Faefyx Collington

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It’s not too late to walk away from Harry Potter

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I grew up with the Harry Potter books. There were Christmases when the Harry Potter box set was the background audio for the holidays.  Now, I avoid them at all costs. For years I’ve heard excuses about separating art from the artist and the importance of the franchise to people. But there are at least some actors and directors distancing themselves from opportunities tied to this golden goose of a property, and old die-hard fans are turning their backs on Harry Potter, recognizing the harm it brings. It’s not too late for everyone to walk away. Of course, part of […]

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Community rallies to save trans support center for South Asian immigrants amid funding struggles

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An organization led by trans South Asian immigrants is struggling to survive in the face of fewer opportunities for city and state funding. While the group thought it might have to shut down entirely in October, the community has started to rally around it. Now, leaders are hopeful that they will be able to keep going. “We’re talking from a place of a very particular intersectionality that is not served, even by the biggest of the biggest organizations that are centering immigrants, refugees, asylees or South Asians,” said the founder of Parivar, Anjali Rimi. “So, it becomes important from that sense […]

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“Tired but undeterred”: A Smithsonian curator refuses to let this administration erase queer history

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In the 200s AD, the Roman emperor Elagabalus was known for dressing in women’s clothing and requesting to be called “Lady” instead of “Lord.”  In the mid 1600s, Queen Christina’s decision to abdicate the Swedish throne rather than marry a man fueled rumors that she was attracted to women.  But would Elagabalus have identified with the modern definition of trans? Would Queen Christina have called herself a lesbian? It’s impossible to know. One of the major challenges with queer history is how we attribute our current understanding of gender and sexuality to people of the past, who might not have […]

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Texas quietly ended policy to provide trans health care to inmates

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The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has quietly removed several documents from its website pertaining to the care of trans inmates, according to new reporting by Transistics. That includes the long-established policy that allowed trans people to receive non-surgical gender-affirming care while incarcerated in Texas. Earlier this year, the Trump administration ordered federal prisons to strip trans inmates of their hormone therapy healthcare. That drew alarm from experts who suggested the move violated a court injunction, and one expert in trans healthcare, Dr. Carl Streed, told The Advocate at the time, “It’s essentially saying that a form of evidence-based care will no […]

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Womontown: How a group of 80s lesbians built their own community to escape the patriarchy

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In the late 1980s, two women set about creating a lesbian community in Kansas City, Missouri. The result was Womontown, an urban community of over 70 women that spanned a 12-block radius and contained 28 homes and 14 apartment buildings. “We just started imagining, what if we could just walk hand in hand, freely, down the street, a bunch of lesbians all in this neighborhood,” said co-founder Mary Ann Hopper in the 2022 documentary, Womontown. “And I thought, well, if we can do the work, I could imagine that it would maybe be fun to live here.” The journey began when Hopper’s partner, […]

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California budgets $26 million to protect access to gender-affirming care from federal attacks

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In a win for trans people, their families, and healthcare providers in the state, California has passed a new budget that includes funds to protect gender-affirming and reproductive healthcare from federal funding interference. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the budget, which was the result of extensive lobbying from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, including TransFamily Support Services. “This historic investment will help keep care accessible, support the providers doing this lifesaving work, and remind trans young people that California will not abandon them,” said Kathy Moehlig, director of TransFamily Support Services. The 2026-27 budget sets aside $26 million to support gender-affirming care access […]

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Is Steam blocking LGBTQ+ content in China?

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Reports have suggested that Steam’s digital storefront is blocking LGBTQ+ content in accordance with Chinda’s “local laws and regulations.” Given the country’s policies around LGBTQ+ people and content, that might not be surprising, especially as Steam has agreed to censorship before.  But what’s actually happening might be a lesser compromise. The first reports of the issue came from user Neha on Resetera, who posted a screenshot of Steam with an error message in Chinese, which translates to “An error occurred while processing your request: The content on this page has been identified as inappropriate because it violates local laws and regulations, […]

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Governor’s races have never been more important for trans rights than this year

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It can be easy to forget about gubernatorial races as we head towards the midterms. They are, ultimately, state-level elections at a time when we’re focused on national problems. The balance of power in the Senate and the House of Representatives is the focal point for many of us as we hunt for a way to stem the bleeding caused by Donald Trump. But governors wield a huge amount of power, especially when it comes to protecting trans rights. There’s a lot a governor can do to make a state safer for trans people (see Tim Walz’s work to make Minnesota […]

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Europe has a new best country for LGBTQ+ rights

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ILGA Europe has published its annual Rainbow Map and LGBTQ+ rights index, and Spain has now claimed the number one spot for the most LGBTQ+-positive laws and policies. Spain displaced Malta from the number one spot, a position that Malta had held for the last 10 years. ILGA explained in its report that, “Spain’s rise to the top reflects a combination of achievements, including a fully functioning depathologization of trans identities in healthcare, new legal protections, new national LGBTI and trans strategies, a new independent equal treatment and non-discrimination authority, and a determined fightback against far-right attempts to dismantle national trans […]

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The LDS church sued him for telling LGBTQ+ Mormons’ stories. Now he’s fighting back.

The Church of Latter-Day Saints (aka. the Mormon Church) has filed a lawsuit against a podcast whose host interviews LGBTQ+ Mormons. The church is accusing the podcasters of trademark infringement, claiming that the branding around the podcast Mormon Stories deliberately misleads people into thinking the podcast and its content are affiliated with the church. The podcaster says that’s not true. “Defendants’ use of Church trademarks and copyrighted materials has caused and will continue to cause individuals to be confused and access Defendants’ content mistakenly believing it comes from or is affiliated with or endorsed by the Church,” the church claimed in their lawsuit.  “This […]

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