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“We have transgender people in our program, and we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward,” President and CEO Roger Krone told The Associated Press.
The statement contradicts Hegseth’s claims that the organization is rolling back participation rules amid the Trump administration’s dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies.
In a social media video posted Friday, Hegseth said Scouting America would “modify its policy to make clear that membership will be based solely on biological sex at birth and not gender identity,” adding that “the application must match the applicant’s birth certificate.”
He also said the organization would ensure “biological boys and girls will not be allowed to occupy or share intimate spaces together, toilets, showers, tents.”
Earlier in the video, Hegseth criticized the organization for having “welcomed the destructive myth of gender fluidity and transgenderism to infiltrate their membership.” In a memo to members issued after the Department of Defense announcement, Krone wrote that “Scouting America will continue to welcome and serve all youth. That commitment is unwavering.”
The memo does not specifically mention transgender youth. Instead, it emphasizes that eligibility requirements are unchanged. Under a section titled “What Is Not Changing,” the organization states that “Scouting will continue to welcome and serve all youth,” and that existing registration and youth-protection policies remain in place.
“It is important that our leadership – every one of you – recognize and reinforce Scouting’s unwavering commitment to delivering programs that benefit all youth,” Krone wrote.
Several programmatic changes are coming. Scouting America will waive registration fees for children of active-duty, Guard, and Reserve service members beginning June 1. According to the statement, it will introduce a Military Service merit badge and discontinue the Citizenship in Society merit badge “to align with Executive Order 14173,” Trump’s “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” mandate. The organization will also dissolve its DEI committee to comply with the administration’s directive.
But the rules governing who can join, according to Krone, are not being altered.
The Advocate contacted Scouting America’s communications team for clarification on its policy regarding transgender scouts and how it reconciles that policy with Hegseth’s remarks. “Scouting America remains steadfast in our commitment to providing a place for all young people to learn, grow, and thrive. We will continue to welcome all youth into our programs,” a spokesperson responded.
In recent years, Scouting America, formerly the Boy Scouts of America, lifted bans on gay youth and leaders, opened its flagship program to girls, and, in 2024, rebranded as a coeducational organization. Those changes marked a significant shift for one of the nation’s oldest youth institutions.
“Importantly and unchanged, every family is welcome in Scouting,” Krone wrote. “Today, Scouting serves nearly one million youth from every corner of American life.”
Cynthia McKinney, who was a member of Congress and the Green Party’s 2008 presidential candidate, posted an antisemitic and transphobic infographic to social media that claims Jewish people are “behind the rise in transgenderism.”
The image shows a rainbow-colored Star of David with pictures of several trans rights leaders and points out that they’re Jewish, including NCTE founder Mara Keisling and GLSEN director Eliza Byard, who isn’t transgender. Non-Jewish trans rights leaders are not included in the image.
At the top of the star is Magnus Hirschfeld, the gay, Jewish, and German sexologist born in the mid-1800s who was a pioneer in researching LGBTQ+ identities. In 1933, his sexology research institute was looted by the Nazis, who beat up the institute’s staff and burned its books. The Nazi party revoked Hirschfeld’s citizenship, and he was forced to live the rest of his life in exile in France.
Hirschfeld was “a JEWISH ‘sexologist’ in Weimar Germany,” the infographic states. “Since then transgenderism has exploded in popularity.”
The image also contains several “facts,” like that the Talmud “recognizes EIGHT genders.” That “fact” – with a number that varies – is popular among antisemites online but is a simplification of hundreds of years of rabbinical commentary that sometimes mentions gender.
| Screenshot
McKinney ran for president with the Green Party in 2008 after having served in Congress for several years as a Democrat. Her platform focused on ending the war in Iraq, repealing the Patriot Act, and containing the national debt. She won no electoral votes and got fewer in the popular vote than five other candidates, including former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who ran as an independent in 2008.
A search of her account on X shows that she started posting about Jewish people in 2022, but she has been posting transphobic messages since 2018, when she posted a trans person’s deadname and called her “a celebrated TRANSgender.” In 2021, she called former Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine, who is transgender and Jewish, a “transgender man.”
McKinney doesn’t appear to have a great opinion about gay people either, claiming in 2019 that “US television is running an ad to encourage people to come out as gay saying that they won’t believe the welcoming party waiting for them.” It’s not clear what ad she was referring to.
She also said in 2024 that the rapper Sean Combs’ “real crime was that he recorded the trysts of the aged Jewish homosexual owners of Hip Hop engaging in illicit acts” and not operating a sex trafficking operation, which is what his trial was actually about.
In October 2025, Canadian politicians from British Columbia (B.C.) gathered in the provincial capital to vote on a motion to symbolically condemn the “intolerant” and “harmful” views of the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), a far-right group that describes itself as a “Christian political advocacy organization.”
“They are an organization that wants to end the federal ban on the documented, harmful and sinister practice of conversion therapy,” Rohini Arora, a member of Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party, argued to her colleagues. “They’re the harassers in that story. The things that they stand for are about not letting people be who they are, not letting them love who they love.”
Every Conservative politician in the room refused to vote on the motion and instead walked out. This was likely due to former Conservative Party leader John Rustad asking his party members to “not participate in divisive politics.”
Despite the motion passing 48-3, ARPA is very active in Canadian politics. They’ve filed 322 communication lobbying reports with the Canadian government since 2012. Some of these include efforts to eliminate education around sexual orientation and gender identity in B.C.’s schools, as well as end access to gender-affirming care for minors. One of ARPA’s current fights is to overturn Canada’s ban on conversion therapy.
“Someone who struggles with unwanted same-sex attraction or sexual behavior … should be free to seek help to live their beliefs and identity, but this law forbids it,” ARPA states in an article titled “Changing Canada’s Conversion Therapy Ban.”
