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Converse celebrates 10 years of Pride collections with powerful “Proud to Be” campaign

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Converse has long been known for its fantastic Pride collections. The iconic shoe brand has celebrated Pride Month with rainbow footwear every year since 2015.

This year, the company is celebrating its 10-year anniversary of showing its Pride. “Converse has always stood with the bold, the daring, and the unapologetic,” the website says. “For our 2025 ‘Proud to Be’ celebration, we’re not looking back, we’re lighting the way forward towards a future of love and joy for everyone.” 

The brand also invited members of past Pride campaigns to write love letters to their future selves. 

2025 Converse Pride Collection
2025 Converse Pride Collection

“I know that you are somewhere creating the life you’ve always dreamed of,” writes Xavier. 

“I hope to look back and see a world where I no longer need to justify my existence,” says Allié.

Converse Pride Collection

Ayo writes, “I hope that you never forget the magic of black queer and trans existence.”

The letters are also highlighted in a powerful ad.

The 2025 Converse Pride shop includes two t-shirts and 15 unique sneaker designs – including rainbow flames, zebra stripes, and rainbow soles. There is also an option to create your own custom pride shoes, with gradients available depicting colors of the trans, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, and nonbinary flags. 

2025 Converse Pride Collection
2025 Converse Pride Collection

The company also puts its money where its mouth is, partnering with organizations like It Gets Better, the Ali Forney Center, and the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth to provide annual grants. Since 2015, the website says, Converse has pledged and donated almost $3.4 million to LGBTQ+ organizations around the world.

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Make Meta Safe: New Report Finds Increase in Harmful Content Targeting Marginalized Groups Following Policy Rollbacks

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On January 7, 2025, Meta announced sweeping rollbacks to its content moderation policies across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — ending third-party fact-checking in the U.S. and weakening its hate-speech policies worldwide. Additionally, the company announced that it would halt “proactive” enforcement of some policies on harmful content, notably hate speech. As noted in GLAAD’s 2025 Social Media Safety Index, the rollbacks include new exceptions expressly allowing anti-LGBTQ hate speech, such as stating that LGBTQ people are “abnormal” and “mentally ill,” as well as Meta’s own use of anti-LGBTQ language (referring to LGBTQ people using the terms “homosexuality” and “transgenderism” in its updated hate speech policy).

In the absence of data from Meta itself, GLAAD partnered with UltraViolet and All Out to survey more than 7,000 active users from 86 countries — focusing on people who Meta defines as belonging to protected characteristic groups — to understand how these policy shifts have affected their experience online. The findings are both stark and deeply concerning: since the rollbacks, users report a sharp rise in hateful content, increased self-censorship, and a pervasive sense of vulnerability. The survey is part of a larger campaign, called Make Meta Safe.

Read the report

Survey Methodology
We conducted a mixed-methods survey in English and in Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian, and French, reaching individuals targeted by hate on the basis of protected characteristics (i.e. race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, religion, national origin, and serious disease). Recruitment was done organically — via email and social-media outreach through co-sponsoring organizations — to ensure that our sample reflected communities most at risk. After cleaning for duplicates, respondents shared quantitative ratings and qualitative testimony about their experiences since January 2025.

Key Findings at a Glance

  • 1 in 6 respondents report being the victim of some type of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms.
  • 92% are concerned about harmful content increasing since the rollbacks.
  • 72% see more hate targeting protected groups.
  • 92% feel less protected from being exposed to or targeted by harmful content.
  • Over 25% say they have been targeted directly with hate or harassment.
  • 66% have witnessed harmful content in their feeds.
  • 77% feel less safe expressing themselves freely on Meta platforms.

Hate on the Rise
When asked if harmful content had increased, 75% of LGBTQ respondents, 76% of women, and 78% of people of color said “yes.” One user, who is trans and nonbinary, reported, “Violence against me has skyrocketed since January. I live in daily fear.” Another shared:

“I rarely see friends’ posts now — my feed is filled with obscene manipulated images, commercial ads, and transphobic, sexist, violent comments, even under kitten videos. Death threats are not removed, even when reported.”

Erosion of Safety and Free Expression
Ninety-two percent of all respondents say they feel less protected from being exposed to or targeted by harmful content. Among LGBTQ people, notably transgender people, there are stories of targeted harassment:

“I recently saw someone state they wished all transgender people would die by suicide — 41% to become 100%. When I told them how awful that was, they called me a transphobic slur.”

