Features

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Trans people, local governments and educators face rising anti-LGBTQ hate, GLAAD report finds

There were 932 anti-LGBTQ incidents across the United States over the past year — from hate speech and bomb threats to fatal violence — with more than half of these acts targeting transgender and gender-nonconforming people, according to a new report from the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD.  The report found a year-over-year increase in incidents targeting transgender and gender-nonconforming people, state and local governments, and educators and librarians. It also found a decrease in incidents targeting drag performers and pride symbols.  “This really goes toward showing these kinds of shifting tides in hate and what extremists like to focus on at the […]

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Quakers refuse to exclude trans people from their facilities: ‘This is what Love requires of us’

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Quakers in Britain have been commended for rejecting claims that a UK Supreme Court ruling prevents trans people from using single-sex spaces. The Christian group, which represents Quakers, or members of the Society of Friends faith group, argued that a ruling handed down in April, which aims to clarify the 2010 Equality Act’s definitions of women and sex, has not affected the rights of trans people to use gendered facilities consistent with their birth sex. In a unanimous ruling, Supreme Court judge Lord Patrick Hodge argued that the terms women and sex in the legislation refer to “biological women” and “biological sex.” Lord […]

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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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Utah study on trans youth care extremely inconvenient for politicians who ordered it

In 2022, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox was the rare Republican governor who seemed to truly care about the well-being of transgender kids. “I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live,” he wrote in a letter that year, explaining why he was vetoing a bill that would have banned four trans middle- and high schoolers in Utah from playing on sports teams with classmates who shared their gender identity. “All the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly.” Meanwhile, nationally, Republican politicians were making opposition to trans […]

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What It Actually Looks Like When Trans People Follow Bathroom Bans

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In Trump’s new America, bathrooms have become politicized battlegrounds. What may have seemed like an issue resolved in 2017 following the repeal of North Carolina’s infamous HB 2, bathroom bans targeting the trans community have once again made national headlines alongside a spate of new bills. Nineteen states already have active laws that restrict transgender people from using restrooms that match their gender identity. Many of these bills are more extreme than those in previous years, with Florida and Utah—two states that have banned trans folks from using all government building restrooms that match their gender identity—threatening criminal penalties against violators. Florida’s law classifies the […]

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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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Parents fight for school district to say trans student’s chosen name at graduation

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A school in the Escambia County Public Schools of Pensacola, Florida, is refusing to call out the chosen name of a transgender student during an upcoming high school graduation ceremony or to print his name on his diploma.  The student’s supportive parents are now asking their son’s school to change their decision, saying it’s based on a vague and “unwritten” school policy that contradicts years of educators respectfully using their son’s chosen name in school. The student’s mother, Charline Barger, said that her son will graduate from Escambia Virtual Academy on May 27. However, when she reached out to the […]

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GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Index Unveils How Tech Companies Intentionally Rolled Back Safety Policies For LGBTQ People

GLAAD has announced the findings of its fifth annual Social Media Safety Index (SMSI), an annual report on LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression online. The in-depth report analyzes six major social media platforms — TikTok, YouTube, X, and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — across 14 indicators that address a range of issues affecting LGBTQ people online including data privacy, content moderation, workforce diversity, and more. All companies are failing to meet basic standards across most safety metrics on the SMSI scorecard. Read the full report. Offering a quantitative ranking and also highlighting LGBTQ safety policy rollbacks from major platforms, the report […]

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Data Privacy in Trump 2.0 and LGBTQ Rights: What You Need to Know

The average American spends over three hours on their phone every day, and nearly half of U.S. teens say they’re on the Internet almost “constantly.” While most of us understand that not all of our data is private, the scope of how much U.S. government agencies can access is overwhelming: Internet history, private messages, health information, political affiliation and phone location data are all up for grabs. “We are constantly shedding data as we go about our daily lives,” says Lisa Femia, staff attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights advocacy group. She says with no comprehensive Federal data privacy law, there’s little […]

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Military commanders will be told to send transgender troops to medical checks to oust them

Military commanders will be told to identify troops in their units who are transgender or have gender dysphoria, then send them to get medical checks in order to force them out of the service, officials said Thursday. A senior defense official laid out what could be a complicated and lengthy new process aimed at fulfilling President Donald Trump’s directive to remove transgender service members from the U.S. military. The new order to commanders relies on routine annual health checks that service members are required to undergo. Another defense official said the Defense Department has scrapped — for now — plans […]

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