History and Leadership
Founded in 2007 as a national nonprofit, ARPA is associated with Reformed Christianity—a denomination that stems from the Protestant Reformation. The Christian Reformed Church states that “homosexual practice … is incompatible with obedience to the will of God.” Homosexuality is described as “a condition” for which Reformed Christians “must exercise the same compassion for same-sex oriented persons in their sins as [they] exercise for all other sinners.”
In an article published by a Reformed Christianity journal, pastors with trans congregants are advised that “the first line of response should be to call for confession and repentance.” The article encourages trans people to detransition by “correct[ing] or revers[ing] any steps that have been taken in the wrong direction (whether hormone treatment or reconstructive surgery).”
Since their founding, ARPA has grown significantly. According to their website, they have at least 12 employees, as well as main offices in southern B.C. and Ottawa, and chapters in Ontario, Alberta and B.C.
Many of ARPA’s lobbyists aim to push the Canadian government to pass anti-LGBTQ policies. Levi Minderhoud, ARPA’s B.C. manager—who has advocated for “the elimination of [sexual orientation and gender identity] in [B.C.] schools”—wrote an article in which he calls out “gender identity warriors.” In the piece, he quotes The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that penned Project 2025.
“It’s time that the Ontario Progressive Conservatives live up to their name, listen to Ontarians, and remove gender ideology from the classroom,” Minderhoud writes.
Through the years, ARPA’s anti-LGBTQ push has been prevalent in their communications. In a 2020 letter to pastors of Christian congregations in Canada, ARPA’s former director of law and policy, André M. Schutten, urges recipients to push back against the country’s new conversion therapy ban.
“Brothers, as Christians, we recognize that same-sex sexual desires and conduct, like any sexual desires or conduct that do not conform to God’s norms, are wrong and we must repent of them. … If this bill passes unamended, aspects of your ministry (to youth in particular) in an age of sexual confusion would be criminalized,” Schutten writes, adding action items that include praying, praying again and writing a letter to their Member of Parliament (MP).
Current Lobbying Efforts
Fast forward to now and ARPA is continuing a push to overturn Bill-C4, Canada’s conversion therapy ban, which illegalizes the ineffective practice linked to poor self-esteem, substance abuse, anxiety, depression and suicidality.
Screenshot/ARPA Canada
In defending their critique of the bill, ARPA quotes the late American psychologist Joseph Nicolosi.
Nicolosi authored “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality” and was a founder of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, an organization that promotes conversion therapy.
ARPA is also working against the Combatting Hate Act, or Bill C-9. If passed, this bill would lower the threshold for what counts as hate speech and would removethe good-faith defense, which protects an individual from being found guilty of hate speech if their views are based on religious texts.
In a Facebook video, ARPA lawyer John Sikkema speaks out against Bill C-9 and asks for Canadians’ help in “preserving religious freedom in Canada.”
“Join us in calling on Members of Parliament to preserve religious freedom in Canada, and specifically, the freedom to share publicly what the Bible teaches about marriage and sexuality,” says Sikkema, adding that folks should write to and call their MPs.
Much like far-right groups in the U.S., ARPA’s anti-LGBTQ views are driven by their interpretation of Christianity. “These groups interpret these bills and laws as Christian persecution. It is an attack on both their Christian values and their religion, in their minds,” says Carmen Celestini, a postdoctoral fellow with Queen’s University School of Religion. “If they cannot preach and evangelize to save [LGBTQ people] then it is understood as a direct attack on their religious practice and worldview.”
Offshoot Organizations
On top of their lobbying efforts, ARPA runs anti-LGBTQ offshoot organizations. Let Kids Be, for example, is dedicated to ending gender-affirming care for youth. “Stop medical transition for minors” is the lead line on their homepage, followed by false or misleading statements about trans health care, including one that implies that trans kids are experiencing body dysmorphia because of school bullies: “A middle schooler doesn’t understand that a bully mocking her body will not stop if her body changes,” the website reads.
In the summer of 2025, Let Kids Be put up a billboard near a highway in Hamilton, Ontario, that stated, “Stop medical transition for minors.” In response, the city’s mayor, Andrea Horwath, ordered the billboard to be taken down, leading ARPA to challenge the decision. The legal battle is ongoing.
The organization is also defending the Christian Heritage Party in a lawsuit against Hamilton after they tried to run anti-trans ads on the city’s bus shelters.
Against Gay Marriage
In addition to opposing gender-affirming health care and trans rights, ARPA is also against gay marriage. On their website, they link to a 2004 article with the headline “FOUR STUPID ARGUMENTS AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE… AND ONE GOOD ONE!”
In the article, the author writes, “Since God created the institution of Marriage, He gets to decide what it is, and what it isn’t,” and goes on to describe gay marriage as a “poor, sickly imitation the world is proposing.”
And in a 2025 ARPA article titled “TWENTY YEARS OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IN CANADA,” they describe gay marriage as a “fall into sin,” and the increase in Canadians’ support for marriage equality as “stark.”
Kayla Preston, Ph.D candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, says that using a pro-family model is a strategy used by far-right groups to mask homophobia. “Instead of saying, ‘We’re anti-LGBTQIA+,’ they’ll say, ‘We’re pro-traditional families. We’re pro-maintaining gender roles,’” she told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Celestini says homophobia and opposition to gay marriage is common among many far-right organizations in Canada. “ARPA is one amongst many (Action4Canada, Liberty Coalition Canada, Save Canada, etc.) and they interact, sending out a cohesive message to their followers. Those followers are the electorate, and are also very active politically,” she says. “Religious values can be an umbrella term that erases dogma and denomination from the equation and simply creates a movement.”
