LGBTQ Nation

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Conservatives want us to forget our own power by erasing LGBTQ+ history. We won’t let them.

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As the Trump administration celebrates America’s historic semiquincentennial – the two and a half centuries that have passed since the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence – it’s important to note that the president and his political party have spent the past several years actively erasing LGBTQ+ Americans and other marginalized groups from public history. The administration removed words like “transgender” and “queer” from the official website for the Stonewall National Monument; it has cut funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and grants that support LGBTQ+ community programs and research of all sorts; Republican school and library boards have removed LGBTQ+-related books from shelves […]

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When San Francisco “went absolutely bonkers” over a gay vigilante group

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“Nothing disgusts me more than a f**got on the sideline.” So said the Rev. Ray Broshears, the collar-clad leader of the Lavender Panthers, a gay vigilante group enlisted by Broshears to combat attacks on gay and trans people in San Francisco during the 1970s. Broshears aggressive tactics and publicity-seeking gained the group some mainstream headlines and probably account for its prominent place in the history of the “Gay Liberation” movement today, when other community-based responses to police harassment and gay-bashing have been lost. The controversial and self-styled gay “reverend” was a master at provocation. “I believe in confrontation politics,” Broshears […]

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Phoenix leather bar wins liquor license after months of objection from billionaire neighbor

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Nightlife promoter Matthew Moody has big plans for Phoenix’s up-and-coming gayborhood in the Melrose district: a leather bar called the Barracks. Along with “Eagle” and “Anvil,” the “Barracks” name has a long history and is a shout-out to the leather community everywhere. Moody used to DJ at the bar of the same name in Palm Springs, California, before it closed in 2024. Now he’s brought what’s left of that bar 400 miles east to another desert outpost, where he hopes to resurrect it. Artwork, like pieces portraying a vintage motorcycle and larger-than-life-size Tom of Finland leather men, loiter along one […]

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Trump tried to stop a drag activist group from getting an honorific history marker. He failed.

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Ohio’s lead historical society, the Ohio History Connection (OHC) recently dedicated an official state historical marker to recognize The Rubi Girls, a comedic drag troupe that raised over $3 million for local and region HIV, LGBTQ+, and other community groups over the last 40 years, The Buckeye Flame reported. The OHC unveiled the marker on May 3 outside the Rubi Clubhouse, where the group rehearses, in Dayton’s South Park neighborhood. Tim Farquhar, a Rubi Girls founding member, expressed gratitude that the marker was able to get erected despite the federal government ending funding for LGBTQ+-related historical markers last year. “Ours was the last […]

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Parents speak out after their teen died by suicide: Idaho’s anti-trans extremism took a toll

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The parents of a transgender teen who died by suicide earlier this year are speaking out about the toll Idaho’s anti-trans laws and the Trump administration’s anti-trans crusade took on their daughter. “You worry about that hatred being internalized, and that’s what happened to my kid,” Elyse Thorpe told NBC News in a recent profile. “It got inside.” Thorpe and ex-husband Joseph Pollard describe their late daughter, May Pollard, as an energetic and curious child who loved sloths, video games, and writing poetry. She just wanted to live her life and experience the same things any teen does. But she was […]

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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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A federal judge just slapped down Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ+ “Stop WOKE Act”

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Florida’s so-called Stop WOKE Act, championed by anti-LGBTQ+ Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), received a major blow on Tuesday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a 2022 injunction against applying the law to colleges and universities.  In the 2-1 decision, the judges called the law “a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry – classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”  The Stop WOKE Act censors protected […]

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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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Trump judges allow Christians to sue Alaska Airlines for firing them over anti-LGBTQ+ statements

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A U.S. Appeals Court with three Donald Trump appointees decided on Wednesday to overturn a decision by a lower court throwing out a suit by two Alaska Airlines employees who sued the company over charges of religious discrimination, Reuters reports. The plaintiffs claim that they were fired for expressing anti-LGBTQ+ views, which they say was an act of religious discrimination. The women are represented by the right-wing “religious freedom” legal organization First Liberty Institute. “You cannot be fired because ​your employer does not like your religious beliefs,” Stephanie Taub, the group’s senior counsel, said after the reversal. Alaska Airlines claims religious beliefs […]

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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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