police still engage in tactics such as raids and entrapment, the report notes, leading to distrust between the community and law enforcement. Over one-fifth (21 percent) of LGBTQ+ people reported at least one police-initiated contact in the prior 12 months, compared to 15 percent of non-LGBTQ+ people. LGBQ people were nearly six times as likely as the general population (6 percent vs. 1 percent) to have been stopped by police in a public space.
Bisexual and transgender respondents were even more likely to report being stopped or detained by police, causing nearly half (46 percent) of trans people saying they would be reluctant to contact the police if they needed help, compared to one-third (33 percent) who would feel comfortable doing so.
LGBQ people felt similarly, with around 13 percent saying they did not call the police when they needed help. Almost one-fourth (22 percent) of LGBQ people said that they would not contact the police again, compared to 6 percent of the general population.
“Negative interactions with police affect LGBTQ people beyond the immediate incident,” said Christy Mallory, study author and Interim Executive Director and Legal Director at the Williams Institute. “Research has found associations between police violence and harassment and binge drinking, stress, depression, and other negative health outcomes.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to enforce a policy aimed at limiting transgender rights that would restrict sex designations on passports to “male” and “female” based on sex assigned at birth.
The justices granted an emergency request filed by the administration, which is seeking to reverse a policy introduced during the Biden administration that allowed people to put “X” as a gender marker or self-select male or female.
“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” the court said in the unsigned order.
The three liberal justices on the conservative-majority court dissented.
“The Government seeks to enforce a questionably legal new policy immediately, but it offers no evidence that it will suffer any harm if it is temporarily enjoined from doing so, while the plaintiffs will be subject to imminent, concrete injury if the policy goes into effect,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissenting opinion.
Since 1992, the State Department has, in certain circumstances, allowed people to choose a male or female marker that does not correspond to their genders at birth. The Biden administration introduced the “X” option in 2021 and made it easier for transgender applicants by removing the need for medical proof of gender transition.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that the decision reflects the administration’s view that “there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth.”
The Trump policy effectively means that transgender people, even those who have fully transitioned and have medical records to prove it, will not be able to have gender markers that correspond with their identities.
“This is a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves, and fuel on the fire the Trump administration is stoking against transgender people and their constitutional rights,” Jon Davidson, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union representing transgender people who challenged the policy, said in a statement.
President Donald Trump announced on his first day in office, Jan. 20, a rollback of the Biden rule and also said people must have passports that reflect their genders at birth.
The Trump policy was challenged by several transgender people, who alleged that it violated their right to equal protection under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, as well as a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act.
Ashton Orr, a transgender man from West Virginia, is the named plaintiff in the case. He applied for a passport with a male sex marker in January and, in February, was told by the State Department that he could have only a female sex marker.
A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled against the administration, saying people should be able to choose their own markers or “X” as an alternative. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put the ruling on hold while litigation continued.
The new Trump policy is “eminently lawful,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in court papers. “The Constitution does not prohibit the government from defining sex in terms of an individual’s biological classification,” he argued.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs — Orr and six other transgender people — say the Trump policy bucks a 30-year trend of giving applicants a choice over how they are identified.
“This new policy puts transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people in potential danger whenever they use a passport,” the lawyers wrote in court papers.
The Trump administration this year has regularly rushed to the Supreme Court when its policies are blocked by lower courts.
The passport case marks the 22nd time the court has granted an emergency request filed by the administration via what has been dubbed the “shadow docket,” according to an NBC News tally. The administration has, so far, lost only two of those cases.
It is not a final ruling and litigation will continue, but it signals how the case will ultimately be decided.
The Supreme Court’s frequent interventions early in litigation, often with little or no explanation, have prompted some federal judges to express frustration with how the justices are managing the situation.
Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing Kim Davis’ latest push for the Supreme Court to overturn gay marriage, wants to reshape American society in a far-right Christian image—one in which LGBTQ people are excluded. They’ve been fighting LGBTQ rights for years, from Lawrence v. Texasto Proposition 8 to Obergefell. Along the way, they’ve claimed that gay people “know intuitively that what they are doing is immoral, unnatural, and self-destructive” and that they are “not controlled by reason,” but rather by “lust.”