Training the Next Generation of Anti-LGBTQ Conservatives
As ARPA continues their lobbying efforts, they’re also training the next generation by running programs in an attempt to provide young Canadians with the “confidence to apply [their] faith wherever God calls [them].” One of their offerings is ARPA Academy, a four-week program based out of Ottawa, Canada’s capital and political epicenter. According to ARPA, participants will “dig into the biblical foundation for political action,” and are encouraged to see the academy as “a stepping stone towards further work in politics or the non-profit sector.”
And in September, ARPA is hosting their Foundations Conference. The conference is designed “to equip thoughtful Christians with a deeper understanding of how faith shapes public life” and will host multiple anti-LGBTQ speakers, including Nancy Pearcey, an evangelical author who claims that “males and females are counterparts to one another. … To embrace a same-sex identity, then, is to contradict that design.”
Proximity to Canada’s Conservative Party
Above all, ARPA’s key goal is to influence Canadian politics. And they’ve already formed relationships with Canadian politicians, where they communicate on issues ranging from justice and law enforcement to health. Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament Sam Oosterhoff spoke at an ARPA event in 2020, and again in 2024. And ARPA Niagara chapter director Dave Broere has donated to Oosterhoff’s campaign.
In May 2025, B.C. Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) John Rustad—who, at the time, was the leader of the B.C. Conservatives—attended an ARPA event at the B.C. legislature, along with a dozen other members of his party.
The decision to attend this event drew criticism from Elenore Sturko, a lesbian MLA.
“I was angry, and I felt hurt. … I think a lot about the young people who are growing up right now and are part of the LGBT community. I think that some of the toxicity has never been worse than it is now … and I just felt like, ‘You know what? I have a duty as someone who’s visible to actually stand up for our community,’” Sturko told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
How Anti-LGBTQ Hate Thrives in Canada
While ARPA’s goals defy what most citizens want—as 75% of Canadians supportgay unions—the organization is still allowed to operate as a nonprofit because it is working towards the “advancement of religion.” This means that even though ARPA promotes homophobic and transphobic ideas, they are able to continue their work because they are a protected Christian organization. And while a 2024 report floated the idea of removing religion as a charitable cause, it does not appear the protection is likely to disappear any time soon.
When it comes to the kinds of issues that far-right groups in the U.S. and Canada are concerned with, Celestini says that there isn’t much difference. To her, the most prominent distinction has to do with the way Americans and Canadians think and talk about the far right.
“Most people don’t know that the Proud Boys were started by a Canadian, or that we have a lot of really right-wing extremist groups here in the nation. I think that we’re subtler about it and quieter about it,” she says.
She says being more discreet can come at a cost, however, in that it allows Canadian far-right groups to quietly grow more extreme. “That is problematic because a lot of Christian nationalist groups are actually engaging with American Christian nationalists and extremists and not seeing it as Christian America or Christian Canada, but Christian North America,” she says.
ARPA is getting noticed south of the border. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), one of America’s most powerful Christian legal organizations that has been designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is also concerned with Canada’s Combatting Hate Act. According to an article the ADF released in January, the act demonstrates what happens “once fear leads people to empower the state to impose its view on fundamental matters by labeling dissenting speech as ‘hate.’”
As ARPA gains momentum, Preston says Canadians can equip themselves to identify and respond to far-right rhetoric.
“Be critical of anyone who gives you a very simple answer to a very complex question. So if anyone’s saying, ‘The economy’s bad because of these individual groups or this set of people,’ that’s probably something to be more critical of,” she says.
Celestini suggests combatting extremism by taking an approach rooted in emotional connection and understanding: “When we’re talking to people who are involved in sort of extremist ideas or are on the edge of going into these groups, paying attention to what it is that they’re afraid of is very helpful,” she says. “You need to talk to them on an emotional level and try to find out what that fear is behind the beliefs.”
It was a quiet Thursday ahead of Thanksgiving break at the University at Buffalo (UB) when Maria B. Quagliana received an email from the school that said campus police had confiscated several firearms from a student in response to reports of a “concerning conversation.”
That student was Jacob Cassidy, the president of UB’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a right-wing student group. Cassidy had been overheard threatening to shoot up the school, allegedly telling his friend that he had “a foldable AR in [his] bag,” adding: “I’ll shoot them in the foot and knee so they can’t get away.”
Quagliana, a first-year student at UB’s law school, had run into Cassidy a week earlier at a counter-protest of a YAF event in support of ICE deportations. While Cassidy has received an interim suspension, Quagliana has still felt “extremely anxious” since getting the alert.
“This person knows what I look like,” Quagliana told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I’ve had multiple panic attacks either in my car or waiting to walk into the building.”
Quagliana says that this was just the latest in a string of incidents surrounding YAF on campus. The group, which was prominent in the 1960s but faded into the background over time, has experienced a resurgence in activity nationwide and now reportedly has over 400 chapters at colleges and high schools in the U.S. That resurgence comes in the wake of the assassination of conservative campus activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) Charlie Kirk.
Like other right-wing campus groups, YAF has a reputation for provocative actions and rhetoric as well as for promoting anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Chapters have plastered campuses with chalk art denigrating gay marriage and hosted anti-trans speakers, including one who’s said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life.”
“Anti-LGBTQ groups on campus pose a unique threat to queer people because they’re in immediate proximity,” says Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, the author of “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America.”
“They have access to their LGBTQ peers that off-campus agitators often cannot get. Anti-gay clubs are well-positioned to surveil, report on, and harass queer students, faculty, and other college employees where they spend the majority of their day either studying, working, and, in many cases, residing.”
What Is YAF?
YAF was founded in 1960 by conservative activist William F. Buckley Jr. It was one of the first campus-focused groups from a new wave of American conservatism pioneered by presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. The group garnered the support of future president Ronald Reagan and made its mark as an incubator for conservative politicians and activists. Noteworthy alumni include former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Vice President Dan Quayle, as well as the founders of right-wing groups including the Leadership Institute and Citizens United.
