Features

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For transgender youth in crisis, hospitals sometimes compound the trauma

Four days of waiting under the flickering fluorescent lights of UNC Hospitals’ emergency room left Callum Bradford desperate for an answer to one key question. The transgender teen from Chapel Hill needed mental health care after overdosing on prescription drugs. He was about to be transferred to another hospital because the UNC system was short on beds. With knots in his stomach, he asked, “Will I be placed in a girls’ unit?” Yes, he would. The answer provoked one of the worst anxiety attacks he had ever experienced. Sobbing into the hospital phone, he informed his parents, who fought for days to […]

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Idaho cannot enforce gender-affirming care ban, judge rules

A federal judge declined Tuesday to pause litigation challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors as similar cases wind upward toward the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Liles Burke said no to a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to put the Alabama case on hold until appellate courts decide if they will hear related petitions on whether states can enact such bans. The Justice Department asked for the stay because, “this exceptional legal landscape is quickly evolving.” Burke wrote that the case will move forward for now. He said a stay might be appropriate later if […]

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Idaho cannot enforce gender-affirming care ban, judge rules

Idaho cannot enforce a law banning gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors, a federal judge ruled, a victory for families who had sued the state challenging the law. In a preliminary order on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise wrote that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process give parents the right to get gender-affirming care for their children. “Transgender children should receive equal treatment under the law,” Winmill, who was appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, wrote. “Parents should have the right to make the […]

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Prosperity Evangelist T.D. Jakes Denies Gay Sex Claims

The Christian Post reports: Days after denouncing an unverified report casting innuendo about his sexuality and accusing him of being a frequent participant at sex parties hosted by Sean Combs, popularly known as Diddy, televangelist T.D. Jakes called his accusers “liars” on Sunday and noted that even “if everything was true, all I got to do is repent sincerely from my heart.” Jakes, who leads a megachurch in Dallas, Texas, directly addressed his congregation for the first time on Christmas Eve and urged them not to worry about him because “I’m good.” The unnamed source claims, “I’m told that multiple male escorts […]

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Ohio’s Republican governor vetoes trans care restriction and sports ban

Ohio’s governor vetoed a bill Friday that would have restricted both transition-related care for minors and transgender girls’ participation on school sports teams. Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto makes him one of only two Republican governors to veto a restriction on gender-affirming care, alongside then-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in 2021, and one of only three Republican governors to veto a trans athlete bill after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb last year. In a news conference on Friday after his veto, DeWine said the “gut-wrenching” decision about whether a minor should have access to gender-affirming care “should not be made by the government, should […]

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No one thought this LGBTQ+ business could last. Then history was rewritten.

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The one real estate requirement for Giovanni’s Room was “a place with a big front window,” says co-founder Tom Wilson Weinberg. The vision — an LGBTQ+ bookstore — set a plan in motion that would change queer visibility in Philadelphia and open the door for access to diverse stories worldwide.  Weinberg and friends Dan Sherbo and Bern Boyle had begun engaging in LGBTQ+ activism and saw an unfulfilled niche for community engagement. It was 1973, and gentleman’s clubs, bars, and adult book shops — often hidden behind unmarked doors — dotted the city, but despite the Stonewall Riots just a few years […]

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Emails Reveal How a Hospital Bowed to Political Pressure to Stop Treating Trans Teens

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One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community. Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting […]

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LGBTQ+ and disability advocate speaks on vision impairment, accessibility

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When talking about myths of people with disabilities, Katherine Allen says there’s more to deafness and blindness than people think. “Just about everything [is on] a spectrum,” said Allen, who is visually impaired. Allen, 68, is active in the Philadelphia-area disability and LGBTQ+ communities. She is an accessibility consultant for Philly Touch Tours, an organization that provides “equal opportunities in cultural settings for people with vision loss,” as per the organization’s website. In collaboration with Trish Maunder, creative director and co-founder of Philly Touch Tours, Allen trains the staff of local museums and cultural institutions how to welcome people with disabilities […]

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Revolutionizing retirement: How LGBTQ+ housing communities empower elders to live authentically

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David Kilmnick knew an LGBTQ+ retirement community was needed when reaching out to elder facilities for educational programs. The founder and president of the LGBT Network on Long Island, New York, he recalls a facility telling him “we have none of those here,” referring to LGBTQ+ people. “I’m not talking this was 50 years ago or 20 years ago,” he says. “This was like five years ago.” In September 2021, Kilmnick and his nonprofit opened the doors to The LGBT Network’s LGBT/LGBT Friendly Senior Housing, a 75-unit affordable housing community for LGBTQ+ elders. Here, residents can live out and proud with their partners and participate […]

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Seattle hospital says Texas attorney general asked for records about transgender care for children

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a Seattle hospital to hand over records regarding gender-affirming treatment potentially given to children from Texas, according to court filings that appear to show the Republican going beyond state borders to investigate transgender health care. Seattle Children’s Hospital filed a lawsuit in Austin, Texas, this month asking a court to invalidate or narrow the requests from Paxton, a staunch conservative who has helped drive Republican efforts that target the rights of trans people. His office sent similar letters earlier this year to Texas hospitals. Texas is among more than 20 states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical […]

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