A bill that is being called the “most extreme anti-LGBTQ+ bill” in Indiana was passed by the state’s Senate last week.
S.B. 182 contains several provisions. First, it defines sex and gender in terms of reproductive organs and applies that definition to all laws in the state. Second, it says that trans students can only use the restrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth. Moreover, it allows students to sue schools if a trans classmate breaks this rule. Third, it forces jails and prisons to house trans inmates with their sex assigned at birth.
Indiana already passed several anti-trans pieces of legislation since 2022, including a ban on calling trans kids by their preferred name or pronouns without parental permission, a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, a ban on trans student-athletes participating in school sports, and a ban on transgender health care in prisons.
S.B. 182 passed the state Senate in a 37-8 party-line vote last week. The bill’s author, state Sen. Liz Brown (R), said that the bill is necessary to protect “women” in “their private spaces.”
Insights for the LGBTQ+ community
Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
“We’re not singling anyone out,” she said. “You can continue to identify any which way you want. But if you’re born a male, you’re going to the male bathroom. Pretty simple. You’re born a female, going to the female bathroom.”
Jennilyn Nichols, the mother of a transgender daughter, speaks during the annual LGBTQ+ Statehouse Day on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Indiana Statehouse. The event comes one day after the Indiana Senate passed Senate Bill 182, which would bar individuals from using a bathroom that does not match their sex assigned at birth. | Christine Tannous/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK
Brown struck a less conciliatory tone in her floor speech in favor of the bill, where she expressed resentment about trans-inclusive language that gets used in some situations and receives outsized attention in rightwing media.
“We don’t have birthing people, we don’t have chest feeders,” she said. “We have men and women.”
Being forced to use the wrong restroom at school can out trans kids, lead to physiological problems associated with holding it in, and make it difficult to spend a full day away from home.
GLSEN’s 2021 National School Climate Survey found that LGBTQ+ students were more likely to have missed school than cishet students, had lower self-esteem, and suffered higher levels of depression. Of those who said they considered dropping out of school, nearly one-third said it was because of “gendered school policies and practices.”
Trans people protested at the state capitol, holding signs that read “Don’t put me in the men’s/women’s room!” and denouncing the legislation.
Emma Vosicky stands with a sign as transgender advocates speak to media members Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026, outside the Senate chambers in the Indiana Statehouse. The group gathered to speak against Senate Bill 182, which would bar individuals from using a bathroom that does not match their sex assigned at birth. | Christine Tannous/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK
“Already statistics show that almost three-quarters of all trans students have been subject to bullying and harassment,” Emma Vosicky, one of the protestors, told the Indy Star. “This bill is going to force kids even further out in the open. So we’re asking little trans girls to show up in the bathrooms, in the boys’ bathrooms, and what do we really think is going to happen to them when they get there?”
Some of the opponents of the bill included intersex people, who pointed out that the definition of sex and gender included in S.B. 182 does not cover them.
“Am I not a citizen, am I not a person, am I two people, am I half of each?” asked one woman who was born intersex during a January 21 state Senate committee hearing after she explained that her body produces both sperm and eggs. “Who am I?”
Other opponents include the parents of trans people, like Ken Inskeep, whose son moved to another country to escape the anti-trans climate in the U.S. and now won’t visit the U.S. anymore out of fear that his passport will be invalidated by the current presidential administration.
Ken Inskeep becomes emotional as he speaks about his transgender son during the annual LGBTQ+ Statehouse Day on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Indiana Statehouse. The event comes one day after the Indiana Senate passed Senate Bill 182, which would bar individuals from using a bathroom that does not match their sex assigned at birth. | Christine Tannous/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK
“The empty spot at the table,” Inskeep said at the annual LGBTQ+ Statehouse Day, the day after S.B. 182 was passed. “The inability to hug them, to hold them.”
As part of LGBTQ Nation’s January issue, we asked readers to tell us how one year of the second Trump administration has affected their lives and what they hope LGBTQ+ leaders and allies do differently in 2026.
We received dozens of submissions and have been sharing them throughout the month.
For this post, we will be sharing the answers of queer folks of all identities who bravely gave voice to their pain and fear.
Here is what they had to say.
How has living under the second Trump administration affected you personally over the last year?
“As a transgender woman, the past year has been defined by fear, instability, and constant vigilance. The administration has actively moved to take away my medically necessary hormone therapy while simultaneously undermining basic civil rights — including legal identification, passport recognition, and even the right to safely use a restroom. I’ve spent enormous emotional energy fighting insurance denials, preparing for care interruptions, and worrying whether my existence will continue to be treated as political leverage rather than a matter of human dignity and survival.”