Shepherd says YAF began falling apart in the 1970s and showed little sign of life until 2011, when it was officially made a subsidiary of the similarly named Young America’s Foundation, another right-wing group that hosts youth-focused conferences and programs and was a member of Project 2025’s advisory board. Since then, it has increased in prominence, alongside its much more popular counterpart TPUSA, propelled by funding from right-wing megadonors including the Koch Brothers and Richard and Helen DeVos.
Shepherd says that YAF’s revival took place as conservative activists began to emulate Donald Trump during his rise in 2015: more provocative, more confrontational and, in some cases, more extremist. In 2017, The New York Times reported on the group hosting controversial speakers like Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro. At the same time, YAF leaders would offer training to young activists, teaching them regulations on chalking, flyering and recording conversations. They’d also give them tips on how to pressure schools to cover security costs for speakers.
“The provocative ‘debate me bro’ or ‘prove me wrong’ is how groups with lesser profiles get noticed,” says Matthew Boedy, an English professor at the University of North Georgia and author of “The Seven Mountains Mandate,” a book published in September about Charlie Kirk and TPUSA. “But also, social media virality demands a provocation. And that is the goal.”
Shepherd also notes that the group’s higher-ups are not youth and have little connection to college campuses. Young America’s Foundation’s current president is 58-year-old former Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker.
“That has a lot to do with older people who want to spread the word about conservatism … and of course they’re going to recruit on college campuses, because those are young people who are getting ready to begin their careers,” says Shepherd. “So yes, I have seen the resurgence, but no, I don’t think it’s organic.”
Sowing Chaos
Part of that resurgence is due to the spike in campus conservative activity after Kirk’s assassination. In the two weeks after his death, TPUSA reported over 121,000 new chapter requests.
“After I heard about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I also was emboldened,” 20-year-old Kyle McBride told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I’ve never been a joiner, but after that, it made me want to get involved.”
McBride, an engineering student at Rose State College in Oklahoma, says his school was home to one of those new TPUSA chapters. And since it launched at the start of the semester, he says it’s grown to become the second largest student group on campus, with 60 members.
Carrying that momentum, McBride is working to start a YAF chapter at his school. He says his main motivation for doing so is to boost his resume and to connect with like-minded people.
McBride says he believes gender transition is “morally wrong” and that “transgenderism, as a concept, should not be allocated across the United States,” but that trans people “must still be treated with full dignity” and “compassion.” Scholars and advocates have argued that there is no meaningful distinction between “transgenderism” and the existence of trans people.
While McBride and other right-wingers see this new wave of activity as an opportunity, Ted Pranikoff, a sophomore environmental design major at UB, feels endangered. He says that he got into an altercation with right-wing protestors on campus that ended in them grabbing and yanking at his wheelchair. Pranikoff also remembers YAF members and affiliates calling him and his friends “fags” and shouting, “Cripple repent and be healed.”
While McBride doesn’t agree with using slurs and insults because it “robs the person of their dignity,” he is also a proponent of free speech and doesn’t support “censorship,” even if it involves hateful rhetoric.
“You sort of just have to not condone it, but you kind of just have to let it go,” McBride says. “The only thing that’s really left to do is just say, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’”
Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment
Still, many YAF chapters use inflammatory rhetoric to get a response from progressive students on campus, which they later post online to attract support from right-wing media.
The YAF chapter at Oklahoma State University has gotten backlash for discriminatory rhetoric, including chalk art opposing gay marriage with statements like, “Humanity dies without traditional marriage, 1 man + 1 woman.”
Photos of the chalk art (shared by an anonymous OSU student)
According to Jack Green, who graduated from UB in winter 2024, this behavior is not new.
“YAF made traps: They noticed some people were taking down their posters, so what they would do is that they would put up like 20 on one board, and then if somebody came and took it down, they would film them,” Green told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I don’t really know what their goal was besides wanting to doxx people, to harass people.”
As YAF’s resurgence continues, so does its anti-LGBTQ footprint. University of Iowa’s YAF chapter has faced calls for suspension following leaked messages from a group chat that showed members using transphobic slurs in a conversation about other students on campus.
At the University of Alabama, all student groups are required to include a non-discrimination clause in their constitution. However, after complaining to the university on an email chain that also included the state’s attorney general, the YAF chapter was given an exception that allowed them to remove the terms “gender identity,” “gender expression” and “sexual identity” from their statement.
And at the University of Utah, YAF put up several posters claiming that “men shouldn’t be in women’s bathrooms” and “the transgender movement harms children.”
Extremism
Shepherd describes the typical YAF student as someone who “[is] in a fraternity, potentially an athlete, maybe on the debate team, [or] wears a suit to school.”
But in terms of political ideology, its members vary widely. McBride says his politics are more aligned with his interpretation of Catholicism than with modern conservatism. As a result, he differs from the majority of the group on some issues.
“I’m big into civil liberties, maintaining and preserving dignity for all people,” he says. “I’m not strictly against Trump, but a lot of the things he does and says I’m not really on board with. But it’s the closest group that I could find that champions at least some of my ideology.”
The group also includes a sizable population of more violent radicals. In 2007, the YAF chapter at Michigan State University briefly held the dubious distinction of being the only college student group to be designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, following an anti-LGBTQ protest that included slogans such as “straight power” and “end faggotry.” In 2022, that chapter’s former leader reappeared on campus, causing one student’s thesis presentation on YAF’s connection to white nationalism to be moved online due to security concerns.
Cassidy, the allegedly thwarted shooter, seems to have had more radical beliefs for quite some time. Cain Pietraszewski, a UB student who went to high school with Cassidy, says he was a “very stereotypical redneck Republican.”
