Christopher Wiggins

Jay Katari has resigned from the board of equalpride, which owns The Advocate, Out, and Them. The news comes one day after queer and transgender editors and other editorial staff at the country’s leading LGBTQ+ newsroom demanded answers about Katari’s expanded role in the company and his reported expressions of support for President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Independent journalist Kevin Ortega-Rojas first reported on Katari’s social media history, including an image of him wearing a red MAGA hat. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Equalpride CEO Mark Berryhill announced the departure […]

For nearly a year, LGBTQ+ students in one rural Virginia county watched the adults overseeing their education move the goalposts. Students at King George Middle School followed the rules to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance. The principal approved it. Seventeen students expressed interest. Then conservative backlash erupted on Facebook, the club was suspended, and the King George County School Board changed its policy so middle school students could no longer form noncurricular organizations. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Now, after being sued in federal court, the board has changed […]

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson stood beside Everton Blair Jr. on the House floor Tuesday and swore the Georgia Democrat into Congress, formally making Blair the first out gay Black person from the South to serve in the chamber. The oath was routine. The pairing was anything but. For Johnson, it was an official duty of the speakership. For Blair, it was the culmination of a political ascent built around education, generational change, and the argument that representation is more than symbolism. The moment also produced an unavoidable contrast: One of the country’s most prominent opponents of LGBTQ+ equality was welcoming a Black gay lawmaker into an institution that, for most […]

Three former CIA officers are warning that President Donald Trump’s campaign against diversity initiatives and transgender federal employees threatens to recreate one of the darkest periods in the history of the nation’s intelligence agencies. In a historical account published Thursday by Lawfare, Trace Ballard, Julia Curlee, and Todd Johannessen trace the CIA’s transformation from an agency that hunted and expelled gay employees to one that openly recruited LGBTQ+officers and then began dismantling that infrastructure after Trump returned to office. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. The authors bring roughly eight decades […]

The Congressional Equality Caucus said Monday that 179 members of Congress, including 13 senators, had signed a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve Colorado’s power to prevent publicly funded preschools from denying admission to children because they or their parents are LGBTQ+. The brief in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy is led by U.S. Rep. Mark Takano of California, the caucus chair, with Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsinand Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Its signers include Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, Pete Aguilar, Nancy Pelosi, and every Equality Caucus co-chair. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. “In […]

A married gay couple from South Florida were among seven people killed Wednesday when a helicopter carrying tourists crashed in northern Kenya. Adam Hlavaty, 42, and Henry Parra, 55, lived in Coral Gables and married in 2017 at the city’s historic Biltmore Hotel. Friends remembered them as generous community members who built a life around family, travel, and service. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. “They were a loving couple who cherished their time together, especially traveling, making memories, and enjoying life with their family and […]

A New York City man has been indicted on hate crime charges after prosecutors say he attacked a 12-year-old boy with a belt while repeatedly calling him gay at a Lower East Side playground. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Thursday that Kevin Maxwell, 37, faces charges including second-degree assault as a hate crime, third-degree assault as a hate crime and endangering the welfare of a child. He was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and aggravated harassment. Maxwell, a Brooklyn resident, was arrested on July 5.  Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your […]

For Tony Simone, being gay in the New York State Legislature has occasionally carried a strange contradiction. He represents a district that includes Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, neighborhoods inseparable from generations of LGBTQ+ life in New York City. He serves in one of the most Democratic legislatures in the country. And yet, Simone said, being one of relatively few openly LGBTQ+ lawmakers in Albany can still feel solitary. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. “It can be isolating and lonely in Albany,” the Democratic assemblymember told The Advocate. That may be about […]