While the brunt of their work focuses on right-wing litigation, their efforts don’t stop there.
An Uncloseted Media investigation has uncovered that Liberty Counsel operates as an umbrella organization that has either founded or heavily supported a large network of affiliated organizations working to pursue far-right Christian politics by influencing key American institutions.
“What I compare it to are gears in a machine, and each one serves a different purpose,” Anne Nelson, author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” told Uncloseted Media.
These groups use education to spread far-right Christian doctrine, they galvanize churches to become activist hubs and they work behind the scenes to influence Supreme Court justices and other government officials.
All of these groups, many of which are frequently referred to as “ministries,” share the enthusiastic support of Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver and the common goals of fighting against LGBTQ rights, cracking down on abortion, influencing American law and politics and more.
“This array of ‘ministries’ reflects the varied fronts in the religious right’s war against LGBTQ Americans and our freedom,” says Peter Montgomery, research director at People for the American Way, an advocacy group aimed at challenging the far right. He says that this network strategically works in tandem to drum up support among congregations and conservative women and to influence American media, courts and schools.
To make sense of these dizzying connections, we spoke with key experts…
… and we dug into the group’s that are part of Liberty Counsel’s expansive network. Here’s what we found about each of them:
1. Liberty Counsel Action
Screenshot from Liberty Counsel Action.
Liberty Counsel Action is a companion to Liberty Counsel. While the two groups are formally distinct and have slightly different leadership, Mat Staver is chairman for both groups, and they have very similar website architecture. The primary distinction is that Liberty Counsel is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a designation for religious and charitable organizations, while Liberty Counsel Action is a 501(c)(4), a designation for social welfare groups. While the designations are similar, donations to 501(c)(3) organizations are tax-deductible, but the groups cannot endorse or donate to political campaigns. Meanwhile, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations are not tax-deductible, but they can donate to and endorse candidates.
Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Montgomery says it’s a fairly common strategy for organizations to maintain different groups like this. While Liberty Counsel is able to bring in more money due to tax incentives for donors, Liberty Counsel Action can freely engage in political advocacy.
Some of the group’s campaigns include fighting the Equality Act and calling for Congress to investigate pro-Palestinian student organizations. One of their initiatives this year has been drafting “Abortion in Our Water,” a report that outlines how abortion pills are polluting U.S. water supplies, a claim that environmental scientists have rejected. They’re also currently pushing for Republicans not to “cave to the Schumer Shakedown,” a nickname they’ve used for the ongoing government shutdown
For more direct political action, Liberty Counsel Action also had a super PACwhich spent nearly $70,000 on opposing Barack Obama’s reelection.
Montgomery says having these different branches allows Liberty Counsel to achieve more diverse control in politics and the law.
“Some of [their goals] they can achieve through the courts, some of it is gonna be through political advocacy. So then you start an advocacy affiliate, and then you start a PAC because you want to elect people who can help you get this vision of the country,” he says.
2. Faith and Liberty
Screenshot from Faith and Liberty.
Founded in 1995, Faith and Liberty—originally named Faith and Action—is a Washington, D.C. based Christian ministry that has historically courted Supreme Court justices and other government officials behind closed doors. The group’s former president, Rev. Rob Schenck, decided to leave the Christian right in 2016 after the movement’s embrace of then-candidate Donald Trump compounded his growing doubts about the ideology.
“MAGA I don’t even define as Christianity anymore,” Schenck told Uncloseted Media. “It’s an apostasy—it’s a defection from the Christian faith. It is, in fact, the diametric opposite of what Jesus taught and modeled.”
Schenck says that the group would host dinners, prayers and other meetings with conservative politicians and Supreme Court justices including Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia, where they would encourage the justices to adopt more radical rhetoric and policies.
“We would tell [the justices] over and over again: The people love you when you are bold and uncompromising and unapologetic, so be strong—we are with you, we’re behind you,” Schenck says, adding that his former organization was internally nicknamed the “Ministry of Emboldenment.”
Other activities of the ministry included outreach to young people at colleges and youth programs with an eye toward recruiting future right-wing political and judicial figures. This included hosting events and offering internships for conservative teenagers in the U.S. Capitol.
