The U.S. State Department is redoing its human rights reports on other countries, omitting anti-LGBTQ+ persecution, gender-based crimes, and other information the reports have traditionally included.
Leaked drafts of reports reviewed byThe Washington Poston El Salvador, Israel, and Russia “strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened,” the Post reports.
The drafts, which cover 2024, are significantly shorter than they have usually been, and they have been long delayed. The reports for the previous year are supposed to be sent to Congress by the end of February, and they are generally released to the public in March or April. Most of the reports for 2024 were nearly done by the time the Biden administration ended in January, current and former officials told the Post, but the Trump administration is now rewriting them.
Buckingham criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had praised the department’s human rights reports when he was a senator. “Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it’s convenient to them,” Buckingham, who is now managing director at the Council for Global Equality, told the Post.
Also, the report on El Salvador minimizes the issue of prison violence, and the one on Israel downplays political corruption and surveillance of Palestinians.
The Advocate sought comment from the State Department, which referred us to a transcript of the press briefing conducted Thursday by Thomas Pigott, the department’s principal deputy spokesperson. One reporter asked him, “Can you explain why the State Department is rewriting the human rights report? I understand it’s coming out soon, but it’s been changed and that you’re dropping certain things like LGBTQ rights. Just explain why.”
Pigott said the changes are designed “to make it more readable, to make it more digestible, and also to reflect some of the changing priorities that we’ve seen from the previous administration to this one, priorities that were voted by the American people and we at the State Department are here to carry out and fulfill.”
The journalist then asked if the department sees human rights reporting “as a political tool.” Pigott replied, “It’s more of just making sure that we’re implementing the policy and priority of this administration. It’s not political in terms of how that was described.”
What if the tidal wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping across America could be traced, in part, to the wounded pride of the world’s wealthiest man?
Elon Musk—CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter)—is not just a public figure. He is a force of culture, capital, and controversy. But behind his carefully crafted persona of rebellious genius lies a quieter, more personal story: that of a child who transitioned, took a new name, and severed ties with her father.
Musk’s daughter, a transgender woman, filed legal paperwork in 2022 to change her name and gender identity. She made her wishes unmistakable: she no longer wanted to “be related to [her father] in any way, shape or form.” In other words, she rejected not just his name but his brand, his ideology, and—perhaps most painfully—the Olympian-ordained quest for patronal approval: a pursuit he may have seen as mythic, even heroic, but which she experienced as petty, hollow, and in the end, anticlimactic.
Soon after, Musk began using his platform and his wallet to signal animosity toward the trans community. He posted mocking comments about pronouns, amplified far-right accounts known for targeting trans people, and donated upward of $250 million to GOP candidates and causes, many of whom subsequently centered their campaigns around anti-trans policy agendas.
This raises a chilling question: Could the extraordinary vitriol we see directed at trans people—particularly trans youth—be fueled not by ideology or feigned concern, but by the private grievances of the world’s richest man?
Consider the influence such a donor wields: Musk’s money helped fund legislative efforts to ban gender-affirming care, restrict educational content, police bathrooms, and strip legal protections from an already vulnerable segment of our population. His contributions empowered candidates who thrive on cultural wedge issues, and the trans community quickly became the favored target. We are watching state after state move to criminalize doctors, isolate families, and erase trans existence from public life.
For what? To win elections? To consolidate power? Or perhaps, to settle a personal score.
At the highest levels of wealth, taxation becomes optional, and power can become addictive. The wealthiest Americans often carry expectations on par with their wealth: comfort raised to the height of luxury; levels of quality that pass for perfection; and a final-word authority that’s rarely, if ever, challenged. But when that authority is challenged—especially by a dependent declaring autonomy—the reaction can be ferocious.
This is not to suggest that the anti-trans movement began with Elon Musk. It didn’t. But his story exemplifies a larger truth: personal grievances, when paired with immense economic and political capital, can rapidly metastasize into public policy.
What would it mean if the pain of one estranged father helped bankroll the suffering of thousands of children like his own?
We often ask ourselves how we got here—how a group as small and marginalized as the trans community came to be painted as a threat to the republic. The answer may be as human as it is disturbing: hurt people hurt people. When the hurt person is a billionaire, the damage can metastasize into the systemic oppression of our disenfranchised.
We can no longer afford to treat this wave of cruelty as the usual ebb and flow of politics. It is something darker, more intimate, and immensely more dangerous. World history compels us to recognize this for what it is—a tale repeatedly told, with a moral repeatedly forgotten:
When private vendettas are allowed to dictate public policy, no one is safe.
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A South Dakota community has rallied to help a transgender couple buy the town’s only bookstore now that the state’s anti-trans bathroom ban has forced its original owner to move east to protect his 10-year-old daughter.
As The Washington Post reports, the people of Vermillion, South Dakota have so far donated over $27,000 via a GoFundMe campaign for Nova and Elias Donstad to make a down payment on Outside of a Dog, a beloved family-owned bookstore. The shop’s owner, Mike Phelan, opened the store shortly after moving to Vermillion with his family five years ago and discovering that the town did not have a bookstore. He named it after comedian Groucho Marx’s quip, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.”
