Nick Duffy

The trial of the wife of Pulse shooter Omar Mateen has taken a dramatic twist – after it emerged that Mateen’s father was an FBI informant. Forty-nine people died at Orlando’s Pulse gay club during a horrific mass shooting in June 2016, when Omar Mateen, who had pledged support for ISIS, opened fire at the crowd. At the time it was the most deadly mass shooting in recent US history, though it has since been surpassed. Mateen was killed in a shootout with the local police during the attack, but his wife Noor Salman is currently standing trial over allegations that she […]

Donald Trump has ousted his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replaced him with former GOP lawmaker Mike Pompeo, who has an extensive anti-LGBT record. Under the leadership of former oil exec Rex Tillerson, Trump’s State Department had maintained some of the work on global LGBT rights that had begun under the Obama administration. While other federal government departments worked to undermine civil rights protections, Secretary Tillerson struck a conciliatory tone and issued statements to mark Pride Month and the Transgender Day of Remembrance, continuing commitments to basic LGBT rights. However, President Trump today announced that he had ousted Tillerson after […]

Shane Morgan and husband Landon A gay couple are suing the Tennessee Republican Party – over an anti-gay attack ad that used a photo from their wedding. Shane Morgan and husband Landon were stunned to see pictures from their special day used as part of a leaflet attack ad paid for by the state GOP.  The ad targets Gayle Jordan, a friend of the pair who is running for Tennessee Senate District 14 as a Democrat, by sharing a photo of her officiating the wedding. It claims that she will “destroy the fabric of American society”, making reference to a […]

‘ Stonewall pioneer Marsha P. Johnson has finally been given a obituary in the New York Times – more than 25 years on from her death. Johnson, an African-American transgender woman and drag performer, made her name in the queer community in 1960s New York. She is most famous for playing and a key role in the 1969 Stonewall Riots – an uprising against homophobic police raids considered by many the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement. The activist co-founded the Gay Liberation Front and the early trans advocacy group S.T.A.R, and whe would later also play a role in AIDS activist group […]

Pride marchers in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Creative Commons photo/Daniel Ramirez) Hawaii has advanced a ban on gay ‘cure’ therapy for minors. The US state could become the latest to outlaw the use of so-called ‘conversion therapy’ to attempt to change the sexuality of minors. Performing gay cure therapy on minors is already is illegal in nine US states and counting, as well as Switzerland, Malta, Taiwan, two Canadian provinces, and the Australian state of Victoria. Experts overwhelmingly agree that attempts to cure sexuality are futile, misguided, and often extremely harmful. Attempts to force teens to repress their sexuality has been linked to depression, self-harm […]

A US federal court has ruled that civil rights laws protect gay workers from discrimination, after the Trump administration argued it was legal to fire people for being gay. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled in the case of Donald Zarda, a former skydiving instructor who alleges that that his old company, Altitude Express Inc, fired him because of his sexuality. Republicans in Congress continue to block federal legislation to protect LGBT people from discrimination, but Zarda’s lawyers cited civil rights protections from the 1960s which outlaw discrimination in employment based on sex. The Trump administration’s Justice Department, headed […]