-AT, 60 years old, trans woman and lesbian
“My family had already moved the year prior to flee anti-trans policies in the red state we’d owned a house in, prior. When trump was elected, we used the rest of our resources to leave the country. Each move introduced significantly more precarity.”
-N Alexander, 36 years old, queer nonbinary trans man
“I hear more homophobic/transphobic things from conservative family members. I’m scared for established rights, like same sex marriage, to be taken away, especially after Roe v. Wade. I really hope there’s not another president like him when I’m older. It’s also hurt my family a lot financially.”
-Anonymous, 16 years old, bisexual and agender
“This administration makes me look at the US flag differently. I want it to stand for everyone but I’m not sure it stands for me and folx like me. I have had to consider things that no one should rush into but may be taken away, like surgery. I’ve been stocking up on medication. Some of my friends have left the country. Preparing for the unknown is stressful.”
Ginger, 64 years old, bisexual trans woman
“It has been devastating, and eye opening. I knew this time was going to be difficult, but the experience of living through it has been nothing short of a mountain of indescribable horrors.”
-Anonymous, 25 years old, pansexual trans woman
“It has made me afraid everywhere I go that I will be shot or treated disrespectfully if I wear anything rainbow. I was actually really afraid of going to my local pride parade this year. I am very disappointed Kamala Harris did not win. I hope that it isn’t too late to take our democracy back.”
-Anonymous, 16 years old, gay
I married my husband 4 years ago. I’m afraid that this right will be taken away by the illegal SCOTUS he put in place. Im a government contractor serving at risk young adults. I’ve been fired and unfired twice this year, saved only by court injunctions. I await the court decision next month if I will still have my union job. At my workplace, I have seen draconian and hurtful anti-trans policies applied to our trans and non binary students. I’ve seen ICE show up at work looking for students. I’ve agonized over the fear this administration is forcing over our community. It’s all personal to me.
-Josh, 45 years old, gay
“Never knowing if my marriage will be impacted; always wondering if my child is safe at school; worrying about who is watching us as a family when we’re out together in public. Makes me reimagine our entire democratic system and path forward while considering running for president myself.”
-Mariah R., 34 years old, bisexual and nonbinary
What do you hope to see from LGBTQ+ leaders and allies in 2026?
“I want to see courage backed by action — not just words. LGBTQ+ leaders and allies must aggressively defend trans healthcare, legal recognition, and bodily autonomy, and refuse to let trans people be treated as expendable or negotiable. Real unity, coordinated legal challenges, and sustained public support are essential if equality is to mean anything at all.”
-AT, 60 years old, trans woman and lesbian
“Organization. An organized resistance on every front to facism, and gentleness and mercy to the members of our own community. Empowered governments try to divide the populations they’re trying to control and destroy; resistance also means resisting that impulse and showing clear guidance on how to do that on the ground level. And above all, protect trans people. We stand together or we all fall.
-N Alexander, 36 years old, queer nonbinary trans man
“Push back against any consideration of taking away rights. Maybe more work done in Christian communities since the homophobia is so bad.”
-Anonymous, 16 years old, bisexual and agender
“We all need to keep up the good fight and take time celebrate the small victories when we get them. History tells us that the queer community is resilient and innovative and that gives me hope.”
-Ginger, 64 years old, bisexual trans woman
“Be a voice for the voiceless.”
-Anonymous, 25 years old, pansexual trans woman
“That they will stop being quiet and stand up for our rights. They (a lot of leaders) want to play moderate on the LGBTQ+ issues when we need real change. We cannot sit idly by and let (I pray to God it never comes to this) an erasure of us, whether it be of our culture or by genocide.”
-Anonymous, 16 years old, gay
“Someone who will fight fire with fire. Leaders who inspire. Leaders who won’t back down. Leaders who can motivate and activate our community in real time to real threats against us and our rights. I ain’t going back!”
A Filipino man accused of killing multiple LGBTQ+ people has been found dead while in custody, police say.
Authorities said the 22-year-old murder suspect, whom police referred to as “Roy”, was found unconscious in the toilets of the Lobo Municipal Police Station in Lobo, Batangas, on Sunday night (1 February).
