A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, has ordered the Pentagon to restore nearly 600 books and reinstate lessons on race, gender, and identity in schoolsserving military families, ruling that the Trump administration’s restrictions on classroom content likely violated students’ First Amendment rights.
In a 44-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles concluded that the Department of Defense Education Activity removed books and altered curricula in ways that suppressed certain viewpoints and deprived students of access to ideas about race and gender. She found that the department’s actions caused real harm and were likely motivated by viewpoint discrimination. The ruling requires the Pentagon to immediately return the banned books and halt further removals while the case continues.
The case, E.K. v. Department of Defense Education Activity, was brought by 12 students from military families at DoDEA schools in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy, and Japan. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Virginia, and the ACLU of Kentucky, challenged the agency’s enforcement of three Trump executive orders issued in January that directed federal institutions to remove references to “gender ideology” and “divisive equity concepts.”
Giles wrote that public school libraries are “loci of intellectual freedom,” quoting the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Board of Education v. Pico to emphasize that students must be free to “inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding.” She found that DoDEA’s process for removing books was opaque and inconsistent, noting that officials failed to provide clear records of which titles had been withdrawn or why. The judge also criticized the department for refusing to disclose information about the censorship campaign, writing that it was unconstitutional to limit access to information and then fault the plaintiffs for not having proof of the government’s actions.
The ruling rejected the Pentagon’s claim that the removals constituted “government speech,” a legal doctrine that shields official communications from First Amendment scrutiny. Giles said that viewing school libraries as expressions of government ideology conflicts with the long-standing purpose of those institutions as spaces for academic freedom and voluntary inquiry. She warned that expanding the government speech doctrine to cover book removals in public schools would pose “dangerous” risks to intellectual freedom.
DoDEA operates 161 accredited schools across 11 countries, seven U.S. states, Guam, and Puerto Rico, educating roughly 67,000 children of active-duty service members and civilian Defense Department employees. The system, among the most diverse and high-performing in the nation, consistently ranks near the top of U.S. public school systems in reading and math proficiency.
As The Advocate previously reported, DoDEA began pulling materials shortly after Trump’s executive orders took effect, instructing school administrators to “quarantine” any books or lessons that could be seen as promoting “gender ideology” or “discriminatory equity ideology.” The removals included books and curricula addressing slavery, women’s rights, Native American history, LGBTQ+ identities, and sexual health education, along with sections of the Advanced Placement Psychology course.
The ACLU said Monday’s ruling restores constitutional protections that had been stripped away from students in military-run schools. “This is an important victory for students in DoDEA schools and anyone who values full libraries and vibrant classrooms,” Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a press release. “The censorship taking place in DoDEA schools as a result of these executive orders was astonishing in its scope and scale, and we couldn’t be more pleased that the court has vindicated the First Amendment rights of the students this has impacted.”
Corey Shapiro, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said, “Removing books from school libraries just because this administration doesn’t like the content is censorship, plain and simple. The materials removed are clearly age-appropriate and are only offensive to those who are afraid of a free-thinking population.”
Matt Callahan, senior supervising attorney at the ACLU of Virginia, said the ruling affirms that “government can’t scrub references to race and gender from public school libraries and classrooms just because the Trump administration doesn’t like certain viewpoints on those topics.”
While the injunction applies only to the five schools attended by the plaintiffs — Crossroads Elementary in Quantico, Virginia; Barsanti Elementary in Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Aviano Middle-High in Italy; and Stollars Elementary and Edgren Middle High in Japan — the decision could have far-reaching implications for schools on military bases worldwide.
Giles wrote that students in federally operated schools are entitled to the same constitutional protections as those in civilian public schools. She ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and DoDEA Director Beth Schiavino-Narvaez to comply immediately.
Japan’s parliament elected ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country’s first female prime minister Tuesday, a day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner expected to pull her governing bloc further to the right.
Takaichi replaces Shigeru Ishiba, ending a three-month political vacuum and wrangling since the Liberal Democratic Party’s disastrous election loss in July. While she is the first woman serving as Japan’s prime minister, she is in no rush to promote gender equality or diversity.
Takaichi is among Japanese politicians who have stonewalled measures for women’s advancement. Takaichi supports the imperial family’s male-only succession and opposes same-sex marriage and allowing separate surnames for married couples.
Mink Tyner says some people call her a “helicopter parent” because of how protective she is over her kids. Despite this, she wasn’t concerned about bringing her daughter, then 14, to the Indian River County, Florida, school board meeting in August 2023, where they were discussing changes to the state’s curriculum relating to race and slavery.
That’s why she was shocked when she saw community members at the podium reading excerpts of sexual content from books.
“I hate lights out now because my D has a mind of its own,” one woman read. Then a man came up and read, “When Doris had just turned 11, her current stepfather started having sex with her.” And a third person read, “He took a long long time peeling off my jeans and T-shirt, pink bra and panties, and a longer time stroking and kissing me.”
The meeting had turned into more of a stunt led by protestors affiliated with the local chapter of Moms for Liberty (M4L), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated far-right extremist group.