Schenck says attendees of these events would discuss how the federal government works, “meet the conservative justices, sit in on cases relevant to our Christian conservative agenda, and attend lectures about the judicial branch sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society.” Schenck says he later saw many of these individuals in the Capitol, and that the group encouraged their federal judge contacts to prioritize graduates from conservative Christian universities for clerkships and other staff positions.
While Schenck intended to dismantle Faith and Action following his shift in beliefs, he allowed the group to be acquired by Liberty Counsel in 2018 after pressure from the board and donors.
In 2022, Rolling Stone reported that Schenck’s successor—Peggy Nienaber—was caught on a hot mic bragging about praying with Supreme Court justices prior to their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which cited a brief filed by Liberty Counsel. Staver told Rolling Stone that these allegations are “entirely untrue.”
Schenck says Nienaber—who was his deputy when he led the company—always had a great ability to get into rooms with America’s key lawmakers.
“Peggy was very good at what she did, and she was particularly skilled at gaining access to people who had all kinds of defensive measures to protect them from the public … or from people that they did not want to entertain,” he says. “It would shock me if Mat [Staver] did not deploy her for those purposes, and I do know she had well-established relationships inside the Supreme Court, certainly inside … the Republican sides of both houses [of Congress].”
In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel says, “Mat Staver has not spoken to Rob Schenck since 2017, and he has no knowledge of what Peggy Nienaber does and what she does now is vastly different than what she did when she worked for him. … It is preposterous to think a Supreme Court Justice can be influenced. We have no such agenda. We do litigate in the courts and have been successful at all levels by advocating for correct legal principles.”
3. The Salt and Light Council
The Salt and Light Council trains U.S. pastors on how to start a “Biblical Citizenship Ministry” at their churches. These ministries are meant to encourage congregations to engage in politics to “defend and promote life, natural marriage, [and] our constitutional and religious liberties.” The group was founded in 2008 by Dran Reese, and it became a ministry of Liberty Counsel in 2013. While the group now appears to operate independently, Staver remains chairmanof its board.
Pastors who sign up to start a Biblical Citizenship Ministry pick someone from their congregation to lead it, send them to attend The Salt and Light Council’s trainings and then receive two topics a week to bring to their congregants, with the group also promising legal support from Liberty Counsel for these pastors.
Salt and Light chapters, which now exist at over 120 churches and synagogues in 30 states, are frequently active in anti-LGBTQ activism: Reese has been caught spreading false stories about sexual harassment by trans girls in bathrooms, and the group has fought to protest Drag Queen Story Hoursand cancel LGBTQ-friendly book fairs.
Perhaps most influentially, the group is a part of the Remnant Alliance, a Texas-based coalition of far-right Christian groups that have been collaborating to swing school board elections and implement policies such as LGBTQ book bans across the state.
Montgomery says the group’s decentralized model allows them to operate on a surprisingly efficient budget.
“[It] doesn’t have a huge budget, doesn’t have a huge staff, because it’s mostly about encouraging local churches to start their own chapters and do their own thing,” he says. “The council provides them with resources, like brochures on issues or voter guides.”
4. We Impact the Nation (WIN)
Screenshot from We Impact the Nation.
Founded in 2005 as Women Impacting the Nation, this group is a project of Boca Raton-based conservative activist Sue Trombino. Prior to its rebranding to We Impact the Nation in 2024, the group became a project of Liberty Counsel for a few years beginning in 2011.
WIN founder Sue Trombino on Newsmax in 2015 (Newsmax).
During this time, Liberty Counsel sponsored WIN’s annualconference called “For Such a Time as This,” featuring scripture readings and baptism and offering renewed commitments to faith and service.
As recently as September, WIN distributed copies of “Take Back America,” a book written by Staver that argues that “God is the foundation of good government and national prosperity” and that “we need God in America again.”
Today, the group hosts talks, conferences and local chapter meetings with the goal of activating women to be conservative activists. They are most active in Southeast Florida, where they host monthly meetings and were a significant player in the campaign which defeated a constitutional amendment that would have protected abortion in the state.
The group has also historically been active in spreading anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, advocating for bathroom bans as early as 2013, arguing against conversion therapy bans, and calling forfunding to be cut to groups that disobey Trump’s executive orders against “gender ideology.”
5. Covenant Journey Academy
Screenshot via Covenant Journey Academy.