Police executive master sergeant Jenny Atienza confirmed that the individual, accused of murdering 34-year-old make-up artist Aljohn Abag, was found by the station’s duty jailer after his partner became concerned that he had been in the toilets for several hours.
Officers rushed him to the Lobo District Hospital, where he was declared dead, sergeant Atienza told local news outlets.
Abag’s body was found along the seashore of Malabrigo Beach on 26 January. Investigators say he was fatally struck on the head with a large, sharp object, possibly a stone.
Roy was arrested and charged four days later after he was spotted driving the victim’s motorcycle in Quezon – a province in the Philippines over 107 miles (172 km) from the location of the killing.
Investigators reported that CCTV footage showed Roy and Abag together near Malabrigo Beach on the night of the killing. Roy was also found in possession of several of the victim’s personal belongings.
He faced charges including robbery with homicide and qualified carjacking, according to the Manila Bulletin.
Local outlet Inquirer reports that the suspect was also being investigated for possible involvement in numerous other murder cases, some of which included LGBTQ+ victims.
As the second Trump administration passes the one-year mark, LGBTQ+ people across the United States are living through a profound and destabilizing shift. What has unfolded over the past year is a deliberate reorientation of federal power away from civil rights and toward state-sanctioned exclusion.
According to advocates at the Human Rights Campaign, this moment is best understood not as a collection of disconnected policy fights, but as a coordinated effort to roll back decades of progress.
“This administration has shown a glaring lack of care for human life,” Bentley Hudson, Georgia State Director for the Human Rights Campaign, told LGBTQ Nation. “Anything that affirms the dignity of another human being is being undermined because human dignity and connection are the antithesis of authoritarianism.”
From the first week of the administration, that posture was made clear. President Trump immediately signed a barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ executive actions, including a reversal of federal nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and the dismantling of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives across the federal government.
According to prior estimates from the Williams Institute, nearly 14,000 transgender federal employees and more than 100,000 LGBTQ+ employees of federal contractors had previously benefited from these protections. Their removal created immediate uncertainty in workplaces where discrimination was already widely underreported.
Miriam, a 42-year-old lesbian federal contractor in Washington, D.C., says the shift has been immediate and chilling. “Before, there was at least a sense that HR had your back,” she said. “Now, I don’t know if reporting something would protect me, or paint a target on me.”
Miriam noted that several LGBTQ+ coworkers have quietly removed pronounsfrom email signatures and stopped attending employee resource group meetings. “It feels like we’re shrinking again,” she added. “Like we’re back in a time we thought we had moved past, where to be safe we have to go invisible.”
Compounding this retreat is the rollback of federal data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity. Changes to surveys and reporting practices mean fewer reliable statistics on LGBTQ+ populations, making it harder to document disparities in health care, housing, employment, and education. Advocates warn that when communities are not counted, their needs are easier to ignore.
One year into Trump’s second term, LGBTQ+ people face an unmistakable contraction of federal protection. Yet the movement for equality has adapted. In the absence of reliable federal leadership, communities are organizing locally, building people power, and linking LGBTQ+ liberation to the broader defense of democracy and human dignity.
This isn’t politics to us
| Shutterstock
Hudson emphasized that HRC does not attempt to rank harm because harm is experienced differently across communities. Instead, the organization tracks patterns.
“What we have seen is the executive branch using its power to try to prevent people from accessing healthcare, from participating in public life, from being safe at work or at school,” Hudson said. “That includes federal workers, parents, children, doctors, and educators.”
Health care has emerged as one of the most consequential battlegrounds. HRC has filed litigation to protect access to gender-affirming care for federal workers after the administration moved to exclude coverage under federal health benefit programs. Federal agencies have also sought to reinterpret civil rights statutes in ways that weaken protections for transgender people in federally funded health programs, a shift documented by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“When you say a trans person should not have access to healthcare because of who they are,” Hudson explained, “you open the door to denying healthcare to anyone because of who they are.”
Elena, a mother of a 14-year-old transgender boy in Texas, says her family’s clinic has warned them that care may not continue. “They couldn’t give us answers, only ‘maybe’ and ‘We’ll see,’ Elena said.
“How do you explain that to a kid who already feels like the world doesn’t want him?” She described watching her son’s mental health improve after beginning gender-affirming care, and the fear of what could happen if that care is interrupted. “This isn’t politics to us,” she said. “It’s my child’s health. It’s whether he feels safe in his own body.” Medical providers report delaying or limiting services out of fear of regulatory consequences, leaving families to travel long distances or turn to overburdened clinics.