“I’m not gonna have my kid in here listening to these adults doing this shit,” Tyner remembers thinking.
She took her daughter out of the room and pleaded with security to intervene, but they refused. So she spoke up to disrupt the meeting herself, only for security from the Sheriff’s office—who told Uncloseted Media their deputies responded “appropriately and in accordance with established procedures”—to escort her out.
As she was leaving, conservative pastor John Amanchukwu, who had attended the meeting with M4L, confronted her while recording a video that he would later post to X calling her “demonic” and lashing out about her being pro-LGBTQ: “You’re okay with DEI. … You’re okay with Pride Month. You’re okay with the rainbow flag. You’re okay with all that junk,” he yelled. Tyner responded by calling him a “fucking weirdo” and walked out.
That video opened a floodgate of harassment that tormented Tyner and her family for years: She received insults, accusations of pedophilia, and persistent threats of violence from a Facebook account displaying the name CURTIS COUSINS who called her a “fent-using fat fucking dyke” and told her she deserved to have “a potato peeler peel her clit right off to the bone.”
“I never know if this week or 10 years from now somebody’s gonna show up [to my business] based on some kind of misinformation that Moms for Liberty started about me [or] want to harm me and my family,” Tyner, who owns a tattoo shop, told Uncloseted Media.
Indian River County is home to one of the first of M4L’s 320 chapters nationwide. The group’s annual summit is this weekend and will feature a variety of politicians with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Oklahoma’s former state superintendent Ryan Walters, who made headlines for making anti-trans comments after the death of 16-year-old trans teen Nex Benedict. Last year, conservative heavyweights spoke at the event, including President Trump, Tulsi Gabbard and Sebastian Gorka.
Over the last four years, M4L have built a reputation for chaos and controversy. Members have made the news for quoting Hitler, stripping at a school board meeting and offering bounties to report teachers who teach about “critical race theory.”
At one point in Indian River County, close allies of M4L made up a majority of the school board where they pressured the district to ban scores of books, many of which contain LGBTQ themes, and reverse a racial equity policy—all while harassing, doxing and defaming their adversaries.
Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science from the University of Massachusetts, says what’s playing out in Indian River County is a microcosm for so many other chapters across the country.
“[The media are] falling like suckers for this story that they’re a grassroots moms organization. They are not, they are connected to … the far right establishment,” he says. “And that’s become … more and more apparent. So this whole grassroots thing is hogwash.”
Beginnings
Moms for Liberty was founded in Florida in 2021 by three current and former school board members: Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler, the latter of whom has since left the group after being involved in a sex scandal wherein her husband allegedly prowled local bars to solicit women for threesomes.
Shortly after M4L launched, Justice tapped Jennifer Pippin, who had made a name for herself for leading activism against COVID-19 restrictions, to lead the chapter for her home county, Indian River.
While the anti-mask circles that would later be folded into M4L always had a conservative lean, multiple county residents told Uncloseted Media that the group’s discriminatory views were not initially apparent.
Tyner, a lesbian who identifies as politically independent, actually felt welcomed by the group when she worked with them on their anti-mask mandate advocacy. However, that changed as M4L’s focus turned towards opposing LGBTQ inclusion measures in schools.
“Once they organized and got the appearance of a grassroots start … and many people in the community that were siding with them, it’s like they took the steering wheel and they just steered another direction,” she says.
When Tyner began speaking up against this rhetoric, she says she was blocked from the group’s Facebook pages. But as she continued to oppose them publicly, Justice offered to meet with her to address her concerns.
Over breakfast at a local cafe, Tyner says Justice gave her a “scripted” response in the hopes of winning back her support. She even invited Tyner to an M4L chapter meeting. However, Tyner declined as the meeting was allegedly to be hosted by a community member who had made an online post suggesting necrophilia and pedophilia are part of the LGBTQ umbrella.
“I was like, ‘Alright, this is not a good or a safe movement,” says Tyner.
Justice did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Pippin told Uncloseted Media that M4L have “members and members children that are LGB in [their] chapter and across the country.”
Another local parent, who requested anonymity due to concerns about his job security, says while he’d initially been on board with M4L’s parental rights advocacy, he ran into conflict with the group when they started opposing the school district’s racial equity policies and tried to ban books with antiracist themes, including Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby”and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.” Like Tyner, he says he was approached by Justice and Pippin to win him over again but was ultimately unconvinced.
After he split from M4L, he began publicly criticizing the group’s book bans. In retaliation, some M4L members accused him of supporting pedophiles.
When he reached out to Pippin to ask for the people making such accusations against him to be held accountable, he says she waved him off—all while blocking him on social media and accusing him of “bullying.” He also says that she doxed him after another dispute—a major factor in his decision to remain anonymous.
“Her response to me basically was ‘free speech,’ ‘we don’t control what our members say.’ And I’m like, ‘But Jennifer, you know me, and you know I’m not a pedophile, and this is unacceptable,’” he told Uncloseted Media.
