A 36-year-old trans man named Tee Arnold died earlier this month after he was shot outside a shopping mall in Hallandale Beach, Florida in the middle of the night.
Hallandale Beach police Captain Aaron Smith does not believe the murder was a hate crime and says it was “an isolated incident” sparked by a disagreement between the victim and the suspect. He toldLocal 10 News the suspect is a woman who knew the victim.
Police transported Arnold – who also went by Lagend Billions – to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital after he was shot around 1:30 am on April 3. He died at the hospital on April 7.
Arnold had previously posted to social media that his life was in danger, writing that he had a “reward” on his head.
The Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents Blog wrote that Arnold had a large extended family and “was a significant male adult figure in the lives of his nieces and nephews.”
It continued, “Friends, former coworkers, neighbors all seem to have stories about this man taking time to connect and listen to them, to support them especially during difficult times. These recurring themes of his compassion, kindness, and showing up wind through a lot of the countless tributes pouring in on social media.”
One friend, CeCe Gates, wrote on Facebook that Arnold was there for her when she was a terrified new mom.
“I thank you for always answering the phone when I was lost, for never being afraid to tell me when I’m wrong, telling me to pray when I was weak, always offering words of encouragement… sometimes I never had to say anything… in the silence you knew I just needed someone to be there… 15 years of friendship and I never thought I would be saying goodbye like this … thank you for blessing the world with your greatness, laughter, and good energy. Thank you for showing the world that there is nothing better than being your true authentic self.”
In a statement reported byThe Advocate, Victoria Kirby York, director of public policy and programs at the National Black Justice Coalition, stated, “Tee Arnold is the fourth death driven by hate of a trans man this year, marking a concerning rise in fatal violence against our brothers.”
“Weeks prior to his death, Tee posted that his life was in danger, indicating that if the police had taken action on the threats against his life, this tragedy could have been prevented. We also cannot ignore that this murder occurred in Florida, a state that has been leading the charge in anti-trans legislation and rhetoric. Similarly, we cannot forget that, more often than not, requests for law enforcement protection from Black LGBTQ+/SGL people are not provided even though we face disproportionate hate-driven violence.”
The Human Rights Campaign has documented seven other trans people who have died by violent means in 2024.
A reward of up to $5,000 has been offered to anyone with information that may lead to an arrest in Arnold’s death. Those who know something can remain anonymous if they choose and can call Hallandale Beach police at (954) 457-1400 or Broward Crime Stoppers at (954) 493-TIPS.
A defiant conservative majority on the board of the Murrieta Valley Unified School District (MVUSD) voted to ignore an order from the state of California to rescind a discriminatory policy that requires teachers and school administrators in Riverside County to out any trans or nonbinary student that asks to be called by a name or pronoun different than the ones listed on their birth certificate.
A packed audience in the ruby red district cheered the result.
“We have a right as a board to defy a dictatorial governor and bureaucracy — or whatever — that tries to take away our rights as parents and as citizens — as a duly elected board,” board member Nick Pardue told constituents at the meeting last Thursday. “We have legal standing and we should absolutely stand up for our rights against dictators.”
A report released on April 10 by the California Department of Education found that the notification rules were discriminatory and therefore illegal. The department ordered the Riverside County school system, which contains Murrieta Valley, to provide written notice to all employees within five days that the notification policy is “inconsistent” with the state education code and will “not be implemented,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
The department told MVUSD that the policy “provided no educational or administrative purpose that could justify the discrimination of LGBT+ students,” and warned it “singles out and is directed exclusively toward one group of students based on that group’s legally protected characteristics of identifying with or expressing a gender other than that identified at birth.”
Murrieta Superintendent Dr. Ward Andrus’ followed the order with a notification to staff reversing the policy after the April 10 order was received. The district also sent an emailed notice to parents, faculty, and staff members stating that the policy was rescinded.
Thursday’s vote by the board reverses the reversal.
The right-wing board members undertook the defiant vote despite a warning from the district’s law firm to board President Paul Diffley, who sponsored the outing rules. The law firm warned that “‘going ahead (with the policy) in such an environment’ could cost the district $500,000 in legal expenses.”
Among a majority of speakers in favor of the reversal, the board’s student member, Isabella Dadalt, cowed the audience into silence as she ran down a long list of reasons the outing policy was harmful to children.
“I do not believe that their students would ever withhold information from their parents unless they were genuinely forced to,” Dadalt said. “So if you’re a parent, and you feel [offended] by the fact that your student is going to a teacher instead of you, I think you need to rethink your parenting.”
Board member Linda Lunn, who voted against the policy reinstatement, told the Times the divisive cultural battle was a waste of district time and resources.
“This is weaponizing Murrieta Valley Unified to play politics with Sacramento, and they’re using taxpayer money to do it,” Lunn said.
“I believe in following the law and the Education Code,” Young said. “They don’t all seem to understand that the Code is the law.”
Similar battles are being waged in other Riverside County school districts, including Temecula and Chino, both hotbeds of “parental rights” activism.
