Features

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Ohio blocks trans people from changing their gender marker on ID in sudden move

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Ohio’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) has stopped allowing people to change the gender marker on driver’s licences and state ID cards to reflect someone’s gender identity, instead requiring the marker to match a birth certificate or passport. Previously, Ohioans could change the gender marker on their licence or ID by submitting a form to the BMV, however that process has been immediately discontinued. Ohio joins a growing list of states, including Wyoming, where changes to gender markers on ID are either banned or more difficult to make. BMV spokesperson Lindsey Bohrer told the Toledo Blade: “The BMV will record the sex that is stated […]

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Gay Hookup Culture and the Internet: A History from 1994 Until Now

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Before the internet went mainstream in 1994, gay men looking for their next hookup would cruise in parks, rest stops and bathhouses. For more meaningful connection, they’d use phone lines, send letters and even place ads in the newspaper. But over the last 32 years, the internet has transformed cruising and hookup culture. Websites, chat rooms and apps now dominate, with the online gay hookup and dating industry valued at $1.5 billion as of 2024. Here, we will highlight the impact 20 notable sites and apps have had on gay cruising culture. 1994 Mark Elderkin and his husband, Jeff Bennett, found Gay.com. A few years later, […]

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Massachusetts vows to fund trans kids’ healthcare after Medicaid ban

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Massachusetts has vowed to assume the full cost of gender-affirming healthcarefor transgender children and teenagers covered by the state’s Medicaid and CHIP programs if a new Trump administration rule takes effect this October. The federal rule, finalised Tuesday (11 August), would prohibit Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funds from being used for gender-affirming healthcare for people aged 18 and under. The Trump administration’s Medicaid administrator, Dr Mehmet Oz, described the treatments as harmful and “sex-rejecting procedures” in a statement, while major medical organisations continue to support gender-affirming care as appropriate treatment for some transgender young people. The federal government currently covers around 50 per cent […]

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NHS to roll out ‘life-saving’ meds to combat drug-resistant HIV

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The NHS is going to prescribe a new medication to treat the minority of patients living with a drug-resistant strain of HIV, in a landmark move. Around 100,000 people have HIV in England. There is currently no cure, though the vast majority can manage the virus with medication which hugely reduces the viral load to an undetectable level, which means they cannot pass it on. For a minority, though, the virus has mutated and become resistant to medication readily offered. Now, the drug Lenacapavir will be offered to those at risk in the coming weeks – reportedly 92 eligible patients. That number is […]

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White House trusted a transgender CIA briefer with the most sensitive secrets until her identity went public

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Julia Curlee spent nearly two decades carrying the country’s secrets. She worked in war zones, traveled to 35 countries, briefed presidents, and boarded Air Force One with the President’s Daily Brief. She was trusted to decide what some of the world’s most powerful people needed to know before beginning their days. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. But in a remarkable first-person account published Monday by The Atlantic, Curlee describes how the second Trump administration came to view something else as dangerously sensitive: the fact that […]

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Ken Paxton gloats after extracting $10 million from Texas Children’s Hospital for ‘detransition’ center

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An unprecedented settlement agreement has been reached in a case brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that requires Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston to pay $10 million to the state and create a “detransition clinic.” The settlement comes following an investigation initiated by the attorney general’s office in 2023, according to a report by The Texas Tribune. That same year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14 into law, which prohibits trans-identifying minors from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapies. Although the agreement was reached in May, it was announced by Paxton’s office on Friday that the historic settlement has now “been fully executed.” […]

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Meta Ordered To Pay $942M In New Mexico Lawsuit

The Wall Street Journal reports: A New Mexico judge ordered Meta Platforms to pay more than $900 million and limit the time young people in the state can spend on its apps, significantly increasing the cost of the landmark child safety verdict against the Facebook and Instagram parent. The judge said Thursday that Meta must create a new $567 million abatement fund in addition to paying $375 million in civil penalties that a jury previously ordered. The company must also enact certain safety features such as limiting the amount of time underage users in the state spend on Facebook and Instagram, […]

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New study challenges claim that trans teens later regret gender-affirming care

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A new study, published this month in the Journal of Adolescent Health, shares data that suggests trans teens who receive gender-affirming care aren’t very likely to regret doing so down the line. The study uses data gathered from 445 young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria under the care of four clinics in Canada between 2012 and 2017.  The clinics were Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Diversity Clinic, IWK Trans Health Clinic at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, BC Children’s Hospital Gender Clinic, and Alberta Children’s Hospital Metta Clinic. Of the sample group, 331 participants were assigned female at birth, and […]

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Connecticut Children’s Medical Center caves to Trump DOJ on gender-affirming care

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A Connecticut hospital has agreed to Trump administration demands to stop providing gender-affirming care to minors, leaving transgender youth and their families scrambling amid concerns about continuity of care. The Justice Department announced Friday that Connecticut Children’s Medical Center had agreed to cease what the department calls “sex-rejecting procedures on minors,” making it the third medical institution to enter into a settlement agreement with the administration. The hospital will also pay a penalty and set aside $500,000 to provide care for individuals who say they were harmed by gender-affirming care they previously received. “The Department of Justice will stop at nothing to protect America’s children,” said Associate Attorney […]

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Trans couple ‘beaten by mob for using bathroom’ arrested instead of their alleged attackers

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A transgender couple in Louisiana says they were brutally assaulted by a mob outside a public restroom, only to be arrested themselves while their alleged attackers walked free. Aurora Rush and Shae Sanders told Erin In The Morning via Substack in a 5 August interview that they were leaving Cypress Black Bayou Park in Bossier Parish on 31 May when they were surrounded by a group of around 10 people after using the women’s restroom. According to the couple, they were subjected to anti-trans slurs, threats and physical violence.  Sanders says they were knocked unconscious and required four stitches above one […]

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