The Advocate

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University of Alabama quietly abandons sexual orientation & gender identity nondiscrimination policy

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The University of Alabama system quietly erased explicit protections for LGBTQ+ people from its nondiscrimination policy. The change, first reported by The Crimson White, appears to have been made sometime in November 2025, according to archived versions of the Equal Opportunity and Non-Discrimination Program pages for the system and its campuses in Birmingham and Huntsville. The pages previously listed “sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression” as protected categories, language that remains visible in documents hosted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a […]

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North Carolina Republican lawmaker wants the state to police what transgender teachers can wear

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A Republican North Carolina lawmaker says it “may be time” to require public school employees to wear clothing she considers “gender-appropriate” after objecting to a transgender music teacher’s attire. State Rep. Erin Paré complained in a post on her campaign Facebook page about the reported hiring of a transgender music teacher at an elementary school in the Wake County Public School System. Paré did not identify the teacher or the school but portrayed the teacher’s gender expression as a potential threat to children. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. “I’ve received your emails […]

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Why did Josh Shapiro appoint this anti-trans Republican to Pennsylvania’s civil rights commission?

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has appointed a former Republicanlawmaker with a long record of opposing transgender rights and attempting to curtail civil rights enforcement to the state commission charged with protecting Pennsylvanians from discrimination. Former State Rep. Seth Grove, who represented part of York County in the Pennsylvania House for 17 years, is among seven new members of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. The agency investigates discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public accommodations and enforces the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Grove is […]

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Judge rejects Trump administration bid to dismiss transgender Air Force troops’ retirement lawsuit

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A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to knock most of the transgender service members out of a lawsuit over military retirements that the Air Force approved and then abruptly revoked. In a 10-page ruling Wednesday, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Elaine D. Kaplan, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, denied the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss, allowing all 17 plaintiffs to continue pursuing claims that the government unlawfully stripped them of retirement pay and benefits after promising they could leave military service with early retirement. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your […]

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Right-wingers mock trans student tased by UCF police after demanding not to be misgendered

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An altercation between juveniles and a transgender student at the University of Central Florida last year ended with the student being tased and pepper-sprayed. Campus police ultimately arrested the student, whose legal surname is Vick but whose preferred name is not publicly known, on charges of resisting arrest. Ultimately, a scheduled trial for Vick was cancelled, and the state dropped its case. But more than a year after the incident, right-wing influencers and media have seized on newly released police footage to attack the mental health of a transgender person. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The […]

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Powerful Democratic think tank’s reset on transgender rights alarms advocates

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A leading Democratic-aligned think tank is urging political leaders to defend transgender people from discrimination while accepting that restrictions on their participation in sports “may be appropriate under some circumstances,” a proposed political reset that is already drawing criticism from within the LGBTQ+ community. The Center for American Progress published the six-page report, “Ending the Backlash on LGBTQI+ Issues,” on Thursday. Written by Caleb Smith, CAP’s director of LGBTQI+ health policy, and Winnie Stachelberg, a longtime LGBTQ+ policy strategist who founded the organization’s LGBTQI+ policy program, the document offers Democrats a framework for responding to Republican attacks on transgender health care, athletics and military service. Stay up to date with the latest in […]

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Blessed be our rights: 20 American Christian churches, ranked on LGBTQ+ support

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When it comes to spirituality, researchers have found most lesbian, gay, and bisexual folks feel pretty much the same as everyone else: A majority believe people have a soul, they experience awe in nature, and more of us believe in either the existence of God or some kind of inexplicable supernatural force than those who don’t.  But when it comes to faith in religious institutions, a majority of those same queers say churches do more harm than good, which is why we’ve put together this list of 20 major Christian churches, from the do-gooders to the do-harmers.  And sorry, we don’t know […]

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Trump hijacks White House Correspondents’ Dinner redo with antigay jabs, anti-trans mockery & lies

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President Donald Trump used the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night to target two prominent gay journalists, mock transgender actress Dylan Mulvaney and deliver a sprawling rally-style address before hundreds of members of the press. Trump made an apparent antigay insinuation about CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, called independent journalist Don Lemon “the dumbest man on television” and offered a strange comparison between CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins and Mulvaney. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. The speech moved from TikTok views to the UFC fight held on the […]

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Terrorist attack at huge Berlin Pride parade celebration leaves 1 dead, dozens injured

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A woman was killed, and 29 people were injured Saturday night when a vehicle drove into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebration, in what German officials are investigating as a suspected Islamist terrorist attack. Authorities were searching Sunday for a 21-year-old suspect publicly identified as Abdul B., according to the German news program Tagesschau. Police warned that he may be armed and dangerous and urged the public not to approach him. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. “Everything we see here indicates that we are dealing with an Islamist […]

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Gunman killed after opening fire outside North Carolina gay bar

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Police shot and killed an armed man outside a gay bar in Asheville, North Carolina. Shakey’s staff said in a social media post that police were called after a man who had been ejected from the bar earlier that night for concerning behavior was seen in the parking lot brandishing a gun, according to ABC affiliate WLOS. The Instagram post is no longer publicly available. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Asheville police officers responded to the dive bar around 1:57 a.m. Wednesday after receiving a report that […]

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