Former Fox News host Steve Hilton announced on Monday he will run for California governor, seeking to become the state’s first Republican chief executive since Arnold Schwarzenegger, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO on Monday. Hilton, who also served as an adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, had long been considering a run and recently released a book criticizing what he sees as the failings of California’s Democratic leadership and offering policy prescriptions.
The Republican invoked former Vice President Kamala Harris — who is considering a run for governor — in his launch video. “It’s time to end the years of Democrat failure,” Hilton says over an image of Harris. “Let’s make California an inspiration, again, the very best of America,” Hilton said. “There’s only one way to do that. We’ve got to end the one-party rule that got us into this mess.”
Hilton, a COVID “truther,” appeared here in March 2020when he and fellow Fox host Jason Chaffetz claimed that hospitals were inflating the number of COVID deaths.
He currently hosts an independent podcast with a relatively meager following. He still appears regularly on Fox News and Fox Business.
Self-defense classes geared toward LGBTQ people can be found sprinkled across the United States, and instructors and students say the skills these classes provide are giving attendees a boost of confidence and a sense of community in a fraught political environment.
“Pretend someone’s coming for you. How would you kick them if you were fighting for your life?” an instructor at Queer Fight Club in St. Louis asked attendees during a recent self-defense class.
Tori Lohmann, who is nonbinary, was among the nine students in the class. Lohmann said they never imagined joining a self-defense group but found themselves drawn to Queer Fight Club six months ago because of a lack of self-confidence stemming from the current political climate.
“I just felt so angry all the time about the state of the world,” Lohmann, 26, told NBC News.
Tori Lohmann, 26, has been taking self-defense classes at Queer Fight Club in St. Louis since January.Courtesy Anna Escoto
Lohmann’s concerns come at a time when heated rhetoric, federal policies and state legislation targeting the LGBTQ community — and particularly transgender and gender-nonconforming people — are on the rise. The American Civil Liberties Union has tracked 569 anti-LGBTQ state bills in 2025 so far, and since coming into office in January, President Donald Trump has signed several executive orders aimed at the trans and nonbinary community, including one that proclaims the U.S. government will only recognize two unchangeable sexes, male and female.
Since attending Queer Fight Club twice a month starting in January and learning skills like a two-punch combo, various kicks and how to block hits, Lohmann said they “feel so much more confident in myself.”
“Not just my ability to protect myself, but also to protect my community members,” they added.
‘You need to be prepared’
Mixed martial artist Mad Green, who founded Queer Fight Club in 2023, said they were inspired to create a self-defense group specifically tailored to LGBTQ people after observing a lack of self-defense skills in the community. They wanted to share their knowledge and prepare other queer people for potential altercations.
“A lot of people, if they haven’t been in a physical altercation, don’t necessarily think it’s going to happen,” Green said, adding that it might be more likely than many people want to believe. “You need to be prepared for it.”
According to crime data published by the FBI last year, violent crime in the U.S. decreased by an estimated 3% from 2022 to 2023, while hate crime offenses increased by about 3.7% during the same period. Sexual orientation and gender identity were the third and fourth most common bias motivations in 2023, after race/ethnicity and religion.
Queer Fight Club has a “pay what you can” policy, but Green said they ask those who can afford it to pay $15 a class to help pay for equipment and the cost of renting out a gym space.
For the first year, Green said, there were about 20 people taking their biweekly self-defense classes. Since the November election, however, there’s been increased interest in self-defense from the local queer community due to a “refreshed fear” around personal safety, and they’ve had about 300 new people join at least one of their classes, Green said.
“My favorite thing about fight club is seeing someone come in for the first time, and then they throw a punch, and they’re like, ‘I didn’t know I could do that,’” Green said. “Just letting people know that they can is really empowering by itself.”
‘Space for everyone to feel welcomed’
Andrew Degar and his wife, Sarah, founded the nonprofit Third Ward Jiu-Jitsu in Houston in 2019 after noticing a need for a more inclusive mixed martial arts space.
“We were both coaching at an MMA gym and just hated the toxicity of the culture, and we wanted to open a space for everyone to feel welcomed and included,” Degar said.