Covenant Journey Academy is an online K-12 school that incorporates Christianity into its curricula. Founded by Staver and launched by Liberty Counsel in 2023, the group targets parents who want to homeschool their kids and is billed as an alternative to “woke” public schools. The academy is now accredited in its home state of Florida and is even eligible for a state scholarship program.
Each of the academy’s courses features what they call “Biblical Integration.”
One Bible class for middle schoolers called Lightbearerspromises that students will “learn how to apply their Christian faith to every area of life and study” and covers topics such as “abortion, apologetics, cults, evolution, feminism, homosexuality, naturalism, moral relativism, pluralism, relationships, and socialism.” Staver haspromotedCovenant Journey Academy as a way for parents to avoid “LGBT propaganda” and “LGBTQ grooming.”
6. New Revolution
Screenshot via New Revolution Facebook.
New Revolution is a publishing service owned by Liberty Counsel that helps produce media for Christian organizations.
The group has published a book depicting foundational sex researcher Alfred Kinsey as a “mad scientist” and “pervert extraordinaire;” and Kim Davis’ memoir, which they say “goes behind the scenes to reveal how God gave this unlikely candidate a platform to defend marriage and religious freedom.”
In February, they advertised their services to other far-right groups at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention.
7. National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC)
Screenshot via NHCLC.
NHCLC is an organization that represents Hispanic Christian churches, with
Aaaaaand he’s back…. Disgraced gay former Congressman George Santos has inserted himself in the presidential election with his “expert” take on hard-right, culture-warring Republicans with a drag-addled past.
The onetime Republican New York representative, who’s facing multiple campaign finance indictments following his expulsion from the U.S. House of Representatives, shared his reaction to the revelation that Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), attended a party while he was a student at Yale Law School dressed as a woman in an interview with TMZ.
According to Santos, the controversy surrounding Vance’s cross-dressing at a costume party is “disingenuous” and “most dudes at some point have played around” dressing up as a woman.
“It’s definitely not drag,” Santos said of Vance’s amateur ensemble.
Photos shared by a former Yale classmate revealed Vance posing seductively wearing a long blonde wig, black knit blouse, a colorful skirt and a chunky chain necklace. In one photo, he carries a black purse over his shoulder.
“Holy crap, is that bad drag,” Santos commented about the photos.
“I mean, the guy went to a costume party, put on a freakin’ cheap wig from Party City, or something similar,” the one-time Brazilian drag queen posited. “To call that drag is disingenuous, and I think most dudes at some have played around with costumes that were gender-bender.”
Straight “couples do that all the time,” Santos claimed. “The wife will dress up as a guy. Husband will dress up as a woman. So it’s not drag. It’s definitely not drag.”
Like the self-loathing Santos, Vance has been consistently hostile to the LGBTQ+ community.
Last year, along with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the House, Vance introduced legislation in the Senate to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth at the federal level and to make such care more difficult for trans adults to obtain.
Vance has expressed his support for Don’t Say Gay legislation prohibiting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identities in schools, writing, “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”
Vance spoke out against laws protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination following the 2020 Supreme Court Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, which found that anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is a form of sex-based discrimination. He called the legal reasoning behind the decision a “betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists.”
Vance also opposes the Equality Act, legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity in federal anti-discrimination laws.
News of Santos’ own drag past in Brazil — as a pageant queen named Kitara Ravache — surfaced amid a tsunami of larcenous revelations about the Long Island Republican in 2023. The newly-sworn-in rep spent weeks denying the rumors before eventually owning up to his alter ego.
New questions follow about what police said happened before a car crash in Ybor City early Saturday morning. Four people were killed and 13 others were injured. A Florida Highway Patrol cruiser chased the car, suspected of speeding and racing earlier in the night, but slowed down about 20 seconds before the crash.
Where Tampa Police say the chase ended does not match up with their own video. We spent Monday trying to get clarification from TPD and FHP but both agencies refused to comment, declining to answer questions about why what they said doesn’t match what was shown in police helicopter footage.
10 Tampa Bay matched that video with where it happened on the ground and discovered that the chase went thousands of feet farther along 7th Avenue than police claim.