“He was very open about his opinions,” they say. “A lot of anti-immigration, anti-non-white, non-straight, non-cis stuff. … It didn’t surprise me that someone of [Cassidy’s] mindset would make these threats.”
Shepherd says this form of extremism isn’t representative of YAF as a whole, “but they’re not an anomaly either. … It’s a strong contingency.”
Boedy says that contingency has grown because white nationalist influencerNick Fuentes has pushed campus conservatism further to the right.
“There’s a different type of aggression or provocateurism that has come along in recent years, especially since Nick Fuentes came on the scene—he criticized and ambushed and did all different types of things to Turning Point to get it to be more racist,” Boedy says. “His followers will infiltrate these groups [and] become leaders. … He has influence on a lot of people who claim membership in Turning Point and YAF.”
At the same time, there are signs that anti-LGBTQ hate has been on the rise. In 2024, The Washington Post reported that annual hate crimes against LGBTQ people on both K-12 and college campuses had more than double the average for the latter half of the 2010s.
“It feels like [YAF] were almost restrained beforehand, and now they have permission to be mask-off, in-your-face racist,” says Pranikoff.
McBride says he’s not surprised to hear about this increase in extremism, but also says it wouldn’t dissuade him from starting his chapter.
“I was not intimately aware of YAF and its proclivity to produce or attract people like that, but I’m also not really surprised in general because this new alt-right pipeline is very potent,” he says. “If people come in and they’re interested in Catholicism, then I could probably easily dissuade them from a white supremacist or white nationalist kind of stance. But for people who are just with that view just because … I don’t know what I’d do with those people.”
Legal Threats
Despite YAF’s connection to radicalism, Green says the group is “coddled” by UB’s administration and often gets off with lighter treatment than other campus groups. He compares their reaction to YAF protests, which he says have rarely drawn the attention of campus police, with 2024’s pro-Palestinian encampment protests, where officers tackled and arrested protestors. More recently, campus police removed LGBTQ student activists from a sit-in protest at the end of the fall 2025 semester.
“Compared to us, it’s like night and day,” Green says. “YAF filming students without their consent, that didn’t cause them to have any [administrative] backlash at all. There also seems to be this weird support from the [campus police department] for YAF—whenever there’s a demonstration, you can always see a YAFer and a cop talking to each other and being friendly, while their relationship to basically everyone else is much more hostile.”
One reason may be that YAF chapters nationwide often respond to university backlash with legal threats. Last March, YAF’s Gettysburg College chapter filed a complaint with the Department of Education, accusing numerous diversity-related campus programs and LGBTQ student groups of “ongoing civil rights violations against conservative students.” And a legal threat convinced the University of Wisconsin-Madison to waive more than $4,000 in security and event fees for one of YAF’s events.
“Part of that can be explained by the fact that many YAF alumni are lawyers,” Shepherd says. “It’s a low-cost tactic because it’s in their professional wheelhouse. Lawsuits—or even just the threat of a suit—tend to scare colleges. They’d rather avoid a suit or settle than risk a headline.”
Protest against Daily Wire Correspondent Michael Knowles’ speech at University at Buffalo. (WGRZ)
One of the first major actions Green remembers from YAF was inviting a correspondent for the right-wing media outlet The Daily Wireto speak on campus just days after an infamous speech where he said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.” In response, the school changed some of its policies regarding affiliations between campus and national organizations, leading YAF to lose its official organization status. The group then lawyered up with Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom and sued for first amendment violations and discrimination.
While the lawsuit, in which Cassidy was named as a plaintiff, was eventually dismissed, the policy YAF took issue with was repealed before it ever even went into effect.
“UB backed down immediately,” Green says. “They seem to be afraid of their lawyers, but also trying to have this weird middle ground, trying to be this very open queer-friendly university but also wanting to have this very conservative, homophobic … group on campus.”
What Can Universities Do?
Shepherd and Boedy both say that while Kirk’s killing has emboldened campus conservatives in the short term, it’s unclear if and how that will continue.
“Whatever momentum or inertia was behind Charlie Kirk as a man, there’s evidence to me that that has died off,” Shepherd says. “Now, ideologues and funders, those people are still invested in stirring the pot and poking the fire and keeping it alive.”
Shepherd says that universities should be more courageous in calling out hate among their students.
“We’ve seen how administrators have buckled under pressure from free speech absolutists on the right,” Shepherd says. “What administrators and media organizations that cover higher ed can do is recognize right-wing hate speech for the threat that it is, and be brave enough to protect the speech of their most marginalized students.”
In just the first year of the second Trump administration, the federal government has taken action to pull back or erase key sources of data about LGBTQ people. These data losses are occurring as the administration aggressively advances an anti-LGBTQ—and particularly anti-transgender—policy agenda.
New research by The Williams Institute finds that approximately 360 federal data collections have removed at least one sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI) measure, the majority of which specifically target transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive people.
In response, today the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) released a new report that reviews recent progress in federal LGBTQ data collection, documents the scope and consequences of current demographic data removals and rollbacks, and outlines strategies and resources to promote accountability and responsible data governance in an increasingly hostile federal environment. A Shifting Data LandscapeAfter years of substantial progress to strengthen federal data collection on underserved communities, including LGBTQ populations, under the Biden administration, President Trump’s Executive Order 14168 quickly sought to dismantle any and all institutionalized improvements in federal SOGI data collection processes. The executive order, which seeks to redefine sex for all federal policy purposes as binary and immutable, led to federal agencies removing SOGI data measures on existing data collections, prohibiting their future collection, and stopping ongoing methodological research.
