John Russell

Ahead of next Tuesday’s Ohio primary, a top anti-LGBTQ+ Republican Senate candidate is facing questions about a profile on an adult hook-up site linked to his email address. On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that in late 2008, a profile seeking “1-on-1” sexual encounters with “young guys” was set up on the Adult Friend Finder website using a work email belonging to Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno. The profile, listed under the username “nardo19672,” reportedly includes a caption reading, “Hi, looking for young guys to have fun with while traveling.” The username appears to reference Moreno’s full first name, Bernardo, and […]

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) has paused enforcement of lewd conduct regulations following outcry over raids conducted late last month at multiple Seattle LGBTQ+ bars. The Stranger reports that the LCB sent a letter last Thursday to state officials informing them of the pause. The board also announced that it would not issue citations for any violations reported by officers during the raids and that it has paused its participation in the city’s Joint Enforcement Team (JET), the coalition of police, fire, and other departments that conducted the January raids. “Since LCB’s participation last week with the City of […]

Seattle has canceled a proposed plan to build a playground at a nude beach following backlash from the city’s LGBTQ+ community. As The Seattle Times reported, funding for the proposed $550,000 project to build a children’s playground at Denny Blaine Park, a grassy lawn overlooking a secluded beach on Lake Washington, came from an anonymous donor. At a community meeting earlier this month, Seattle Parks and Recreation Deputy Superintendent Andy Sheffer said that the project would address a lack of playgrounds in the neighborhood without using public funds. But opponents countered that a playground would jeopardize the beach’s status as a queer […]

Jeanne Hoff, a trailblazing transgender psychiatrist, died at her home in San Francisco at the age of 85 this past October. Born to a working-class St. Louis family in 1938, Hoff received a master’s in science from Yale and a medical degree from Columbia University, the Advocatenotes. A doctorate in solid state chemistry at University College in London and training and residency as a psychiatrist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis followed, according to Gay City News. Hoff had already begun her own transition in 1976 when she took over the New York practice of Dr. Harry Benjamin, […]

Anti-LGBTQ+ House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) didn’t just agree with Justice Clarence Thomas’ suggestion that the Supreme Court should revisit its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage — he applauded it. The court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationstruck down Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. In his concurring opinion, Thomas included a footnote asserting that by striking down the legal basis for Roe, the court had called into question every other decision using the same reasoning. Thomas went so far as to specifically name the Supreme Court’s decisions in Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas, the cases that established […]

A nonbinary teacher in Florida was fired for using the gender-neutral title “Mx.” Now they’ve filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that could challenge the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. According to WMNF, AV Vary recently came out as nonbinary and began using the title Mx. They say they informed the principal at Florida Virtual School (FLVS), a statewide online public school where they taught physics, of the change. “I let him know that I was doing it. And he didn’t say anything at first, and then about a month later he told me he needed me to […]