Features

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I’m Transgender. I’m Autistic. And Trump’s SNAP Chaos Is Frightening

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In July 2022, when I was 18, I was forced to come out as transgender. I remember the car ride through Oregon, back from the DMV, where my state ID had my deadname and the wrong gender marker on it. My mom started interrogating me when I mentioned offhandedly that I didn’t want to have kids. “Are you gay? Bi?” she pressed me. I shook my head no. “No? Well, then what the hell are you?” My mom kept questioning me until I told her I was trans. I didn’t want to come out to her. I knew her beliefs […]

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Transgender Air Force members sue Trump administration over revoked retirements

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Seventeen longtime transgender members of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that the Department of the Air Force unlawfully revoked their approved retirement orders in violation of federal law. Filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., the 19-page complaint, brought by attorneys from GLAD Law, the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, pro-bono counsel from Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC, and the Law Office of Jeremy Spiegel, argues that the administration’s actions stripped the plaintiffs of retirement benefits they had already earned after years of honorable service. Each of the plaintiffs has between 15 and […]

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17 queer clergy taking the Gospel back from Christian nationalism

As Christian nationalism seeks to fuse church and state, we’re here to celebrate queer clergy who are proving that faith and freedom don’t have to be opposites. They embody a radically inclusive Christianity, one that loves beyond borders, votes beyond pulpits, and worships without fear. Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush When a gay Baptist minister becomes one of the nation’s loudest voices against Christian nationalism, it’s worth listening. In one penned essay, Brandeis Raushenbush opined that the current administration is weaponizing religion and urged people not to “allow Trump and his Christian nationalist backers to claim the mantle of ‘religious liberty’ or […]

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What public health experts want you to know about the severe mpox strain appearing in the U.S.

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A more severe strain of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has quietly appeared in California, and for the first time, the infections weren’t brought here by travelers. For the nation’s LGBTQ+ communities, the news is unsettling not only because of what it says about the virus, but also because of what it reveals about a public health system in crisis. The strain began to spread in the spring of 2024 in people who had traveled outside the United States. In an interview with The Advocate, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and the Bidenadministration’s White House deputy coordinator for […]

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Elon Musk debuts far-right, anti-trans clone of Wikipedia called “Grokipedia”

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Elon Musk, CEO of the social media platform X, ex-Trump confidant, and founder of xAI, announced the launch of “Grokipedia” version 0.1 this week. The supposed competitor to the long-standing nonprofit website Wikipedia is AI-generated, and users have already flagged multiple pages that push far-right myths, including anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation. “Wikipedia’s knowledge is – and always will be – human,” a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, told The Verge. “Through open collaboration and consensus, people from all backgrounds build a neutral, living record of human understanding – one that reflects our diversity and collective curiosity. This human-created knowledge is […]

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Intersex Rights Advance Based on Evidence, Principle

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Intersex Awareness Week is marked annually to recall a small group of protesters who picketed the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1996 for ignoring the rights of children born with sex variations. While the academy has not budged, medical institutions and governments around the world are increasingly recognizing that people born with intersex variations deserve bodily autonomy. Intersex children are born with chromosomes, gonads, hormone function or internal or external sex organs that don’t match typical social expectations. For over half a century, doctors around the world have routinely performed surgery on newborns to standardize bodies so that they align with […]

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Loud and Proud in The Lone Star State: Dallas Church, Cities Across Texas Respond to Crosswalk Controversy with Pride

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Standing at the corner of Cedar Springs and Oak Lawn Blvd in Dallas for over 150 years, Oak Lawn United Methodist Church has served Texans of faith, including members of the LGBTQ community. Through its inclusive efforts, the church is a leader in providing resources for all Texans. And through a sign of symbolic strength, the church continues to commit to standing up for equality.  On Oct. 9, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered all decorated crosswalks across the state to be removed within 30 days or risk losing essential funding from the state’s transportation department. The rainbow crosswalks are a major pillar […]

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Richard Isay went through conversion therapy. He helped turn psychoanalysis against it.

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Dr. Richard Isay is a modern hero who opened up the world of psychoanalysis to the LGBTQ+ community. He suffered through what we would call conversion therapy today, but after realizing it didn’t help, Isay fought for psychoanalysis to better serve the queer community.  Not only did he open the profession to gay people, but he also convinced psychoanalysts to stop treating queerness as a problem rather than an innate part of being human. And above all, he convinced the most homophobic psychological professional society to not just change its ways but become the first mental health organization to support […]

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What – or who – is behind the troubling and sinister rise in fake LGBTQ+ news on Facebook?

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Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb refused to wear a rainbow armband during a game, Olympian Mollie O’Callaghan pledged to no longer compete if trans swimmer Lia Thomas is allowed to, and singer Sam Smith took issue with conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel, as two individuals, using they/them pronouns.  You might have seen these divisive posts on Facebook, you might even have been outraged by them or shared them, but they’re not real – they are anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation falsely framed as legitimate news content.  You only need to make a cursory Google search to see the claims can be […]

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CVS tells HIV activists that pharma company Gilead needs to lower price of PrEP drug if it wants it covered

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An executive from CVS has demanded Gilead lower the prices of a new HIVprevention drug in an email . Dr. Michelle Guardine, chief medical officer for CVS Caremark, sent an email to PrEP4All, an organization working on PrEP access, that has demanded the pharmacy chain cover the new drug Yeztugo, also known as lenacapavir. In the message, which was posted to social media, the executive said the reason CVS controversially refused to cover the highly effective pharmaceutical was a concern over costs. “We believe that easy access to PrEP medications is critical for Americans who may be exposed to HIV,” Gourdine wrote. “Our formularies cover […]

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