“One night I reported at least 10 comments directly inciting violence towards the LGBT community. Facebook responded within less than a minute saying that the comments were investigated and they didn’t see anything wrong, and [they] kept the comments up.”

“I recently posted information about my transition and someone responded with a picture of a noose.”

A full 77% say they now feel less safe expressing themselves following the policy changes. One respondent noted:

“There are times when I am afraid to comment on a post because of the violence expressed by others in their [comments].”

Gender-Based and Sexual Violence Online
Alarmingly, 27% of LGBTQ respondents and 35% of people of color report that they have been the direct targets of gender-based or sexual violence online. Examples include doxxing, stalking, threats of physical harm, and rape threats. As one survivor of digital stalking put it:

“Weaponizing technology to threaten, harass, and silence me has transformed my online existence into a battleground of fear.”

Global Impact, Local Harms
While the majority of respondents are from the U.S., U.K., and Canada, voices from the Global South underscore that unchecked hate online can — and does — translate to violence offline. In Colombia, users spoke of renewed attacks on trans people in the wake of Sara Millerey González’s murder, whose brutal killing was filmed and circulated on social media. Where LGBTQ lives are already marginalized or criminalized, these policy rollbacks risk endangering us even more.

Why This Matters
Meta produces quarterly reports on the prevalence of harmful content and content labeled as false by fact-checkers. In its most recent report published last month, the company stated that, from January – April 2025, “violating content largely remained unchanged for most problem areas.”

But it’s important to note: those numbers are based solely on internal data and remain opaque to outside scrutiny. Our survey centers the lived experiences of users themselves, revealing that weakened policies have not led to, as Meta claims, “more speech and fewer mistakes” — but rather to a more hostile environment for those already most vulnerable.

A Call to Action
Everyone deserves online spaces where they can connect, communicate, and organize without fear of harassment, threats, or dehumanization. GLAAD, UltraViolet, and All Out therefore urge Meta to:

  1. Commission an independent third-party review of the impact of the January 2025 policy changes, centering user experiences.
  2. Reinstate robust hate-speech protections for all historically marginalized groups, including LGBTQ people.
  3. Restore third-party fact-checking and proactive enforcement mechanisms globally.
  4. Engage civil-society stakeholders in future policy deliberations, ensuring that human-rights perspectives shape content-moderation standards.

The data is clear: since Meta’s draconian rollbacks, harmful content has surged, user safety has plummeted, and freedom of expression for marginalized communities hangs in the balance. We call on Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s leadership to reverse course — restoring the guardrails that make social media a place for community and expression, not only for the broad range of marginalized communities who are so directly experiencing these harms, but for everyone.

Read the full survey report and detailed findings at makemetasafe.org.

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Judge says Trump administration can’t limit passport sex markers for many transgender, nonbinary people

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from limiting passport sex markers for many transgender and nonbinary Americans.

Tuesday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick means that transgender or nonbinary people who are without a passport or need to apply for a new one can request a male, female or “X” identification marker rather than being limited to the marker that matches the gender assigned at birth.

In an executive order signed in January, the president used a narrow definition of the sexes instead of a broader conception of gender. The order said a person is male or female and rejected the idea that someone can transition from the sex assigned at birth to another gender.

Kobick first issued a preliminary injunction against the policy last month, but that ruling applied only to six people who joined with the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit over the passport policy.

In Tuesday’s ruling she agreed to expand the injunction to include transgender or nonbinary people who are currently without a valid passport, those whose passport is expiring within a year, and those who need to apply for a passport because theirs was lost or stolen or because they need to change their name or sex designation.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The government failed to show that blocking its policy would cause it any constitutional injury, Kobick wrote, or harm the executive branch’s relations with other countries.

The transgender and nonbinary people covered by the preliminary injunction, meanwhile, have shown that the passport policy violates their constitutional rights to equal protection, Kobick said.

“Even assuming a preliminary injunction inflicts some constitutional harm on the Executive Branch, such harm is the consequence of the State Department’s adoption of a Passport Policy that likely violates the constitutional rights of thousands of Americans,” Kobick wrote.

Kobick, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, sided with the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which stays the action while the lawsuit plays out.

“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 in the preliminary injunction issued earlier this year. “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.”

In its lawsuit, the ACLU described how one woman had her passport returned with a male designation while others are too scared to submit their passports because they fear their applications might be suspended and their passports held by the State Department.