The couple has been providing free self-defense classes to those in the Houston area since they first started their organization. They added classes specifically geared toward the LGBTQ community in August 2023, and Degar said they now have queer people from around the state who travel to take them.
Third Ward Jiu-Jitsu founders Andrew and Sarah Degar started a self-defense class for the LGBTQ community in August 2023.Courtesy Andrew Degar
“People are looking for a safe space,” Degar said. “They’re looking for trustworthy people, and we are recognized as a resource in the queer community in Texas.”
Degar said Third Ward Jiu-Jitsu incorporates various scenarios during self-defense classes that focus on de-escalating conflicts while ensuring readiness in a variety of situations.
“We go into how you may be feeling unsafe from someone you don’t know, then we will even go as far as someone who’s trying to harm you. Here’s how we can attack back,” he said.
‘Protecting ourselves and each other’
Even in a state like New York, which is known to be among the most progressive when it comes to LGBTQ rights, reported hate crimes have surged in recent years. A report published by the Office of the New York State Comptroller last year found reported hate crimes increased nearly 70% from 2019 to 2023, with anti-LGBTQ crimes among the most common.
Groups like Fearless Queers, which has been organizing self-defense pop-up classes throughout New York City since 2022, want LGBTQ people — and particularly trans people, who are more likely to be victims of violent crime — to feel less vulnerable in this environment.
Co-founder Chrissy Rose said she also wants those who attend a Fearless Queers session “to see capable queer and trans fighters leading their class.”
“I want them to see the possibility that they can defend themselves and above all that they are worth that fight,” she said.
Rose and her co-founder, Tara Bankoff, who are both experienced in martial arts, said they’ve seen demand for their classes rise this year, and they now serve hundreds of New Yorkers every month.
Their main priorities, Rose said, are to ensure their classes are accessible and free, and to encourage attendees to trust themselves.
While the group hosts various pop-ups for self-defense fundamentals and open-mat sessions for drills and solo practice, Rose said classes focus heavily on verbal techniques to avoid both victimization and criminalization.
“Trans women are stereotyped as being aggressive, meaning that if they defend themselves, they have a much higher risk of being criminalized or just socially punished for doing so than, say, a cisgender woman does,” Rose explained. “We deprioritize striking and emphasize grappling and verbal self-defense in our curriculum for that reason.”
New York City resident Alexis Gee, who is nonbinary, said she reached out to Fearless Queers in November after feeling afraid and unprotected.
“In communities like ours, we have to be vigilant about protecting ourselves and each other, and I didn’t feel like that was something I was equipped to do,” Gee, 32, said.
In January, Gee had the courage to attend her first Fearless Queers class and has been going consistently since then.
“We don’t have to be alone in our fear, and we don’t have to be aggressive and angry in order to feel protected,” Gee said. “We just need to know who our allies are and how to reach them.”
Last Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, a case which The Advocatefirst broke news of in 2022, that could dismantle one of the most widely used and life-saving provisions of the Affordable Care Act: the guarantee that insurers must cover preventive services—like HIV prevention medication, cancer screenings, and maternal health care—at no cost to patients.
While the case began as a religious objection to PrEP coverage by a group of conservative Christianbusiness owners in Texas, it’s evolved into a full-blown challenge to the ACA’s preventive care mandate. A ruling against the government could jeopardize no-cost access to cancer screenings, STI testing, contraception, diabetes care, and more.
What exactly is the Supreme Court being asked to decide?
At the center of the case is whether the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force—a nonpartisan body of health experts that recommends what services insurers must cover under the ACA—was constitutionally established. The plaintiffs argue that because the Senate doesn’t confirm its members, its authority is invalid.
José Abrigo, HIV project director and senior attorney at Lambda Legal said the case is “about whether science or politics will guide our nation’s public health policy.”
“The plaintiffs in this case are not challenging the medical effectiveness of PrEP or other preventive services—they are attacking the legitimacy of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an expert, nonpartisan body created by Congress to make evidence-based recommendations about what kinds of care should be covered,” Abrigo told The Advocate. “Allowing ideological or religious objections to override scientific consensus would set a dangerous precedent.”
He noted that similar tactics are being used to try to dismantle access to gender-affirming care and warned, “We cannot afford to repeat those mistakes.”
Who is behind the Braidwood case?