Now, though, the Phelans are moving to New England because of South Dakota’s recently passed law banning trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Mike and his wife Jen’s trans daughter has identified as a girl from an early age. In 2021, the couple successfully lobbied the Vermillion School Board to adopt a policy allowing their daughter to use the girls’ restroom — making it the only district in all of South Dakota with such a policy.
The following year, Republican state Rep. Fred Deutsch introduced a bill to ban transgender students from using the restroom that corresponds to their gender. Mike spoke out against the bill at the time, sharing his daughter’s story, and it ultimately failed to pass. But this year, a similar bill succeeded.
In recent years, however, the state has also passed laws banning trans girls from participating in school sports that align with their gender, and on gender-affirming care for minors. As the Post notes, the Phelans’ daughter is too young for medical intervention and is not interested in sports. The state’s bathroom ban, however, would force her to use the boys’ restroom at school or potentially go back to faking injuries so that she could use the school nurse’s bathroom. The Phelans, like many other families of trans kids, have opted to move to a state with explicit legal protections for their daughter.
As the Post notes, South Dakota’s anti-trans laws have ripple effects beyond trans people and their families. In the case of Vermillion, the town stood to lose not only beloved community members when the Phelans left, but its only bookstore as well.
That’s where the Donstads came in. Elias, a trans grad student, and Nova, a nonbinary nurse’s assistant, offered to buy Outside of a Dog from the Phelans. Unsure how they would manage the down payment, the Donstads started their GoFundMe campaign at the suggestion of another Vermillion local, and the town helped them raise the money they needed. With the sale finalized, Mike Phelan recently handed the bookshop over to its new owners.
Both on Mike’s last day at the store and at a farewell party that evening, Vermillion residents turned out in droves to express their sadness at losing the Phelans, their frustration with Republican attacks on their daughter’s rights, and their relief that the bookstore would live on.
One couple introduced themselves to the new owners. “We will support you,” they told Elias and Nova. “We want you here.”
The Air Force is denying early retirement to all transgender service members with between 15 and 18 years of military service, opting instead to force them out with no retirement benefits, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
These longer-serving transgender service members will have the same choice as more junior ones: quit or be forced out, with corresponding lump-sum payments as they walk out the door, the August 4 memo says.
The move is the latest escalation by President Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to bar transgender individuals from joining the U.S. military and remove all who are currently serving. The Pentagon says transgender individuals are medically unfit, something civil rights activists say is untrue and constitutes illegal discrimination.
“After careful consideration of the individual applications, I am disapproving all Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA) exception to policy requests in Tabs 1 and 2 for members with 15-18 years of service,” the memo said.
It was signed by Brian Scarlett, who is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs. The memo has not been previously reported.
Multiple service members had already been approved for early retirement, but those approvals were rescinded, advocates say. An Air Force spokesperson said a subset of applications were “prematurely approved.”
“It’s devastating,” said Shannon Minter of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. “This is just betrayal of a direct commitment made to these service members.”
The Air Force’s decision follows a policy detailed in a May 23 memo, which stated that airmen with 15-18 years of service could request early retirement.
When asked by Reuters about the decision, the Air Force noted that it approved early retirement for more senior members who self-identified as transgender and had 18-20 years of service. Regular retirement happens after 20 years.
In an internal question-and-answer fact sheet seen by Reuters, the Air Force provided potential answers to the question: “How do I tell family we’re not getting retirement benefits?”
The answers were:
“Focus on the benefits you do retain (GI Bill, VA benefits, experience)
“Emphasize this doesn’t reflect on your service or character.”
“Military & Family Readiness can provide counseling resources.”
Minter said the financial impact on transgender service members would be severe, costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes in denied benefits due to the Trump administration’s policy.
Despite ongoing legal challenges, a Supreme Court ruling in May cleared the way for the Pentagon to implement a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military.
There are 4,240 U.S. active-duty and National Guard transgender troops, officials have said. Transgender rights advocates have given higher estimates.
Trump signed an executive order in January, after returning to the presidency, that reversed a policy implemented under his predecessor Joe Biden that had allowed transgender troops to serve openly.
A Gallup poll published in February found that 58% of Americans favored allowing openly transgender individuals to serve in the military, but the support had declined from 71% in 2019.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has embraced conservative stances, including eliminating diversity initiatives at the Pentagon.
Addressing a conference in May, Hegseth said: “No more pronouns, no more climate-change obsessions, no more emergency vaccine mandates, no more dudes in dresses.”
In 2024, law enforcement agencies sharing data with the FBI reported 2,278 single-bias hate crimes based on sexual orientation and 527 based on gender identity. For sexual orientation-motivated crimes, that’s a drop of 5 percent from 2023’s tally of 2,402. For crimes based on gender identity, that’s a drop of 3 percent from 2023’s total of 547. Crimes in both categories had risen from 2022 to 2023.
But the numbers are still unacceptably high, activists say, and anti-LGBTQ+ political rhetoric is often to blame.
There were an estimated 1,221,345 violent crimes nationwide, a decrease of 4.5 percent from the 2023 estimate, the FBI report notes.
There were 16,419 agencies participating in the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics Data Collection program for 2024. Of those, 3,127 (19 percent) reported 11,679 incidents. The remaining 81 percent of agencies reported that no hate crimes occurred in their jurisdictions.