Another mailed in their passport Jan. 9 and requested to change their name and their sex designation from male to female. That person was still waiting for their passport, the ACLU said in the lawsuit, and feared missing a family wedding and a botany conference this year.

In response to the lawsuit, the Trump administration argued that the passport policy change “does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.” It also contended that the president has broad discretion in setting passport policy and that plaintiffs would not be harmed since they are still free to travel abroad.

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Levi’s releases Pride Collection designed by LGBTQ+ people

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Levi’s has released its annual Pride Collection along with a promotional video entitled “Meet You in the Park.”

“We’re taught to not take up space, we’re taught to be quiet,” a voiceover says in the ad, which doesn’t explicitly mention LGBTQ+ identities. “But there’s something about being in your body that makes you want to just like be proud and take up that space.”

The collection itself is designed by LGBTQ+ people and includes rainbow colors and triangles, symbols associated with the LGBTQ+ community.

A Levi's Pride cap
A Levi’s Pride cap | Levi’s
A Levi's Pride jacket
A Levi’s Pride jacket | Levi’s
A Levi's Pride T-shirt
A Levi’s Pride T-shirt | Levi’s

“This year, our Pride collection shines a light on togetherness and the importance of safe spaces for all LGBTQIA+ folks,” Levi’s said in a statement, adding that the pieces in the collection “honor efforts by the LGBTQ+ community to reclaim and define for themselves symbols that have had different and, at times, fraught meanings throughout history but that continue to carry profound significance in modern LGBTQ+ communities and advocacy.”

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Children’s hospital caves to Trump, ends care for nearly 3,000 trans patients

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On Thursday, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) announced the pausing of its transgender youth healthcare program, citing insurmountable pressure from the Trump administration.

In emails reviewed by The Los Angeles Times, the hospital’s Center for Trans Youth began telling its nearly 3,000 patients’ families about its upcoming closure.

“We’re just disappointed and scared and enraged,” stated Maxine, the mother of a current patient, who declined to give her last name for fear of attacks on her son. “The challenge is how we break news to this kid who has had such a positive experience with everybody at Children’s.”

The emails state there was “no viable alternative” that would allow the hospital to continue specialized care.

“There is no doubt that this is a painful and significant change to our organization and a challenge to CHLA’s mission, vision, and values,” hospital executives wrote to staff in a Thursday morning email. The center will close on July 22, and the emails say the decision “follows a lengthy and thorough assessment of the increasingly severe impacts of federal administrative actions and proposed policies.” 

Executives have determined that continuing to operate the center would jeopardize the hospital’s ability to care for its hundreds of thousands of patients, noting the continual attacks by federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, Medicare and Medicaid Services who have been issuing numerous threats towards doctors and hospitals providing gender-affirming care for trans youth, including threats of prosecution.

“These threats are no longer theoretical,” the note said. “Taken together, the Attorney General memo, HHS review, and the recent solicitation of tips from the FBI to report hospitals and providers of GAC strongly signal this Administration’s intent to take swift and decisive action, both criminal and civil, against any entity it views as being in violation of the executive order.”

The hospital’s Trans Youth Center is among the oldest and largest programs in the country and the only facility to provide puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care for trans youth on public insurance. But because the hospital is significantly more reliant on public funding than other pediatric medical facilities in California, it is particularly vulnerable to the actions and de-funding threats of the Trump administration. The severity is exacerbated even more when taking in account that 40% of pediatric beds in Los Angeles are at this hospital.

“CHLA has a responsibility to navigate this complex and uncertain regulatory environment in a way that allows us to remain open as much as possible for as many as possible,” executives wrote. “In the end, this painful and difficult decision was driven by the need to safeguard CHLA’s ability to operate amid significant external pressures beyond our control.”

This isn’t the first time this year however, that CHLA has announced that it’ll no longer provide gender-affirming services. On February 4, CHLA declared that it would stop providing hormonal therapy to transgender people under 19 in the wake of President Trump’s executive order threatening to cut funding from hospitals treating trans patients under 19.

This decision was met with protests, as hundreds gathered outside the children’s hospital in East Hollywood. The hospital reversed its decision a few weeks later when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s Executive order.

After that, California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) issued a statement saying the hospital’s cancellation of gender-affirming care violated the state’s Equal Protection laws. 