The lawsuit is being spearheaded by Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general and architect of some of the most extreme legal strategies targeting marginalized communities in recent memory. Mitchell is perhaps best known for writing Texas’s Senate Bill 8, the 2021 law that effectively banned abortion and deputized private citizens to enforce it with lawsuits.
In the Braidwood case, Mitchell represents a group of Christian employers who argue that covering PrEP encourages “homosexual behavior” and thus violates their religious freedom. He has made clear that his goal is not only to challenge individual mandates but to dismantle the federal government’s ability to enforce health care protections more broadly.
LGBTQ+ legal experts say this case fits a pattern. Mitchell has openly stated his goal is to unwind decades of civil rights and privacy protections rooted in Supreme Court precedents, many of which form the legal basis for LGBTQ+ equality.
Isn’t this just about PrEP?
No—and that misunderstanding is precisely what advocates say is most dangerous. Although the case started as a challenge to HIV prevention drugs, its outcome could affect everyone.
“It would be a serious mistake to think this only affects LGBTQ people,” Abrigo said. “The real target is one of the pillars of the Affordable Care Act: the preventive services protections. That includes cancer screenings, heart disease prevention, diabetes testing, and more. If the plaintiffs succeed, the consequences will be felt across every community in this country by anyone who relies on preventive care to stay healthy.”
“This case exemplifies the other side’s tactic of using marginalized communities as wedge issues to attack all of our rights,” he added. “We as a country are only as healthy as our neighbors, and an attack on one group’s rights is an attack on all.”
What would happen if the Court rules against the government?
A ruling favoring the plaintiffs could strip insurance coverage mandates for a wide range of preventive services recommended by the USPSTF, leaving insurers to decide whether they’ll cover services and at what cost to the patient.
“Losing these protections for full coverage of PrEP and other preventive services would have an enormous impact on all Americans, including LGBTQ+ individuals,” said Jeremiah Johnson, executive director of PrEP4All.
“Over 150 million people could suddenly find themselves having to dig deep into already strained household budgets to pay for care that they had previously received for free,” he said. “Even small amounts of cost-sharing lead to drops in access to preventive services. For PrEP, just a $10 increase in the cost of medication doubled PrEP abandonment rates in a 2024 modeling study.”
The ruling could also come at a particularly pivotal time. “Loss of PrEP access would be devastating with so much recent progress in reining in new HIV infections in the U.S. This would also be a particularly disappointing time to lose comprehensive coverage for PrEP with a once-every-six-month injectable version set to be approved this summer,” Johnson said.
Why hasn’t this case gotten more attention?
Johnson said the lack of widespread coverage may be because of how the case was initially framed.
“It’s possible this case hasn’t received more widespread coverage because it started as an attack on LGBTQ+ communities,” he said. “But Braidwood has been a bit of a Trojan horse scenario: an attack on a subset of the population has morphed into something much broader that threatens preventive health care access for over 150 million Americans.”
“If mainstream media outlets treat this case as primarily an LGBTQ+ issue and fail to alert more Americans to the threat this case poses to them, the general public may end up paying a very steep price.”
What do PrEP users say is at stake?
The ruling is personal for Michael Chancley, communications and mobilization manager at PrEP4All. He’s been on PrEP for over a decade and has helped others access it, too.
“A big part of what PrEP4All has done is fight for the access to PrEP for uninsured individuals,” Chancley said in a video released by the group. “If the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court… now we’ll have to also fight for people who actually are paying into insurance because their insurance companies may revoke the right for them to be able to access these preventive care services.”
Chancley said he’s often heard people say, “I wish I had access to PrEP. I wish somebody had taught me about PrEP. I wish I knew how to get PrEP,” only after receiving a positive HIV test result.
Jason Watler, an HIV activist and Medicaid recipient, said PrEP “has changed and revolutionized my life in a way where I am able to have less anxiety.”
“I’m also taking back the narrative that society has placed onto Black and brown queer and trans folks,” he said. “This would have a really, really negative effect if this actually backfires.”
Edric Figueroa, a program director at the Latino Commission on AIDS, said the financial impact would be immediate and devastating. “What’s at stake is the cost for my preventive medication would go up,” he said. “And I would have to make the decision between staying on PrEP and paying for it myself, or not using it and using that money for my savings, for my rent.”