Building Political Power
Efforts to ban LGBTQ and racial justice-related books in schools are part of M4L’s national ammo that helped them quickly explode in popularity.
Cunningham says M4L were boosted by high-profile connections on the right. Ziegler and Descovich both served as presidents of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members, a group billed as a conservative alternative to the Florida School Board Association. Ziegler’s husband, Christian, was vice chairman of Florida’s Republican Party at the time and worked as a media surrogate for the Trump campaign in 2016.
Since their launch, M4L have had their conferences and events sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute; were directly advisedby Leadership Institute founder Morton Blackwell; and were a part of Project 2025’s advisory board. And this summer, Justice was hired as executive vice president of Heritage Action.
In 2022, the Indian River County chapter leveraged this influence to carve out power in local government: They got two close allies, Jacqueline Rosario and Dr. Gene Posca, elected to the school board, and they developed closerelationships with the Ron DeSantis-backed county sheriff Eric Flowers. Pippin was even appointed by Florida’s Department of Education to a statewide workgroup to develop compliance training for Florida’s classroom censorship policies, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.
As M4L became notorious for pushing exclusionary measures in schools, some officials—including school board member Peggy Jones—criticized the group. In retaliation, Jones reportedly received so many death threats that the district had to increase security detail at all school events where she was present.
In the midst of increasing chaos surrounding M4L, the group mounted a campaign of hundreds of requests to ban books containing “sexual content.”
While some librarians continued to hold the majority of books where bans were unsuccessful, M4L convinced Flowers to investigate one school library, alleging that keeping the books on the shelf could constitute a sex crime. While the investigation found that no crime had been committed, Flowers concluded that “we do not feel that this content is appropriate for young children,” putting even further pressure on local librarians.
Pippin at the school board meeting in August 2023. Photo via YouTube.
This kind of direct action proved very effective. Even the reading protest where Tyner was escorted out won them 34 additional book bans from a unanimous board vote.
“You can’t deny that the kind of tactics that they have have been useful,” Cunningham says. “Some of the places they’ve taken over, [including] Sarasota County, where Bridget Ziegler was on the board, became much more conservative over the past few years.”
Silencing Opposition
In addition to school board meetings, the group has a track record of trolling progressive events. Tyner and the anonymous parent remember an incidentwhere a group of M4L members showed up to a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting that had been organized to discuss plans for opposition against new state regulations that required classes to portray slavery in a more positive light. Tyner says white M4L members attempted to shout down NAACP speakers, with one member allegedly using the n-word. Thomas Kenny, a M4L member who was at the event, said this “did not happen” and that one of their members using the n-word is “an absolute lie.”
Cunningham says these disruptions are part of M4L’s playbook. He pointed to the example of Jennifer Jenkins, the liberal school board member who unseated Tina Descovich in neighboring Brevard County, who says protestors spurred by M4L have turned up outside her home calling her a pedophile and burning “FU” in her lawn.
“They [use the] same kind of tactics … over and over again,” says Cunningham.
Chapter leader Jennifer Pippin has mastered those tactics, becoming widely known as one of the most influential book banners in the country. She’s also made headlines for filing a complaint against the Kilted Mermaid, a Vero Beach wine bar, alleging that they had hosted an all-ages drag event with sexual content, which the bar owner denies. M4L rallied against the bar online, spamming the posts of one of the bar’s drag performers, telling the queen to “stay away from children.” This stunt caught the attention of Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier, who launched an investigation and issued subpoenas for video recordings of the bar on the day of the event as well as identifying documents for employees and performers.
Pippin has also claimed to be a nurse, despite no public records showing that she has a license, and appeared on the antisemitic and homophobic far-right news website TruNews, where she claimed, without evidence, that anti-M4L activists have been killing pets and livestock owned by the group’s members.
Fear
Tyner and the other anonymous parent both say that they’ve had to take a step back from the school board and local activism because of the toxic environment M4L have created.
“It’s been turned into such a circus,” Tyner says.
In the meantime, things have gotten worse for the LGBTQ community in Indian River County, and in Florida overall, between the “Don’t Say Gay” law and anti-LGBTQ legislation that requires teachers to deadname trans students unless they have signed parental permission slips. The anonymous parent says he’s watched many of the LGBTQ people in his life, including one of his own children, who is a teacher, leave the state due to the hostile environment.
“It’s not safe for a lot of people,” he says.
Greener Pastures?
Despite all of this, a sea change may be on the horizon. A 2024 Brookings report found that the success rates of M4L-endorsed candidates were on the decline, and in Indian River County’s elections last year, both of M4L’s school board candidates lost. With the continued controversies of the Trump administration and the growing popularity of groups that oppose M4L’s ideology, Cunningham feels the tide may be turning for M4L’s influence in Indian River County and across America.
“In school board races, the Moms for Liberty label is toxic, so try to not get attached to that,” he says. “They’ve had quite an impact … I don’t wanna downplay that. But in terms of popular appeal and growth, I think it’s much more limited than it is portrayed.”
“Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” protestors chanted in the middle of Times Square, among a sea of signs that read “love reigns not kings,” “gays against faux-king Trump,” “we stand with … our trans family” and “the future is coming.”
On Saturday, independent analysts estimated that the No Kings March drew between 5 and 8 million people, and organizers say over 7 million people attended 2,700 events across all 50 states. The event, which was organized to push against the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S., was the largest single-day protest in America since 1970.
Over 100,000 New Yorkers marched in all five boroughs in NYC on Saturday. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
Among the crowd were countless LGBTQ people, fighting back against an administration that has introduced a litany of anti-LGBTQ executive ordersand used vile rhetoric to denigrate queer people. This backsliding of LGBTQ rights, according to experts, has a deep connection to authoritarianism, with research showing that when governments weaken protections for queer and trans people, they often turn to broader democratic institutions next.
“Threats to democratic institutions and threats to LGBTQ rights are mutually reinforcing, generating a vicious cycle that strengthens authoritarian control,” Ari Shaw, director of International Programs at the Williams Institute, told Uncloseted Media. “Increased persecution of minority groups, including LGBTI people, is itself evidence of democratic backsliding by indicating the erosion of liberal democratic norms [meant to protect] minority rights.”
Legal Abuse of Power
One of the ways the Trump administration’s abuse of power has been most evident is through its legal actions.
He’s also slashed HIV funding at a staggering rate. Uncloseted Media estimates that the National Institutes of Health has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research, including 71% of all global HIV grants.
Jeffrey Cipriano at the NYC No Kings protest Saturday. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
It was these cuts that prompted Brooklynite Jeffrey Cipriano to turn out to protest. “The specific reason that I’m protesting is actually on the shirt I’m wearing,” says Cipriano.
“My best friend works for an organization called AIDS United. … His job is to travel the country and help people get AIDS medication, specifically trans and unhoused community members. But his job is at risk,” he says. “The end outcome of his work is that people who have issues in their lives have the issues resolved and that’s going away under the current administration.”
Executive orders are based on powers granted to the president by the U.S. Constitution or by Congressional statutes. The president cannot use an executive order to create new laws or spend money unless Congress has authorized it. They are meant to direct how existing laws are implemented. But Trump has ignored democratic norms, often filling agencies with loyal supporters, using orders to go after political opponents and pushing the limits of what the law allows.
In some cases, he has moved illegally. “The President is directing various executive branch officials to adopt policy that has either not yet been adopted by Congress or is in violation of existing statutory law,” says Jodi Short, professor of law at UC Law San Francisco. “The analogy to a king and what has troubled many about this presidency is the sheer consolidation of executive branch power in one individual.”
Short’s colleague, Dave Owen, agrees. “Illegality has been rampant,” he told Uncloseted Media in an email. “People are often cynical about the government, and they might think what Trump’s doing is nothing new. But most of the time, the executive branch takes the law seriously, and both legal constraints and norms of good governance matter,” he wrote. He says that through history, there’s been “a lot more integrity and a lot less lawlessness than most people realize.”
“This administration has broken with those traditions,” he adds.
Revolt Against Executive Orders
Many Americans have recognized this. A survey from April found that 85% of Americans agreed or strongly agreed that the president should obey federal court rulings even if he doesn’t like them.
In response to Trump’s overreach, more than 460 legal challenges have been filed across the country challenging his executive actions. One of these is a federal lawsuit by Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation that challenges the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people. Another lawsuit challenges Trump’s order directing federal agencies to withhold funds from medical providers and institutions that provide gender-affirming medical treatments for people under 19.
Zoe Boik and her father, Derik, protesting on Saturday. Photo by Sean Robinson.
Both of those lawsuits are one reason 17-year-old Zoe Boik came out to protest with her friends and her dad. “Obviously, I’m disappointed and kind of helpless because there’s nothing I can directly do to change or impact anything that’s going on,” says Boik, who identifies as pansexual and gender fluid and is not legally allowed to vote.
Boik—who was seven years old when Trump announced his run for presidency in 2015—says she’s doing a research paper on Trump’s trans military ban and is frustrated because she sees it as inexplicable discrimination. “They’re not letting trans people serve … which doesn’t make any sense.”
Zoe as a child with her dad, Derik. Photo courtesy of Boik.
LGBTQ Rights and Democratic Backsliding
This type of blatant discrimination is often a key sign of a country moving closer to authoritarianism and away from democracy. According to a 2023 research paper by Shaw and his colleagues, anti-LGBTQ stigma may contribute “to the erosion of democratic norms and institutions.”
The paper found that when a country with relatively high acceptance of LGBTQ rights introduces anti-LGBTQ legislation, it clashes with what most people believe and can weaken public trust in democracy, deepen political divides and make it easier for populist or extremist movements to gain power.
“The level of acceptance of LGBTQ people is closely associated with the strength of democracy in a country,” Shaw says. “In some cases, we even saw that rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric or policies preceded a broader decline in democracy.”
