The Advocate

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Tennessee high school student-athlete banned from graduation after coming out on social media

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A student-athlete who was banned from graduating with her classmates after she came out in a social media post is suing her high school, local NBC and ABC affiliates WSMV and WTVC report. Morgan Armstrong was a senior at Tennessee Christian Preparatory School (TCPS), a private Christian school in Chattanooga. She played on the school’s basketball team and earned her diploma. Then she came out. “Cats outta the bag,” Armstrong wrote in the post dated April 23, according to court documents obtained by WTVC. The post contained pictures of Armstrong with her girlfriend, including the pair kissing. Armstrong subsequently posted a separate comment urging others to like and comment […]

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J.K. Rowling uses Harry Potter wealth to fund anti-transgender organization

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J.K. Rowling is using her wealth attained from the Harry Potter series to create an organization dedicated to removing transgender people’s rights “in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.” The author announced in a Saturday post to X, formerly Twitter, that she would be founding the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, using her personal fortune. The website for the group states that it “offers legal funding support to individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.” “I looked into all options and a private fund is the most efficient, streamlined way for me […]

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Lesbian journalist Victoria A. Brownworth dead at 69

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Victoria A. Brownworth, a lesbian journalist who wrote for The Advocate, The Bay Area Reporter, Philadelphia Gay News, and other LGBTQ+ publications, died Thursday at age 69. She “had long lived with multiple sclerosis and had battled cancer for many years,” according to an obituary in the Reporter, where she was a television critic. She had recently been hospitalized in her hometown of Philadelphia. “With an astute eye toward entertainment, Ms. Brownworth penned the B.A.R.’s Lavender Tube TV column for three decades,” the Reporter notes. “One of the great pleasures of my editorial job of the past five years was working on Victoria’s twice-monthly Lavender Tube column, which she had been writing […]

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These 14 corporations have stopped or scaled back sponsorship of LGBTQ+ Pride events

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When corporations got rid of their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, many also axed their commitments to LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Even before Donald Trump’s executive orders terminating all DEI positions in the federal government, dozens of major companies had already abandoned their practices. Many made their decisions after conservatives online specifically targeted them for their policies and threatened boycotts, with failed filmmaker turned failed congressional candidate Robby Starbuck taking credit for spearheading the movement. This withdrawal didn’t just encompass inclusive work environments and hiring practices, or participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index — in abandoning DEI, companies also ceased many of their community partnerships. This included small businesses, […]

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Medicare, Medicaid agency demands info on gender-affirming care for trans youth

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, headed by Mehmet Oz, has sent a letter to some hospitals demanding information on their provision of gender-affirming care to transgender youth. The CMS, like all of Donald Trump’s administration, is opposed to this care, falsely claiming it is experimental and is not supported by evidence. The letter, dated Wednesday, expresses “urgent concerns with both the quality standards adherence and profits related to these harmful procedures,” says a CMS press release. The release quotes Oz as saying, “These are irreversible, high-risk procedures being conducted on vulnerable children, often at taxpayer expense. Hospitals accepting federal funds are expected to meet rigorous quality […]

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D.C. police investigate suspected hate crime at bar for queer & trans people of color during WorldPride

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In the early hours of Black Pride weekend in Washington, D.C., someone shattered the front door of Sinners and Saints, cut the power, stole bottles of alcohol, and spray-painted the slur “fa***t” on the wall. The bar’s mission is in its name: defiance and sanctuary. It’s D.C.’s only venue created by and for queer and trans people of color. And on Friday, as revelers began arriving in the city for WorldPride, someone tried to send a message of fear. Instead, the response was community and clarity. “We are heartbroken, but we are not broken,” the bar’s team posted on Instagram. “Sinners and Saints is resistance. We will rebuild. […]

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Why experts say Trump’s budget bill strips health care from nearly all transgender people

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The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a sweeping Republican-led budget reconciliation package — dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill” by President Donald Trump and the bill’s proponents — that, if enacted, would decimate access to gender-affirming care for transgender people of all ages across the country. More than a tax bill, the legislation, passed 215-214 in the early morning hours Thursday, couples tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy with profound structural changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, including provisions that would strip transgender people of access to transition-related care — even when privately insured. It’s a vision of health policy that experts told The Advocate weaponizes bureaucracy and budgetary authority to target one […]

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Democrat Adam Schiff to be the first U.S. senator to participate in California’s AIDS/LifeCycle bike ride

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Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff will participate in the upcoming AIDS/LifeCycle 2025 ride in California, making him the first U.S. senator to take part in the seven-day fundraising bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.  Organizers of the annual ride, which first started in 2002, earlier announced that 2025 would be the final year of the fundraiser due to rising costs and declining participation. “You may not know this, but I was the first member of Congress to participate in the ride back in 2014, and now, I’m going to be the first U.S. senator to do the ride in early […]

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Trans Americans consider moves to safer states because of Trump election: Williams Institute

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With many states and the federal government adopting anti-transgenderpolicies, nearly half of the trans people in a Williams Institute survey have moved to a more welcoming state or are considering such a move. The institute, located at the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, surveyed 302 trans, nonbinary, and other gender-diverse American adults in December to gauge the effect of Donald Trump’s election on them. They are referred to under the umbrella term “transgender” in the report. Respondents could remain anonymous. More than a third were people of color, and more than 40 percent had an annual income under $50,000.  Forty-eight percent […]

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Federal judge in Texas rules LGBTQ+ people can be discriminated against at work

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On Thursday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk—a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas with a record of aligning with the GOP’s most extreme legal positions—issued a ruling declaring that Title VII no longer protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. The decision directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 ruling inBostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is, by definition, sex discrimination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling marks one of the most alarming judicial rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights in recent memory—and sets up a direct legal challenge to one of the foundational civil rights protections for queer and trans people […]

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