He noted that the outcome of the case reaches beyond HIV prevention. “This isn’t just an LGBTQ issue. Preventive care saves lives, period, and we need to value public health over any ideology and protect the ACA.”
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling by the end of June. The Biden administration initially defended the ACA’s preventive care mandate in court, but the case has continued under the Trump administration, which supports the legal challenge.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will remove gender dysphoria from disabilities protected under federal law, but it’s still unclear whether 17 Republican state attorneys general will continue a related lawsuit that could dismantle federal protections for all people with disabilities.
Last fall, Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government over the Biden administration’s addition of a gender identity-related disorder to the disabilities protected under a portion of federal law known as Section 504.
Republican attorneys general from 16 other states joined the lawsuit: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia.
But they faced a swift backlash earlier this year. Disability advocates pointed to parts of their lawsuit that asked the court to find all of Section 504 unconstitutional, not just the update that included gender dysphoria.
If the court agrees, advocates fear that schools, workplaces, hospitals and other entities could refuse to provide disability accommodations they’ve been required to provide for the past 50 years.
AGs hurried to distance themselves. Arkansas Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin, Georgia Republican Attorney General Chris Carr and others adamantly denied that interpretation and said their only goal was to remove protections for people with gender dysphoria.
The new HHS ruling seems to achieve what the AGs said they wanted. It essentially declares that the Biden update adding gender dysphoria to disability law can’t be enforced.
But the broad language of the lawsuit leaves open the possibility, some experts say, for the court to strike down the entirety of Section 504 protections.
The state AGs’ position should become clearer in a few days. They’re scheduled to file an update with the court on April 21.
A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the Trump administration’s move to cease offering the X gender marker on U.S. passports or allowing passport holders to change their gender marker.
U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, an appointee of President Joe Biden, granted a motion Friday for a preliminary injunction, which keeps the policy from being enforced while a lawsuit against it is heard, the Associated Press reports.
“The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny,” Kobick wrote, according to the AP. “That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard.”
Those who sued are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, its Massachusetts affiliate, and the law firm of law firm Covington & Burling. “We all have a right to accurate identity documents, and this policy invites harassment, discrimination, and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are,” ACLU lawyer Sruti Swaminathan said, as reported by the AP.
“This decision is a critical victory against discrimination and for equal justice under the law,” Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, added in a press release. “But it’s also a historic win in the fight against this administration’s efforts to drive transgender people out of public life. The State Department’s policy is a baseless barrier for transgender and intersex Americans and denies them the dignity we all deserve. We will do everything we can to ensure this order is extended to everyone affected by the administration’s misguided and unconstitutional policy so that we all have the freedom to be ourselves.”
“This ruling affirms the inherent dignity of our clients, acknowledging the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy would have on their ability to travel for work, school, and family,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at ACLU of Massachusetts, said in the release. “By forcing people to carry documents that directly contradict their identities, the Trump administration is attacking the very foundations of our right to privacy and the freedom to be ourselves. We will continue to fight to rescind this unlawful policy for everyone so that no one is placed in this untenable and unsafe position.”
Under Biden, the State Department made the X option available to all applicants in 2022 and made it easier to change the gender marker. It had issued one passport with the X marker in 2021 — to Dana Zzyym, an intersex and nonbinary U.S. Navy veteran in Colorado who had sued the department for only offering a male or female choice on the passport application.
Kobick had expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s passport policy when hearing arguments three weeks ago. “It seems to deny that gender identity is something worth recognizing,” she said, according to Reuters. She also noted the “slew of government actions against transgender and nonbinary people.”
In defending the policy, the administration’s lawyers said it “does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution,” the AP reports. However, many judges have ruled that discrimination based on gender identity does violate these guarantees. And in the 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation is sex discrimination and therefore banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The high court’s ruling, written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, applied only to job discrimination, but it has been used to argue against discrimination in other areas of life.
The Trump administration further claimed that the policy would not harm passport holders because they remained free to travel, but many trans, nonbinary, and intersex people worried that having a gender marker that doesn’t match their appearance would cause difficulties when traveling.
Cincinnati Pride announced that it will no longer accept corporate sponsors who have retreated from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and will move to a community-funding model.