In Brazil, for example, early democratic gains coincided with rising LGBTQ acceptance, including legal recognition of same-sex unions and workplace protections. But as populist President Jair Bolsonaro came into power in 2019, he began questioning—without evidence—the security of Brazil’s voting systems, saying he would only lose his re-election campaign if there were fraud. He was also accused of trying to intervene in operations held by the Federal Police about the alleged criminal conduct of his sons, and he toldhis ministers that he had the power and he would interfere—without exception—in all cabinet ministries. At the same time, LGBTQ protections were rolled back, and schools and civil society faced censorship, suggesting that falling LGBTQ acceptance may have “preceded Brazil’s democratic erosion,” according to Shaw’s paper. In September of this year, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup.
Another example is Poland’s democracy weakening since 2015 under the Law and Justice Party, which consolidated power by undermining the Constitutional Tribunal, installing loyal judges and restricting independent media. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric became central to the party’s nationalist platform, fueling the creation of nearly 100 “LGBT ideology free zones,” inciting violence against LGBTQ individuals and stymying legal recourse through politicized courts.
When it comes to LGBTQ rights, Trump has mimicked the moves of these leaders even though most of his constituents don’t want it: A 2022 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 80% of Americans favor laws that would protect LGBTQ people against discrimination.
“The definition of an authoritarian system is a system where power is consolidated in one individual whose power is unchecked by any other institution. And I fear that in certain domains, that’s the direction in which this administration is trying to move us,” says Short. “I think it’s incredibly dangerous.”
While many universities are rejecting Trump’s demands, others are experiencing a chilling effect, changing their policies before the administration tries to hold up funds.
James Revson, Maddy Everlith and Shay Wingate holding their signs at the No Kings protest. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
“I’m here because I’m angry and I feel that we aren’t angry enough,” Maddy Everlith, a sophomore gender studies major at Pace University, told Uncloseted Media as she marched with her friends. “Being a woman of color in America and having so many intersectional identities is also what affects me. … I want to stand up and advocate for other people.”
Everlith’s university responded to Trump’s threats in September by renaming its DEI office to the “Division of Opportunity and Institutional Excellence.”
“I am beyond horrified how quickly our university was willing to bend the knee on this decision,” Austin Chappelle, a senior at Pace, told the student newspaper. This change comes in the midst of uncertainty under the Trump administration, which has already caused many LGBTQ students to feel uneasy on campus.
“It’s part of an electoral strategy to try to mobilize right-wing voters to distract from other sorts of political or economic scandals,” Shaw says, adding that this tactic is another way to gain power.
Lars Kindem protesting for his trans sister at the No Kings protest. Photo by Sean Robinson.
The pain of this rhetoric has affected millions of trans Americans and allies alike, including Lars Kindem, a 64-year-old retired pilot from Minnesota who was marching to support his transgender sister.
“What Trump has done is he’s taken people that haven’t done anything wrong and has turned them into scapegoats,” he says, adding that Trump’s language is “hateful, petty, mean and hurtful.”
He says his sister and her partner are having issues getting the correct gender markers issued on their passports. Because of the Trump administration’s treatment of the community, they are making plans to move to Denmark, where “there’s a lot more acceptance.”
Christian Nationalism
This scapegoating has played into the hands of Trump’s voter base of white evangelical Protestants, the only major Christian denomination in the U.S. in which a majority believes society has gone too far in accepting transgender people.
Since 2020, Trump has increasingly embraced Christian nationalism in his rhetoric and imagery. He’s sold Bibles, created a federal task force on anti-Christian bias and been intrinsically linked to Project 2025, the 920-page plan calling for the establishment of a government imbued with “biblical principles” and run by a president who holds sweeping executive powers.
Experts say that “a strong authoritarian streak” runs through conservative Christianity. A 2023 study found that supporters of Christian nationalism tend to support obedience to authority and the idea of authoritarian leaders who are willing to break the rules. Nearly half of Christian nationalists support the notion of an authoritarian leader.
“They are trying to use the language of Christianity, but they are abusing it and misusing it constantly,” Rev. Chris Shelton, a gay pastor at the protest, told Uncloseted Media. “Our faith is all about reaching out to the marginalized, reaching out to the people who are ostracized by society and embracing them and offering love and welcome and a sense of dignity and worth. And to see any human being’s worth being denied is just a mockery of our faith.”
Rev. Chris Shelton marched in Saturday’s NYC protest. Photo by Sean Robinson.
Heidi Beirich, the vice president and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, says that “the LGBTQ community is the prime target of modern authoritarian regimes.”
“For Christian nationalists, attacking LGBTQ rights is the first pillar in destroying civil rights for all. This has happened in countries like Hungary and Poland as authoritarianism consolidated and now it’s happening here,” Beirich told Uncloseted Media.
Moving Forward
As the country bleeds toward authoritarianism, LGBTQ protestors are encouraging people to use their voice, something the queer community is familiar with doing: One 2012 survey found that queer folks are 20 times more likely to be active in liberal social movements than their straight, cis counterparts.
