The Advocate

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Supreme Court lets Idaho enforce law criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors

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Idaho can enforce its law making it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors while a lawsuit against it proceeds, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. A federal district court had issued an injunction against the law last year, blocking it from enforcement while the suit is heard, as the court found the suit likely to succeed on its claim that the law is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction in January. But the high court said lower courts had erred in blocking the law’s application to all state residents instead of just those who brought the […]

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Two military members denied promotions for having HIV just won their lawsuit

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An Air Force cadet and a Navy midshipman have won their lawsuit after being denied promotions for being HIV-positive.  Former Navy midshipman Kevin Deese and former Air Force cadet John Doe (a pseudonym) filed the lawsuit against the Department of Defense in 2018 when they were denied commissions after graduating from their respective service academies simply because they are living with HIV.  The settlement, announced Monday, will see that the two are commissioned as officers “in recognition of the status and military careers they qualified for and earned years ago,” according to a Lambda Legal press release. “Joining my brave co-plaintiff in […]

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Trans and nonbinary migrants file complaint over treatment at ICE detention facility

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Activists have filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of five transgender and nonbinary migrants who say they were mistreated at an immigration detention center in Colorado. They are currently detained at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, a prison privately owned and operated by the GEO Group, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement incarcerates people who have pending or recently concluded immigration legal matters. The complaint, filed Wednesday, says the five suffered medical neglect, inadequate access to necessary medical and mental health care, dehumanizing treatment, and more. It calls for major changes in ICE’s handling of transgenderand nonbinary migrants. The migrants […]

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Trans Latina Meraxes Medina killed in Los Angeles

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Meraxes Medina, a 24-year-old transgender Latina, was shot to death March 21 in Los Angeles. Police responded to a call about 4:30 a.m. that day and found her on the street on the city’s south side, having been shot in the head, the Los Angeles Timesreports. She had been dumped from a car. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The Times story did not state Medina’s name, but her identity was confirmed by friends on a GoFundMe page. Another woman, apparently cisgender, was fatally shot in the same neighborhood two days earlier. The area is known for sex work, and police have said the […]

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Lesbian News publisher Ella Matthes has died at 81

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Ella Matthes, the longtime publisher and editor of Lesbian News Magazine, died March 16 at a hospital in Norwalk, Calif. She was 81 years old, and the cause was a heart attack, according to a press release. She ran Lesbian News Magazine, commonly known as the LN, from 1994 until 2022. The LN was North America’s longest-running lesbian publication. When it was founded in 1975 in Southern California by Jinx Beer, it was the lone voice for lesbian issues (The Ladder, published by the Daughters of Bilitis, had ceased publication three years earlier) and evolved throughout the years under Matthes’s leadership. The press release calls it “the nation’s foremost voice for […]

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These are the most challenged library books in America — yes, most are LGBTQ+

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The American Library Association has released its list of the 10 most challenged books of 2023, and seven of the 10 were challenged — that is, subject to ban attempts — at least in part for LGBTQ+ content. Several of them are by or about people of color. “In looking at the titles of the most challenged books from last year, it’s obvious that the pressure groups are targeting books about LGBTQIA+ people and people of color,” ALA President Emily Drabinski said in a press release. “At ALA, we are fighting for the freedom to choose what you want to read. […]

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Republican anti-LGBTQ+ legislation bad for mental health and quality of life: survey

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After a record year for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the state level and in a year that threatens to outdo it, LGBTQ+ Americans are seeing a negative impact on their mental health and quality of life, according to a new survey from Data for Progress. Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate’s email newsletter. In 2023, more than 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the U.S., and more than 80 became law, by the Human Rights Campaign’s count. The number of bills introduced this year is approaching 500. Many of last year’s bills were […]

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Meet Will Wooten, the gay lawyer on the team prosecuting Donald Trump in Georgia

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In the pivotal Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump, Deputy District Attorney Will Wooten, who joined the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office in January 2021, has been central in addressing complex legal issues.  Wooten, notable not only for his prosecutorial skills but also for his identity as an out gay man and his advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, focused on key aspects of the case Thursday morning, specifically jurisdictional issues and the involvement of fake electors. Who is Will Wooten? Wooten worked both as a prosecutor and a public defender, according to his bio on the Fulton County website. The attorney previously served […]

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Milwaukee school board, principal sued for allegedly abusing student with gay parents

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A federal lawsuit has been filed in Wisconsin against the Milwaukee Board of School Directors and Kasongo Kalumbula, a principal in the Milwaukee Public Schools system, over claims of verbal and physical abuse targeted at a student because his parents are gay.  The legal action, brought forth last Thursday by parents on behalf of their minor child, identified only as G.L., alleges a distressing pattern of discrimination that spans several years, starting when G.L. was in first grade. According to the complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Kalumbula, who served as an assistant principal at the time, is […]

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LGBTQ+ and allied members of Congress introduce Trans Day of Visibility resolution

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Ahead of International Transgender Day of Visibility, which will be observed Sunday, four members of Congress introduced a resolution Friday recognizing the accomplishments of trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people and committing to support their fight for equality. The bicameral resolution was introduced by U.S. Reps. Sara Jacobs of California, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, and U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii. All are Democrats. Pocan is chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and Jacobs and Jayapal are cochairs of the Transgender Equality Task Force. The resolution notes the rash of anti-trans legislation introduced in states over the past few years, targeting education, health […]

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