The report explains the critical nature of these data, which enable policymakers, researchers, and service providers to identify disparities, allocate resources equitably, and deliver effective programs and services that respond to the needs of LGBTQ communities. The systematic removal of these measures renders LGBTQ people and their experiences invisible, obscuring the real-world harms and other impacts of policy decisions. Recent ChangesDue to 83% of SOGI removals not undergoing a formal public notice-and-comment period, little public visibility has been given to these changes. The report includes a list of concrete examples of removals that have occurred over the past 12 months, including the Household Pulse Survey, American Housing Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the National Crime Victimization Survey, and many more.
In addition, the report brings attention to the Census Bureau’s recent decision to halt research assessing the feasibility of adding gender identity measures to the American Community Survey, the nation’s premier survey used to shape evidence based policy decisions, allocate trillions of dollars in public resources, and support enforcement of civil rights laws to protect people from discrimination. Hiding Harms & Masking Policy Impacts The elimination of federal LGBTQ data is part of a larger agenda. That agenda includes cuts to Medicaid, restrictions on gender-affirming care, cancelation of LGBTQ health research dollars, elimination of civil rights protections and attempts to deny the reality that transgender, nonbinary, gender expansive, and intersex people exist and have rights under the law. When SOGI data are selectively erased, altered, or suppressed, it becomes harder to track disparities, enforce civil rights laws, allocate resources fairly, or evaluate whether policies are working as intended.
“Removing SOGI data is not a neutral administrative change; it is a mechanism that obscures harm, limits accountability, and weakens the evidence base needed for effective and equitable policymaking and governance. The rapid elimination of these critical data ensures that harms driven by these anti-LGBTQ policies are more difficult to detect, measure, and challenge.”
— Caroline Medina, MAP’s Senior Advisor for Data Policy and Strategy
Moreover, the increased misuse and weaponization of data has led to increased distrust by underserved communities, which discourages participation, degrading data quality, and reinforcing cycles of invisibility and exclusion.
While LGBTQ communities may be among some of the first to feel these harms, the consequences extend far beyond any single population. Paths Ahead Currently, a range of accountability efforts are underway to monitor data removals, challenge unlawful actions, and support ethical, responsible SOGI data collection both at and beyond the federal level.
As the federal government withdraws from collecting SOGI data, it is increasingly critical that states, nonprofits, academic institutions, and private entities ensure ethical, responsible, and well-governed data practices. The report offers recommendations for those interested in LGBTQ-inclusive data collection, in addition to a short list of resources that have been developed to help researchers, policy experts, advocates, and the public understand the evolving landscape of federal data collection, access inclusive datasets, support ongoing advocacy and accountability work, and promote good data governance.
“SOGI data are essential building blocks to help understand how policies are affecting real people, and where interventions are most urgently needed,” Medina added. “Taking action to promote accountability, scientific integrity, and transparency, while combating misuse and protecting communities, is paramount.”
To schedule an interview with a MAP researcher or for questions, please contact Dana Juniel at dana@mapresearch.org. # # # About MAP: MAP’s mission is to provide independent and rigorous research, insight and communications that help speed equality and opportunity for all. MAP works to ensure that all people have a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate in civic life. www.mapresearch.org
Sgt. Deon Jones, a gay, 24-year veteran officer with the Department of Corrections (DOC) in Washington, D.C. got a big payout with the district’s decision last week to award him $500,000 to resign, effectively immediately.
The city admitted no fault in a lawsuit Jones brought that accused department and city officials of anti-gay discrimination.
It’s the third lawsuit Jones has filed against the same parties over his long tenure with the department, and the latest to yield a settlement. He previously sued in 2006 for discrimination and harassment, with the city settling in 2011. They settled another dispute over his treatment at the DOC in 2019.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the latest complaint in 2021, along with the white-shoe law firm WilmerHale, representing the corrections officer.
Jones first began working for the DOC in 1992, was laid off in 2001, and returned in 2006. He retires from the city agency as a medical liaison with the rank of sergeant.
“This is a horrific pattern of discrimination and retaliation that was known to the highest-level officials and ignored,” Scott Michelman, the Legal Director of ACLU District of Columbia, said in 2021 when the latest suit was filed.
While working at the DOC-managed D.C. Jail, Jones “endured pervasive acts of harassment based on his sexual orientation” that were so bad, he eventually suffered more than 15 panic attacks and was diagnosed both with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder, the ACLU said in a summary of the case that accompanied the complaint.
The lawsuit named Jones’ supervisors as well as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) as defendants who enacted or failed to stop the “loss of wages, loss of benefits, mental anguish, emotional distress, personal humiliation, indignity, embarrassment, inconvenience, stigma, pain and suffering, and damages to [Jones’s] personal and professional reputations.”
Jones alleged that in addition to regular abuse and threats from inmates, his own co-workers and fellow correctional staff called him slurs and verbally abused him: some told Jones they “don’t like f**got[s] or sissies,” and “hate working with f**gots.” The complaint alleged he was repeatedly called “f**got, “old f**got,” “f**got mess,” and “d**k eater” by DOC co-workers and even senior staff.
Not only did Jones receive verbal disrespect, but he often had his “safety at risk” because other officers refused “to answer his calls for assistance over the internal radio system when he was responding to inmates or attempting to execute his duties,” according to the complaint.
Jones also alleged that he was “almost raped” when he was left alone in an elevator with “an inmate who said he would cut my throat.” He said a supervisor was on duty at the time, but did nothing to help him.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones said after the award was announced. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered — and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences.”
Added the former officer: “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
A large Pride flag has been removed from a flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan, weeks after the Department of the Interior issued federal guidance on displaying “non-agency” flags in the National Park System. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Manhattan borough president, said that the directive from the Trump administration, issued on Jan. 21, led to the removal of the flag from the Greenwich Village monument.
Mr. Hoylman-Sigal criticized the decision in an interview. “The mean-spiritedness of the Trump administration seems to know no bounds,” said Mr. Hoylman-Sigal, who is gay. “But we as a community are not going to take it standing by idly as our history, and by extension our human rights, are attempted to be erased.”