Of the 11,323 single-bias incidents reported, 17.2 percent were motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation. That was the third-largest category, with crimes based on race, ethnicity, or ancestry being first and religiously motivated crimes second. There were 4.1 percent based on gender identity bias, the fourth-largest category.
The crimes based on sexual orientation included 51.8 percent classified as anti-gay male bias; 37.1 percent prompted by anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (mixed group) bias; 8.1 percent classified as anti-lesbian bias; 2 percent classified as anti-bisexual bias; and 1 percent motivated by anti-heterosexual bias.
Of the single-bias crimes based on gender identity, 72.5 percent were anti-transgender and 27.5 percent were anti-gender-nonconformity.
The majority of all hate crimes were against people rather than property. Crimes against people included intimidation, simple assault, aggravated assault, rape, and murder. There were 21 rapes and seven murders reported.
“The FBI’s 2024 hate crime data has revealed a national emergency hiding in plain sight. Everyone deserves to be safe in this country and have the chance to thrive. But anti-equality politicians continue to spread lies about LGBTQ+ people, trying to push us out of more and more corners of society,” said a statementreleased by Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “Those smears come with a cost. The FBI has exposed a chilling reality: our community remains a target of violence — and that is unacceptable. LGBTQ+ people, just like everyone else, should be free to live our lives, pursue our careers and education, build our homes and pursue our American Dreams, without the threat of violence hanging over our heads. This FBI data is clear: we need more support from our political leaders, not animosity and attacks that seek to demonize us.”
Jacob Zieben and Jacob Paulson were fast friends when they met in 2013. Aside from their shared name, the pair were both young gay men fresh out of college who recently moved to New York City.
After two years spent glued at the hip, Paulson said their dynamic quickly changed after his friend, a personal trainer from Texas, started dating model Donald Hood.
“He just vanished,” Paulson said this week in a phone interview, choking up. “I had no contact with him, and I just wanted him to be happy, and that’s all I really cared about. And I was hoping that he was.”
Although the loss of the friendship stung, Paulson said he moved on years ago. He didn’t attend his former friend’s 2020 wedding and was only aware from social media that Jacob and Donald both changed their last names to Zieben-Hood.
But Paulson was shocked and flooded with memories when, just two weeks ago, he saw his former friend’s name in the headlines after police found the 34-year-old dead inside his Harlem apartment.
When authorities entered the apartment on July 31 after Donald called for help, they found Jacob slumped over his toilet with a gash on his head and multiple stab wounds to the back of his leg, one deep enough to penetrate muscle, according to charging documents.
His death came after years of alleged abuse dating to 2022, detailed in a series of charging documents against Donald on felony counts including strangulation and menacing. Those charges remain pending.
Donald, a 40-year-old model with over 67,000 Instagram followers, was arrested on July 31 and charged with several crimes, including burglary. He is currently being held at Rikers Island without bail. Prosecutors have not charged anyone with murder or named a suspect for Jacob’s death, citing his pending autopsy, but said they are investigating the case as a homicide.
In the days since his death, Paulson and seven others who knew Jacob spoke with NBC News as they slowly learned about the personal trainer’s life over the last decade. And while his fatal stabbing comes as a shock, those who knew Jacob believe Donald cut out his friends — and potential lifelines — years before he truly needed them.
“I wish I had done more, but, in hindsight, what would you do?” said one of Jacob’s old friends, Marti G. Cummings.
Donald’s attorney declined to comment.
After studying biomedical sciences at Texas A&M University, Jacob moved to New York City in 2013 and quickly met Paulson and Joshua Baker.
Paulson and Baker said that the trio never went “anywhere without each other” and spent endless days cooped up in Jacob’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment, which they say overlooked Central Park, playing video games, eating fried food, and daydreaming about their futures.
“We were these cute little misfits that were trying to figure out where we fit in New York society,” Baker said.
Cummings met Jacob around the same time and gravitated toward his selflessness and desire for community. A prominent New York City drag queen who uses they/them pronouns, Cummings said Jacob would frequently walk them between gigs late at night to make sure they got there safely.
“He was a protector, which is why I think it makes this whole thing sadder,” Cummings said. “He didn’t get to be protected from this.”
Jacob Zieben with friend, Marti G. Cummings.Courtesy Marti G. Cummings
Lauren Foster, a friend of Donald’s since 2000, described him as “a good guy” and said that she was never under the impression that his relationship was troubled. She did, however, acknowledge that the roles Jacob and Donald played were clear.
“I don’t think he had a ton of friends,” Foster said of Jacob. “Don was kind of the alpha in the relationship.”
“There’s always one person that’s dominant in the relationship, and that was definitely Don,” she added. “I think Don would be the alpha in any relationship. He’s larger than life.”
Baker said that shortly after Jacob met Donald in the spring of 2015, Jacob began dodging invitations, declining phone calls, and ignoring text messages. Soon, Baker noted, Jacob started to even block his friends’ phone numbers.
Jonathan Starkey, a friend from Texas, recalled that in one conversation around that time, Jacob said that “a lot had changed, and that Donald was a little possessive and jealous and kind of restricted who he was in touch with.”
