Features

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The Kids Online Safety Act could ruin the internet for LGBTQ+ youth. Or will it protect them?

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The CEOs of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord testified in the Senate on Wednesday to discuss the online exploitation of children. The discussion brought up the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bipartisan bill that seeks to protect minors from online harm. But KOSA has come under fire from some LGBTQ+ activists and groups who fear that the bill will enable Republicans to block queer youth from seeing age-appropriate LGBTQ+ content online.  Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center, says revisions to the bill have helped ensure that its current version will protect all kids and […]

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Questions and Answers: Facebook, Instagram, and Digital Targeting of LGBT People in MENA

On January 23, 2024, Human Rights Watch, Social Media Exchange (SMEX), INSM Foundation for Digital Rights, Helem, and Damj Association, launched the “Secure Our Socials” campaign engaging Meta (Facebook, Instagram) to be more transparent and accountable in protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from online targeting by state actors and private individuals on its platforms. Secure Our Socials We are calling on Facebook and Instagram to do more to make their social media platforms safe for LGBT users who face digital targeting and severe offline consequences including detention and torture.ACT NOW  In February 2023, Human Rights Watch published a report on the […]

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Gender-affirming care clinic burned down in horrific arson: “This is terrorism”

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Firefighters in Decatur, Georgia have determined that an October fire at a local gender-affirming care clinic was intentionally set in a move one activist has labeled “terrorism.”  The fire in the city’s historic Blair Building was “contained to one office and no injuries were reported,” according to a recent statement from the City of Decatur Fire Rescue Department.  The statement expressed that an investigation has determined the fire “to be incendiary in nature, indicating the fire was intentionally set.” No suspects have been identified.  The Blair building houses several medical providers, but a police report confirms that the target of […]

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Florida DMV Bans Gender Changes On Driver Licenses, Makes “Misrepresenting Gender” To The DMV A Crime

The Tallahassee Democrat reports: Transgender Floridians can no longer change the listed gender on their driver licenses. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced the change in a memo late last week sent to county tax collectors, where state residents can get licenses. “Permitting an individual to alter his or her license to reflect an internal sense of gender role or identity, which is neither immutable nor objectively verifiable, undermines the purpose of an identification record and can frustrate the state’s ability to enforce its laws.” The memo further says that someone “misrepresenting” their gender, meaning not using their […]

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Transphobia hurts trans women’s health, new HIV research finds

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New research published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that social and economic marginalization, including employment and housing discrimination, increases transgender women’s risk of contracting HIV. The report, published Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, analyzed data from a survey of more than 1,600 transgender women in seven U.S. cities from 2019 to 2020. The goal of the survey was to assess for the first time the factors that have led transgender women—and especially trans women of color—in the U.S. to have disproportionately high rates of HIV infection. Survey participants were also […]

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Ohio Senate overrides governor’s veto of transgender care restriction

The Ohio Senate voted Wednesday to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that bans transition-related medical care for transgender minors and restricts trans athletes’ participation on school sports teams.  After the Senate’s 23-9 vote, the bill will become law in 90 days. The Ohio House already voted 65-28, along party lines, to override DeWine’s veto earlier this month. Ohio is now the 22nd state with a law that restricts minors’ access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy and the 24th with a law that bars trans girls and women from playing on women’s school sports teams.  Health care providers who violate the law could […]

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Transgender veterans sue the VA for gender-affirming surgery

An advocacy group for transgender veterans is suing the government over its exclusion of gender-confirmation surgery in veterans’ health benefits.  The Department of Veterans Affairs covers almost all transition-related care for veterans, including hormone therapy, voice training, fertility preservation and hair removal. However, if trans veterans want to receive surgery — such as genital and breast procedures — they are required to either use private health insurance or pay out of pocket. Such operations are covered for active-duty service members. The Transgender American Veterans Association, or TAVA, formed in 2003, filed a petition in May 2016 asking the VA to start a rulemaking […]

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Ads Targeting LGBTQ+ Are “Insincere,” Says LGBTQ+ Community

While LGBTQ+ Americans and their advocates have made some progress in achieving greater civil rights, recognition, and representation for the LGBTQ+ community, recent actions suggest that further work is needed in the pursuit of equality. A new report from Collage Group, a leading provider of cultural intelligence, takes a close look at LGBTQ+ marketing and advertising. Specifically, the study examines how LGBTQ+ Americans feel about recent ads aimed toward their community. It also provides the perspectives of non LGBTQ+ people, as well as the perceptions of liberals and conservatives.  The report examines marketing efforts, specifically LGBTQ+ representation in regard to […]

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Maine legislators frantically working to make the state a trans refuge

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A proposed law in Maine would make the state the 15th “trans refuge” as lawmakers push back on attempts by some activist state attorneys general to demand private medical information from health authorities. Texas, in particular, has been at the forefront of attempts to persecute trans youth and their parents, along with hospitals, doctors, and healthcare providers, across state borders. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has gone so far as to send special investigators across the state border to interrogate children and their families. The bill would protect Texans who flee to the state to seek medical care for their children or […]

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Biden administration allocates $700,000 to sex-ed program for trans boys

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The Biden administration is dedicating approximately $700,000 to a sexual health program aimed at pregnancy prevention for transgender boys.  The Department of Health and Human Services has approved a grant to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research in California, which will spearhead a program focused on sex education and condom usage for trans boys. The grant summary explains that trans boys are “at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable.”  It also said trans […]

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