“We will continue to stand strong, linked arms all over California, to ensure the government does not infringe on parental rights — period,” Chino Valley School Board President Sonja Shaw said recently.
The state investigation in Murrieta was prompted after two teachers filed a complaint. One, 6th and 7th grade teacher Karen Poznanski, is also a district parent with a nonbinary child.
“This policy, whether enforced or not, hindered our LGBTQ+ students from living authentically,” Poznanski told The Times. “Moreover, it not only compromised their privacy and dignity, but also perpetuated harm and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals and their families.”
Poznanski called the reinstated policy an example of discrimination and a misuse of power “in its most blatant form.”
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed 13 Republican bills on Tuesday, including one that LGBTQ+ advocates say would have erased transgender people from legal recognition in the state.
Senate Bill 1628, the so-called “Arizona Women’s Bill of Rights,” was introduced by state Sen. Sine Kerr (R) in February. Similar to laws introduced in other states like Indiana and Iowa, it would have removed the word “gender” from state law, replacing it with the word “sex,” which it defined strictly according to biology. The proposed law defined gendered terms like “boy,” “girl,” “man,” “woman,” “mother,” and “father” according to biological sex and would have banned trans people from single-sex environments like bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, and domestic violence shelters that do not align with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Critics said the bill would have erased trans and nonbinary people from public life in Arizona.
“This effort to erase trans people and try to force them to fit into boxes that they don’t fit into is totally unacceptable to me,” state Sen. Eva Burch (D) told the Arizona Senate Health and Human Services Committee in February. “I’m not afraid of trans people, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to them if we keep treating them like this.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona’s Hugo Polanco warned that S.B. 1628 would have also prevented trans people from obtaining legal documents like IDs that accurately reflect their gender identity.
“This bill would force transgender people to live a lie and put them at risk of harm by disclosing the sex they were assigned at birth on documents like drivers’ licenses, marriage licenses, school records and burial paperwork,” Polanco said in February. “All of us, including transgender people, need accurate and consistent identity documents that reflect who we are. That’s what IDs are for.”
Arizona’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved the bill in a 31–28 vote along party lines earlier this month, KJZZ reported. The bill was then sent to Hobbs, who had previously said she opposed it.
“As I have said time and again, I will not sign legislation that attacks Arizonans,” Hobbs said in a statement about her veto of SB 1628 earlier this week.
This is not the first time Hobbs has vetoed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. In April 2023, she vetoed S.B. 1005, which sought to allow parents to sue school districts for enforcing LGBTQ+ supportive policies. In May 2023, she vetoed S.B. 1001, which proposed requiring trans and nonbinary students to obtain written parental permission to use pronouns and names matching their gender identity. Last June, she vetoed two anti-LGBTQ+ bills, one that would have banned trans students from using the correct locker rooms and restrooms at school, and another that she described as “a thinly veiled effort to ban books.”
In June 2023, she also signed two executive orders allowing state employee health insurance plans to cover gender-affirming surgery and banning state agencies from promoting or funding so-called “conversion therapy.”
Two transgender women have filed a class-action lawsuit against Montana and several state agencies over the government’s policy forbidding people from changing sex markers on their birth certificates. The inability to change this document puts trans people at risk of discrimination and harassment, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs say.
The lawsuit takes issue with a 2022 rule by the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) stating that the department would only change gender on birth certificates if an individual’s sex assigned at birth was misidentified or incorrectly recorded. DPHHS officials said they would not change birth certificate gender markers based on “gender transition, gender identity, or change of gender.”
In February 2024, the DPHHS said that any amendations on birth certificates would be subject to the provisions of Senate Bill 458. The bill declares, “In human beings there are exactly two sexes, male and female… The sexes are determined by the biological and genetic indication of male and female without regard to an individuals’ psychological, behavioral, social, or chosen or subjective experience of gender.”
“These two interwoven provisions have incorporated discriminatory definitional principles into Montana law,” the lawsuit states. “SB 458 is scientifically incorrect and improperly seeks to limit the meaning of sex without legal, medical, or scientific justification… sex consists of a complex set of biological, psychological, and social factors, including but not limited to the behavioral or subjective experience of sex.”
Previously, the state’s Senate Bill 280 required people wanting to change the sex designated on their birth certificates to provide proof that their sex had “been changed by surgical procedure.” On April 21, 2022, a state district court blocked SB 280 and ordered DPHHS to reinstate its former procedures, established in 2017, that allowed trans people to change their birth certificates more easily, but DPHHS ignored the court order.
Additionally, the plaintiffs accused the state’s Department of Justice and Attorney General Austin Knudsen of implementing a new rule at the state’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) that revoked a previous policy allowing trans people to change the gender marker on their state-issued identification cards and drivers licenses if they had a letter from a doctor stating that the person seeking the change was in, or had completed, the process of changing their sex.
