The Advocate

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Texas sued over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law that bans LGBTQ+ student clubs

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Texas is being sued over its “Don’t Say Gay” law that not only bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, but goes even further by completely outlawing LGBTQ+ student clubs. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) announced Monday that they will be filing a lawsuit against Senate Bill 12. Signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday, the law is scheduled to take effect September 1 and be implemented in the 2025-2026 school year. S.B. 12 flatly states that “a school district or open-enrollment charter school may not authorize or sponsor a student club […]

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JD Vance becomes the most blocked account on Bluesky after anti-trans post

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JD Vance has become the most blocked account on Bluesky just two days after joining the social media platform. The vice president signed up for the site, a competitor of X/Twitter, on Wednesday. Vance used his first post to mock transgender people by sharing part of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which he incorrectly said that gender-affirming care relies on “questionable evidence.” “Hello Bluesky, I’ve been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis,” Vance wrote. “So I’m thrilled to be here to engage with all of you.” Within just one day, Vance became the most […]

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LGBTQ+ households earn 85 cents for every dollar — What’s behind the disparity?

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The average LGBTQ+ or intersex household made just 85 cents for every dollar earned by those in other categories in 2024, says a new report from the Center for American Progress. “Over the course of a year, those 15 lost cents add up, amounting to about $12,600 in lost income per year for the average LGBTQI+ household,” says the CAP report, which was published as a column on CAP’s website Tuesday for LGBTQI+ Equal Pay Awareness Day. “That is more than the average household spends on food and gasoline in an entire year.” Discrimination may be a reason for the gap, CAP notes. “In 2024, approximately a […]

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Gay weddings have boosted state and local economies by $6 billion since marriage equality

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Wedding spending by same-sex couples and their out-of-state guests has boosted state and local economies by approximately $5.9 billion over the past 10 years, a new study has found. There are an estimated 823,000 same-sex couples in the U.S., according to a recent report from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, and more than 591,000 have married since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized marriage equality nationwide. About 80 percent of married couples (473,000 couples) celebrated with a wedding or other events. At the average $8,546 spent per wedding, these couples have spent approximately $4.9 billion on their celebrations, with […]

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Trump Administration to close LGBTQ+ youth suicide hotline in 30 days

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The Trump Administration will eliminate funding for a crucial suicide hotline dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth in just one month.  The federal government will close the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services – a federal program that provides emergency crisis support to queer youth considering suicide – effective July 17, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced Wednesday. This is several months ahead of its initial October 1 closure deadline, first revealed by leaked budget draft in April.  “This is devastating, to say the least. Suicide prevention is about people, not politics,” Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, said in a statement. “The […]

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LGBTQ+ elders are more likely to live in poverty. Here’s how we can change that

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An alarming amount of LGBTQ+ seniors are living in poverty — but it doesn’t have to be this way. One in five U.S. households led by people over 50 have no retirement savings, according to a recent report from the Milken Institute and SAGE, and 61 percent of American elders — those ages 65 and older — say that they worry about not having enough financial resources to support themselves in later life.  This fear is felt even more strongly by LGBTQ+ elders, about 40 percent of whom are living below the federal poverty line. Compared to the rest of the population, their poverty rates can be between […]

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FDA approves breakthrough drug that reduces risk of contracting HIV by 96 percent

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved a breakthrough medication that reduces the risk of contracting HIV by 96 percent. Gilead’s Yeztugo, generic name lenacapavir (LEN), has been approved for prevention after highly successful trials in September found that it nearly eliminated the spread of the virus among patients, showing a 96 percent relative risk reduction versus bHIV. The drug had already been approved for treatment of multidrug-resistant HIV. The drug is meant to be given as an injection by health care workers in clinics every six months. It is currently priced at $14,109 per injection, or $2,352 per month, according to NBC News, making it unclear […]

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Spa can’t discriminate against trans women, federal appeals court rules

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A Christian-owned spa in Washington State can’t discriminate against transgender women, a federal appeals court has ruled. Olympus Spa, which has locations in Lynnwood and Tacoma, has historically had a policy of admitting “biological women” only, “excluding, in addition to men, preoperative transgender women who have not yet received gender confirmation surgery affecting their genitalia,” notes the ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After Olympus turned away a trans woman fitting this description in 2020, the woman filed a complaint with the state’s Human Rights Commission, which enforces the Washington Law Against Discrimination. The law does not explicitly ban […]

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Military vet Gina Ortiz Jones becomes first lesbian elected mayor of San Antonio

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Gina Ortiz Jones, a lesbian and military veteran who served in President Joe Biden’s administration, has been elected mayor of San Antonio, the second-largest city in Texas and seventh-largest in the U.S. Jones beat Rolando Pablos, a former Texas secretary of state, in a runoff election Saturday. The margin was 54.3 percent to 45.7 percent, according to Ballotpedia. They advanced to the runoff because no candidate out of 27 in the May 3 general election received a majority of the vote. In the general election, Jones led with 27.2 percent and Pablos came in second with 16.6 percent. The current mayor, Ron Nirenberg, could not run again due to term limits. […]

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LGBTQ+ immigrants face ‘most immediate risk’ of ICE raids in Los Angeles

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As Immigration and Customs Enforcement increases its raids in Los Angeles, a large swath of the LGBTQ+ immigrants who live in the United States are at “most immediate risks of detention and deportation.” There are approximately 49,000 LGBTQ+ adult immigrants living in Los Angeles County who do not have U.S. citizenship, according to a new report from the Williams Institute, including 26,000 who hold lawful residency and 23,000 who are undocumented. Of these groups, 5,200 are transgender or nonbinary, just under 1,000 of whom are undocumented. Over 1.25 million LGBTQ+ adult immigrants live in the U.S., with an estimated 10 percent — 122,000 people — living in Los […]

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