The pursuit policy of the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) is under intense scrutiny following a high-speed chase that resulted in a catastrophic crash in Ybor City, leaving four dead and multiple injured. The chase, which ended in tragedy outside the popular LGBTQ+ nightclub, Bradley’s on 7th, has sparked a debate over the safety and the appropriateness of such law enforcement tactics, particularly in populated areas. Adding to the controversy, an inquiry into the pursuit revealed discrepancies between official police statements and helicopter footage of the chase.
Moreover, FHP’s modified pursuit policy, which allows for a broader range of offenses to justify a chase, comes into question as noted by Attorney Anthony Rickman who highlighted an uptick in fatalities relating to FHP pursuits following these amendments. A response from Madison Kessler, communications director for the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, reiterated the culpability of the driver, asserting that “Our troopers followed policy, disengaged prior to when the suspect entered a crowded area, and the driver lost control on his own.”
Lambda Legal is taking its fight from the courtroom to the digital stage. With its new national campaign, “All Rise,” the nation’s oldest LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organization is turning a familiar courtroom command into a rallying cry — and a fundraising lifeline. The campaign, built around short- and long-form videos, paid digital ads, and a coordinated influencer blitz rolling out during LGBTQ+ History Month, is designed to keep Lambda Legal’s lawyers in courtrooms across the country as the Trump administration accelerates efforts to roll back hard-won rights.
Backed by creators including Under The Desk News, Rose Montoya, Pattie Gonia, Isaias Hernandez, Blair Imani, Jesse Sullivan, and Chella Man, All Rise blends grassroots donor outreach with emotional storytelling. It marks Lambda Legal’s largest digital awareness push to date and a call for unity and urgency from a group describing itself as the LGBTQ+ community’s “last line of defense.”
For more than five decades, the legal nonprofit has fought in courtrooms for LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV. But in the second term of the Trumpadministration, which has banned gender-affirming care for trans minors, restricted diversity programs, and barred transgender people from militaryservice, the group’s work has become existential.
“This is a break-the-glass moment,” Kevin Jennings, Lambda Legal’s CEO, told The Advocate in an interview. “Everybody needs to throw everything at this right now. Their agenda is nothing less than the destruction of our democracy as we’ve known it.”
A movement facing its reckoning
Lambda Legal’s message arrives amid an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Nearly 2,000 bills have been introduced nationwide over the past two years, and more than 200 have been enacted into law. “We’ve lost the White House, we’ve lost Congress,” Jennings said. “The courts are our only recourse at this point.”
So far, the organization has sued the Trump administration six times and won four cases. Two remain pending. “We could end up six for six,” Jennings said.
According to Lambda Legal’s “Tracking Trump” case tracker, the group currently has six open cases against the administration targeting transgender rights, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and health care. The tracker also notes two preliminary injunctions granted in active cases regarding transgender service members and health care coverage.
The tracker reaffirms Lambda Legal’s long-term success rate: the organization reports an 86 percent win rate against the first Trump administration.
“There’s reason to be hopeful, but don’t be optimistic,” Jennings said. “Optimism assumes it’ll just get better by itself. Our only hope is if people rise together and fight back.”
This is not a rhetorical flourish. In June, Lambda Legal announced the largest fundraising campaign in LGBTQ+ history — $285 million raised through its “Unstoppable Future” initiative. The haul exceeded its goal by more than $100 million, with $80 million in cash on hand and $200 million in long-term commitments. Nearly all of it came from individual donors, not corporations. The infusion allowed the group to expand its legal staff by more than 40 percent.
Jennings described that surge of support as a message to those seeking to dismantle equality: “We will not go back.”
Turning a legal command into a moral imperative
To bring that defiance to life, Lambda Legal turned to Jason Keehn, founder of the mission-driven agency Accompany Creative. Keehn, whose firm was named Ad Age’s Purpose-Led Small Agency of the Year in 2024, said he approached “All Rise” as both a creative brief and a civic duty.
“The phrase has urgency,” Keehn told The Advocate. “It’s about standing up for all of us within the LGBTQ+ community, but also about what happens next if we don’t. Human rights are being eroded, and the message is: you’re next.”