“It is imperative that people continue to pay attention,” Short says. “There is so much going on, a lot of it is disturbing and intense, and there’s such a strong impulse to look away. But we have to engage in political action and resist inappropriate assertions of authority and continue to show up and vote for our democracy.”
17-year-old Zoe Boik is ready. She remembers being in second grade and crying the day after Trump won his first election in 2016. She couldn’t believe how he could lead the country despite “all the bad things he said.”
Boik can’t wait until the midterm elections, when she will be 18 and finally able to vote. “If we don’t vote, then our voices won’t be heard,” she says.
Despite this, she’s also concerned about her freedom to exercise that right being jeopardized.
“My fears about Trump don’t stem specifically from me being queer, but from his authoritarianism as a whole,” she says. “I am scared about how far he will move into dictatorship, [and] my biggest fear is that our right to vote will be compromised, leaving us no recourse.”
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, one of the country’s most influential LGBTQ+lawmakers, is preparing to run for Congress. It’s a move that would set up a dramatic generational contest against Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1987.
As first reported by The San Francisco Standard and The New York Times, Wiener plans to launch his campaign formally later this month. Pelosi, 85, has not said whether she will seek reelection in 2026, but Wiener, 55, appears to be moving ahead regardless.
Wiener’s candidacy has been years in the making. He filed paperwork for a congressional committee in 2023 and has raised more than $1 million. The Standard reports that Wiener’s advisers have begun mapping out an aggressive campaign emphasizing his legislative record on housing, public transit, and LGBTQ+ rights. As a state senator, he authored the law making California a “refuge state” for transgender people seeking gender-affirming care banned in other states, a policy that made him a national target of far-right attacks.
Pelosi remains an iconic figure within the Democratic Party and in San Francisco politics. The first woman to serve as speaker of the House, and a staunch ally to the LGBTQ+ community, she has guided her caucus through the defining battles of the Obama and Biden eras. But Wiener’s expected challenge highlights how the city that helped launch Pelosi’s career has changed: more tech-driven, more progressive on social issues, and less deferential to the political establishment.
He is not the only challenger. Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has already entered the race and invested more than $700,000 of his own money.
In a text message to The Advocate, Pelosi’s spokesperson Ian Krager said, “Speaker Pelosi is fully focused on her mission to win the Yes on 50 special election in California on November 4th. She urges all Californians to join in that mission on the path to Democrats taking back the House.” Proposition 50 would redraw congressional lines as a firewall against the recent mid-decade gerrymandering that Texas lawmakers implemented to gain more seats in the 2026 midterm election.
California’s top-two primary system means the two highest vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Pelosi has coasted to victory for decades, earning 81 percent of the vote in 2024, but a challenge from Wiener could mark a historic inflection point for the city’s political future: a contest between legacy and renewal, institutional mastery and the restless energy of a new generation of Democrats determined to define what comes next.
Police arrested at least 14 people in West Hollywood’s rainbow district around late Friday night and early Saturday morning.
WeHo Times, a local outlet, reports that the arrests were largely drug-related as part of a pre-planned undercover operation. The raid initially sparked fears of ICE involvement, which were debunked Saturday by the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station captain, Fanny Lapkin.
“This operation was in response to community reports about pickpocketing, narcotic sales, and other criminal activity that may be occurring at establishments or by unpermitted street vendors,” Lapkin said in a statement to WeHo Times. “Several arrests were made in the Rainbow District as part of the operation. The operation was not ICE-related, and ICE was not involved.”
In another video, a neighboring gay bar, Mother Lode, flashed warning text on its screens reading, “ICE IS AT THE ABBEY.” Posts also reported abandoned food carts along Santa Monica Boulevard, where the gay bars are concentrated, as well as several officers entering The Abbey.
The operation occurred just hours before the national No Kings demonstration against the Trump administration and its use of ICE to target immigrants in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities.
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to create a new working groupon the “protection of the female category” without disclosing its members or process presents an alarming risk for all women athletes, the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) said today.
“This opaque process stands in stark contrast to the comprehensive, transparent, and multi-stakeholder consultation that led to the development of the IOC’s widely-respected Fairness Framework,” said Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance. “A result of extensive research and engagement with athletes, human rights experts, medical professionals, and other impacted groups, this landmark document recognized the complexity of this issue and rejected a one-size-fits-all solution. The IOC appears to be setting aside this valuable body of research and policy in favor of a process that lacks the rigor and inclusivity of its predecessor.”
The alliance acknowledges the sensitive nature of the topic, which is often a target for misinformation, disinformation, and hateful rhetoric. However, the creation of this working group seems to neglect human rights standards previously committed to by the IOC, undermining the legitimacy of the process and the trustworthiness of the policies it will recommend.
Clear communication and transparency are paramount to developing legitimate recommendations. Unlike for the other three working groups – on the Youth Olympics, the Olympic sports program, and commercial partnerships and marketing – the “female category” group’s membership and work plan has not been published, the IOC said, to “protect the integrity of the group and their work.”