“Jacob wasn’t really someone who let people tell him what to do, which is why it’s so strange,” Starkey said.
Jacob’s abrupt silence prompted Baker to reach out to Donald.
“Jacob is doing very well,” Donald wrote to Baker in a November 5, 2015, direct message on Facebook, according to screenshots of the conversation provided to NBC News. “He’s decided to break away from his past, which unfortunately included his closest friends, in order to move forward with a healthy life.”
“He’s been very focused and is back on the right track in his life and in order to remain focused he will remain out of contact for the moment,” Donald added.
For years, the only updates Jacob’s friends received about their friend came through social media, where images from the couple’s Instagrams showed what appeared to be a happy couple who traveled the world and lived a glamorous New York life. The pair posted loving selfies, pictures from their wedding in 2020, and snapshots with their families.
But court documents paint a prolonged pattern of alleged abuse in the relationship that authorities say started in 2022.
Prosecutors said in the charging documents filed after Jacob’s death that Donald had nine domestic incident reports filed against him since 2022, but did not provide more details about the nature of the incidents or who filed them. In November 2024, an order of protection was issued in New York County Criminal Court that directed Donald to cease communication and stay away from Jacob, according to charging documents associated with Donald’s arrest in February.
In February, Donald was arrested and charged with strangulation, among several other charges, for allegedly attacking Jacob inside the Harlem apartment. Jacob “almost lost consciousness, and sustained swelling, substantial pain, and redness to his neck” from the incident, according to the charging documents. Donald pleaded not guilty to the charges in the case that is still pending.
A second court order of protection was issued in criminal court in April, which once again prevented Donald from seeing or communicating with Jacob.
Donald was arrested again in June and charged with criminal contempt and menacing, according to court documents. The court records allege that Donald held a knife in Jacob’s direction and said, “I will attack you.” He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the case is still pending.
Paulson said that earlier this year, Jacob followed him on Instagram and gave him hope that the friends might reconnect after a brief exchange in March.
“I was so excited to have that prospect of him coming back into my life after I’d kind of let him go as a friend,” Paulson said. “And then to have it really just permanently end, it’s just devastated me. It’s really wrecked me.”
Members of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner remove the body of Influencer model Jacob Zieben-Hood in Harlem, New York, on Aug. 1.Kyle Mazza / NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Donald called 911 on July 31 from Jacob’s one-bedroom apartment at West 138th Street and told them he found his husband dead on the toilet.
When police arrived, they found Donald sitting on their couch with three cuts to his arm that later required stitches, a black eye, and bite marks, according to a criminal complaint. He told authorities that Jacob had attacked him.
However, prosecutors say that Jacob called his father from the bathroom before the attack and allegedly told him that Donald “was coming at him with knives and preventing him from leaving the apartment,” according to the criminal complaint. During the call, Jacob’s father allegedly heard Donald screaming derogatory names at Jacob in the background, the complaint added.
Donald was arrested later that day and charged with burglary, aggravated criminal contempt, criminal contempt in the first degree and possession of a weapon. On Thursday, he was scheduled to appear in court, but a judge waived his appearance at the request of his attorney.
He is now set to appear on September 12, almost a month after Jacob’s funeral, scheduled for this weekend in San Antonio.
As authorities continue to investigate the case, Jacob’s friends have been connecting and sharing old memories of their late friend.
“Years can go by, but he was our family till’ the end,” Baker said.
Carmeisha and Cory Williams filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama against the Elba City Board of Education and two past principals of Elba High School, Wynn Grimes and Warren Weeks. The Williamses are represented by Artur Davis at HKM Employment Attorneys and Matthew Billips, Constance Cooper, and Ben Stark at Barrett and Farahany.
Their child, S.W., came out as gay and gender-neutral in seventh grade, according to the suit. They requested to be called Shane and use they/them pronouns. S.W. had been verbally harassed by white students since elementary school for being mixed-race, but “following S.W.’s disclosure of a transgenderidentity in seventh grade, harassment and ridicule from students only intensified,” the suit says. “Teachers refused to use S.W.’s preferred name or preferred pronouns, despite an absence of school policies precluding them from doing so.”
Both students and teachers mocked S.W. for their naming requests. The teen “was further bullied and mocked for assuming traditionally male appearance in terms of manner of clothing and hairstyle,” the suit says.
From April 4 to April 18, 2023, S.W. was hospitalized for mental health treatment related to suicidal ideation caused by bullying by classmates and teachers. Carmeisha Williams informed Grimes of S.W.’s mental health status and asked him to take action, but he “made a conscious decision not to remedy the harassment,” the suit says. Grimes failed to provide the family with bullying reporting forms, as required by Alabama law, or even tell them such forms are available, according to the suit.
When S.W. returned to school, “in a stunning display of cruelty, Students mocked S.W.’s mental health status, calling them ‘crazy’ and telling them they ‘should try better next time’ to kill themselves,” the suit says. “At one point, when S.W. became ill and vomited from anti-anxiety medication, other students viciously accused S.W. of being pregnant.”
In May 2023, the Williams family tried to transfer S.W. to Coffee County Schools, but the Elba district refused to allow the transfer.