Education policy has followed a similar trajectory. With weakened federal guidance, protections for LGBTQ+ students now vary drastically by state and district. Issues such as bathroom access, participation in school activities, and responses to bullying are increasingly left to local discretion. Internal directives within the Department of Education instructed staff to halt programs that supported transgender students.
Avery, a 17-year-old transgender student in Ohio, says the difference is palpable. “Before, I felt like the school had to take me seriously,” Avery explained. “Now, when kids make comments or use the wrong pronouns on purpose, it’s like administrators don’t know what they’re supposed to do – or they just don’t want to deal with it.”
Avery described avoiding school bathrooms entirely, timing their day around when they can safely go at home. “It sounds small, but it controls your whole day,” they said. “You’re constantly thinking about where you’re allowed to exist.”
Advocates warn that this uncertainty creates fertile ground for harassment and isolation, particularly as national rhetoric emboldens anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.
Beyond health care and education, the administration has targeted LGBTQ+ people’s presence in public life. The reinstatement of the ban on transgender military service has placed thousands of service members in professional limbo. In early 2025, the administration issued an executive order barring transgender people from military service, and the U.S. Supreme Court allowed enforcementto proceed while legal challenges continue. Thousands of transgender service members now face halted medical care and potential discharge.
A warning sign for everyone
| Shutterstock
At the same time, LGBTQ+ and HIV-related resources have quietly disappeared from federal websites, eliminating access to reliable public health information and sending a symbolic message about whose lives are valued.
“Erasure is not neutral,” Hudson said. “When the government removes information about a community, it tells people that they do not exist or do not matter.”
Jamal, a 29-year-old gay man living with HIV in Georgia, noticed the changes immediately.
“It might seem symbolic, but symbols matter,” he said. “When the government removes information about you, it feels like they’re saying you don’t exist, or you don’t deserve help.” Jamal, who volunteers with an HIV outreach organization, worries that misinformation spreads when official resources disappear. “People start trusting rumors instead of facts,” he explained. “That can be dangerous.”
Crucially, Hudson situates these actions within a broader political project. Rather than viewing attacks on LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, unhoused people, or disabled communities as separate agendas, HRC understands them as interconnected.
“This is not just about LGBTQ people,” Hudson said. “We share human rights with everyone in this country.”
Scholars and organizers increasingly describe this moment as part of what Reverend Dr. William Barber II has termed the Third Reconstruction, a renewed struggle for racial, economic, and civil justice following the unfinished work of the Civil War and Civil Rights eras.
Despite the scale of the challenges, Hudson stressed that the past year has also revealed resilience. HRC now counts over 3.6 million members and supportersnationwide. It has expanded rapid response efforts, pursued litigation, and invested heavily in state-level political organizing.
“Voters are rejecting the message that hating your neighbor makes your life better,” Hudson said.
Rosa, a queer organizer in Arizona, describes a shift in strategy. “We’re no longer assuming federal protection will save us,” she said. “We’re building safety at the community level, know-your-rights training, mutual aid, and rapid response networks.”
Rosa noted that younger activists are organizing with fewer illusions about political permanence. “They understand that rights can be taken away,” she said. “So they’re organizing like it matters, because it does.” Advocates are also urging politicians to change how they frame LGBTQ+ equality, connecting it to broader democratic values such as privacy, bodily autonomy, and freedom from government intrusion. “When LGBTQ+ rights are attacked,” Rosa added, “it’s a warning sign for everyone.”
For Hudson, the lesson of the past year is clear.
“Visibility alone isn’t protection,” he said. “Laws matter. Community matters. And we can’t afford to be complacent.”
In short, the fight has changed. But it is far from over.
Under a new bill introduced Wednesday, the Idaho Legislature would ban local policies in more than a dozen cities that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The bill, written by the Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative Christian group, and sponsored by Nampa Republican state Rep. Bruce Skaug, would block local governments in Idaho from having more strict antidiscrimination policies than established in state law.
Since 2011, 13 Idaho cities and towns have passed nondiscrimination ordinances including Sandpoint, Boise, Idaho Falls, Moscow, Lewiston, Meridian, Ketchum, Hailey, Bellevue, Driggs, Victor, Pocatello and Coeur d’Alene. In 2020, Ada County, home to Boise, passed its own, KTVB reported.
Read the full article. Rep. Bruce Skaug last appeared here in 2022 when the Idaho House passed his bill that would impose a life sentence on parents who “seek out gender-affirming health care for their transgender child.”