“If the IOC truly wants to protect women and girls and promote fairness with an evidence-based approach, it must make room at the table for all perspectives, and ensure its processes are clear and public,” said Steve Cockburn, head of business and human rights for Amnesty International. “The greatest risk is not that the working group might receive public scrutiny, it is that women and girls all over the world – and especially from the Global South – might be subjected to further hate and discrimination and excluded from sport. This is a fundamental issue of safety and equality that cannot be decided in secret.”
The alliance further expressed concern that exclusionary policies can cause a ripple effect that harms all women and girls in sport.
“The IOC’s Fairness Framework made significant gains to protect women and girls in sport,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “The IOC set an important precedent in moving away from surveillance, invasion of privacy, and harmful sex-testing practices that caused decades of trauma and discrimination. It is disappointing to see the leader of global sport now potentially creating a pathway for their return.”
The IOC should work with civil society to create a transparent process to form this working group to ensure its legitimacy and diversity in both membership and approach, the alliance said. The IOC should confirm its mandate is to build upon the principles of its previous inclusive, evidence-based framework. Meaningful consultation with all affected athletes should not be optional; it is essential and necessary for a legitimate process.
“The IOC and this working group should commit to a process that is transparent, inclusive, and grounded in human rights principles,” said Joanna Maranhão, network coordinator at the Sport & Rights Alliance. “The working group’s mandate should be to build upon the 2021 Framework, not to discard it. The future of fair and inclusive sport depends on an open and honest dialogue with all stakeholders – and with impacted athletes at the heart of the process.”
LGBTQ+ youth in the United States already had poor mental health — but it’s only gotten worse in the past two years.
Mental health crises among LGBTQ+ youth have recently risen significantly, according to a new report from The Trevor Project, with anxiety symptoms climbing from 57 percent to 68 percent, depressive symptoms increasing from 48 percent to 54 percent, and suicidal ideation growing from 41 percent to 47 percent. While past-year suicide attempts declined from 11 percent to 7 percent, the rate remains higher than national estimates for cisgender heterosexual youth.
“While many of the findings in this study are devastating, they are not surprising,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project. “LGBTQ+ young people in this country continue to face elevated levels of stigma and political rhetoric, which take a serious toll on their mental health and well-being.”
Transgender and nonbinary youth ages 13 to 17 reported the poorest mental health and highest risk for suicide, being nearly twice as likely to report anxiety (70 percent vs. 42 percent ) and suicidal ideation (53 percent vs. 28 percent ) compared to cisgender peers.
In the past year, one-third of all participants reported being physically harassed or threatened because of their sexual orientation, and two-fifths of trans and nonbinary respondents said they were harassed or threatened because of their gender identity. Over half of all participants (55 percent) said they have been discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, and over two-thirds of trans and nonbinary respondents (66 percent) experienced discrimination based on their gender identity.
Black said that the report’s findings “allow us to clearly and unequivocally document what we know to be true: the manner in which LGBTQ+ youth are treated in this country harms their health and risks their lives, and it is only getting worse.”
“I hope that lawmakers, community leaders, and youth-serving professionals take stock of these research findings, and join our efforts to support the health and safety of LGBTQ+ young people across the country,” he concluded.
If you or someone you know needs mental health support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services. Trans Lifeline, designed for transgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline, for LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger), can be reached at (866) 488-7386. Users can also access chat services at TheTrevorProject.org/Help or text START to 678678.
When the high school basketball coach and social studies teacher came out in a groundbreaking 2013 interview, the threats got so bad that the school hired undercover cops to attend his games.
But the influx of hate didn’t stop his advocacy. It didn’t stop him from becoming a regular contributor to Outsports or from posting videos celebrating Pride and inclusion. Hate didn’t stop him from speaking out as the MAGA movement gained traction and began to come for queer educators, and it didn’t stop him from loudly supporting trans kids.
“I know how to handle it,” he told LGBTQ Nation. “I don’t get rattled.”
But for the first time, a few weeks ago, he did.
A pair of right-wing influencers, Corey DeAngelis and Chaya Raichik (who goes by Libs of TikTok on social media), reposted one of Nicodemo’s videos in which he proudly hangs a sign in his classroom that declares, “Fascists Fear Teachers.”
And for the first time in over a decade of being out, Nicodemo went private on social media.
“This one got so nutty,” he said, referencing the tidal wave of slurs and hostility the posts provoked. “When the Libs of TikTok people start, they’re actually dangerous.” The only thing that kept the backlash at all tempered, he said, was that Raichik tagged his district rather than his personal profiles.
The right-wing fury over gay educators today feels different than it used to, Nicodemo said, so much so that, if he were still closeted, he’s not sure he would even come out in this climate.
“I would be worried of the blowback in some of the communities by the one or two parents that would create madness,” he said. While of course that madness existed a decade ago, he said people today feel “more emboldened… to attack.”
He recalled the horrendous voicemails left for his superintendent after DeAngelis posted the contact information and wondered what it takes for someone to call and complain about a teacher they had never met at a school they had no connection to.
“I don’t know if there’s anything that would prompt me to do that,” he said.