Weeks became principal of Elba High School June 3, 2023. “Superintendent [Christopher] Moseley specifically recruited Weeks for this position despite being warned by guidance counselor Buffy Lusk that Weeks had a documented history of verbal and physical violence against students, teachers, and parents at Goshen High School,” the suit says. Lusk had been a source of support for S.W., but she decided to resign when Weeks was hired.
When S.W. returned to school August 7, 2023, they told Weeks “they were being bullied based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and mental health status,” according to the filing. But Weeks, like his predecessor, did not provide S.W. with a bullying complaint form, the suit says.
The next day, Weeks confronted S.W. in front of about 50 other students as the lunch period was beginning. Weeks forcibly removed S.W.’s hoodie, revealing that the teen was wearing only a small tank top underneath and exposing the outline of their breasts and their self-harm scars. S.W. had to continue classes in only the tank top all day.
“On August 9, 2023, S.W. died by suicide, leaving behind a note that referenced the persistent bullying and harassment they had endured at school, specifically mentioning the students their parents had complained about,” the suit says. S.W. was 14 years old.
The suit accuses the school district of violating Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, both laws that prohibit discrimination in federally funded programs, and two other federal laws, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. It accuses all defendants of violating the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. It also accuses Weeks of violating the constitutional guarantee of substantive due process as well as committing battery and “extreme and outrageous conduct.”
The suit seeks a jury trial, punitive and compensatory damages, and for the court to “issue permanent injunctive relief requiring comprehensive anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies, mandatory training for staff, and clear protocols for addressing harassment complaints.”
“Our Constitution and our laws are not silent about the obligations to children in public schools: they are to be nurtured and protected, not abandoned to cruelty,” Davis said in a press release. “This lawsuit seeks accountability for a school system’s failure to respect this child’s life.”
“How any responsible school system could put a bully in charge of stopping bullies is beyond me,” Billips added. “They might as well put inmates in charge of the prison. I’m grateful there’s a new administration and hopefully they will turn this shameful episode into something that approaches justice for S.W. and their parents.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and 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.
Growing up, Kenzie remembers dragging her feet as her mom sent her to American Heritage Girls (AHG) programs.
“I describe it as Girl Scouts but indoctrination,” says Kenzie, a 20-year-old dance major from Oklahoma.
“Ever since I was little, I always knew I was queer; different from the people around me. … [In the eyes of AHG staff] it felt wrong to be feminine, but also wrong to be masculine.”
AHG and Trail Life USA—a similar organization for boys—havetroops in all 50 states and more than 110,000 members. They teach kids that homosexuality is sinful and that anything outside the gender binary is wrong. The messaging is often provided by anti-LGBTQ hate groups, like Focus on the Family, which still promotes so-called conversion therapy.
“AHG and Trail Life’s fixation on ‘sexual immorality’ reinforces a theology that punishes non-heterosexual, non-monogamous, non-cis lives,” says Fernando Salinas-Quiroz, an assistant professor at Tufts University who specializes in child study and human development.
“LGBTQ-exclusive policies don’t just harm the kids they shut out—they send a loud, damaging message to the kids inside, too,” they say. “It’s awful. But more than that, it’s strategic. These policies are not accidents—they are deliberate projects to maintain a binary, heteronormative, Christian nationalist order.”
These changes were too much for Patti Garibay, a devout conservative Christian who, in 1995, founded AHG as a Christian alternative.
Almost 20 years later, in 2013, AHG leadership helped launch Trail Life USA, the conservative Christian alternative to the Boy Scouts which was created after the organization announced that they would allow openly gay members.
John Stemberger, who was chairman of the board at Trail Life when it was founded, said in a 2024 interview of the Boy Scouts’ decision to allow gay members that “they’re going to allow an openly gay boy to decide who he’s gonna unilaterally sleep with. … This absolutely creates a radical increase of boy-on-boy contact.”
John Stemberger discusses the Boy Scouts’ inclusion of gay youth.
Salinas-Quiroz thinks the Christian hypersexualization of kids is concerning. “Suggesting that a gay boy choosing a tentmate is a threat isn’t just homophobic: It sexualizes queer presence, equates intimacy with danger, and teaches all kids to see desire, affection, and identity through a lens of fear.”
Exclusionary Membership Policies
This fear is baked into all of AHG’s and Trail Life’s policies. AHG’s membership policy says, “All biological girls of any color, race, national origin and socioeconomic status … are invited to be members of [AHG].” The term “biological girls” is a transphobic dog whistle which implies a person’s “real” sex can only be either male or female—denying the reality of transgender and intersex people.
“They’re ignoring both the scientific evidence and the lived experiences of so many of us,” says Salinas-Quiroz.
American Heritage Girls logo.
Trail Life’s handbook states, “[A]ny sexual activity outside the context of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is sinful. … We grant membership to adults and youth who do not engage in or promote sexual immorality of any kind.”
Homophobia and Transphobia in the Form of Strict Gender Roles
Kenzie remembers AHG “prepping us to be good mothers one day, like learning how to sew. … Activities that would make us good and pure Christian girls.” She says they didn’t do much outdoors. “You don’t need to be playing a ton outside, that’s what boys do,” they would tell her.