Journalist Don Lemon walked toward the microphones Friday afternoon with his husband, Tim Malone, by his side, the two holding hands as Lemon prepared to address reporters outside a federal courthouse in Los Angeles.
Speaking around 3:30 p.m. Pacific, Lemon thanked supporters and described his arrest as a defining moment for press freedom. A federal judge released him without bail.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news,” Lemon said. “I will not stop now. There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”
Lemon said he was still trying to understand the case against him, noting that he had not yet seen the government’s filings. He described his arrest late Thursday night as extraordinary, saying federal agents took him into custody for conduct he characterized as routine journalism.
“Last night, the [Department of Justice] sent a team of federal agents to arrest me in the middle of the night for something that I’ve been doing for the last 30 years, and that is covering the news,” Lemon said.
Standing beside Malone, Lemon widened the focus beyond his own case, warning that the prosecution carries implications for journalists nationwide. The Constitution, he said, is meant to protect reporters whose work involves documenting events as they unfold, even when that reporting challenges those in power.
A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon on felony charges alleging that his reporting during a January 18 protest inside a St. Paul church crossed into criminal interference with religious worship, a characterization his attorneys strongly dispute. The indictment accuses Lemon of knowingly participating in a coordinated disruption rather than merely documenting events, claims that have alarmed press freedom advocates and Democratic leaders.
“The First Amendment of the Constitution protects that work, for me and for countless other journalists who do what I do,” Lemon said. “I stand with all of them, and I will not be silenced.”
Lemon closed by signaling both resolve and confidence in the legal process. “I look forward to my day in court,” he said, thanking supporters once more before stepping away.
Two Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras members have accused the organisation of silencing them for supporting trans rights.
SGLMG directors, Luna Choo and Damien Nguyen, claimed its Board of Directors “completely stripped” the pair of their administrative accounts after they criticised its decision to reject a motion on trans rights.
The Pride organisation faced widespread criticism after announcing it would not uphold a set of resolutions proposed in November 2025 by members of the public during its annual general meeting.
One of the resolutions rejected by the Board of Directors called for the main focus of the 2026 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival to be the rights of transgender and non-binary people by “encouraging parade floats to show support for the trans community.”
Directors argued in a statement last Tuesday that the motion would restrict the “creative direction” of the parade’s participants and, it said, was “inconsistent with our standard application process.”
Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. (Getty)
Days after the announcement, Nguyen and Choo claimed the Board had allegedly locked their official Mardi Gras email accounts after they expressed support for the member resolutions.
The pair had previously responded to a request from an individual urging the organisation to reaffirm its support for trans rights as several Australian provinces, including Queensland, have begun banning puberty blockers for trans youth.
In a set of emails sent on 16 January, seen by PinkNews, both Choo and Nguyen said that, while they could not speak “on behalf of the Board,” they unequivocally supported highlighting injustices against the community, while expressing personal support in implementing the member resolutions.
In her own email on the request, Choo wrote: “I agree with you that these resolutions are especially important now that the Northern Territory government has ceased public health access to puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones for people under the age of 18.”
In a joint email on Friday (23 January), both Choo and Nguyen again responded to the concerned individual, claiming they could not see replies because their administrative rights had been allegedly removed.
The pair added that they were “not permitted to disclose confidential board discussions” but that they would continue to “push and vote in support of agreed upon members’ resolutions on transgender rights.”
“Our Mardi Gras accounts have been unjustly locked just minutes after our last response to you,” they wrote. “We will keep you in the loop on whatever we believe we are allowed to when it comes to trans justice and equal rights.”
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras denies allegations as ‘completely false’
A spokesperson for the organisation’s Board of Directors denied the allegations in a comment to PinkNews, adding: “Any suggestion that access to official Mardi Gras email accounts may be restricted on the basis of views on trans rights is completely false.”
They added: “Access to email accounts is governed by directors’ obligations and established governances processes, not political or ideological positions. It is disappointing that internal governance matters are being misrepresented and politicised.”
The Board of Directors faced similar allegations by trans woman and former director, Charlie Murphy, who claimed she and other members faced “disciplinary action” for joining a queer rights protest in 2021.
Another former director, Skip Blofield, made similar accusations, claiming they were stood down in 2022, allegedly alongside other trans people and people of colour.