“Let me be clear: California law has not changed, and hospitals and clinics have a legal obligation to provide equal access to healthcare services,” Bonta said. 

Bonta has yet to respond to this current attempt to leave thousands of transgender patients without proper healthcare. Activists say this closure sets a dangerous precedent to other hospitals being pressured to cave by the current federal administration.

“CHLA needs to be a leader in this and stand up to the Trump administration, because other hospitals are taking note of what they’re doing,” said Maebe Pudlow, a trans nonbinary activist who helped organize the February protests.

“It feels very conveniently timed when everybody’s focus is on [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids happening in Los Angeles,” the activist went on. “I think it’s despicable.”

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FDA approves breakthrough drug that reduces risk of contracting HIV by 96 percent

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved a breakthrough medication that reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 96 percent.

Gilead’s Yeztugo, generic name lenacapavir (LEN), has been approved for prevention after highly successful trials in September found that it nearly eliminated the spread of the virus among patients, showing a 96 percent relative risk reduction versus bHIV. The drug had already been approved for treatment of multidrug-resistant HIV.

The drug is meant to be given as an injection by health care workers in clinics every six months. It is currently priced at $14,109 per injection, or $2,352 per month, according to NBC News, making it unclear whether or not it will be covered by insurance. 

“The approval of LEN is a much-needed boost for HIV prevention, given the strength of the science and the simultaneous disruption in HIV programs globally,” Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, said in a statement. “But US FDA approval is just one in a series of steps needed to ensure that injectable LEN can help reduce the 1.3 million new HIV infections that occur each year.” 

“LEN for PrEP is poised to re-shape the HIV response, but only if today’s approval is accompanied by bold, strategic, effective and equitable rollout that reaches the populations that need access,” Warren continued. “Otherwise, the world risks squandering this PrEP opportunity, as it has with other PrEP options too often over the past 12 years.” PrEP is pre-exposure prophylaxis, a strategy using drugs to prevent HIV-negative people from contracting the virus during sex.

Lenacapavir’s trials, known as Purpose 1 and Purpose 2, examined the frequency at which patients contracted HIV without the use of PrEP. Purpose 1 took place in June and measured the effectiveness of lenacapavir among cisgender women in sub-Saharan Africa.

Purpose 2 included cisgender and transgender men, trans women, and nonbinary individuals who engage in sexual relations with partners assigned male at birth in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, and the U.S. To compare effectiveness, 2,180 participants used lenacapavir and 1,087 participants used Truvada, another drug from Gilead approved for prevention. There were only two reported incidents of HIV in the lenacapavir test group versus nine in the Truvada group. 

Ian L. Haddock, founder and executive director of the Normal Anomaly Initiative, participated in Purpose 2 as a trial subject. He said in a statement that he is “honored to be part of this journey, and even more excited to help our communities navigate what comes next.”

“Being a part of the PURPOSE 2 trial was about more than just my own health, it was about opening a door for others like me,” Haddock said. “In a region where stigma and systemic health inequities too often limit access to care, this injectable PrEP has the potential to transform how people protect themselves and reclaim agency over their sexual health.”

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Supreme Court upholds Tennessee ban on transgender youth medical care

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee law restricting gender transition care for minors, delivering a major blow to transgender rights.

The 6-3 ruling is likely to have a broad impact as 24 other states have already enacted laws similar to the one in Tennessee, which bars gender transition surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy for youth. 

Those laws now look set to survive similar legal challenges. The ruling does not affect states that do not have such bans, meaning care in those states will still be available.

The court was divided on ideological lines, with the six conservatives in the majority and the three liberals in dissent.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that the Tennessee law does not constitute a form of sex discrimination that would violate the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field,” Roberts wrote. “The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound.”

“The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements,” he added.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion that contrary to the majority’s conclusion, the law does discriminate based on both sex and transgender status and should therefore be analyzed closely.

“By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims,” she wrote. “In sadness, I dissent.”

Sotomayor also took the relatively unusual step of reading a summary of her decision from the bench in court, saying the impact of the decision is “incredibly dangerous.”

Trans rights activists have warned that a ruling allowing bans on care for trans minors could pave the way for similar restrictions aimed at adults.

“Today’s ruling is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution,” Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents the challengers, said in a statement.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti welcomed the decision as a win for “common sense over judicial activism.”

He added that legislators should give “careful scrutiny” before allowing such treatments, making judgments “based on science, not ideology.”