Earlier this year, Knudsen and the state DOJ changed MVD’s policy to only allow people to change gender markers if they presented an amended birth certificate showing the changed gender. Of course, because the state no longer allows trans people to change their birth certificates, trans people must now carry ID cards showing the gender they were assigned at birth, something that often misaligns with their gender identity and expression.
Changing the gender on a birth certificate is the first step to changing gender markers on a person’s government-issued ID documents, including driver’s licenses and passports. If a person’s gender marker doesn’t match their gender identity, it effectively outs a person as trans. This outing can lead to difficulty accessing various services as well as harassment and violence.
The plaintiffs have asked the court for an injunction against the aforementioned policies. The two plaintiffs say that they represent “all transgender people born in Montana who currently want, or who in the future will want” the sex designation on the identity documents changed. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Montana, and the law firm Nixon Peabody LLP, The Hill reported.
“After finally being able to live my life openly as the woman I know myself to be, I am frustrated that my birth state, Montana, is forcing me to carry around a birth certificate that incorrectly lists my sex as male,” plaintiff Jessica Kalarchik, a U.S. Army veteran, said in a statement. “I am being forced to use a birth certificate that is inaccurate and that places me at risk of discrimination and harassment whenever I have to present it.”
“I live my life openly as a woman,” Kalarchik added. “I am treated as a woman in my daily life, and there is no reason I should be forced to carry a birth certificate that incorrectly identifies me as male.”
An estimated 3,400 trans individuals above the age of 13 live in Montana, the lawsuit claims.
Minneapolis’s LGBTQ+ community has rallied to support Minnesota’s oldest gay bar after a fire forced it to close last month.
On March 22, a garbage truck hit a utility pole near the beloved 19 Bar in the city’s Loring Park neighborhood, causing electrical wires to ignite the building’s gas supply, Minnesota Public Radio reported. While no one was hurt, damage from the blaze has caused the bar, which first opened in 1952, to close indefinitely.
The loss, which 19 Bar’s management has vowed will only be temporary, has nonetheless hit the local LGBTQ+ community hard.
“It’s just so weird not having that place to go to on the way home from work,” Bubba Thurn, the secretary of Citizens for a Loring Park Community (CLPC) and a 19 Bar regular, told CBS affiliate WCCO.
“As the years go on, we still have struggles, challenges in the community,” 19 Bar manager Craig Wilson said. “And the 19 Bar has always been a safe haven for people to come and be themselves and be okay.”
“It never changes,” Thurn told MPR of 19 Bar. “It doesn’t have the attitude of the regular clubs and gay bars. This one is more of a mix of the community — the neighborhood of Loring Park and the queer community as a whole.”
According to WCCO, the bar’s closure has left eight staff members without jobs. But the community has stepped up to help. Two GoFundMecampaigns have so far raised more than $31,000 combined to support the out-of-work staff. Another local gay bar, The Saloon, has also announced an April 7 fundraiser, with performers and bartenders donating their tips to benefit 19 Bar’s employees.
And last Thursday, the nearby Walker Arts Center hosted a free event honoring 19 Bar. One of the gallery’s current installations happens to be Oakland-based artist Sadie Barnette’s neon-soaked reimagining of San Francisco’s first Black-owned gay bar, the New Eagle Creek Saloon, which Barnette’s father owned from 1990 to 1993. With the artist’s blessing, Walker Arts Center welcomed the city’s LGBTQ+ community into the space to pay tribute to 19 Bar, as bartenders served drinks, a DJ played music, and photos submitted by patrons were projected on the gallery’s wall.
The Walker’s associate director of public relations, Rachel Joyce, said she hoped the evening would provide “a joyful moment to reminisce on good times at the 19 and a way to look toward the future.”
19 Bar manager Wilson is doing just that. “Yes, there’s some fire damage, water damage, but that’s cosmetic, that can be replaced,” he told WCCO, noting that a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which hung in the bar as a nod to the fact that it opened the same year she ascended the throne, had survived the fire.
“The bones of the bar is still standing and strong,” Wilson said, “and that just goes to show we will come back, rebuild, new and improved.”
Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D) left Florida for Chicago when she was still a teenager, skipped college, went to work right away, had three kids in short order, and has been moving at the same lightning speed ever since.
Her first job was with the National Organization for Women, where she rose to legislative director. She joined the staff for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, worked in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office as the director of programs and development, and was appointed to the state legislature in 2011 after playing a major role in the ouster of Speaker Mike Madigan, who was later indicted after ruling for more than 30 years as the top Democrat in the Illinois House.
Cassidy, 55, won her first term representing District 14 on Chicago’s North Side in 2012. She’s running for a fourth term in 2024.
Her staff managed to clear a spot on the rep’s always busy schedule for a conversation from her district office in Chicago. It was a mild spring morning in the usually Windy City.
LGBTQ Nation: I’ve seen different numbers for how many LGBTQ+ members there are in the Illinois General Assembly. To your knowledge, how many are there, and do you have enough to start a caucus?