Luc Velez, a former Board director who stepped down in 2025, accused current directors of “suppressing dissent” and caving to Australian politicians who, he argued, have “no interest in standing up for the community.”
“The Mardi Gras Board has refused to use their platform to advocate for our community,” he added. “The Parade is the time of year when so many people are looking to and thinking about us queer folk.
“It’s the perfect opportunity to send a strong message to politicians – yet this Board is instead mobilising its resources to punish those directors who refuse to comprimise on trans rights.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon got to the heart of the moral panic over trans kids in a statement earlier this week, where she attacked California for protecting trans kids from getting forcibly outed to their parents: “Children do not belong to the State—they belong to families. We will use every available mechanism to hold California accountable for these practices and restore parental rights.”
That is, the right sees children as property, and, to them, the only debate is whose property they are. The possibility that they’re actually human beings who belong to no one is simply unthinkable.
Liberals, on the other hand, see children as human beings: Human beings who need extra help and care, who need boundaries and education, but they’re still people; people with their own identities, thoughts, and interests that their parents can’t control, who will eventually become adults who are not who their parents may have wanted them to be.
This attitude is what’s boiling underneath the right’s anxiety about trans kids, but they rarely come out and say it because many people who haven’t thought too much about this issue would reject the idea that parents can force their kids to become the kind of adults they want them to be.
But it’s definitely the foundation of the anti-trans backlash. It’s what’s underneath those urban legends conservatives tell each other about teachers turning their kids transgender: someone is going to force my kid to be like them; they couldn’t possibly be their own person.
It’s why right-wingers like to believe that things like social media, television, or “social contagion” turn kids trans; their kid isn’t really trans, so it’s not really so bad if they withhold love and support or even kick their kid out for being trans because they’re just protecting their kid from an outside force.
It’s why they stop talking to their trans or queer kids when they come out or kick them out of their homes. They’re supposed to be what their parents want them to be, and it’s so deeply ingrained that they sometimes can’t even understand how their kids could be their own people.
Most people wouldn’t agree that kids don’t have any rights to be the people that they are, and even conservatives realize that saying this explicitly would make their position seem unsympathetic.
It’s also why they can say with a straight face that they still love their LGBTQ+ kids even after they kick them out, and they get mad at anyone who calls them a bad parent. They confuse loving themselves — or at least their idea of their child — with actually loving their child.
It’s implied every time conservatives bring up “parents’ rights” without ever mentioning children’s rights. To them, kids have no rights that are distinct from their parents’. They don’t have the right to an education that prepares them to be independent adults or the right to any private space — physical or even mental — to learn who they are. They are empty vessels to be moulded into and filled with whatever their parents want them to be. They’re like domesticated animals who need to be trained to perform a certain way.
This is why so much of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement focuses on schools. If a kid isn’t at home, there’s a good chance they’re at school, and teachers, librarians, and coaches are the other adults in a kid’s life who can act as role models. Church is another place where kids interact with adults who aren’t in their families, but parents can pick a church from an array of choices. Most parents don’t have that luxury when it comes to school, and some of them really don’t like that fact.
So it’s no surprise that McMahon, the administration official charged with education, is the one saying the quiet parts loud here. Trans kids playing sports with their friends, students learning about LGBTQ+ people so that they’re more tolerant, teens having access to books with LGBTQ+ characters, all these education issues are seen as assaults on conservative parents’ rights because they can’t keep their kids from learning about fairness and civility to people who are different from them.
And conservative parents aren’t just offended that their kids are being exposed to the fact that LGBTQ+ people exist; they’re offended that their propertyrightsare being violated.
Conservatives have to think that trans identity comes from teachers so that they don’t have to live with the idea that their own kid is not who they want them to be.
Conservative parents don’t see it that way, of course. To them, it’s just natural that a child will be a replica of their parents, and any aberration from that is the result of outside influence. They spent yesterday arguing on social media that the guy who attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was actually on the left because his kids look queer and leftish — they literally believe that political views are hereditary.
Spelled out like this, it sounds pretty bad. Most people wouldn’t agree that kids don’t have any rights to be the people that they are, and even conservatives realize that saying this explicitly would make their position seem unsympathetic.
So they develop narratives to justify their control over their kids, positioning parents as always being right and as the only people who can protect their children from one bogeyman or another who wants to lead them astray. They spread rumors about teachers transing kids behind their parents’ backs, when, in reality, the issue is that a trans or nonbinary kid is exploring their identity at school — the place where their parents have less surveillance over them — and they’re not ready to talk to their parents while they’re still figuring it out.