But after the haters moved on to something else, as they always do, he was able to make his accounts public again and resume his work as a fierce defender for inclusion.
“I can take the hits, I’m okay,” he said. “But I’m saddened, and I’m fearful for my people in our community who can’t, who don’t have the support of an administration or don’t have the ability to handle these kinds of attacks… Which is what these people ultimately want. They want us to be quiet, and they want to make us disappear.”
The perfect poster
“This is the perfect poster for a social studies classroom,” Nicodemo excitedly says in the video that started it all. He explains that the words are a reference to gay American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten’s new book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers, and he explains that fascists fear free thought and critical thinking skills.
He does not once mention today’s Republican Party or the current president. Instead, he discusses how the phrase applies to so much of the history he covers in class.
“Throughout history, the first group of people that fascists have attacked are educators,” he says. “People like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, some of the worst people in world history were fascists, and they attacked us educators first.”
He also mentioned that he has many other signs in the room, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
A few weeks after Nicodemo posted the video, DeAngelis found it. The influencer zeroed in on the Progress Pride flag Nicodemo wore around his neck, though he called it a “trans flag.”
In follow-up posts, he shared screenshots of the coach’s social media handles, his school’s athletic page, and the contact information for his principal and superintendent.
Once Nicodemo locked his accounts, DeAngelis posted a link to the coach’s Facebook cover photo and let followers know it was still open for comments. Sure enough, comments on the photo of Nicodemo and his team celebrating a victory call the coach “evil,” “creep,” “jerk,” and “pedo groomer.”
DeAngelis’ treatment of Nicodemo seems to have followed a template. DeAngelis posts to X dozens of times per day, reposting videos and comments from educators with whom he disagrees. Meanwhile, he actively encourages followers to harass them.
“He tweets, and then every person that retweets him, he retweets,” Nicodemo explained. “So he basically figures out how to control the algorithm.”
The hypocrisy at the heart of it all
Nicodemo finds DeAngelis’ behavior especially disheartening, considering that last year, he admitted to appearing in gay adult videos.
DeAngelis claimed the videos’ producers were “deceptive” and “lured” him into performing under the guise of making fitness videos. He was fired from his senior fellowship at the American Federation for Children (AFC), an anti-LGBTQ+ “school choice” organization, and has since had to crawl his way back into the good graces of right-wing media.
DeAngelis is a huge champion of school choice, which calls for redirecting taxpayer money to fund private for-profit schools, a major goal of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian conservatives. Such schools can reject students for any reason and operate largely without government oversight that would ensure their adherence to federal nondiscrimination laws. He also helped draft the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
DeAngelis told Fox News that public schools are “focusing more on the LGBTs than the ABCs,” a statement echoing a right-wing claim that accepting LGBTQ+ students and opposing anti-LGBTQ+ bullying in schools degrades the quality of public education.
In the past, he alluded to the adult videos, calling himself “a victim of poor decisions and poor influences” and said he now uses the experience as “the fuel that fires me to save young people from being put in the same position I was put in and to help parents protect their children.”
But Nicodemo sees it as good old-fashioned hypocrisy.
“He goes after gay teachers all day and all night… I don’t think there’s a bigger hypocrisy than that.”
“He’s trying to reassert himself into his movement and hoping, I think, that people forget the fact” that he did those videos. “So he crucifies gay teachers.”
The lack of integrity, he said, is what gets him the most. “People who are dabbling in the LGBTQ+ community when it’s convenient for them financially, then coming out against LGBTQ educators… It drives me up the wall a little bit. These people need to be held accountable for this.”
Stick to the facts
It’s a complex time to be a history teacher, when truth itself has been put on trial, and one never knows who might be recording or which parents’ wrath they might incur just for doing their job.
But Nicodemo believes there’s a way forward. “When you teach the truth, you’re going to be okay,” he said.
He added that teachers in blue states or with supportive administrations that are not puppets of folks from the likes of Moms for Liberty need to speak up for the teachers who can’t. It’s one of the main reasons he keeps posting.
“There’s so much misinformation out there. I try to stick to the facts.”
Doing so, he said, is one antidote to the many lies out there that mislead voters. “You get into this almost deep fake of what reality is, and I think we have to have people on the other side, our community specifically, that are willing to push back and share our side of the way things are.”
Despite the risks, he said it’s all worth it.
“We need people who are willing to fight because they want us to be silent and they want us to not be here.”
If he goes away, then DeAngelis wins. All DeAngelis wanted, Nicodemo said, was for him to get fired or “shut up” and lose his platform.
But Nicodemo only has one thing to say to that: “It didn’t work.”
New York City schools sued federal education officials Thursday over a decision to discontinue $47 million in promised grants because of the schools’ guidelines supporting transgender students.
City officials said the federal agency led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon cut funding without the required notice or hearing after deciding that policies letting transgender students play sports and use bathrooms matching their gender identity violate Title IX, which forbids discrimination based on sex in education.
The Education Department, in a September letter, set a deadline for New York City Public Schools to change the policies or lose current and future funding for 19 specialty magnet schools.