“I remember from a young age hearing, ‘This will make you a good housewife, a good mom.’ Who’s to say I want to get married? Who’s to say I want to have children?” says Kenzie, who only felt comfortable using her first name because she isn’t out to her family. “It felt like [AHG was] putting us in a very gendered box.”
Being forced to conform to the gender binary is also true over at Trail Life. “No matter what our culture says, boys and girls are different,” reads one blog post by Trail Life entitled “Letting Boys be Boys in a ‘Toxic’ Culture.”
“Discussions about ‘toxic masculinity,’ a blurring of gender lines, fewer and fewer fathers in the home, and the watering down or extinction of programs that train and equip boys to become men have left too many boys frustrated, fearful, and floundering in their struggle to understand what it means to be a man.”
At Trail Life, even though women are allowed to assist a troop, only men can become leaders “so that they can show the boys what it is like to be a man,” according to another blog post. “You need men to instill masculinity into boys, helping show them how to become a man.”
What Do They Teach?
Both AHG and Trail Life provide resources for parents and carers of young people that serve to bolster their anti-LGBTQ teachings.
In 2020, Trail Life—which operates as a ministry—partnered with two Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups: the Alliance Defending Freedom and Focus on the Family. The groups presented a webinar for troop leaders and connected officials that explored “religious freedom, child safety and gender confusion.”
“We need to know there is not an LGBT community. … So don’t think that any of us have to be respectful of the LGBT community,” Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family, said during the webinar.
Stanton also used the discussion to promote conversion therapy resources from Focus on the Family’s partner organizations for those who “struggle with unwanted same-sex attractions.”
“Same-sex feelings and all that is rooted in just pure political ideology, [and] those things have to be resisted,” he told pastors and ministry leaders on the webinar.
Screenshot from Focus on the Family’s presentation at the Trail Life Protect Your Ministry Summit.
In 2022, AHG self-published an e-book called “A Raising Godly Girls Guide to Gender and Identity,” aimed at supporting parents whose children are questioning their gender or experiencing gender dysphoria. The book—written by an unnamed author—undermines and denies the reality of transgender and gender-diverse identities.
The cover of AHG’s book, A Raising Godly Girls Guide to Gender & Identity.
In the founder’s note, Garibay writes, “For centuries, the beauty of God-given femininity has been under attack, its definition debated, [and] its behavior contested. … Today, it has gone one step further to claim an embrace of non-binary sexual identity.”
The anonymous authors define so-called “Biblical femininity” as “the core essence of every woman … relational, nurturing, and vulnerable beings.” They suggest that readers who know someone “struggling with confusion” should encourage them to go through conversion therapy by “[seeking] the professional clinical and spiritual care of a Christian counselor and … find[ing] healing.”
“This narrative may be cloaked in spiritual language, but its function is deeply political: It teaches girls that their value lies in submission, emotional labor and supporting others—particularly men—rather than in discovering who they are on their own terms,” says Salinas-Quiroz. “These [gender] roles aren’t natural—they’re socially constructed and often steeped in colonial, white-supremacist and Christian nationalist ideals.”
Rgg Gender And Identity E Book For Media4.19MB ∙ PDF file
Trail Life’s counterpart book, Raising Godly Boys, teaches a patriarchal view of masculinity—one that requires men to view care as feminine and positions women as less capable. “Women, for the most part, may not be the strong, action-oriented, stoic risk-takers men are. There is beauty and intention in these differences.”
“What [Trail Life] really means is that boys must perform a very specific kind of masculinity—one tied to dominance, emotional suppression and patriarchal authority. … These messages don’t just harm [queer] youth,” says Salinas-Quiroz. “They also limit cis children, especially those who don’t see themselves reflected in these rigid templates.”
It’s unlikely AHG’s or Trail Life’s LGBTQ-exclusive membership policies will face a legal challenge anytime soon. Both groups have some protection because of a 2000 Supreme Court ruling which upheld the Boy Scouts’ First Amendment right to exclude an assistant scoutmaster after learning he was “an avowed homosexual and gay rights activist.”
There is, however, a new, more inclusive option that’s gaining momentum. Founded in 2014 after Michael Brown and Eric Garner were killed by police officers, the Radical Monarchs is an alternative scouting organization for girls and gender-expansive youth, rooted in social justice and aimed specifically at girls of color to provide kids with a place where difference is celebrated, not disciplined.
Radical Monarchs badge.
“Rather than asking how to raise boys into men and girls into women, we should be asking how to raise young people into whole compassionate human beings. This requires spaces rooted in trust, exploration and self-determination—not segregation and control,” says Salinas-Quiroz.
“Children know who they are. Our job is to listen, affirm and make space for that knowing to grow.”
Kenzie says she’s done “a lot of unpacking” after her years at AHG and her Christian upbringing and says she’s now at peace. “If I could just be a straight cis woman and the ideal Christian girl it would make my life a hell of a lot easier, but I can’t push that into myself.”
The American Heritage Girls and Trail Life USA did not respond to Uncloseted Media’s request for comment.
Ace’s Place, which opened in Queens this week, will offer 150 beds, services like counseling and a work-study program.Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images
New York City opened the country’s first city-funded shelter for transgender and gender-nonconforming people experiencing homelessness.