That is, conservatives have to think that trans identity comes from teachers so that they don’t have to live with the idea that their own kid is not who they want them to be. Then they say teachers are telling kids to keep quiet about this, when in reality it’s students who don’t want teachers to tell their unsupportive parents about them.
This extends outside of LGBTQ+ issues, too. If kids are property, then parents have a right to deny them vaccines, while the child has no right to evidence-based health care. If kids are property, then parents have a right to turn a profit on them, which child labor laws infringe on, while the child doesn’t have a right to be protected from the exploitation of the labor market. If kids are property, parents should be allowed to force them to carry babies, while kids don’t have the right to control their own bodies.
It’s a battle of narratives, and the “blue-haired liberal teacher is forcing kids to be trans” is a narrative that works for the conservative worldview. It allows them to exert control over their kids because they’re not forcing their kids to be someone they’re not; they’re just protecting them from a scary outside force that wants to harm kids for no reason. Their egos won’t let them face the reality that their kid is just queer or trans, and they’re the ones who are trying to force the kid to be something they’re not.
In the end, they make up these stories because they’re too ashamed to face the reality of their own actions and beliefs: they’re making their own kids sadder, more afraid, and more alone.
The federal government is negotiating lower Medicare prices for a popular once-daily pill that treats HIV and prevents infection.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Tuesday it seeks to lower Medicare costs for 16 medications by negotiating with their manufacturers. Among them is Biktarvy, a drug taken after HIV exposure — known as a post-exposure prophylaxis — to prevent HIV infection as well as a treatment for those living with HIV. Gilead Sciences makes it.
Usage of the drug has risen significantly since it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018. More than 100,000 Medicare enrollees used Biktarvy between November 2024 and October 2025, according to Medicare officials.
But increased prescription has meant greater cost. The federal government spent more than $3.9 billion on the drug that same year as part of Medicare Part B and D plans. Meanwhile, Biktarvy brought in $13.4 billion for Gilead in 2024, according to Reuters.
The federal government can now negotiate with drugmakers on Medicare prices for higher-cost drugs like Biktarvy, thanks to a provision of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
The new negotiations could lower Medicare costs for Biktarvy and several other drugs, including Botox and the diabetes medication Trulicity. Any effect would not be immediate because the negotiations occur in multiple rounds.
The Inflation Reduction Act passed Congress in 2022 without support from any Republican lawmakers, but Tuesday’s announcement means its drug negotiation provisions are being put to use under President Donald Trump.
Mehmet Oz, the Trump-appointed administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the goal of the new negotiations is to benefit residents.
“For too long, seniors and taxpayers have paid the price for skyrocketing prescription drug costs,” Oz said in Tuesday’s announcement. “This approach delivers real savings while strengthening accountability across the program.”
Lower prices for the first 10 drugs negotiated under the Inflation Reduction Act took effect this year, Reuters previously reported.
Lindsay Church never saw themself as a politician, but – amid their identity being bureaucratically erased, masked ICE agents stalking their neighbourhood and the incumbent Democrat representative locking out all other party members from running this November – stranger things have happened.
A veteran, non-profit leader, parent and non-binary person, Church and their wife – who was six months pregnant at the time – fled Richmond, Virginia in 2023 amid ongoing anti-queer harassment and set up just outside Chicago in Illinois, some 800 miles away.
It was a place they had a family connection to, where they no longer heard gun shots at night or felt like they could not use the bathroom for fear of being questioned about their gender. It became home, a safe space that allowed Church to “take some of that armour off” and just enjoy the simplicity of visiting local restaurants, walking around the neighbourhood and taking their child to the park.
Increasingly, as the federal government cracks down on LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants and US citizens alike are violently detained – and shot – and the voices of local voters are effectively silenced by those in power, the newfound safety Church and their family found in Illinois is under threat.
They are not planning on standing by, though.
They have launched a campaign for federal office in the state’s 4th congressional district, forthright in their belief that “safety has never been so important, as it has been in the last few years”, not just for themselves, but their neighbours and all Americans.
“I love the people that live around the community that I get to call home because I have spent a lot of my life as a military family, never knowing where home was,” Church told PinkNews in an exclusive interview.
“We bought this home 16 days before my baby was born. We had 16 days to get everything together and being able to bring them home and know that this was a community that would love them, support them, and that they could grow in, meant everything to me.
“Forever I’m going to fight for this district, because this district brought me home.”
