LGBTQ Nation

/ /

Russia steps up attacks on LGBTQ+ people amid a climate of fear

,

In an address to Russia’s Duma last month, Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy summed up his government’s rationale for a recent onslaught of discriminatory legislation and government action targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the country. The occasion was the introduction of a bill to outlaw gender-affirming care and surgery and gender ID changes in the country. “This is another step in protecting national interests,” Tolstoy told the Duma on June 14. Referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine starting in February last year, Tolstoy said, “We are implementing this because Russia has changed since the beginning of the special military operation. […]

/ /

Chick-fil-A’s troubled relationship with the LGBTQ+ community

,

Chick-fil-A is one of the top 10 largest fast-food chains in the U.S. with a widely loved offering of chicken sandwiches and an estimated 2022 revenue of $6.4 billion, according to Zippia.com. However, the company has also had a long history of supporting anti-LGBTQ+ causes. Here’s an overview of its queerphobic actions and how social pressure has caused the company to shift its attention away from anti-LGBTQ+ efforts in recent years. A history of Chick-fil-A’s controversial actions Since 2003, the WinShape Foundation, a charity co-founded by Chick-fil-A’s now-deceased founder S. Truett Cathy and his wife Jeanette Cathy, has donated over $1 […]

/ /

More than half of LGBTQ+ users are leaving social media due to safety concerns, survey finds

,

More than half of LGBTQ+ social media users are turning their backs on mainstream platforms over toxicity and safety concerns, a new report indicates. Communia – the world’s first social media platform for women and marginalised genders – published its “exposé on women’s and marginalised genders’ social media experiences” report on Monday (10 July).  The research, which was conducted between 20-22 June 2023, surveyed 2,058 women and marginalised genders – including 237 LGBTQ+ people – in the UK who are current or past users of social media.  The survey saw almost two in three (60 per cent) of LGBTQ+ respondents state that […]

/ /

Kansas AG sues for the right to force trans people to use the wrong gender markers on IDs

,

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) has filed a lawsuit to force the state government to discriminate against trans people on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates.  The suit asks the court to demand the Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles comply with S.B. 180, a sweeping new anti-trans law that, among other things, bans trans people from updating the gender marker on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.  This is Kobach’s latest move in an ongoing battle between himself and the state’s Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.  In April, Kelly vetoed S.B. 180, but the state’s Republican-led legislature overrode her veto […]

/ /

Gay couple walking their dog is violently attacked & stoned

,

Ivan Miadini said it was like a scene out of the Old Testament. He and his husband were walking their dog a week ago Saturday night in Drogheda, north of the Irish capital in Dublin, when a gang of teenage boys starting verbally abusing them, calling them “f****t bastards”, “queers” and “pedophiles.” “They threatened to kill us, rape our dog and told us to go back to our own countries,” Miadini told the Independent. “They were going to chase us off the island.” The incident escalated as the teenagers started hurling stones at the couple and their dog and then physically attacked […]

/ /

North Carolina governor vetoes trio of anti-trans bills

,

On Wednesday, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a trio of anti-trans bills passed by wide margins in the Republican-controlled state House and Senate. The three bills would ban gender-affirming care for minors, prohibit trans athletes in school sports, and limit classroom discussions about gender and sexuality. Despite the governor’s vetoes, prospects for killing the legislation are poor. Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both state chambers. Cooper condemned the bills as “a triple threat of political culture wars” and accused Republicans of “scheming for the next election” at the expense of vulnerable children. “A doctor’s office is no place […]

/

Businesses use rainbow flags to defy anti-Pride mayor who called LGBTQ+ identity a “lifestyle”

,

The mayor of a California city in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area has drawn criticism from citizens and business leaders after refusing to issue a proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month and describing LGBTQ+ identity as a “choice of lifestyle.”  As the Los Angeles Blade reports, 2023 was the first year since 2014 that the city of Torrance, California did not issue a Pride Month proclamation. While the city reportedly does not sponsor Pride events or fly the Pride flag over its city hall, former mayor Patrick Furey did issue the proclamations beginning in 2014. But this year, Mayor George Chen, […]

/

Democrats walk out as California Senate GOP honors gay Trump toady Richard Grenell

,

Gay California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) and several other Democratic senators walked out of the California Senate on Monday after a Republican honored Ric Grenell, an out gay former official who worked in President Donald Trump’s administration. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R) took to the senate floor to honor Grenell. He praised Grenell’s public service record and his historic appointment as the first out gay man ever to serve on a president’s cabinet. Grenell served as Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo, and acting Director of National Intelligence (the last […]

/ /

Everything you know about sodomy laws is probably wrong

,

Many people think anti-sodomy laws were widely used to prosecute gay men before the Supreme Court declared the laws unconstitutional in the landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texasdecision. But in reality, anti-sodomy laws were mostly used to legally prosecute heterosexual men, according to Yale Law School Professor William Eskridge. Eskridge wrote the 2008 book Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861-2003, and in his book, he says the Puritan-age laws were long used as a way to punish straight men for public sex and rape. While gay men were more often prosecuted under other vague laws against “lewdness” and “indecency,” Eskridge told LGBTQ Nation, […]

/

Anti-LGBTQ+ protesters checked out every book in a library’s Pride display

,

Two women ruined a San Diego public library’s Pride display by checking out nearly all of its LGBTQ+ books in protest. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Rancho Peñasquitos residents Amy Vance and Martha Martin checked out 14 books included in the display at Rancho Peñasquitos Library in Inland San Diego County because they objected to material that deals with sexual orientation and gender identity being available to children. “Minor children have the right to belong to a community that respects their innocence and allows families to have conversations about sex and sexual attraction privately, and only when parents deem it appropriate,” […]

«‹ 45 46 47 48›»