Pride event organizers state that companies fear being targeted by the White House after the president signed an executive order entitled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing,” which aimed to end DEI programs in government offices.
Though only applying to federal agencies, this move has put political pressure on corporations as well, resulting in many of them slashing their DEI programs.
Last month, for example, Anheuser-Busch declined to sponsor Pride St. Louis’s upcoming annual PrideFest, leaving the organizers $480,000 short, they told NBC News.
Pride organizations rely on sponsorship money for security, as anti-LGBTQ+ groups are known to show up to these events.
“We’re trying not to sound a huge alarm or to make this the only focus, but when we are down money, we’re down safety and security and accessibility as well,” said Eve Keller, co-president of USA Prides. Keller added that Pride organizations are now holding fewer and smaller events to avoid making cuts to security measures.
Cincinnati Pride, the LGBTQ+ nonprofit responsible for organizing the annual Pride Month Festival and Parade in Ohio’s state capital, is actively cutting ties with companies canceling their DEI programs. The organization hopes to raise $50,000 in community donations for this year’s Pride festival in June.
On the group’s website, the homepage shows a progress bar for the amount they have raised so far and a statement: “2025 is already proving to be one of the most important moments in time for our community. That’s why we at Cincinnati Pride have made the decision to reset our expectations around organizations that we partner with this year. While our organization relies heavily on achieving financial goals to help achieve our mission, we cannot in good conscience continue to collaborate with organizations that work against our mission of providing the greater Cincinnati LGBTQ+ community with resources to positively impact the lives of all individuals… This decision puts a significant amount of funding at risk.”
As of writing, the group has raised 77% of their funding goal at a total of $38,518.
The sponsors that remain with Cincinnati Pride are the grocery store chain Kroger, Fifth Third Bank, Delta Airlines, Procter & Gamble, and Hilton through its subsidiary franchise HardRock Hotel & Casino. Their sponsors include local businesses as well, such as Cincinnati-based Pure Romance.
The list of previous sponsors that have stuck with Cincinnati Pride have made statements that they will not be rolling back DEI initiatives in response to the administration’s crackdown.
“We are steadfast in our commitments because we think that they are actually critical to our business,” Delta’s chief external affairs officer, Peter Carter, told Fox5 when asked about the future of the company’s DEI initiatives. “Sustainability is about being more efficient in our operations, and really DEI is about talent, and that’s been our focus.”
Trans Canadian singer Bells Larsen has been forced to cancel his US tour over the administration’s anti-trans visa rules.
Larsen cancelled his tour following the Trump administration signing legislationthat required IDs, including passports and visas, to show a person’s sex as “either male or female”. The requirement has already been implemented by US citizenship and Immigration Services.
Taking to Instagram, Larsen confirmed that his tour will be cancelled following the American Federation of Musicians stating that he can no longer apply for a visa that aligns with his gender.
The post added: “To put it super plainly, because I’m trans (and have an M on my passport), I can’t tour in the States.
“I hesitate to include a ‘right now’ or an ‘anymore’ at the end of my previous sentence, because – in this sociopolitical climate – I truly don’t know which phrasing holds more truth.”
Larsen added that the “irony” of the cancellation is that it comes exactly two weeks before the release of his album, which is about his transition.
The singer had intended to tour this spring in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, among other areas, but refunds will now be available to those who purchased tickets for his US shows.
His Instagram announcement added that he had contemplated going ahead with the tour by travelling with a cisgender man, performing in “exclusively blue states” and handing border agents a visa and passport with “M” markers on. However, “distressing stories, texts and updates kept multiplying,” leading him to think “through a trans lens,” which he said “made everything all the more complicated”.
He concluded that there is “no way to move forward here”.
Comments under Larsen’s post have sent support his way, with many sharing that the update is “devastating”.
“I’m so very sorry. And as an American so truly embarrassed… I look forward to the day when America is safe for you again,” a comment that has been liked more than 670 times reads.
Another reads: “Reading this breaks my heart! You are amazing. Thank you for sharing your story!”
The Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law estimated that around 16,700 non-binary people requested a passport using an X gender marker each year. This represents 1.4 per cent of the non-binary population in the US, which the institute estimates is around 1.2 million adults in the country.