Covering parts of Chicago’s Southwest side, Cook County and DuPage County, Illinois’s 4th congressional district is staunchly blue and has not elected a Republican since 1986. An area with a predominantly working class, Hispanic population, it has elevated poverty levels where around 12.8 per cent of people live below the poverty line – this rises to 18 per cent for children under the age of 18.
The area was long notable for its downright bizarre design as one of the most gerrymandered congressional districts in the country, with gerrymandering being the term used to describe the manipulation of electoral boundaries to advantage a party. So odd was its shape that it inspired the Ugly Gerry font type, a front created in protest against gerrymandering by using different, unusually shaped US congressional districts as the characters for each letter. The 4th, given its shape, represented the letter ‘U’.
The district has been represented by Jesús “Chuy” García since 2018, who has easily kept a Democrat stronghold in the area and commanded a huge majority victory in each subsequent election.
In November, however, García was widely lambasted for announcing his retirement after the filing deadline had closed for the 2026 mid-term elections. It was a ploy that set up his chief of staff – who filed her own application just before the deadline – to be elected as his successor without competition, because it kept all other Democrats out of the race.
The Democrat voting population were, therefore, left with only that choice and that choice alone – hardly democratic.
That did not sit right with Church.
“Our community and our country deserves real choice. In the district that we live in, we are so heavily Democratic that the Democratic nominee genuinely goes on to win the election, which means that this decision was made for us without us casting a single ballot,” they explained.
“I’m a person that believes that democracy is worth fighting for and that it requires talking to your neighbours, your communities, the cities, everyone, in order to gain the support necessary to run.”
They continued: “Like I said, I did not imagine myself to be a politician or somebody that would run for office, but if not us, then who? And if not now, when?”
Lindsay Church is a non-binary veteran who served under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (Supplied)
Church is no stranger to having their voice silenced.
They are a veteran who served under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, a non-binary person whose identity was legislated out of existence last year by a stroke of Trump’s signature on an executive order, and in recent months they have watched as their friends who are still serving are purged from the military under the Trump administration’s re-instated trans ban.
Church was part of the original push to overturn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and watching the ban return – which has been estimated to impact around 15,000 service people – has put their heart “at a place [they] can’t explain”.
“We don’t have representation on the floor. There’s no trans service member that has made it through to the floor of Congress. We have been fighting from outside the doors and it’s so important for us to be there, to be talking about these issues, to be representing ourselves and to see ourselves in this tapestry of America,” they explained.
“Our administration has made it so dangerous to be just a person in general,” Church continued, going on to admit that they do feel scared of what will happen to them for speaking out.
“What will the administration try to do to me? What will the media turn me into?” they questioned.
“All of it is connected to this bigger attempt to scare us into compliance and to make us so small that we don’t try to make history, that we don’t try to fight these fights.”
“This is existential for me,” Church said. “I’ve watched my existence and my communities, my friends, trans youth, literally lose every bit of their rights while we also don’t have the representation we need to fight back.”
Currently, Delaware representative Sarah McBride – who was sworn-in as the first ever out trans member of Congress in January – is the only political representation trans people have in the Legislative branch of US government.
Since her election, McBride has been subject to threats to her life and vile transphobic abuse by other elected-representatives, with South Carolina Republican and anti-trans MAGA stalwart Nancy Mace tabling a trans bathroom ban for the whole of the US Capitol just to keep McBride from using the female toilets.
That is just for being an out and visible trans person in politics, an elected representative who beyond fighting for trans rights is there to advocate for her constituents on kitchen table issues that impact everyone in her state and beyond: the inflation, job stability, living standards, quality education, healthcare access and so much more.
Lindsay Church is driven by their believe in democracy (Supplied)
People like McBride, Church said, are a “crack in the ceiling” and an “opportunity for us to see that we might be able to have a future here”.
“It can’t be one person that’s out here trying to fight back against all of this because this is an onslaught that not one person can handle or what not one person can be the fighter for.”
For Church, and all others who have found themselves the fervent target of the Trump administration’s anti-trans rhetoric, winning looks different: it is about showcasing LGBTQ+ people cannot be erased and their voices cannot be silenced.
“At this moment in time when they’re trying to tell us that people like me don’t exist and that we can’t exist, standing up and saying: ‘I don’t care what you do, I don’t care what you say, we’re not going to be erased, we’re not going to go away’.
“This is our country and we deserve to be a part of it.”
