Matt Lavietes

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Oklahoma instructor who gave student a zero on gender essay barred from teaching duties, school says

The University of Oklahoma said Monday that the graduate teaching assistant who assigned a failing grade to a student for a psychology essay on gender stereotypes will “no longer have instructional duties” at the university. A graduate teaching assistant for an online psychology class was “arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper” and therefore will “no longer have instructional duties,” the university said in a statement. It is not immediately clear whether the teaching assistant faces further disciplinary action or is still on leave. “We are committed to teaching students how to think, not what to think,” the university […]

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Model’s husband was isolated for years before he was found dead in NYC apartment, friends say

Jacob Zieben and Jacob Paulson were fast friends when they met in 2013. Aside from their shared name, the pair were both young gay men fresh out of college who recently moved to New York City.  After two years spent glued at the hip, Paulson said their dynamic quickly changed after his friend, a personal trainer from Texas, started dating model Donald Hood.  “He just vanished,” Paulson said this week in a phone interview, choking up. “I had no contact with him, and I just wanted him to be happy, and that’s all I really cared about. And I was […]

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Meta’s new hate speech guidelines permit users to say LGBTQ people are mentally ill

Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday. The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender.  “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and […]

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New Jersey governor signs law blocking book bans

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed a law Monday prohibiting public schools and libraries from banning books and protecting librarians who obey state law. Murphy’s signing of the Freedom to Read Act comes amid an ongoing push by conservative lawmakers and activists across the country to challenge books they consider inappropriate for minors, particularly those about LGBTQ issues and race. Lawmakers in at least 13 states this year have introduced legislation to disrupt library services or limit their materials, according to an NBC News tally. “Across the nation, we have seen attempts to suppress and censor the stories and experiences of […]

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Britain bans puberty blockers for transgender minors

The United Kingdom on Wednesday indefinitely banned new prescriptions of puberty blockers to treat minors for gender dysphoria. The announcement comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving state bans on puberty-suppressing medication and other forms of transition-related care for minors. Puberty blockers are commonly prescribed to transgender children in countries throughout the Western world to delay the onset of puberty or pause it as it is transpiring. The medication is prescribed with the goal of giving children who are experiencing gender dysphoria more time to decide if they want to take more […]

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Gays vape at significantly higher rates, surgeon general’s report finds

As vaping’s popularity endures, a report issued by the surgeon general’s office Tuesday shows that LGBTQ Americans are among those helping to keep smoke shops in business. The surgeon general’s 837-page report on tobacco use found that 37.8% of gay, lesbian and bisexual U.S. adults have tried electronic cigarettes, compared with just 16.5% of their straight counterparts. Electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, include e-cigars, e-pipes, e-hookahs, vaping pens and hookah pens. When broken down further, the data, collected from 2019 to 2021, found nearly half of bisexual adults have tried e-cigarettes, compared with 31.8% of gay men and 26.7% of lesbians. […]

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Texts threatening deportation and ‘re-education’ for gays stoke both fear and defiance

Latino teenagers in Georgia getting texts saying they are “set to be deported” by immigration authorities. A lesbian business owner receiving messages telling her she’s been assigned to an “LGB re-education camp” in Las Vegas. Immigrant families afraid to report the text messages to authorities. Members of the Hispanic and LGBTQ communities are being targeted with these kinds of disturbing text messages by people hiding behind anonymous phone numbers. Soon after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, the FBI and the Department of Justice started receiving numerous reports of racist text messages being sent to Black Americans, telling them they had been selected to […]

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Texas AG sues doctor accused of providing transgender care to 21 minors

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Dallas doctor Thursday accusing her of providing transition-related care to nearly two dozen minors in violation of state law. Paxton alleged that Dr. May Chi Lau, who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors from October 2023 to August for the purpose of transitioning genders. Texas enacted a law, Senate Bill 14, last year banning hormone replacement therapy and other forms of gender-affirming care for minors. “Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday. “Doctors […]

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Pennsylvania middle school installs surveillance window in gender-inclusive bathroom

A Pennsylvania middle school installed a window in its gender-inclusive restroom, making its interior visible from the school hallway. The window was constructed at Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover, Pennsylvania, which is roughly 5 miles north of the Maryland border. Gender-inclusive bathrooms are commonly used by transgender and nonbinary people for privacy and safety reasons. Matthew Gelazela, the board president of the South Western School District, said the district decided to add the window as it “engages in renovating multiuser restroom facilities.” “It has an interest in opening a view into the non-private area of those facilities in […]

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Kentucky governor signs executive order banning conversion therapy

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order Wednesday banning the scientifically discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy on minors in the state. The state now joins 23 others where the debunked mental health treatment, which aims to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people, is banned for minors, according to the LGBTQ think tank Movement Advancement Project. The executive order went into effect immediately. “Kentucky cannot possibly reach its full potential unless it is free from discrimination by or against any citizen — unless all our people feel welcome in our spaces, free from unjust barriers and supported to […]

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