Features

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The North Face faces boycott calls over support of LGBTQ+ summer camps

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Popular outdoor clothing brand The North Face is the latest brand to face boycott calls – in this case, over its long-established sponsorship LGBTQ+ summer camps. Brave Trials is a leadership summer camp, located in California and Maryland, for LGBTQ+ youth and allies between the ages of 12-18. Its focus is on helping “LGBTQ+ youth find what they need most to thrive: their people, their place, and their passion,” according to its website.  The California and New York-based Camp Brave Trials – which have caused outrage among conservatives – are designed for for LGBTQ+ teenagers aged 12-17, and aim help teens improve their leadership.  On […]

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Federal judge temporarily blocks teacher pronoun restriction in Florida

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a law in Florida that barred a transgender teacher from using pronouns that don’t align with her birth sex. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker granted transgender teacher Katie Wood a temporary injunction against the law, writing in a strongly worded opinion that it violates her First Amendment rights. “Once again, the State of Florida has a First Amendment problem,” Walker wrote. “Of late, it has happened so frequently, some might say you can set your clock by it.” “This time,” Walker continued, “the State of Florida declares that it has the absolute authority to […]

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Vatican declares surrogacy & gender-affirming care violations of human dignity

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The Vatican has issued a declaration listing “gender theory,” gender-affirming care, and even surrogacy as “violations of human dignity” alongside war, poverty, human trafficking, and other actual atrocities. On Monday, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department in charge of religious discipline for the Catholic Church, released its “Dignitas Infinita.” The 20-page document has been in the works for the past five years and was approved by Pope Francis in March, according to the Associated Press. It calls for unconditional respect for human dignity regardless of “the person’s ability to understand and act freely,” reiterating Catholic teachings opposing abortion […]

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U.N. rights body adopts first resolution to protect rights of intersex people

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday voted to adopt a resolution designed to protect the rights of intersex people, the first initiative of its kind that diplomats and rights groups described as an landmark moment for human rights. Twenty-four countries voted in favor, twenty-three abstained and none voted against the resolution, which was spearheaded by Finland, South Africa, Chile and Australia. The U.N. has cited experts as saying that 1.7% of babies are born intersex, defined as having sex characteristics that do not fit binary notions of male or female. The resolution calls on states to “combat discrimination, […]

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Victory! Lambda Legal Announces Settlement of Case on Behalf of Former Military Cadet and Midshipman Living with HIV

Lambda Legal and co-counsel Winston & Strawn LLP, Perkowski Legal, PC, and Scott Schoettes today announced they have reached a settlement with the Department of Defense (DoD) in a lawsuit filed in 2018 on behalf of a former Navy midshipman, Kevin Deese, and a former Air Force cadet, John Doe (a pseudonym), who were denied commissions after graduating from their respective service academies because they are living with HIV. The settlement provides for Deese and Doe to be commissioned as officers in recognition of the status and military careers they qualified for and earned years ago.  “We are gratified that our […]

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Man who contracted HIV after being raped warns of dangers of drink spiking

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New statistics have revealed the alarming prevalence of drink spiking in the LGBTQ+ community, with one man telling of the experience that left him cutting himself off from work, family, friends and “anything that looked towards the future I didn’t think I would ever have”.  Released on Thursday (4 April), the Ladbible Group and Stamp Out Spiking study surveyed 2,063 people aged between 16 and 24, in an effort to understand the rise in the number of drinks being spiked.  “Spiking” refers to when someone is given alcohol or drugs without their consent, usually in a drink. A person might spike a […]

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1 in 3 LGBTQ adults say they’ve been treated unfairly by a health care provider

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer adults are twice as likely as their non-LGBTQ counterparts to report having had negative health care experiences over the last three years, according to a new report. One-third (33%) of LGBTQ adults say they were treated unfairly or with disrespect or had at least one negative experience with a health care provider, compared to 15% of non-LGBTQ adults, according to a new report by KFF, a health care and polling nonprofit formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.  Of the LGBTQ adults who reported negative experiences, 61% said a provider assumed something about them without […]

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A quarter of trans people have had health care disrupted in the past year

For the past several years, Republican lawmakers all over the country have been attacking transgender people’s access to gender-affirming health care, and soon half of the states in the U.S. will ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth.  However, the legislation is also having a negative effect on trans adults since many of the laws also attack their access to health care. A new study from Data for Progress found that 24% of transgender adults have had their access to gender-affirming care disrupted in the past year, and one in five said that they didn’t go to a doctor or the hospital when […]

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Meta regularly allows anti-trans hate posts calling for murder of “pedophiles”

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Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads — has failed to enforce its own policies against anti-transgender hate posts, including posts made by high-profile political influencers and media outlets, according to a newly released report from the LGBTQ+ media advocacy group GLAAD. GLAAD cataloged numerous posts referring to trans individuals as the slur “tr***y” as well as “mentally ill,” “satanic,” “sexual predators,” pedophiles,” “terrorists,” and “perverts,” The Washington Post reported. One illustrated image showed a group of people stoning a trans-identified person to death; another showed a masked person holding a gun standing on top of a demon painted in the […]

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Sen. Kim Jackson gets real on anti-trans legislation: “It is killing kids”

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State Senator Kim Jackson of Georgia was sworn into office in January 2021, becoming the state’s first openly LGBTQ+ senator. She’s running for a second term this year. Jackson, 39, also serves as Vicar at the Episcopal Church of the Common Ground, where she “co-creates Church” with people who are unhoused in downtown Atlanta. Her wife is an imam at her local mosque. The couple lives on a small farm on the outskirts of Atlanta with their three-year-old son, whose current obsession is trucks. “The boy could say excavator before he could say, like, ‘Hello, my name is Rhys,’” Jackson […]

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