The legal challenge was brought by the administration of former President Joe Biden, as well as transgender teens and their families.

The ruling does not resolve all legal issues relating to the state bans, as it did not address a separate argument under the 14th Amendment that the laws violate the right of parents to make health care decisions for their children.

The court also did not rule on the question of whether laws that discriminate against transgender people are subject to what is called “heightened scrutiny,” meaning that judges should review them with a skeptical eye. But three of the conservative justices said transgender people are not a “suspect class,” meaning laws targeting them should not receive heightened scrutiny.

Other issues involving transgender rights, such as laws blocking transgender girls from participating in sports, are likely to reach the court in due course.

Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump has set about unwinding Biden policies that sought to bolster transgender rights. Among other things, he signed an executive order seeking to restrict gender-affirming care for teenagers nationwide. A judge quickly blocked it. 

Trump has also imposed new restrictions on transgender people serving in the military.

Enacted in 2023, the Tennessee law is among a wave of similar measures taken by states imposing restrictions on gender transition treatments. In defending its ban, the state’s lawyers pointed to similar measures taken in other countries, including in Europe.

Skrmetti emphasized in court papers the evolving debate over how best to treat minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the clinical term given to the distress people can experience when their gender identities are in conflict with the genders assigned to them at birth.

Major medical organizations say gender-affirming treatments are an effective way to treat gender dysphoria.

The challengers argued that the law is a form of sex discrimination that violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause because the treatments at issue in the case — puberty blockers and hormone therapy — can be used in other situations.

The case marks the most significant ruling on transgender rights since the court in 2020, to the surprise of many, ruled that federal employment protections extend to gender identity, as well as sexual orientation.

The dispute reached the Supreme Court after the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023 rejected challenges to the Tennessee law and a similar measure in Kentucky. 

A district court judge had blocked parts of the law, while concluding that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge the surgery ban. That provision of the law was not at issue before the Supreme Court.

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Spa can’t discriminate against trans women, federal appeals court rules

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A Christian-owned spa in Washington State can’t discriminate against transgender women, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Olympus Spa, which has locations in Lynnwood and Tacoma, has historically had a policy of admitting “biological women” only, “excluding, in addition to men, preoperative transgender women who have not yet received gender confirmation surgery affecting their genitalia,” notes the ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

After Olympus turned away a trans woman fitting this description in 2020, the woman filed a complaint with the state’s Human Rights Commission, which enforces the Washington Law Against Discrimination. The law does not explicitly ban discrimination based on gender identity, but the state says the ban on sexual orientation discrimination includes gender identity.

The commission told Olympus Spa’s owners they had to change their policy to a more inclusive one. They did so, and they reached a settlement with the woman in 2021. Under the settlement, however, reserved the business’s right to file a constitutional challenge, which it did in 2023, represented by the Pacific Justice Institute, a right-wing legal group. The lawsuit argued that being forced to admit trans women who hadn’t had genital surgery violated the owners’ First Amendment rights to free speech, free association, and free exercise of religion.

“The family run business is owned by Korean Christians who hold sincere faith-based convictions against allowing persons whose genitals are external (males) to be present with persons whose genitals are internal (females) while in a state of partial or full undress if such persons are not married to one another,” the lawsuit said, according to the Seattle Times.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed the suit, finding that complying with the state antidiscrimination law didn’t interfere with the owners’ First Amendment rights. For instance, changing the language in its admissions policy was incidental to the business’s operations, and the state law is neutral with regard to religion, the court found. The owners then appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s decision in a 2-1 ruling issued May 29. Because the Human Rights Commission’s enforcement of the state law “does not impermissibly burden the Spa’s First Amendment rights to free speech, free exercise, or free association, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the Spa’s complaint,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton, as was Judge Ronald M. Gould, who joined her in the opinion.

Judge Kenneth Lee, appointed by Donald Trump during his first term, dissented. He said the state targeted “members of a racial minority group who want to share their cultural heritage and provide a safe space for women and girls.”

“Ultimately, this case is not just about the fate of a family-owned business. It is about power — which groups have it and which do not,” added Lee, is Korean-born. “And Asian Americans in Washington have historically lacked political clout.”

