Daniel Villarreal

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A library fired a pastor for misgendering his co-worker. Now he’s trying to bankrupt it.

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Luke Ash, a southern Baptist pastor, was recently fired from his technician job at Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge (EBR) Parish Library after he repeatedly misgendered his coworker. Now he’s claiming that he was fired for his religious beliefs, and an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group leader and other conservative and religious leaders are sharing his story while they all try to get the library defunded. Ash recently told Tony Perkins, leader of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group the Family Research Council, that on July 7, he misgendered someone who uses male pronouns. “I refused to use those preferred pronouns,” Ash said. “The next day, […]

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Trans athletes can no longer play sports in Indiana starting this month

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Indiana’s new law banning transgender female athletes from competing in college and university sports has gone into effect this month. The ban expands the state’s pre-existing ban on trans female athletes in K-12 school sports; a ban which was passed despite the state only having one trans female high school athlete. The bill — which passed the state Senate in February, the state House in April, and was signed by a Gov. Mike Braun (R) that same month — applies to all public colleges and universities, and any private school competing against a public institution, the Public News Service reported. The law “prohibits […]

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Trans woman swims topless at meet to protest being forced to compete against cis men

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Anne Isabella Coombes, a 67-year-old transgender female swimmer, swam topless with her breasts exposed at the Cornwall County Masters swim meet as a protest to being forced to compete with cisgender men by Swim England, the UK’s governing body overseeing the country’s competitive swimming. Swim England told Coombes she was no longer eligible to compete in the women’s category, despite her doing so in 2022 and 2023. So the organization placed her in a new “open” category where trans female and nonbinary competitors swim against cis men. Swim England replaced its men’s category with its open category starting in September […]

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Queer educators will soon unveil 10 new LGBTQ+ lessons for California public schools

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A coalition of local educators and LGBTQ+ organizations in California are unveiling 10 new LGBTQ+ history lessons for the state’s K-12 public school classrooms under the theme “Pride, Resistance, Joy: Teaching Intersectional LGBTQ+ Stories of California and Beyond.”  The curriculum was created by local K-12 teachers in collaboration with the LGBTQ+ history organization One Institute, the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, the UCLA History-Geography Project, and the queer student support program Out for Safe Schools at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. The ongoing collaborative partnership has been developing LGBTQ+ history curriculum for state schools since 2018. While the lessons will be unveiled on […]

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White supremacists leave threatening messages at homes with pro-LGBTQ+ displays

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Bigots in the Utah cities of Providence and North Logan celebrated the first day of Pride Month by leaving anti-gay and white supremacist messages in front of homes with pro-LGBTQ+ displays. North Logan homeowner Ryan Thorell, whose family displayed pro-LGBTQ+ signs outside of their home, found several posters stapled to nearby utility poles facing his house — the posters said “White power,” “man plus woman,” and had homophobic slurs, he told KSL-TV. He called the signs “very targeting and inflammatory,” and said that he took down 17 similar signs around his neighborhood, each facing homes that had LGBTQ+ flags and signs outside. “It […]

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Far-right judges rules that it’s totally legal to harass LGBTQ+ employees

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Anti-LGBTQ+ federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination — it only protects them from discriminatory termination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling contradicts the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, a case that classified anti-LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination as a form of sex-based harassment prohibited by Title VII. In the case, the state of Texas sued the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming that the federal agency’s June 2021 guidance interpreting Title VII as prohibiting anti-LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination violated Texas’s “sovereign right” to establish governmental workplace policies dictating […]

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Federal judge knocks down key parts of Iowa’s “Don’t Say Gay” education law

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A federal judge has upheld part of Iowa’s “Don’t Say Gay” law prohibiting discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through 6th grade. However, the judge has blocked other parts of the law that sought to block students from voluntarily being exposed to school “promotions” and “programs” that acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people. Iowa’s 2023 law S.F. 496 prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation” in grades K-6. In his split-decision issued late last week, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher (an appointee of former President Joe Biden) ruled […]

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Parents fight for school district to say trans student’s chosen name at graduation

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A school in the Escambia County Public Schools of Pensacola, Florida, is refusing to call out the chosen name of a transgender student during an upcoming high school graduation ceremony or to print his name on his diploma.  The student’s supportive parents are now asking their son’s school to change their decision, saying it’s based on a vague and “unwritten” school policy that contradicts years of educators respectfully using their son’s chosen name in school. The student’s mother, Charline Barger, said that her son will graduate from Escambia Virtual Academy on May 27. However, when she reached out to the […]

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Nation’s largest pediatric group slams Trump’s “inaccurate” anti-trans health report

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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the largest U.S. professional association of pediatricians (representing an estimated 67,000 members), has condemned a report opposing gender-affirming care recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As such, the AAP has directed its pediatric healthcare providers to “continue to support pediatricians and the well-being of all children” by continuing to provide gender-affirming care to youth as endorsed by almost all major U.S. medical associations.  “This report misrepresents the current medical consensus and fails to reflect the realities of pediatric care,” said AAP President, Dr. Susan J. Kressly, M.D., in a statement. “AAP was […]

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Mayor pledges to paint over city’s LGBTQ+ flag crosswalks to “maintain neutrality”

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The mayor of Salisbury, Maryland has announced that three Pride flag crosswalks located in his city’s downtown area will be painted over in order to “maintain neutrality in public spaces.” The city is now soliciting artists to propose designs that “[embody] the character, history, or artistic vibrancy of the city,” WMDT reported.  One LGBTQ Nation reader has accused the mayor of “erasing” the local LGBTQ+ community amid Republican efforts to remove LGBTQ+ visibility and inclusion in public life. “Our city is home to a diverse and vibrant community, and we want our public spaces to be welcoming to all. However, we also have […]

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