Mr. Hoylman-Sigal said he and other local representatives are planing to raise the flag at the monument again on Thursday. “We may be prevented from doing so,” he said. “But if we don’t seize this moment, and this outrage, I think we’ll let down generations of queer activists.”
Read the full article. Longtime JMG readers will recall Hoylman-Sigal’s tireless work for marriage equality in the New York Senate.
State legislative session has begun in many parts of the U.S. this month, offering opportunities for state- and local-based activations for LGBTQ people, their families, and their allies.
Early action at statehouses include passage of a disturbing bill in Kansas that ultimately seeks to strip personal liberties from transgender people, banning them from accessing restrooms that match who they are in government buildings and making it impossible for them to access accurate documents. Lawmakers forced the bill to passage by suspending legislative rules and prohibiting participation from the public.
“Bills like this are exactly why everyday Americans are fed up with lawmakers who prioritize targeting innocent people instead of solving actual problems, and then have the gall to try to hide their actions,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s President and CEO, in response to the news. “Transgender people, like all of us, deserve the dignity to be themselves and to be safe to go about their daily lives without harassment. Every taxpayer and family should let their elected leaders know that their voices matter too and they must be allowed to review and comment on any government action that strips people’s rights and humanity. Everyday people are barely able to make ends meet, pay the rent, or afford groceries and health care. Elected officials should start listening to the people and stop playing dangerous games with people’s lives.”
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has consistently vetoed a number of anti-transgender bills previously passed in the legislature. Although anti-equality lawmakers hold a supermajority that can override an executive veto, ACLU of Kansas and local advocates urge constituents to continue contacting their lawmakers and speaking out about the bill’s harm. Kansans can easily do so by visiting ksleglookup.org.
Florida
Equality Florida hosted its Let Us Live March at the Florida statehouse in Tallahassee this past Weds., Jan. 28, as part of its Pride at the Capitol series in which lobbyists and volunteers show a strong presence at the Capitol every day throughout the 60-day legislative session currently taking place. Hundreds of Floridians have already participated and shown up to make their voices heard. Marchers chanted “This is what democracy looks like” as they showcased a strong presence in front of the statehouse just yesterday. In addition, Equality Florida recently announced its incoming executive director, Stratton Pollitzer, who is stepping into the role after co-founding the organization nearly 30 years ago and most recently serving as Deputy Director.
“Speaking out at the hearings in opposition or in support of bills really changes how people see things. But more importantly, I learned that my story is the most important aspect of that. And I can’t tell my story if I’m not here,” said Angelique Godwin, Director of Transgender Equality at Equality Florida, in a video highlighting the need to get involved.
In 2025, Floridians stopped every single anti-LGBTQ bill filed by bringing out hundreds of volunteers in-person at the statehouse and thousands more participating by phone and letter-writing to their legislators.
This year, Equality Florida has already mobilized volunteers and families to oppose HB 743/ SB 1010, extreme legislation that would permit the Attorney General sweeping authority to investigate and sue school staff and health care providers under vague and undefined standards, intensifying Florida’s attacks on transgender youth and LGBTQ communities and aiming to intimidate and punish public servants who support them. The bill faces ongoing consideration at the committee levels in the House and Senate. Equality Florida is also urging residents to speak out against HB 1471/ SB 1632, the “Outlawing Activism Bill,” an extreme escalation of state terror against those who disagree with the government. That bill is also currently up for consideration at the committee level.
With the same relentless advocacy as last year, Equality Florida and its supporters will again defeat the legislature’s proposed anti-LGBTQ bills in 2026. Click here to sign up for shifts!
Missouri
Missouri has kicked off their legislative session as well, with anti-LGBTQ lawmakers introducing a number of hostile bills — not unusual for the state, but again highlighting a need for early organizing and coalition-building.
So far, the House has already heard seven anti-trans bills. PROMO, the lead equality advocacy group in the state, is urging Missouri residents to submit online testimony opposing HB 1998. This bill forces state agencies to revoke funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, building off a dangerous executive order passed by the Governor last year.
Voters in the state will additionally face a ballot measure in November concerning both health care for transgender people, and reproductive freedom for women and girls. PROMO recently announced it will be celebrating its 40th anniversary later this year – an opportunity to celebrate the long term organizing that advocates have built from the ground up and to enjoy company among like-minded residents.
State-Level Anti-LGBTQ Bills Introduced Elsewhere in 2026
The overwhelming majority of anti-LGBTQ bills get defeated every year. That’s because of persistence and action. When people get to know the LGBTQ community and hear our stories, we are able to change hearts and minds and build understanding about our community that dispels the dangerous myths and misconceptions that drive anti-LGBTQ bills.
Make sure to follow GLAAD on all our social channels to stay informed about local action alerts and ways to get involved in your community!
The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles will no longer accept court orders or medical documentations recognising transgender residents’ gender changes, effectively banning trans people from changing their gender markers on state ID.
The change was announced in a small post on the BMV’s website on 9 February and went into effect on 12 February, meaning people had just three days to act.
In a statement released on 9 February, LGBTQ+ advocacy group Indiana Youth Group said: “Denying people the ability to update the gender marker on their identification is not only discriminatory; it is dangerous. In an increasingly hostile climate, mismatched identification can expose individuals to harassment, threats, and violence. It can also create serious barriers to employment, housing, and access to essential services.”
It continued: “For many LGBTQ+ young people – like those served by IYG – affirming identification is more than paperwork. It is a matter of safety, dignity, and basic recognition by their state.”
The change had been proposed twice before in July and November 2025, but both times it was criticised by the people of Indiana.
“The people of Indiana spoke clearly and repeatedly against this policy, and the BMV chose to ignore them,” said IYG CEO Chris Paulsen.
