Molly Sprayregen

Park Cannon was first elected as a Georgia lawmaker in 2016 at only 24 years old. The youngest elected official in the state legislature, she demonstrated early on that she had an insatiable energy for fighting for equity and standing up for marginalized groups. Now 31, Cannon remains a vehement advocate for reproductive justice, voting rights, andequality. In a 2020 interview with LGBTQ Nation, Cannon described herself as an “activist elected official” who will settle for nothing less than sweeping change. Cannon was instrumental in passing 2019 legislation that created a three-year Georgia pilot program to provide PrEP to those at high risk […]

A freshman lawmaker from Wyoming has already begun efforts to remove LGBTQ+ books for youth from both school and public libraries in the state. Republican Rep.-elect Jeanette Ward has introduced House Bill 87, which expands the definition of “child pornography” to mean “any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, cartoon, drawing, computer or computer generated image or picture, whether or not made or produced by electronic, mechanical or other means, or any other form of depiction of explicit sexual conduct.” The bill also repeals a law that gives exemptions for those who “possess or disseminate obscene material” for activities […]

Progressive Democrat Davante Lewis has become the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to statewide office in Louisiana as well as the first out LGBTQ+ Black person elected to any public office in the state. Lewis, 30, recently won a runoff election and was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, a regulatory agency focused on ensuring reasonably priced public utilities. It also works on state energy policy. While the position is not something voters often pay close attention to, Nola.com said far more eyes were on this race due to high natural gas prices causing increased utility bills and a weak electrical […]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has appointed far-right anti-LGBTQ+ activist Christopher Rufo to the board of trustees of the New College of Florida – a school with a reputation for being progressive and queer-friendly. In addition to virulently targeting the LGBTQ+ community, Rufo has spent years helping to build a movement against the teaching of so-called critical race theory – an academic term conservatives have manipulated to essentially mean teaching children anything about the history of racism in the U.S. Rufo – who does not live in Florida – admitted in a 2021 speech that right-wing activists “appropriated” the term critical race […]

A new William’s Institute study has found that LGBTQ+ adults are more likely to have federal student loan debt than non-LGBTQ+ adults. The study found that 39% of LGBTQ+ adults have student debt totaling approximately $93 billion. Most of those loans are federal loans, and the study found that 35.4% of LGBTQ+ adults have federal loans, compared to 23.2% of non-LGBTQ+ adults. The largest burden seems to fall on transgender adults. 51% of trans adults have federal student loans, compared to 35.9% of LBQ cisgender females and 27.9% of GBQ males. The news you care about, reported on by the people who […]