Features

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I lived unapologetically as a Black gay man in the 70s. Now I’m aging with pride & dignity.

The year: 1969. Man landed on the moon, the Beatles gave their last concert on top of the Apple building in London, and we mourned Judy Garland’s death. But most notable for me was the Stonewall Uprising on June 28. As a gay African-American man, I am an activist and a pioneer. I have experienced some of the brightest and darkest highlights of LGBTQ history. So much has changed and I know my generation has made a significant contribution to the growth and positive changes. My mantra: “I’m living my best life!” The year of the Stonewall Uprising, I was […]

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Queer Colorado legislator sponsors bill to require schools use students’ preferred name

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Stephanie Vigil, a queer Colorado state legislator, flipped her district from Republican to Democrat. Now, she’s ready to make some other changes. While the GOP has launched repeated attacks on transgender students nationwide, a local effort to prevent teachers from asking a teenager about their preferred pronouns has spawned a response from Vigil. She’s introduced a bill requiring teachers to use a student’s preferred name in the classroom. Deadnaming a trans student would be considered discrimination. “Making sure that we can create space for them to be seen and heard as their true self is very important,” said Nadine Bridges, the executive […]

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Debunked: This misleading NYT anti-trans column relies on pseudoscience

In an article published in the opinion section of The New York Times, opinion columnist Pamela Paul wrote a 4,500-word article filled with factual errors and unfounded assumptions about transgender care and the lived experiences of transgender people. Although the article is presented as a piece on detransitioners, the interviews serve as vehicles through which Paul packages inaccuracies and disinformation with faulty citations and claims that are not supported by the evidence she presents. The article is the latest in a seriespublished by The New York Times to do so, and a simple fact check of the claims presented easily debunks the article’s central premises […]

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Trans rights leader Kris Hayashi to lead advocacy department at National LGBTQ Task Force 

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The National LGBTQ Task Force announced on Tuesday that long-time transgender rights activist and community leader Kris Hayashi has joined the organization as its director of advocacy and action.  Hayashi most recently served as the executive director of the Transgender Law Center and previously led the Audre Lorde Project as its executive director/co-director.  “We could not be more excited or honored to welcome Kris Hayashi to our team and the Task Force family. Kris will bring immeasurable expertise to our advocacy and policy work as our community, especially our trans and non-binary siblings, are under unrelenting and unprecedented attacks,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director […]

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Gender-affirming care improves transgender lives, according to largest survey of trans people

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Findings from the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey counter the right-wing narrative about “transition regret” by showing how gender-affirming care improves trans people’s lives, while the survey also documents the continued discrimination and marginalization trans Americans face. Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate’s email newsletter. The NCTE released its “Early Insights” report of survey findings Wednesday. The survey includes data from 92,329 binary and nonbinary trans people across the U.S., the largest number of participants ever. “Early Insights” is the first in a series of reports to be released from the survey. Ninety-four percent of respondents […]

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Backlash to transgender health care isn’t new − but faulty science used to justify it has changed over time

In the past century, there have been three waves of opposition to transgenderhealth care. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, they cracked down on transgender medical research and clinical practice in Europe. In 1979, a research report critical of transgender medicine led to the closure of the most well-respected clinics in the United States. And since 2021, when Arkansas became the first U.S. state among now at least 21 other states banning gender-affirming care for minors, we have been living in a third wave. In my work as a scholar of transgender history, I study the long history of gender-affirming care in the U.S., which has been practiced since at […]

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U.S. Jesuits bolster outreach initiative aimed at encouraging LGBTQ Catholics

Even as Catholic dogma continues to repudiate same-sex marriage and gender transition, one of the most prominent religious orders in the United States — the Jesuits — is strengthening a unique outreach program for LGBTQ Catholics. The initiative — fittingly called Outreach — was founded two years ago by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit who is one of the country’s most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic Church. Outreach, a ministry of the Jesuit magazine America, sponsored conferences in New York City in 2022 and 2023, and last year launched a multifaceted website with news, essays […]

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Ohio backs off proposed restrictions on gender-affirming care for adults

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration on Wednesday backed off its plans to impose rules that advocates feared would have restricted gender-affirming medical treatment for adults in a way no other state has. The rules proposed by two state departments would have required the psychiatrists, endocrinologists and medial ethicists to have roles in creating gender-affirming care plans for clinics and hospitals. And patients under 21 would have been required to receive at least six months of counseling before starting hormone treatment or receiving gender-affirming surgery. The Department of Health and Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services both issued revised proposals Wednesday after […]

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South Dakota has apologized and must pay $300K to transgender advocates

South Dakota has apologized and will pay $300,000 under a settlement with a transgender advocacy group that sued Gov. Kristi Noem and her health secretary last year after the state terminated a contract with it. Attorneys for the Transformation Project announced the settlement Monday. The nonprofit sued last year after the state canceled the contract for a community health worker in December 2022. The contract included a roughly $136,000 state-administered federal grant, about $39,000 of which the group received, according to its attorneys. The organization alleged the state’s decision “was based purely on national politics,” citing Noem’s statement to conservative media outlet The Daily […]

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Kentucky’s first transgender elected official wants you to get involved in local politics

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Kentucky legislators passed some of the nation’s worst anti-LGBTQ+ laws in 2023.  Alongside bans on gender-affirming care for minors and bans on teaching LGBTQ+ topics in public schools, the state enacted a law that also requires school districts to “at a minimum” prohibit trans students from using restrooms that align with their gender identity, and mandates that schools staff out LGBTQ+ students to their guardians. But something else significant happened in Kentucky in 2023: The state swore in its first-ever transgender elected official. Even more significant, she was sworn in to her local school board. Rebecca Blankenship has been a member of the Berea Independent School District’s […]

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