Ace’s Place, which opened this week in Queens and will offer 150 beds, is a collaboration between the NYC Department of Social Services and Destination Tomorrow, an LGBTQ nonprofit in the Bronx.
Ace’s Place will provide transitional housing as well as other services including individual and group counseling, planning and assistance for permanent housing, referrals to medical and mental health services, support groups, life skills and financial literacy workshops and employment assistance. Destination Tomorrow is also developing a work-study program for the culinary arts for residents interested in working in hospitality and food service, according to a press release from the nonprofit.
“Ace’s Place is a community-driven answer to systemic neglect, and it’s only the beginning,” Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and CEO of Destination Tomorrow, said in a statement.Destination Tomorrow
“We couldn’t be prouder to make this historic announcement that strongly affirms our values and commitment to strengthening the safety net for transgender New Yorkers at a time when their rights are roundly under attack,” Molly Wasow Park, Department of Social Services commissioner, said in a statement. “Ace’s Place will offer Transgender New Yorkers a safe place to heal and stabilize in trauma-informed settings with the support of staff who are deeply invested in their growth and wellbeing.”
Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and CEO of Destination Tomorrow, said Ace’s Place is a “hard-fought declaration that our Transgender and gender nonconforming siblings will no longer be pushed to the margins.”
“Ace’s Place is a community-driven answer to systemic neglect, and it’s only the beginning,” Coleman said in a statement.
Trans people disproportionately experience homelessness, in part due to facing more employment discrimination. The 2022 U.S. Trans Survey, the largest nationwide survey of trans people, with more than 90,000 respondents, found that 30% of respondents reported experiencing homelessness in their lifetimes. Eleven percent of those who had ever held a job said they had been fired, forced to resign, lost the job or been laid off because of their gender identity or expression. More than one-third (34%) of respondents were experiencing poverty.
Ace’s Place is one of only two organizations in New York City that will provide housing for adults in the LGBTQ community. Nearly all of the city’s LGBTQ shelters are for people under 25.
Back in April, Uncloseted Media documented every move President Donald Trump made on LGBTQ issues in his first 100 days and uncovered a relentless and unprecedented attack against the community. That attack has only intensified. Here’s the Trump administration’s complete track record from days 101-200.
May 1, 2025
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) publishes “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” a 409‑page report promoting “gender exploratory therapy.” The report’s nine authors are left anonymous in a move experts have called unusual. MIT philosophy professor Alex Byrne would later come forward as one of the authors, drawing criticism for his lack of medical expertise. Medical experts and advocacy groups criticize the review as biased, misleading and akin to conversion therapy.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) cuts more than $800 million in research grants meant to study the health of LGBTQ people. The cuts abandon studies of cancers and viruses and setback efforts to defeat a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times. They also eliminate swaths of medical research on diseases that disproportionately afflict LGBTQ people.
In termination letters, the NIH justifies the cuts by telling scientists that their work “no longer effectuates agency priorities.” In some cases, they say the research had been “based on gender identity,” which gave rise to “unscientific” results that ignored “biological realities.”
May 5, 2025
The Department of Justice (DOJ) removes all references to gender or gender identity from at least four federal surveys. The changes will make it nearly impossible to monitor crimes and other forms of violence experienced by transgender people.
May 7, 2025
The Supreme Court rules that President Trump’s ban on transgender troops serving in the military can go into effect immediately while the courts decide a final outcome. Alaina Kupec, a retired transgender U.S. Navy lieutenant, says the decision punishes people who are qualified and want to serve the country. “[This is] a really dark day for our country where basically we’re allowed to discriminate against a class of people.”
May 27, 2025
Trump threatens to withhold federal funding, “maybe permanently,” if California does not prevent high school junior AB Hernandez, a transgender track and field athlete, from competing in state finals. California would reject Trump’s demands, and Hernandez would go on to compete.
May 30, 2025
NIH cuts funding for the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development, a consortium of researchers from Duke University and Scripps Research. Researchers say that the program was close to a breakthrough and that the cuts could set HIV vaccine research back by as much as a decade.
June 2025
Trump does not acknowledge Pride month. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavittsays, “There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June, but I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion or creed,” notably leaving out the LGBTQ community and never using the word “Pride.”
June 3, 2025
Photo by Ted Sahl.
The Trump administration’s Department of Defense removes LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk’s name from a U.S. naval vessel and plans to rename it. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggests ships should not honor civil rights leaders, saying, “People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in.” One defense official says Hegseth intentionally did this at the beginning of Pride Month.
Trump’s military ban goes into full force and the involuntary separation of transgender service members begins. Those who did not identify themselves will have their medical records surveyed and be involuntarilyseparated if it is discovered that they are trans.
June 9, 2025
NIH staffers issue the Bethesda declaration, stating that the Trump administration has forced the NIH to “[politicize] research by halting high-quality, peer reviewed grants and contracts” as well as “[censor] critical research” on subjects including health disparities, health impacts of climate change and gender identity. The declaration has been signed by at least 484 staffers.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya would later push back, saying the cuts align with the president’s agenda. “Making America healthy again involves deprioritizing research that doesn’t have a chance of making America healthy, [such as] a lot of ideological research.”
