Features

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Megachurch forces all members to sign statement opposing LGBTQ+ rights

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First Baptist Church — a megachurch in Jacksonville, Florida — is forcing its members to sign a “Biblical Sexuality Agreement,” an anti-LGBTQ+ statement that denies the existence of trans people, opposes same-sex marriage, and calls same-sex intercourse ungodly. The statement reads:  “As a member of First Baptist Church, I believe that God creates people in his image as either male or female, and that this creation is a fixed matter of human biology, not individual choice. I believe marriage is instituted by God, not government, is between one man and one woman, and is the only context for sexual desire […]

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Trump vows to ‘stop’ gender-affirming care for minors if re-elected president

Former President Donald Trump vowed in a video released Tuesday that, if re-elected, he would punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors and push schools to “promote positive education about the nuclear family” and “the roles of mothers and fathers” as part of a wide-ranging set of policies to use federal power to target transgender people. In the straight-to-camera video posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would task several federal agencies to police and ultimately “stop” gender-affirming care for minors, which he equated to “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation.” He said he would also prohibit any federal […]

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Queer Teen Girls Face Record High Levels of Sadness, Violence: CDC

Teen girls in the United States experienced record high levels of violence, sadness and suicide risk in recent years, amid “significant” and “heartbreaking” declines in youth health and well-being overall, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Responses for the CDC’s bi-annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey were collected in the fall of 2021, offering the first look at trends since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Many measures were moving in the wrong direction before the pandemic. These data show the mental health crisis among young people continues,” Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s division […]

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On safe consumption sites in San Francisco. Can we “re-wild” our hearts?

Elected officials, nonprofits, activists, and community leaders are pushing forward the idea of safe consumption sites in San Francisco, in order to prevent overdose deaths, improve the health of people who use drugs, and reduce outdoor and public substance use. Safe consumption sites and services are a well-accepted and effective public health intervention that exist in hundreds of cities around the world, but are slow to gain acceptance and be implemented in the U.S.   To gain traction and momentum for safe consumption services in San Francisco, in January Supervisor Hillary Ronen, from San Francisco District 9, organized a panel discussion […]

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Rihanna’s new Fenty ad stars out newlyweds Miss Puerto Rico & Miss Argentina

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A new ad for Rihanna’s Fenty beauty brand features Mariana Varela and Fabiola Valentin, newlyweds who fell in love while competing as Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico.  The ad is for Fenty eau de parfum and depicts the couple telling their love story while embracing, holding hands, and enjoying the scent.  They tell the story of how they met at a pageant in Thailand and immediately became inseparable.  “The details, like how we like our coffee, everything kept flowing,” they say.  They call theirs a story of “beautiful friendship” and add that it has been “magical” to find one […]

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Trans physician uses life savings to keep clinic open after insurers deny reimbursements

Tiffany Najberg, a Louisiana doctor who is transgender, said three insurance companies refused to reimburse her since she legally changed her name nearly two years ago. The companies have since come to agreements with her and her Shreveport clinic, UrgentEMS, but not until after she started a petition that has garnered nearly 12,000 signatures and received news media attention about her cause, including inquiries from NBC News. While the three insurers have agreed to update her name in their records and pay back claims, Najberg and her clinic have yet to receive any checks. In the meantime, she has spent her life […]

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Queer people face discrimination in health care. Here are the people changing that.

When Constance Zhou got to college, they noticed that their queer friends were struggling with mental health. But they were also struggling to find providers well-versed in sexual and gender minorities or the complicated intersection of identities that often brought both discrimination and unique therapy needs. At the same time, Zhou was working at a national suicide hotline, where many of the callers identified as LGBTQ+. “I was getting people in Texas, in the Midwest, and in the South who really didn’t have access to resources,” Zhou said. “I began to appreciate how important it is to have access to […]

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Repeal HIV Criminalization Laws to End the Epidemic & to Advance Racial Justice

On Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we must remember the myriad ways the work to end the HIV epidemic overlaps with the work for LGBTQ justice and overlaps with the work to dismantle white supremacy. One of these overlaps is laws that criminalize HIV. HIV criminalization is when a state criminalizes otherwise legal conduct or increases the penalties for illegal conduct based on a person’s HIV status. As of 2022, there are at least 35 states with HIV criminalization laws. Each state’s laws vary. Some require the prosecution to prove the person intended to expose others to HIV, but in most states, simply […]

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Indigenous transgender woman in Chile champions her communities

Being a transgender woman in South America is not easy when her average life expectancy in the continent is 35 years. It is even more difficult for those who are of indigenous descent. Claudia Ancapán Quilape, an indigenous trans woman with a Huilliche father and a Mapuche mother, has turned her fate around. Ancapán is 46-years-old and lives in Recoleta in the Chilean capital of Santiago. She is a midwife who works in a private clinic and recently earned a master’s degree in health. Ancapán is working on another master’s degree in gender and will soon begin a doctorate in […]

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Trans woman to stand trial after video accusing her of indecent exposure goes viral

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A trans woman is facing an upcoming trial in which she has been charged with five felony counts of indecent exposure for an incident that occurred at a Los Angeles spa.  A judge recently ruled that the trial of Darren Merager can move forward after multiple witnesses testified in a pre-trial hearing that in the summer of 2021 Merager made them uncomfortable while naked in the spa’s women’s locker room due to her exposed penis.  ADVERTISING Witnesses cannot agree on whether or not Merager’s penis was erect, but the possibility that an erection took place was enough for the judge […]

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