State Rep. Kelly Cassidy: Actually, from our high watermark of five members a few years ago, we are down to one in the House, me, and one in the Senate, Mike Simmons. We’ve had a relatively large exodus to the city council over the years, because, unlike anywhere else in the country, it’s common to move up from the Statehouse to the Chicago City Council. So no, we don’t have enough to form a caucus — just one in each chamber, and we do both sort of have the attitude that we represent the whole state.
One of your biggest legislative achievements was pushing through a bill that legalized adult-use Cannabis in Illinois, the first state to legalize through a legislature and not a ballot measure. What’s your philosophy at the heart of that effort, and do you partake?
Yes, I do partake.
And the philosophy at the heart of the measure was undoing the harms of the War on Drugs using an equity-focused model that remains a work in progress, frankly. Centering records restoration was really the driving force behind everything we did. We ended up expunging nearly three-quarters of a million records as a result of that legislation.
You were appointed to your seat in 2011 after your predecessor moved up — by Chicago standards, as you say — to the Chicago City Council. The next year you faced off against another lesbian, Paula Basta, who, like you, is an inductee to the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. Describe the dynamic between two gay women, both activists, running for the same seat. What tipped the balance in your favor?
First of all, there were 25 people, I believe, that sought the appointment after we drove Speaker Madigan from office. There was an eight-and-a-half-hour public hearing where Paula was one of the people seeking the appointment. In Chicago, the party of the person leaving an office chooses their successor. It was narrowed down to three finalists — one of them was Paula — then they interviewed us and then interviewed us again, and I was unanimously chosen as the winner.
It was not a foregone conclusion. In the election, Paula raised a whole lot of money, showing her capacity to beat me, and I spent the first several months of the race, in spite of being the incumbent, being outraised and outspent pretty dramatically. What tipped the balance was old-fashioned retail politics. I was on the doors all day, every day. And at the end of the day, incumbency helps, obviously, because I had been doing the work for over a year before I won my first term.
It did remind me, superficially, of George Santos running against Robert Zimmerman in 2022, two gay men competing against each other, but that’s a different story.
(Laughing) That’s a different story. I would definitely not put Paula in the Santos category. But it’s not super unusual to have two gay candidates competing against each other where we live because it’s so incredibly queer here.
You chair the Restorative Justice Committee in the General Assembly, where you did a lot of work on your cannabis bill. What’s the most egregious miscarriage of justice you’ve seen in your work, and how was it resolved?
I’m a mother of many, many children. I love them all equally, so it’s difficult to choose just one. In the criminal justice arena, there are so many things that are still not quite right. But last year, I was finally able to pass a comprehensive bill that allows incarcerated survivors of gender-based violence, whose abuse was not contemplated in their original trial, to be offered an opportunity to seek resentencing.
There’s a woman who just got out this year. She was convicted of murdering her husband after months and months and months of abuse and being raped, before marital rape was a punishable offense, and that was something she couldn’t bring up at the time of her trial. She had been in prison for 35 years. She’s out now, and she’s figuring it all out. I was on a Zoom call with her, and her delight at figuring out Zoom was maybe one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It was awesome.
You spearheaded a ban on “conversion therapy” in Illinois, helped guarantee trans individuals could access bathrooms and change their birth certificates to reflect their correct gender, and you’ve been an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights. Illinois is surrounded by states moving backward in all those areas you’ve addressed. How important is your state as a refuge for marginalized groups under attack from those and other red states?
There isn’t a superlative big enough to describe the importance of what we’re doing here. I have had folks roll into town on fumes having spent their last dollar to get here from Florida because they were afraid of what was going to happen to them. You know, we’ve helped them find a way here, set them up with healthcare benefits, making sure they’re living somewhere safe, things like that. That happens pretty regularly all over the state. I talk to people at community centers in central and southern Illinois who are seeing it a lot, as well.
One of them I was talking to, in fact, described it as “an uncountable diaspora.” Because we start in a place of not having a good solid number of how many trans folks there are and how many queer folks, generally, there are. And then we’ve got people who are fleeing to access reproductive care or to provide reproductive care. We’ve got people fleeing to teach without being censored, so it’s a lot. The impact on folks can’t be overestimated.
When I moved here from Florida 30-some years ago, we spent a solid six months planning our move. And we had lots of help and support, and our families were supportive. One of us had most of the move paid for by an employer — a normal move, if you will.
I met a person who happened to be a constituent, it turns out, at an event at the White House. And when people were sharing, they explained that until November they had been living in Virginia with their wife. They work with an advocacy group for trans veterans, their wife was pregnant with their first child, and within the same span of a very short time, they were cut off from gender-affirming care and their wife was diagnosed with a fatal fetal abnormality. And within a week or two, they were living in my neighborhood. They made their home here now because they both needed care.
So it’s critically important. It’s why I’ve proposed a tax credit for folks who are coming in, fleeing these states, to be a bit of a warm hand-off. It’s certainly not much, not enough to make up for the trauma or the expense, but it’s something. It’s something more than anybody else has done for them.