Rather than rely on the anxious tone familiar in political advertising, Keehn said he and his team sought to inspire without numbing audiences. “We didn’t want to add to the toxic negative swirl,” he said. “You can’t be lighthearted about what’s happening, but we also don’t need more messages freaking people out. The better choice is to shine a light on what we can be.”
A portrait of the community under fire and a message of hope
Directed by queer filmmaker Lucio Castro, the campaign features trans military members, trans youth, LGBTQ+ families, and attorneys who represent them in court. “You see lawyers saying directly to the camera, ‘I’m fighting for you every day,’” Keehn said. “That makes the work tangible.”
The videos — some only six seconds long, others a full cinematic arc — are designed for the realities of the modern attention economy. “You need something thumb-stopping on Instagram and something that stays with people longer,” Keehn said. “It all has to ladder up to one big idea.”
The campaign’s insistence on hope, not as sentiment but as strategy, distinguishes it from the darker, fear-based tones that often dominate political messaging. Jennings calls this a deliberate choice. “The ultimate goal of our opponents is to make people feel hopeless,” he said. “Because if you have no hope, you won’t fight.”
Keehn agreed. “Civil rights aren’t just about voting or hiring practices,” he said. “They’re about how we choose to spend our energy and use our talents, and this is our way of doing that.”
For Lambda Legal, the campaign is not an aesthetic exercise but a call to arms.
“You have four assets: your voice, your vote, your time, and your money,” Jennings said. “Some people can write checks. Some people can march. Some people can sue — that’s what we do. Just figure out what you can do and do it.”
Jennings often returns to a simple, chilling analogy. “They picked on trans people first,” he said. “Just like the Nazis picked on Jews.”
It is a warning, not hyperbole — a reminder that authoritarianism rarely begins with mass repression. It starts with tolerated cruelty.
“Hope is not optimism,” Jennings said. “Hope is the belief that if we fight, things might get better. But we have to fight.”
Watch one of the All Rise campaign’s videos below.
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ+ people to all levels of government, proudly congratulates Antwon Womack on his historic Birmingham School Board election victory. Womack is the first out Black LGBTQ+ person elected in Alabama and will become the second out LGBTQ+ person currently serving in elected office in the state.
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President & CEO, Evan Low, remarks on the win: “We are thrilled to gain more LGBTQ+ representation in Alabama with Antwon Womack’s historic win to serve on the Birmingham School Board. School boards are an important place to stand up for student equality and progress. Alabama has one of the lowest rates of LGBTQ+ representation in the country, and this win literally doubles our total of known out LGBTQ+ elected officials in the state. We congratulate Antwon and know he will make a big difference for the youth and families of Birmingham.”
Antwon Womack, Birmingham School Board Member-elect, says: “Tonight’s election is historic — a victory for equality and progress in the City of Birmingham, State of Alabama. LGBTQIA+ representation matters because it ensures every student feels seen, safe, and supported. Together, we will continue building schools that protect all students, promote inclusion, and create policies rooted in fairness, dignity, and opportunity for every child in Birmingham City Schools!”
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Vice President of Political Programs, Daniel Hernandez, continues: “Electing local LGBTQ+ leaders is a central part of LGBTQ+ Victory Fund’s mission, and as a former school board member, I know just how impactful school boards are in local communities,” says Hernandez. “Antwon has worked hard to achieve his seat at the table, and we celebrate not just his historic win but the important voice he will bring to his work in office.”
Royce Collins, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Black Leaders Caucus Co-Chair, added: “Antwon Womack’s win is a powerful reminder that local elections shape our communities. As co-chair of the Victory Fund’s Black Leaders Caucus, I’m proud we’re helping elect endorsed, pro-equality leaders nationwide, especially in the South, so more voices like his can lead and deliver.”
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund endorsed Womack for his run, one of over 250 endorsed LGBTQ+ candidates in local, state and federal races. When Womack takes office, he will join more than 1,300 out LGBTQ+ elected officials serving across the United States.
Two years after state lawmakers passed a sweeping law aimed at preventing Texas cities from adopting progressive policies, that law may finally get its first major test.
Three Dallas residents sued the city in Denton County District Court Wednesday to strike down dozens of local ordinances they allege violate the law, dubbed the “Death Star” law by opponents. The law made it illegal for cities and counties to enact local laws that go further than certain broad areas of state law.