“Quietly implementing a rule that puts transgender Hoosiers at risk – while offering no transparency or meaningful notice – is not governance. It’s cruelty,” they continued. “Our young people deserve a state that protects their safety and dignity, not one that deliberately puts them in harm’s way.”
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, second-wave feminism, a.k.a. women’s liberation, was gathering steam, but it still didn’t have widespread support. Many Americans wondered why feminists would protest the revered Miss America pageant, as they did in 1968. “Women’s lib” was a punch line for comedians, and TV shows often presented feminist characters in a negative light. Amid all this, some feminist leaders were worried that their movement would have an image problem because of the presence of … lesbians.
Betty Friedan was one of the feminists particularly worried about lesbians. Friedan authored The Feminine Mystique, a 1963 book that revealed the dissatisfaction many women felt with traditional roles. It helped inspire second-wave feminism, although it was criticized for its focus on affluent white straight women. In 1966, Friedan and others founded the National Organization for Women, which became the leading U.S. feminist group.
At a 1969 NOW meeting, Friedan declared that the movement was being threatened by a “lavender menace,” that is, lesbians. “Mainstream media had already dismissed the feminist movement as ‘a bunch of bra-burning lesbians,’ so Friedan and other straight feminist leaders were acutely sensitive to this labeling — and dismissal — of all feminists as lesbians,” Victoria A. Brownworth wrote in a column published by The Advocate in 2023. “Friedan wanted ‘feminine feminists’ in the movement.”
Friedan went on to purge lesbians from NOW, including Rita Mae Brown, then editor of NOW’s newsletter and soon to be an iconic author, and Ivy Bottini, who had designed the organization’s logo. Friedan feared that lesbians “would kill the women’s movement,” Bottini told The Advocate’s LGBTQ&Apodcast in 2020, adding, “That was Betty Friedan’s image in her head.”
However, they and other lesbians weren’t about to go quietly. They fought back in a big way the following year.
In 1970, NOW’s Second Congress to Unite Women was held in New York City. One night during the conference, women from Radicalesbians and other lesbian-inclusive feminist groups crashed the meeting. They turned the lights off, then turned them back on, and made their presence known, with some lining the aisles and others in the audience. Many of them wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Lavender Menace.”
“I was dressed in a nice blouse. I stood up and I said, ‘Sisters, I’m so tired of being in the closet in the women’s movement. This is too much already.’ And I ripped my blouse off, and I had a ‘Lavender Menace’ T-shirt underneath,” activist Karla Jay told NBC News in 2024.
The lesbian demonstrators and held signs with slogans such as “We are all lesbians,” “Lesbianism is a women’s liberation plot,” and “We are your worst nightmare, your best fantasy.” They took over the stage and demanded that the women’s movement address issues of concern to lesbians.
“NOW leaders attempted to restore their planned session and a few women left, but the majority of the audience was engaged by the action’s humor and theatricality,” notes an online article from the NYC LGBTQ Historical Sites Project. “The Menaces held the floor for over two hours, inviting all attendees to share their thoughts and questions on lesbianism. Many straight women thanked Menaces for making them confront their feelings about lesbianism, and Black and working-class women connected with the Menaces’ feelings of exclusion in the women’s liberation movement.” The following year, NOW adopted a resolution recognizing “oppression of lesbians as a legitimate concern of feminism.”
Lesbian inclusion progressed further at the National Women’s Conference, held in 1977 in Houston to mark International Women’s Year. The conference was something hard to imagine today — it was funded by Congress with bipartisan support, as politicians wanted “to find out what women wanted the government to do,” notes a blog post from the Organization of American Historians. (That didn’t keep far-right leaders, including Phyllis Schlafly, from organizing a competing event.)
Along with discussions of the Equal Rights Amendment, reproductive freedom, childcare, workplace equality, and more, delegates at the conference considered lesbian rights. They came together on a National Plan of Action, consisting of 26 planks that they said “ran the gamut of issues that touch women’s lives.”
“The most controversial plank” was “the one calling for equal protection under the law regardless of ‘sexual preference,’” according to the Organization of American Historians blog. (“Sexual preference,” a term considered offensive today, was accepted language at the time.) In adopting this plank, the conference attendees clapped back at Anita Bryant’s antigay crusade, which had resulted in the repeal of a gay rights ordinance in Miami that year. Such homophobia “led many straight feminists to conclude that their lesbian sisters needed their support,” the OAH article relates.
“When the plank was adopted, lesbians in the balconies erupted with cheers of “thank you, sisters!” the article continues. “One reporter described a great sense of satisfaction that she detected in the feminist delegates, proud of themselves for having adopted the lesbian rights plank in bold defiance of the right. This, she wrote, seemed to confirm that they were, in fact, better than men. It was ‘impossible to imagine a comparable group of men conquering their sexual fear of each other and rising to embrace male homosexuals, and these women knew that.’”
Also at the conference, Friedan apologized for her use of the term “lavender menace.”
The women’s movement hasn’t been without tensions and challenges since then, but the conference did make clear that lesbians were welcome in the movement and integral to it. Such inclusion likely wouldn’t have happened without the Lavender Menace action of 1970, and the women who participated in it have advice for present-day activists.
“Our movement is needed right here, right now,” one of them, Flavia Rando, told NBC in 2024. “It’s really because we’re an easy scapegoat, an easy target. There’s kind of a gender hysteria in the country right now.”
“It didn’t matter that there were only 30 or 40 of us, and I think that young people today can do what they want and not be afraid that there aren’t enough of them to make social change,” Jay told the network. “They have to have the courage of their convictions and go out and organize, and they have to decide what dream they want to follow. Don’t follow my dream. I’m still marching, but I want them to pick up their own torches and march up the street as well.”