Numerous colleges nationwide have shuttered their LGBTQ+ centers under political pressure to end all diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) programs, but not at Utah’s Salt Lake Community College (SLCC).
Peter Moosman was hired at SLCC in 2019 to help open up its Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center, an office supportive of LGBTQ+ and female students. The center is open to all students: It has a drop-in lounge, offers connections to community groups and resources, and hosts events, programs, and trainings for affinity months like LGBTQ+ History Month or Women’s Heritage Month.
Moosman, who currently serves as the center’s manager and as SLCC’s assistant director of cultural programming, oversaw the center exclusively until October 2024, when the Utah state legislature passed H.B. 261, a law that prohibits state-funded colleges from “discriminatory practices that favored certain identity populations over others.” Then, last February, the U.S. Department of Education sent out a letter pledging to end federal funding to any schools with DEI programs.
“By having programming or spaces or things that were exclusive to a certain identity group, it was considered discriminatory,” said Moosman, who spoke to LGBTQ Nation as a private individual and not as a representative of the college. Nevertheless, SLCC has shifted the center’s role, he explained, and its marketing now makes it explicitly clear that the center serves all students, just through a lens of gender and sexuality.
“Our center never excluded anyone from any programming, any services, any resources,” Moosman said. “We were not checking IDs at the door. We had a lot of straight students coming in and getting resources. We had a lot of cisgender students coming in and getting resources. So we were never engaged in the discriminatory practices that were outlined in H.B. 261.”
However, the law prohibits any activities that teach that any “individual’s personal identity characteristics, [are] inherently privileged, oppressed … [or] oppressive” or that “socio-political structures are inherently a series of power relationships.” These restrictions could potentially make it difficult for any college professional to discuss the role of political oppression against LGBTQ+ and women, especially when observing any affinity month like LGBTQ+ History Month.
Despite this, the Department of Education noted that schools can hold programs centered around “educational, cultural, or historical observances — such as Black History Month … — that celebrate or recognize historical events and contributions, and promote awareness, so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination.”
To comply with these directives, Moosman says the center now highlights contributions from women or LGBTQ+ historical figures rather than the specific oppressions they faced.
“We can talk about how these communities are thriving. We can celebrate achievements. We just can’t say something like, ‘Queer people are oppressed and need to be recognized,’” Moosman said. “A lot of what these bills and these laws and these mandates are forcing us into are semantics games, and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating.”
“A lot of what these bills and these laws and these mandates are forcing us into are semantics games, and it’s challenging, it’s frustrating.”– Peter Moosman, Assistant Director of cultural programming and manager of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Salt Lake Community College
Despite the frustration, Moosman has also seen some opportunities to engage people on gender and sexuality issues in a different and possibly more accessible way.
The center used to provide LGBTQ+ awareness training that trained different campus departments on things like pronouns and the history and culture of the queer community. Now, the center offers a “Gender and Sexuality 101” presentation that looks at how gender and sexuality have been expressed in nature, history, culture, and biological differences. Moosman said presenters make it three-fourths through the presentation before they even mention any queer terminology.
“I’ve been teaching these courses for a very long time, and when we start the conversation like talking about ‘power’ and ‘privilege,’ which are kind of like these political buzzwords, I see people in the audience kind of like turn off, they shut off, or they get angry and defensive, and it derails our conversation,” Moosman said. “But when I have been able to change the language and use more neutral terms — instead of saying ‘privilege,’ talk about ‘accessibility’ or ‘opportunity’ — they stay engaged longer.”
While he’s not speaking as an SLCC representative, Moosman thinks it’s important to share the ways his school has been navigating these policies, both as a form of educational solidarity and also as a potential roadmap for institutions navigating similar political challenges.
“As I’m watching these LGBT centers shut down, it makes me sad, of course, because these centers are saving lives. These centers are serving students in a way that they’re not getting at home or elsewhere… but even more, I think we see nationally how quickly and how easily people are bending and breaking under this pressure, instead of trying to find new ways and pivot to continue to serve students through creative measures,” he said.
“How do we find creative ways to still engage, to still serve our communities, still show up and exist, especially when we are representing government entities… and being restricted through laws?” Moosman asked rhetorically.
