Matt Lavietes

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Sacramento declares itself a sanctuary city for transgender people

The Sacramento City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to declare the California capital a “sanctuary city for transgender people.” The resolution, which takes effect immediately, ensures that no city resources will be used to criminalize trans people seeking transition-related care or to cooperate with jurisdictions seeking to enforce laws that criminalize the care elsewhere. It comes as conservative lawmakers across the country have enacted laws to limit both surgical and nonsurgical forms of gender-affirming care for minors — including puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy — within the last handful of years. Twenty-four states limit gender-affirming care for trans youths, according […]

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Bipartisan spending bill includes effective ban on Pride flags over U.S. embassies

The bipartisan measure to avert a government shutdown includes a provision that would effectively ban LGBTQ Pride flags from flying over U.S. embassies.  Although the $1.2 trillion, 1,012-page-package does not explicitly mention barring Pride flags from flying at U.S. embassies, its text embraces a Republican-led effort to prohibit the display of the LGBTQ Pride flag at government buildings. “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be obligated or expended to fly or display a flag over a facility of the United States Department of State” other than the U.S. flag, the POW/MIA flag, the Hostage and […]

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Transgender bathroom bills are back. Does the nation care?

A transgender “bathroom ban” in North Carolina caused a national uproar in 2016. Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Nick Jonas and a long list of other A-list performers canceled shows in the state. Global corporations Deutsche Bank and PayPal torpedoed plans to expand in Cary and Charlotte. The NCAA moved its scheduled championship games elsewhere. Now, eight years later, after Utah passed a similar bill on Monday, the reaction beyond the state’s borders appears to be more of a shrug. Neither of Utah’s largest businesses released statements in response to the legislation. Tens of thousands of out-of-towners, and an ensuing economic boost, were […]

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Utah’s legislature passes transgender bathroom ban

Utah lawmakers passed a bill on Friday that would bar transgender people from using bathrooms in schools and government buildings that correspond with their gender identities. House Bill 257, which is titled “Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying and Women’s Opportunities,” also specifies the state’s legal definition of “male” and “female” is based on a person’s genitalia rather than their gender identity. The bill now heads to the governor’s desk for enactment. This is the third year in a row that lawmakers in Utah have passed legislation that limits the rights of the state’s trans community. The bill’s passage also comes […]

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Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has mounted a legal challenge against World Aquatics

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has been quietly mounting a legal battle against World Aquatics to overturn the swimming governing body’s effective ban on most trans women competing in the highest levels of the sport, a lawyer representing Thomas confirmed to NBC News on Friday. Carlos Sayao, a partner at top Canadian law firm Tyr, said Thomas is asking the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland to overturn the new World Aquatics rules, issued in June 2022, that prohibit trans women from competing in women’s swimming events unless they transitioned before age 12.  The U.K.’s Telegraph was the first to report on Thomas’ behind-closed-doors […]

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Two men arrested in connection with the beating of a lesbian and a trans woman in Miami

Two men have been arrested and charged with hate crimes in connection with the brutal beating of two LGBTQ women in Miami that was caught on camera in November, according to NBC South Florida. Jorge Giovani Estevez, 33, was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of battery with prejudice, according to arrest records shared by the Miami Police Department. Daiken Fernandez, 25, was arrested the same day and charged with two counts of felony battery with prejudice, the records show.  Efforts to reach Estevez and Fernandez on Tuesday were unsuccessful, and their defense attorneys have not yet been announced. The incident took […]

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Neo-Nazi group accused of violating civil rights law for disrupting N.H. drag story hour

The New Hampshire attorney general’s office filed a civil rights lawsuit against a neo-Nazi group on Wednesday alleging it disrupted a drag story hour at a café in June.  Attorney General John Formella filed the complaint against 19 unnamed members of the New England neo-Nazi group NSC-131, which stands for Nationalist Social Club, and their leader, Christopher Hood, 25, accusing them of violating the state’s anti-discrimination laws for trying to stop the café’s drag story hour through acts of intimidation.  The event, where drag queens read children’s books to kids, took place during Pride Month at Teatotaller, an LGBTQ-owned coffee shop in […]

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Florida penalizes transgender student for playing on girls volleyball team

Florida officials temporarily barred a transgender student from participating in any of her high school’s sports teams, saying the teenager violated state law by playing on the girls volleyball team. In a letter sent Tuesday to the unnamed student’s school, Monarch High School in Coconut Creek, officials from the Florida High School Athletic Association said the trans teenager was “declared ineligible to represent any member school” and therefore barred from competing on any school sports team for just under a year. Officials also placed the South Florida high school on probation for 11 months, fined it $16,500 and mandated that […]

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Victims of the deadly druggings that terrorized NYC’s gay bars are haunted by unknowns

Eddie Ashley was looking for a hookup. So like countless others on a Saturday night in New York City, he went to The Ritz, a gay bar in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.  He drank too much, he said. And he did end up going home with someone — one of his victims. Eighteen months later, Ashley, 30, was sentenced to nine years in state prison for robbing the man he left the bar with in May 2022, along with various other crimes he pleaded guilty to committing in recent years.  Authorities said Ashley and the victim went to the victim’s […]

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Vatican says transgender people can be baptized

Vatican officials said Wednesday that transgender people can be baptized in the Catholic church. “A transgender person, even if they have undergone hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery, can receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful,” a Vatican office said in a documentpublished Wednesday in Italian on its website. The document was a response to six questions that Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro in Brazil sent to the Vatican in July, regarding LGBTQ people’s involvement in routine Catholic […]

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