In 2018, the Illinois legislature ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, enshrining protections for women in the Illinois Constitution. How would the stars have to align to revive and pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
There are those who say they just could, there are others who say other enabling pieces of legislation need to be passed. None of that is even possible to contemplate as long as we’re dealing with the hot mess that is the House GOP caucus.
What’s the next step after the Dobbs decision to guarantee a woman’s right to choose?
We need to win back Congress. We need to retain the White House. We need to pass the Right to Bodily Autonomy law. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? But that’s the reality.
The reality of states like Illinois, like Colorado, or New York and California, we can’t maintain the pace that we are having to in regard to patients, in particular with reproductive healthcare. In fact, it’s even harder to absorb gender-affirming care patients because there are already not enough providers for in-house folks. With abortion there was more of an infrastructure to scale. There were abortion funds. There were practical support networks. None of that exists in the gender-affirming care space. So it’s even more challenging there.
What’s the single most important thing the world can do to address the climate crisis?
Each of us needs to act, individually, to do our part in solving the climate crisis.
You have a novel feature on your website that I’ve never seen before, a “Bill Ideas” page where you solicit ideas for legislation from your constituents. What’s the smartest idea that’s been submitted, and what’s the craziest?
Actually, one idea was both, a bill to legalize human composting in Illinois, or what’s also known as natural organic reduction. It’s moving through the legislature now.
You live on the North Side of Chicago with your three sons and your wife, LGBTQ+ activist Candace Gingrich, who happens to be former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s half-sister. How and when did you meet, and who proposed to whom?
My former wife introduced us, actually, while we were still together. We both love baseball, so we became great friends over that. And we said jokingly if we were ever both available in the future maybe we should get together, and that’s how it turned out.
Your wife famously officiated on the landmark lesbian wedding episode of Friends back in the 1990s. Had you seen that episode of the show before you met, and have you watched it with her since you’ve been together — or on your own as “research”?
We actually watched it together when it first aired when we were friends. Then at our wedding, we surprised Candace when the officiant quoted her from the episode.
Have you spent any holidays with your Republican half-brother-in-law, and if so, do you leave politics at the door, or does someone have to apologize in the morning?
Our families’ schedules don’t always line up, so we don’t spend that many holidays together, but he’s very smart and charming and curious, and always interested in what I’m doing.
You offer an amazing museum pass through your office for constituents in your district that grants admission to 17 museums in Chicago and is good for two days. Has anyone ever tried to hit all 17, and would that make a good scavenger hunt for your kids, or a fun fundraiser?
Ha! That’s a great idea! Now you’ve got me thinking about doing a whole pass around that.
Here are some either/or questions about museums and other Chicago institutions:
Adler Planetarium or Shedd Aquarium?
Shedd Aquarium.
Museum of Contemporary Art or Museum of Science and Industry?
Museum of Science and Industry.
Chicago Botanic Garden or Chicago History Museum?
Botanic Garden.
Cubs or White Sox?
Cubs! Yesterday, today and tomorrow and forever and six ways to Sunday.
Isaac Smith has been on the run for years. He’s tired but still determined. Right now, he’s hoping an online fundraising campaign can help him and 19 other queer people make it safely from Kenya to South Sudan. There, they hope to find acceptance, and most importantly, they hope it will be the final leg of their journey.
Ten LGBTQ+ folks Smith knows have already made it across the border after leaving the Kakuma Refugee Camp, but he and the rest remain trapped in a nightmare.
Smith’s life on the run began in Uganda in 2021, when his world was shattered before his eyes with the murder of his partner of two years, Johny Wasswa, by a mob that broke into their home.
“It is one of those memories I never wish to remember again,” Smith told LGBTQ Nation. “His only crime was being queer.”
After rumors of the couple’s well-hidden relationship leaked, locals conspired to murder them both on account of their sexual orientation. Smith was not home at the time of the incident, so by chance, his life was spared.
“I continued to receive messages warning that I would be next unless I changed my sexual orientation,” he said. “I felt suffocated with no freedom at all. The simple act of stepping outside my home became a dangerous affair as news of my sexuality spread.”
According to Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, a professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College, homophobia in Uganda was not always this prevalent, but anti-gay sentiment influenced by Christian evangelists from the US has helped fuel a cultural war on homosexuality for the past two and half decades.
Hate speech against queer individuals became a frequently employed tactic by politicians and clergy to rally support, which resulted in an escalation of discrimination, arrests, and violence against the LGBTQ+ community.
Eric Ndawula, queer activist and the executive director of local advocacy group Lifeline Empower, expressed deep concern about the upsurge of violence towards the LGBTQ+ community across several African countries.
“Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana are among the countries that have recently tightened their existing laws outlawing homosexuality. This move has broadly compromised the LGBTQ+ community, who are often targeted,” he told LGBTQ Nation.
Uganda – where an overwhelming majority of the population opposes homosexuality – passed its harshest anti-gay legislation in 2023, punishing same-sex relationships between consenting adults with life imprisonment and calling in some situations for the death penalty. In the same year, protests in Mombasa, Kenya led by religious leaders and civil society organizations pushed legislators to introduce the Family Protection bill, which seeks to outlawhomosexuality, same-sex unions, and LGBTQ+ activities and advocacy in the nation.