Attorney Kevin Snider of the Pacific Justice Institute told the Times he will ask for the full Ninth Circuit to hear the case. “Safeguarding the dignity of unclothed women in their intimate spaces implicates the right to association and the free exercise of religion,” he said in a statement. “We are committed to pressing forward to vindicate those rights.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Pacific Justice Institute an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. The Sacramento-based group’s actions include filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting California’santi-marriage equality Proposition 8, opposing a California law protecting trans students in public schools, and suing California over its ban on conversion therapy.

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How a vacant Boston school was transformed into thriving housing for LGBTQ+ seniors

An old school building in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood, once vacant and “creepy,” is now buzzing with life while teaching new lessons in community and inclusion.

Exactly one year after opening its doors, The Pryde has transformed the historic 1902 structure into New England’s first LGBTQ+ welcoming affordable senior housing community.

Karmen Cheung, Pennrose New England Regional VP, recalled the building’s previous state.

“I remember walking in and doing a tour of the building when it was vacant for the first time,” Cheung said. “It was actually kind of creepy, cold, dark.”

The vision, however, was clear: to turn an historic building into an independent living space where LGBTQ+ seniors could feel a strong sense of belonging. The result is a vibrant community that residents like Brian Salvaggio deeply appreciate.

“It’s bright, it’s open, it’s lively,” Salvaggio said. “It’s really the first group of people that’s lived here, so you feel part of something.”

For many residents, The Pryde offers a much-needed haven.

“As we get older and we want more community around us and we want more support around us, that’s really what brought us here,” resident Pat Xavier said.

The 100% accessible building addresses a critical need for a generation of LGBTQ+ elders who grew up without the legal protections and societal acceptance now afforded to younger generations, according to Gretchen Van Ness, executive director of LGBTQ Senior Housing.

“This generation of LGBTQ elders has faced such losses that they come into their elder years with a much smaller safety net than a lot of other folks are lucky to have,” Van Ness said.

The journey to create The Pryde was a dedicated nine-and-a-half-year collaboration between LGBTQ Senior Housing and Pennrose Management. Throughout the renovation, developers diligently preserved the building’s historic charm, retaining elements like original chalkboards and bell systems.

“Every unit is actually a little different because of those historic pieces,” Cheung said.

The Pryde is open to anyone over 62 who qualifies for affordable housing, though demand has far outstripped availability.

“We are 100% occupied,” Van Ness said. “This community is full and it’s hopping and there’s a million things going on.”

For residents, the most significant impact is the feeling of safety and liberation from discrimination and isolation.

“That’s just a wonderful feeling because, you know, there’s no more hiding,” Brian Salvaggio said. “Not at our age. We want to be who we are and enjoy the time we have.”

After a year of operation, residents and representatives alike believe The Pryde stands as a powerful blueprint for LGBTQ+ senior living communities everywhere, demonstrating how inclusive spaces can transform lives.

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Southern Baptist delegates at national meeting overwhelmingly call for banning same-sex marriage

Southern Baptist delegates at their national meeting overwhelmingly endorsed a ban on same-sex marriage — including a call for a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 10-year-old precedent legalizing it nationwide.

They also called for legislators to curtail sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing.

The votes Tuesday came at the gathering of more than 10,000 church representatives at the annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The wide-ranging resolution doesn’t use the word “ban,” but it left no room for legal same-sex marriage in calling for the “overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family.” Further, the resolution affirmatively calls “for laws that affirm marriage between one man and one women.”

A reversal of the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision wouldn’t in and of itself amount to a nationwide ban. At the time of that ruling, 36 states had already legalized same-sex marriage, and support remains strong in many areas.

However, if the convention got its wish, not only would Obergefell be overturned, but so would every law and court ruling that affirmed same-sex marriage.

There was no debate on the marriage resolution. That in itself is not surprising in the solidly conservative denomination, which has long defined marriage as between one man and one woman. However, it marks an especially assertive step in its call for the reversal of a decade-old Supreme Court ruling, as well as any other legal pillars to same-sex marriage in law and court precedent.

Gender identity, fertility and other issues

The marriage issue was incorporated into a much larger resolution on marriage and family — one that calls for civil law to be based on what the convention says is the divinely created order as stated in the Bible.

The resolution says legislators have a duty to “pass laws that reflect the truth of creation and natural law — about marriage, sex, human life, and family” and to oppose laws contradicting “what God has made plain through nature and Scripture.”

The same resolution calls for recognizing “the biological reality of male and female” and opposes “any law or policy that compels people to speak falsehoods about sex and gender.”