Some 83 ordinances could be wiped out if a judge sides with the plaintiffs. Among them are a slew of local protections for LGBTQ+ people, rules that city contractors pay employees a living wage and noise regulations for public parks and recreational facilities.
Read the full article. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill in a ceremony attended by Christian and anti-LGBTQ activists. The Dallas residents are represented by the anti-LGBTQ hate group, the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Texas judges who decline to perform a wedding ceremony based on a “sincerely held religious belief” do not violate the state’s rules on judicial impartiality, according to a comment the Texas Supreme Court added to the state’s judicial conduct code Friday.
The high court’s comment on Oct. 24, effective immediately, could have statewide implications for gay marriage and potentially play a role in a federal lawsuit attempting to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.
The rule change appears to answer a question of state law that the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals posed to the Texas Supreme Court in April, which was prompted by a lawsuit challenging the State Commission on Judicial Conduct’s now-withdrawn sanction of a Waco judge who refused to marry gay couples while continuing to marry straight couples. The plaintiff in that suit, a North Texas county judge, sued saying he was afraid he could face the same punishment.
A Florida teacher has been put on leave after requesting to use the gender-neutral title Mx at work.
The teacher at Alachua County Public Schools has been placed on administrative leave after requesting that students and staff address them with the title Mx.
Mx is a gender-neutral title pronounced as ‘mix’ which some trans, non-binary, gender non-confirming and cis people use as an alternative to gendered honourifics like Miss, Ms, Mrs or Mr. Mx does not indicate a person’s gender.
The state’s attorney general James Uthmeier accused the teacher of violating Florida House Bill 1069, which was signed into law by governor Ron DeSantis in July 2023.
The bill enshrines “sex as an immutable biological trait” and prohibits K-12 employees from using preferred personal titles or pronouns that don’t alight with birth-assigned sex. Florida officials said the teacher’s use of “Mx” violated state law.
The district confirmed that the educator has been placed on leave pending review, but did not released further details.
@pinknews A Florida teacher at Alachua County Public Schools has been placed on administrative leave after requesting students and staff address them with the gender-neutral title “Mx.”The state’s Attorney General James Uthmeier accused the teacher of violating Florida House Bill 1069, which was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in July 2023, which enshrines “sex as an immutable biological trait”. This law prohibits K-12 employees from using preferred personal titles or pronouns that don’t align with birth-assigned sex.Florida officials said the teacher’s use of “Mx.” violated state law. The district confirmed that the educator has been placed on leave pending review, but did not release further details. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier took to X writing “A female teacher at Talbot Elementary in Gainesville is forcing students and faculty to address her with the prefix ‘Mx.’ instead of ‘Ms.’ or ‘Mrs.’ This violates Florida law and Alachua County School District policy and must stop immediately.” #Florida#USPolitics#Mx#education#lgbtqia♬ Minimal for news / news suspense(1169746) – Hiraoka Kotaro
Uthmeier took to X writing of the case: “A female teacher at Talbot Elementary in Gainesville is forcing students and faculty to address her with the prefix ‘Mx.’ Instead of ‘Ms.’ Or ‘Mrs’. This violates Florida law and Alachua County School District policy and must stop immediately.”
In August, a Florida judge struck down parts of House Bill 1069. Part of the law sets out a process for parents to complain about books and material with which they disagreed, forcing educators to remove them from their libraries “within five school days… until the objection is resolved”.
The wording of the legislation broadly singled out books with “pornographic” content or those which “describe sexual conduct”. Titles pulled from shelves included The Color Purple, On the Road, Looking for Alaska, The Handmaid’s Tale and Slaughterhouse-Five, also known as The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death.
Following legal action by publishers, the Authors Guild, and parents from Escambia County against the removal of dozens of books from school libraries, District Court Judge Carlos Mendoza struck down large parts of the legislation.
“None of these books are obscene,” he said in his ruling. “The restrictions placed on these books are thus unreasonable.”
The prohibition of material that “describes sexual conduct” was “over-broad and unconstitutional”, he added, because the law “mandates the removal of books that contain even a single reference to the prohibited subject matter, regardless of the holistic value of the book individually or as part of a larger collection”. In addition, the law gave “parents licence to object to materials under a I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach”.