Inescapable Hate
On May 14, 2021, Smith decided to flee. Through a friend, he learned of Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, one of the world’s largest camps, accommodating around 200,000 refugees and asylum seekers from across sub-Saharan Africa. Smith thought he would be safer there.
At Kakuma, he met other LGBTQ+ individuals also seeking asylum, and after two months of orientation, they were relocated to the main camp.
“Being at the camp gave me much relief and a sense of belonging,” he said. “We clustered ourselves as per our sexual orientation, and for a moment this felt like the home I have since longed to have.”
But this feeling would be short-lived.
While Smith and approximately 1,500 other LGBTQ+ individuals formed a tight-knit community within Kakuma, the camp’s general population did not bid them welcome.
According to a 2023 report from Amnesty International, hate crimes are regularly committed in Kakuma against LGBTQ+ individuals, including brutal violence like rape, along with a slew of other serious human rights violations. The report said perpetrators of these crimes often act with complete impunity “enabled by inaction on the part of the authorities.”
Smith described how systemic marginalization within the camp results in homelessness and increasing vulnerability to sexual violence. Many survivors of violence, he stated, contract HIV and other STDs but lack access to life-saving treatment. Denied education and employment opportunities, most queer people are unable to afford basic necessities such as food and water, which plunges them deeper into poverty compared to the camp’s general population.
Breeze, a transgender person who chose to remain anonymous, recounted instances of physical and emotional assault at Kakuma. He recounted being aggressively asked by camp residents to reconsider his identity more than once, and often when he refused, he was beaten.
“It traumatized me,” he told LGBTQ Nation. “I needed psychological support, which wasn’t readily available to people at the camp.”
The Kakuma Queers
Driven by the horrors they face, members of the LGBTQ+ community within the camp have rallied together to form Kakuma Queers, a group comprising most of Kakuma’s queer community dedicated to advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and standing up against discrimination and violence.
With Smith serving as its spokesperson, the group utilizes social media to amplify their voices, frequently relaying scenes and stories of disparity to an audience largely unaware of their struggles.
Through Smith’s Instagram and X accounts and with the help of global allies, the group launched a crowdfunding campaign to appeal to the world’s LGBTQ+ community, soliciting donations for much-needed food, which many queer folks cannot afford within the confines of the camp.
“All this is happening because of our sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression,” Harden Martial, the Chairperson of Kakuma Queers, told LGBTQ Nation. “Such hate crimes are a criminal manifestation of the discrimination LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers face.”
Martial recounts how their pleas for help to the local Kenyan authorities – which, he explains, control the camp along with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) – were hopeless, with the camp’s authority often asking them to “change” their sexual orientation for the sake of “peace” in Kakuma.
“We have had meetings with the government of Kenya, UNHCR in Kenya and its associate agencies about the plight of our situation as the queer community, and instead of giving us solutions, they intimidate us,” he stated.
LGBTQ Nation contacted officials from the Kenyan government and UNHCR Kenya but did not hear back.
But the worsening humanitarian situation and the rising violence against Smith and others in his group are pushing members of the group to escape Kakuma altogether and flee to South Sudan. Social discrimination is also widespread against LGBTQ+ people there, but according to Smith, it is a “safer” destination, as the UNHCR, rather than the state, has full control over the refugee camps there and, therefore, could protect them.
The recurring violations against Breeze encouraged him to escape the camp. When he arrived in South Sudan, he encouraged Smith and 19 members of their group to follow in his footsteps. Half the group managed to get to South Sudan, where they say the living conditions are better than in Kakuma. Smith is choosing not to leave until the rest of his group makes it out.
But he is not at all giving up, declaring, “I will do anything possible, as long as it helps us escape this horrible place.”
This article was published in collaboration with Egab.
C.J.*, a volunteer with the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Auxiliary Officer program, says fellow officers and supervisors subjected him to homophobic harassment, including an off-duty assault, vandalism of his departmental locker, and retaliation for complaining about how he was being treated.
Officers in the NYPD’s auxiliary program supplement the regular police force and perform limited duties like foot patrolling, traffic, and parade control. Auxiliary officers get a uniform and a modified badge and aren’t given a gun, pepper spray, or allowed to arrest anyone. Auxiliary officers can also join “special units” that patrol specific transport areas like the subways, highways, or ports.
C.J. moved from Dallas, Texas to New York City in 2012. He worked a full-time job and began volunteering for the NYPD’s auxiliary unit that same year. But because of his negative experiences in the military, he hadn’t planned on coming out in the NYPD.
However, in 2014 the coordinating officer of his auxiliary unit informed Jimenez that his fellow officers all knew he was gay. C.J. didn’t know how they found out or who began telling others, but the outing made him feel very uncomfortable. He decided he wouldn’t “broadcast” his homosexuality at the department, but he could sense that others were gossiping about it.