June 17, 2025
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announces that the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will shutter LGBTQ youth services on July 17, with the Trump administration saying the program promotes “radical gender ideology” without parental consent. In the announcement, SAMHSA notably drops the “T” in their references to the “LBG+” community.
The same day, a White House spokesperson attacks a federal judge’s ruling to block the Trump administration from disallowing transgender and intersex Americans to obtain passports aligned with their gender identity, calling it an attempt to “push radical gender ideology.” The judge rules that Trump’s executive order likely violates the Fifth Amendment as it discriminates on the basis of sex.
Reid Solomon-Lane, a transgender man and a plaintiff in Orr v. Trump, responds to the attacks: “I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety. … Now, as a married father of three … if my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used [it] for travel or identification, causing potential harm to my safety and my family’s safety.”
June 18, 2025
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court rules in favor of United States v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s SB1 law, which bans gender-affirming care for minors. As a result, 25 statewide bans on gender-affirming care remain in effect.
In an interview with Uncloseted Media, five trans youth speak out about the decision, with one saying, “Lawmakers don’t need to be involved in my doctor visits. … They’ve got a lane and they should stay in it.”
That same day, the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission admits at her confirmation hearing that transgender workers are protected under civil rights laws. Despite this, she defends dropping lawsuits on their behalf, saying the agency must follow Trump’s executive orders.
June 30, 2025
The Trump administration withholds nearly $7 billion in school funding as it investigates whether the funds support undocumented students or LGBTQ-inclusive education.
But after pressure led by Democratic Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, Trump administration officials would later announce that they will release the funds.
June 2025
Responding to Trump’s executive order that bans gender-affirming care for people younger than 19, major health networks and many regional centers begin suspending care. The lines drawn are arbitrary. At Stanford, patients as old as 18 are affected. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) announces that in July they will begin cutting off care for patients as old as 25. CHLA states that they were left with “no viable alternative” because they could not risk any cuts to their federal funding.
July 2, 2025
HHS orders teen pregnancy prevention programs to exclude LGBTQ content or lose federal funding, despite data showing higher pregnancy rates among LGBTQ teens. The directive affects 73 organizations.
July 4, 2025
Trump signs his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law. The sweeping package of tax breaks that largely benefits the wealthy includes major funding cuts to HIV and LGBTQ health care, as well as a number of support programs that disproportionately serve queer people.
July 9, 2025
The DOJ subpoenas over 20 health clinics and doctors for providing gender-affirming care to minors. A former DOJ official calls the move “highly unusual.”
July 10, 2025
Screenshot of Stonewall Website.
Mentions of bisexuals and bisexuality are removed from several parts of the National Park Service’s website on the Stonewall National Monument, though some would later be restored. This comes five months after mentions of trans people were erased.
July 17, 2025
Genna Brown used an LGBTQ crisis hotline for the first time when she was 10 years old. Photo by Kaoly Gutierrez for Uncloseted Media.
The Trump administration officially shuts down the LGBTQ-specific option on the 988 youth suicide hotline. Notably, there are no plans to shut down theother targeted hotline options, including the Veterans Crisis Line, the Spanish Language Line and the Native and Strong Lifeline.
Arden, who called when they were 16, told Uncloseted Media, “If it weren’t for the hotline, I would have killed myself.”
July 18, 2025
State Department officials tell the Guardian that nearly $10 million in U.S.-funded contraceptives, purchased for now-defunct foreign aid programs, are set to be destroyed after being unable to find any “eligible buyers,” in part due to a gag rule reinstated and expanded by Trump that bansfunding to overseas reproductive health, family planning and HIV-prevention programs as well as LGBTQ health initiatives. The contraceptives are currently being stored in a Belgian warehouse until their eventual demise, with the Washington Post reporting that, as of April, the stock included over 26 million condoms, millions of birth control packets, hundreds of thousands of contraceptive implants, nearly 2 million injectable contraceptive doses and more than 50,000 vials of HIV-prevention medication.
That same day, a federal judge issues a preliminary injunction against a law requiring clergy in Washington State to report child abuse disclosed during confession, finding the law likely violates the First Amendment by forcing priests to choose between their religious vows and civil obligations. The ruling, which upholds the absolute confidentiality of confession, follows the Trump administration’s DOJ joining a lawsuit on the side of the plaintiffs the month prior.
July 21, 2025
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee bans transgender women from competing in women’s Olympic sports. The committee claims they have an “obligation to comply with federal expectations,” citing Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
July 22, 2025
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) dismisses abuse allegations from Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist the Trump administration deported to an El Salvadoran maximum-security prison, where he spent 125 days. Hernández Romero reports torture, sexual assault and other inhumane treatment. DHS labels him and others as “criminal, illegal gang members,” despite his clean record and lawful attempt to seek asylum in the U.S.
July 24, 2025
American painter Amy Sherald cancels a Smithsonian art show after the institution attempts to remove her painting “Trans Forming Liberty” that depicts a transgender woman as the Statue of Liberty. Sherald speculates that the Smithsonian’s decision was motivated in part by “institutional fear” of an anti-trans political climate.
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia sue the Trump administration for its attempts to institute a de facto national ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. “The federal government is running a cruel and targeted harassment campaign against providers who offer lawful, lifesaving care to children,” writes New York Attorney General Letitia James.
