Alex Bollinger

/ /

Donald Trump takes office next week. What happens next?

On November 6, 2024, LGBTQ+ people woke up to a dark new world. Donald Trump had just been reelected after being the center of one career-ending scandal after another for what felt like every week for almost a decade. His win raised a lot of questions: Why were so many people willing to set aside his obvious lack of qualifications? Did most of America really support the policies that he sold throughout the campaign, like mass deportation and ending transgender people’s rights? How far will he go to enact his less popular policies? How many people would he hurt along […]

/ /

Gay Rep. Mark Takano to head the Congressional Equality Caucus

,

Out Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) will chair the Congressional Equality Caucus (CEC), the group of Congressmembers that advances LGBTQ+ equality. Out Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) was the previous CEC chair. “Over the next several years, we will see a constant barrage of attacks on the rights and dignity of the queer community — especially against our transgender siblings — by the Trump administration and the Republican majorities in both the House and Senate,” Takano said in a statement.  “As Chair of the Equality Caucus, I will lead our coalition of openly-LGBTQI+ members and our allies in the fight to both […]

/ /

Donald Trump is already inspiring other countries to crack down on homosexuality

,

The leader of one of the parties in Uzbekistan’s government coalition announced that they are working on a law to ban LGBTQ+ “propaganda” in the Central Asia country. And they’re giving credit to Donald Trump for the move. Alisher Qodirov is the leader of the Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) party, which, along with the Liberal Democrats, controls the lower chamber of the parliament of Uzbekistan. He posted on the social media network Telegram that his party is working on a draft law to ban discussions of LGBTQ+ people. In the post, he referenced a post written by Donald Trump’s daughter […]

/ /

Parisian drag queen to carry Olympic torch during opening ceremony

,

A drag queen has been announced as one of the people who will carry the Olympic flame in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. She has been targeted for hatred by the right since she was announced as one of the people who will participate in the Olympic torch relay, but the city of Paris is standing up for her. “I know that visibility is still one of the pillars of acceptance of our LGBTQIA+ community,” 33-year-old Parisian drag queen Minima Gesté said in a video announcing her participation. “So having a drag queen carry the […]

/ /

LGBTQ+ foster kids just got some help from the Biden administration

,

The Biden administration announced a new rule to protect LGBTQ+ youth in foster care, creating a system of designated placements for LGBTQ+ children as well as taking steps to address harassment and abuse against LGBTQ+ foster kids no matter where they’re placed.  To become a designated placement for LGBTQ+ youth, a care provider would have to receive training on the needs of LGBTQ+ youth, help the children get access to age-appropriate resources for their health, and “commit to establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) release.  “Every […]

/ /

Ron DeSantis says Florida isn’t going to follow Joe Biden’s new LGBTQ+ supportive rules

,

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said that his state wouldn’t comply with new rules intended to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.  “Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX,” he said in a video posted to social media. “We will not comply, and we will fight back.” At issue are Title IX rules released by the Department of Education earlier this month that forbid discriminatory and harassing behavior against LGBTQ+ students. Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of sex, and the Biden administration based the rules on the legal argument that it is impossible to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people without taking sex […]

/ / /

A quarter of trans people have had health care disrupted in the past year

For the past several years, Republican lawmakers all over the country have been attacking transgender people’s access to gender-affirming health care, and soon half of the states in the U.S. will ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth.  However, the legislation is also having a negative effect on trans adults since many of the laws also attack their access to health care. A new study from Data for Progress found that 24% of transgender adults have had their access to gender-affirming care disrupted in the past year, and one in five said that they didn’t go to a doctor or the hospital when […]

/ /

Massachusetts Senate unanimously passes bill to repeal sodomy ban & anti-trans laws

,

While many state legislatures across the country are scrambling to pass anti-LGBTQ+ legislation this year, Massachusetts is going in the other direction. The state’s senate passed a bill yesterday — unanimously, as in, even the chamber’s Republicans voted for it — that repeals the state’s ban on gay sex as well as a law known as the “walking while trans” law. “I’m just really happy that it passed. And I hope that it will pass seamlessly in the house. There’s absolutely no reason for it not to pass,” Tanya Neslusan of MassEquality told the Washington Blade.  The state’s criminal code bans “the abominable […]

/ /

18 GOP attorneys general file brief accusing doctors of lying to make money with needless trans care

,

Eighteen state attorneys general signed a brief asking a federal judge in Florida to allow states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender people from being covered under state Medicaid programs, using inflammatory language to explain why trans people shouldn’t have equal access to health care. Last year, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) finalized a rule banning healthcare providers from billing the state’s Medicaid program for trans people’s gender-affirming care, a rule that covered puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgical procedures for adults. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program providing healthcare coverage for low-income people. Related: Four trans […]

«‹ 2 3 4 5›»