C.J. told LGBTQ Nation that he endured a lot of mistreatment in the military because of his perceived sexual orientation. He served in the U.S. Army from January 2000 to January 2005, joined the U.S. Army Reserves in 2007, and served in Iraq from 2008 to 2009.
At the time, he didn’t report his mistreatment to his superior officers for fear of being forcibly discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the U.S. military ban on homosexual service members. He retired from the reserves as a Sergeant First Class in June 2022.
However, his old fears about homophobic mistreatment materialized in October 2014 when fellow Auxiliary Officer David Jones* allegedly assaulted him while off-duty. C.J. already disliked Officer Jones, seeing him as a narcissist whom he never saw eye-to-eye with. While the two were being driven from a Halloween party, they got into a drunken verbal argument.
Jones began yelling and belittling C.J., to which C.J. responded, “You’re just pissed off because I’m gay and I have more balls than you, and you haven’t been in Iraq.”
When C.J. exited the vehicle to take a subway home, Jones allegedly shoved him out of the car onto the ground, began kicking and choking him, and called him a “wetb**k,” a “queer,” and a “dirty fa***t.” C.J. said he felt stunned and surprised to see Jones’ “true colors.”
The attack didn’t leave C.J. with any serious injuries, but he felt emotionally shaken. Despite this, he didn’t report the attack because it happened off-duty and because he thought things at the NYPD would be better if he didn’t.
C.J. C.J. wearing his military uniform
In 2015, Jones was transferred to a special auxiliary unit. In November of that same year, C.J. asked Sergeant John Smith*, the coordinator overseeing all auxiliary special units, for a transfer to another special unit patrolling the borough of Queens. C.J. spoke with that unit’s coordinator, Sergeant Tim Jackson*, and went on rides with two unit sergeants who seemed to like him.
But by February 2016, neither Smith nor Jackson had returned C.J.’s calls asking about his transfer. “At that point, I began to realize something wasn’t right,” C.J. told LGBTQ Nation.
By July 2016, C.J. spoke with Detective Robert Brown*, an officer overseeing the special unit Jones had transferred to. C.J. confided about the assault, and Brown reportedly told him that Smith and Jackson weren’t processing his transfer request because he didn’t get along with Jones.
Tired of the stonewalling and mistreatment, C.J. reported Jones’ assault to NYPD Internal Affairs in October 2016. Nine months later, in July 2017, C.J. tried filing another transfer request to the special unit where Jones no longer worked. Brown, the unit head, seemed reluctant to accept C.J.’s transfer request, C.J. said.
In November of that year, C.J. filed a complaint with the NYPD’s Equal Opportunity (EO) office about the lack of responses to his transfer requests. In response, Smith then allegedly ordered C.J. not to contact him or anyone in auxiliary special units anymore. C.J. felt that his order was a retaliation for filing a complaint.
In June 2018, C.J. filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights that he was being retaliated against for his EO complaint. However, C.J. didn’t pursue it because he couldn’t afford a lawyer.
C.J. unsuccessfully filed another transfer request in October 2018. He then filed a Human Rights complaint with the City of New York in September 2019 to address the ongoing stonewalling. The COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020 delayed any handling of his complaint, and it was administratively dismissed in September 2021. Yet again, C.J. chose not to pursue the matter because he couldn’t afford a lawyer.
C.J. C.J. marching at Stonewall 50: World Pride NYC 2019 with the NYC Veterans Alliance
Despite the stonewalling, C.J. continued volunteering with the auxiliary program. However, in December 2020, someone broke into his departmental locker, cutting the lock with bolt cutters. Whoever had broken in had removed his duty belt, baton, flashlight, uniform cap, road guard vest, tie, and other various uniform items that he kept in a blue IKEA bag. The vandal hadn’t touched any items belonging to his locker mate. He later found what he believes to be his broken lock on top of the lockers while deep cleaning the area in May 2023.
“I was hesitant to say anything because I was burned out,” he told LGBTQ Nation. He felt like hehad been targeted for filing complaints and that no one would really care or do anything about the locker break-in. He alerted the EO office about the vandalism, but nothing came of it, just as nothing came of his repeated transfer requests, the most recent of which he filed in late 2023. C.J. says his transfers seem to keep disappearing with no explanation.
C.J. says he has had no disciplinary actions filed against him for any misconduct on the force, meaning that his on-duty behavior doesn’t seem to be the reason for his mistreatment. He feels his experience at the NYPD shows that some in the department are acting like a “good ol’ boys” club at the taxpayers’ expense, basing their workplace decisions on who he gets along with rather than his actual qualifications.
LGBTQ Nation contacted the NYPD for comment but they did not respond by the time of publication.
“Following the locker incident, I have been reluctant to do any auxiliary police patrols because, at this point, I feel very uncomfortable because of everything that has happened,” C.J. told LGBTQ Nation. Despite this, he said he has stayed in the NYPD because he refuses to be scared away.
