Brody Levesque

/ /

PEPFAR marks 20th anniversary

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief marks its 20th anniversary Saturday, marking the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world. The initiative which was personally led and launched by former President George W. Bush in 2003,  its funding has totaled more than $110 billion to date, including funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), to which the U.S. government is the largest donor. PEPFAR is credited with saving millions of lives and helping to change the trajectory of the global HIV epidemic. The White House today released a statement […]

/ /

Federal judge upholds W.Va. law that bans trans youth from female school sports teams

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin for the Southern District of West Virginia ruled last Friday that the ban on transgender athletes competing in female school sports that Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed into law in 2021 is constitutional. “I recognize that being transgender is natural and is not a choice,” Goodwin wrote in his decision. “But one’s sex is also natural, and it dictates physical characteristics that are relevant to athletics.” The ruling came in the lawsuit challenging the ban filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia and Cooley LLP on behalf of then 11-year-old Becky […]

/ /

Scotland lawmakers pass transgender rights bill

,

The Gender Recognition Reform bill introduced by the Scottish government last spring was passed in the country’s Parliament in a final 86-39 vote Thursday. The sweeping reform bill modifies the Gender Recognition Act, signed into law in 2004, by allowing transgender Scots to gain legal recognition without the need for a medical diagnosis. The measure further stipulates that age limit for legal recognition is lowered to 16. Colin MacFarlane, director for Stonewall Scotland and Northern Ireland at the U.K.’s largest LGBTQ advocacy and rights organization, in a statement released after the vote called the bill’s passage “a tremendous step forward for […]

/ /

Republican Pa. governor nominee opposes LGBTQ rights

Republican leadership in the Keystone State are expressing quiet alarm over the emergence of radical-right state senator who secured his place as the party’s nominee in the race against Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, who is himself currently serving as the commonwealth’s attorney general. State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who represents Cumberland, Adams, Franklin and York Counties in the South Central Pennsylvania area bordering Maryland, was not seen as a truly viable candidate in the primary race to be the party standard-bearer until he was endorsed by former President Trump.  Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race has serious implications for the outcome of […]

/ /

Florida High School student defies DeSantis & teaches a class in LGBTQ+ history

Student organizer and activist Will Larkins decided that since LGBTQ American history is not taught in Florida’s public schools, he took it upon himself to explain the events of the Stonewall Uprising to his 4th period U.S. history class at Winter Park High School. Although Larkins’ lesson was only, in his words, a 5 minute PowerPoint presentation for the history class of which he posted an excerpt on Twitter, there was a resulting torrent of hateful comments some of which took aim at the fact that Larkins gave his PowerPoint presentation in a rather fetching red dress. The actions that […]

/ /

Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill amendment would out LGBTQ+ kids to their parents

An amendment filed this past Friday to the legislation that would bar discussions and course materials in Florida’s public schools, colloquially referred to as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, (HB 1557), would also require school personnel to inform a parent of their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The author of the amendment, Republican Rep. Joe Harding, (R-Williston), the author and chief sponsor of HB 1557 also wrote and introduced the amendment. The Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives is set to pass the controversial measure that has received the backing of Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday.  Democrats and advocacy groups have launched a […]

/ /

French lawmakers outlaw conversion therapy

In a vote hailed by French President Emmanuel Macron, lawmakers in the National Assembly unanimously voted 142-0 on Tuesday to ban the discredited practice of so-called gay conversion therapy. In a reaction to the vote, Macron tweeted: “The law prohibiting conversion therapy is adopted unanimously! Let’s be proud, these unworthy practices have no place in the Republic. Because being yourself is not a crime, because there is nothing to be cured.” The law had already been passed by senators in December. Those found guilty of so-called gay conversion therapy could face two years imprisonment and a €30,000 ($33,714.45) fine. The […]

/

Transgender rights group’s Los Angeles office receives bomb threat

A bomb threat was phoned in Wednesday afternoon to the Wilshire Boulevard Koreatown offices of the TransLatin@ Coalition, Bamby Salcedo, the president and CEO of the non-profit organization told the Los Angeles Blade. According to Salcedo, an unidentified male caller told the staff person who answered at approximately 3 p.m., while delivering the threat said; “You’re all going to die.” The staff immediately evacuated everyone from their offices and then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department for assistance. Officers, specialists and detectives from the Rampart Division of the LAPD responded and swept the building. A spokesperson for the LAPD confirmed that the […]

/ /

Andrea Jenkins makes history as 1st openly transgender city council president

During their meeting Monday, city councilmembers elected their fellow Councilmember Andrea Jenkins to serve as the Minneapolis city council president. She was the first out Black trans woman ever elected to a major city council in 2017. Jenkins is now the first Out Trans person to hold such an elected position in the nation on a city council, although Lisa Middleton was sworn-in as Palm Springs mayor last month. Middleton became the first out Trans mayor in California and just the third out transgender mayor in U.S. history. The mayor’s office in Palm Springs rotates among councilmembers who serve one-year […]

/ /

Washington State high school grapples with racism & anti-LGBTQ bias

,

Police and school administrators are grappling with an apparent hate crime and a rise in incidents of racism and anti-LGBTQ discrimination at Monroe High School, located about forty minutes Northeast of downtown Seattle. The latest incident occurred last week in the school’s parking lot just before lunchtime. Mobile phone video footage circulated on Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram showed a white student repeatedly calling a Black student the ‘N’ word in a confrontation, and at one point, the white student hits the Black student in the head with a plastic water bottle. Monroe police spokesperson, Commander Paul Ryan told media outlets that the […]

1 2