It urges Christians to “embrace marriage and childbearing” and to see children “as blessings rather than burdens.”

But it also frames that issue as one of public policy. It calls for “for renewed moral clarity in public discourse regarding the crisis of declining fertility and for policies that support the bearing and raising of children within intact, married families.”

It laments that modern culture is “pursuing willful childlessness which contributes to a declining fertility rate,” echoing a growing subject of discourse on the religious and political right.

The pornography resolution, which had no debate, calls such material destructive, addictive and exploitive and says governments have the power to ban it.

The sports betting resolution draws on Southern Baptists’ historic opposition to gambling. It called sports betting “harmful and predatory.” One pastor urged an amendment to distinguish between low-stakes, recreational gambling and predatory, addictive gambling activities. But his proposed amendment failed.

Andrew Walker, chair of the Committee on Resolutions, said at a news conference that the marriage resolution shows that Southern Baptists aren’t going along with the widespread social acceptance of same-sex marriage.

But Walker, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, acknowledged that a realistic rollback strategy would require incremental steps, such as seeking to overturn Obergefell.

“I’m clear-eyed about the difficulties and the headwinds in this resolution,” he said.

Whistleblower’s death casts pall on Dallas meeting

The two-day annual meeting began Tuesday morning with praise sessions and optimistic reports about growing numbers of baptisms. But casting a pall over the gathering is the recent death of one of the most high-profile whistleblowers in the Southern Baptists’ scandal of sexual abuse.

Jennifer Lyell, a onetime denominational publishing executive who went public in 2019 with allegations that she had been sexually abused by a seminary professor while a student, died Saturday at 47. She “suffered catastrophic strokes,” a friend and fellow advocate, Rachael Denhollander, posted Sunday on X.

Friends reported that the backlash Lyell received after going public with her report took a devastating toll on her.

Several abuse survivors and advocates for reform, who previously had a prominent presence in recent SBC meetings, are skipping this year’s gathering, citing lack of progress by the convention.

Two people sought to fill that void, standing vigil outside of the meeting at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas as attendees walked by. The pair held up signs with photos of Lyell and of Gareld Duane Rollins, who died earlier this spring and who was among those who accused longtime SBC power broker Paul Pressler of sexual abuse.

“It’s not a healthy thing for them (survivors) to be here,” said Johnna Harris, host of a podcast on abuse in evangelical ministries. “I felt like it was important for someone to show up. I want people to know there are people who care.”

Past attempts at reforms in the SBC

The SBC Executive Committee, in a 2022 apology, acknowledged “its failure to adequately listen, protect, and care for Jennifer Lyell when she came forward to share her story.” It also acknowledged the denomination’s official news agency had not accurately reported the situation as “sexual abuse by a trusted minister in a position of power at a Southern Baptist seminary.”

SBC officials issued statements this week lamenting Lyell’s death, but her fellow advocates have denounced what they say is a failure to implement reforms.

The SBC’s 2022 meeting voted overwhelmingly to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse. That came shortly after the release of a blockbuster report by an outside consultant, which said Southern Baptist leaders mishandled abuse cases and stonewalled victims for years.

But the denomination’s Executive Committee president, Jeff Iorg, said earlier this year that creating a database is not a focus and that the committee instead plans to refer churches to existing databases of sex offenders and focus on education about abuse prevention. The committee administers the denomination’s day-to-day business.

Advocates for reform don’t see those approaches as adequate.

It is the latest instance of “officials trailing out hollow words, impotent task forces and phony dog-and-pony shows of reform,” abuse survivor and longtime advocate Christa Brown wrote on Baptist News Global, which is not SBC-affiliated.

In a related action, the Executive Committee will also be seeking $3 million in convention funding for ongoing legal expenses related to abuse cases.

What else is on the agenda?

As of late Tuesday afternoon, attendance was at 10,541 church representatives (known as messengers). That is less than a quarter of the total that thronged the SBC’s annual meeting 40 years ago this month in a Dallas showdown that marked the height of battles over control of the convention, ultimately won by the more conservative-fundamentalist side led by Pressler and his allies.

Messengers will also debate whether to institute a constitutional ban on churches with women pastors and to abolish its public-policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — which is staunchly conservative, but according to critics, not enough so.

Brent Leatherwood, president of the ERLC, said Tuesday he would address the “turbulence” during his scheduled remarks Wednesday but was confident in the messengers’ support.

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