“NYC prides itself on being a safe haven for LGBTQ [people] and NYPD says it is here to protect the LGBTQ community,” he added. “However, look at what happened to me after I felt safe to open my mouth about a problem in a place that is supposed to be a safe haven — I am getting the runaround.”
C.J. said he missed out on his longevity ceremony and because of his reluctance to do hours due to the runaround. He is telling his story now in hopes that the NYPD might finally live up to its standards and address his ongoing issues, not only for himself but for future officers who might otherwise face similar mistreatment.
“I know from military experience that all it takes is one or two people with ulterior motives … to make things difficult for [someone], especially if they have power over them such as rank or authority,” he said. “My goal isn’t a lawsuit, or another investigation — all I want is the wrong righted.”
*The officer in this story asked LGBTQ Nation to use aliases for fear of violating department policies as his official complaints move through the system.
The Vatican has issued a declaration listing “gender theory,” gender-affirming care, and even surrogacy as “violations of human dignity” alongside war, poverty, human trafficking, and other actual atrocities.
On Monday, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department in charge of religious discipline for the Catholic Church, released its “Dignitas Infinita.” The 20-page document has been in the works for the past five years and was approved by Pope Francis in March, according to the Associated Press. It calls for unconditional respect for human dignity regardless of “the person’s ability to understand and act freely,” reiterating Catholic teachings opposing abortion and euthanasia.
Notably, it denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.” It quotes Pope Francis’s 2016 “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), in which he stated that “every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.”
At the same time, it quotes a January 2024 address in which Francis described “gender theory” as “extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.”
“Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes,” the document asserts, “amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God.” It also claims that “gender theory” denies “the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”
It quotes Francis’s “Amoris Laetitia,”, stating, “It needs to be emphasized that ‘biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated,’”
In a section on “Sex Change,” Monday’s declaration asserts that gender-affirming care “risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” However, it endorses surgical intervention for intersex people, which it describes as people “with genital abnormalities.”
As for surrogacy, it claims the practice violates a child’s “right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin,” and “also violates the dignity of the woman, whether she is coerced into it or chooses to subject herself to it freely,” because she “is detached from the child growing in her and becomes a mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others.”
LGBTQ+ Catholic groups have already slammed the declaration.
Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry told the Associated Press, “While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved,” the document “does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people.”
“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and [God] — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Berlin-based activist Mara Klein. “Seeing that, in contrast, surgical interventions on intersex people — which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm for many intersex people to date — are assessed positively just seems to expose the underlying hypocrisy further.”
With Republican lawmakers across the U.S. continuing to push restrictions on access to gender-affirming care, Klein slammed the Vatican’s declaration at a time of “rising hostility towards our communities.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed a law on Monday that adds crucial protections for LGBTQ+ couples using fertility treatments to build a family.
The Michigan Family Protection Act includes a series of provisions to protect families of all kinds. Most notably for the LGBTQ+ community, it changes “outdated state law to treat LGBTQ+ families equally and eliminate the need for them to go through a costly and invasive process to get documentation confirming their parental status,” as a press release from the governor’s office explains, adding that “Even if they move to a state that does not respect these basic rights, these bills help ensure they cannot be denied their relationship to their child.”
The law also repeals a law that made Michigan the only state in the country to criminalize surrogacy contracts; increases protections for surrogates, parents, and children; ensures equal legal treatment of children born through surrogacy and assisted reproduction; and streamlines the process for families to establish legal connections to their children.
“The Michigan Family Protection Act takes commonsense, long-overdue action to repeal Michigan’s ban on surrogacy, protect families formed by IVF, and ensure LGBTQ+ parents are treated equally,” Gov. Whitmer said in a statement. “Your family’s decisions should be up to you, and my legislative partners and I will keep fighting like hell to protect reproductive freedom in Michigan and make our state the best place to start, raise, and grow your family.”
Stephanie Jones, founder of the Michigan Fertility Alliance, called the legislation “an incredible victory for all Michigan families formed through assisted reproduction, including IVF and surrogacy, and for LGBTQ+ families.
The press release also acknowledged the attacks on reproductive rights taking place across the country, most notably the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and the 2024 Alabama Supreme Court’s declaration that embryos created through IVF have the same legal rights as children.
“As other states seek to restrict IVF, ban abortion, and make it harder to start a family, Michigan is supporting women and protecting reproductive freedoms for everyone,” the release stated.
One fierce advocate, Tammy Myers, has been fighting for the decriminalization of surrogacy in the state for the past four years. She told7 Action News, “The tipping point, I think, is seeing that rights are being taken across the nation and we all need to fight for reproductive freedom.”
Polly Crozier, director of family advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), added in a statement, “Michigan has shown us what strengthening families should look like in 2024: making it more possible for people to fulfill their dreams of building a family and more accessible for all families, including LGBTQ+ families, to obtain the safety and stability that comes with legal parentage.”
“Amid efforts to restrict Americans’ reproductive freedom and roll back protections for LGBTQ+ people and their families, the Michigan Family Protection Act is an inspiring example for other states where gaps in parentage laws leave families vulnerable.”