Citing philosopher Cornel West, Moosman said that people need to develop the ability to be “protean,” which Moosman defines as “the ability to be flexible, to change without losing the core of our purpose and our passions.”
“We can continue to do what we need to do, while matching the energy of the situation, of the environment right,” Moosman said. “So institutions that are funded by federal dollars, institutions that are funded by state dollars, that are being forced to bend with these new laws and these new mandates, it’s going to require us, through many creative ways, to be protean.”
More than 150 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents have targeted affirming religiouscommunities across the United States since June 2022, according to new data released Tuesday by GLAAD’s ALERT Desk — a stark reflection of how extremists are targeting not only LGBTQ+ people but also the faith-based spaces that welcome them.
The report documents a wave of violence and harassment against churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples that openly support LGBTQ+ inclusion. The incidents include death threats, vandalism, harassment, attempted arson, physical assaults, and bomb threats.
GLAAD first reported in early 2024 that it had tracked more than 60 such incidents. Since then, more than 90 additional attacks have come to light, bringing the total to 151, the organization said.
“As so many people of faith celebrate their holy days this spring, GLAAD wanted to bring a spotlight to those who are not only leaders in their own faith communities, but who also work to make sure everyone has a seat at the table,” Sarah Moore, GLAAD’s senior manager of news and research, told The Advocate. “In a time of increased divisiveness, it’s more important than ever that we build bridges for everyone impacted by hate, including those targeted by anti-LGBTQ hate, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and racism.”
Among those targeted is Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C. Budde stepped into the national spotlight in January when she delivered a sermon at the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral, directly addressing President Donald Trump’streatment of LGBTQ+ people and immigrants.
“There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” Budde said during the service. “The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.”
Her sermon, calling for mercy and compassion, came just hours after Trump signed an executive order revoking federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary people. The backlash was swift. Trump publicly demanded an apology. Budde refused.
“I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others,” Budde told The Advocatein an interview days later. She said her message was rooted in the lived experiences of the people she serves. “It wasn’t like I was talking about people I don’t know.”
Budde also revealed that she received death threats and what she described to MSNBC’sRachel Maddow as “death wishes” in the aftermath of the sermon. Still, she said the response from LGBTQ+ people and allies far outweighed the hate. “Among my friends in the LGBTQ+ community, there’s been a lot of gratitude and acknowledgment of the hard time we’re living through,” she told The Advocate.
The GLAAD report shows that Budde is far from alone.
In New Jersey, the First Congregational United Church of Christ received death threats in March after the local Moms for Liberty chapter falsely accused the church of supporting “pedophilia” for flying a Pride flag. One threat said the church should be punished “with gasoline and a match.”
The pastor, Rev. Mark Suriano, addressed the threats in a later sermon. “It was a weekend of terror, grief, and exhaustion,” he said. “But the outpouring of support far surpassed the hateful and violent rhetoric against us.”
In Connecticut, anti-LGBTQ graffiti was scrawled across the Pride-themed walkway at Immanuel Congregational Church days before its scheduled Pride event. In Michigan, police arrested a man in 2024 for plotting a mass shooting targeting LGBTQ+ people, religious institutions, schools, and hospitals.
GLAAD’s report comes as anti-LGBTQ rhetoric continues to escalate nationwide, fueled by right-wing political attacks and disinformation campaigns. The organization encourages anyone who experiences or witnesses an anti-LGBTQ incident to report it to its ALERT Desk.
Rainbow Cattle Company, 16220 Main St, Guerneville, CA 95446, USA
www.queersteer.com Giveback Tuesdays. Each week a local charity will be choosen. 10% of the sales for that Tuesday will be donated to the charity directly by us. The more the community supports the Rainbow on a given Tuesday, the more the charity will get. If you want to nominate a local charity for consideration for a Giveback Tuesday, email us. This has turned out to be such a wonderful event, and a number of very deserving charities have received money. Since it’s start in late November of 2005, over $115,000 has been given to the local charities from the Rainbow directly. This does not include all of the money raised by the actual charities during events on each and every Tuesday. It’s impossible for us to say exactly how much money was raised in total, but it’s safe to say it’s in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We are very pleased with how the community has pulled together to make this an amazing weekly event, and so much good has come from all of the donations and money raised.
