National

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Boston LGBTQ senior housing project vandalized with hate speech

A Boston affordable housing project for LGBTQ seniors was vandalized with homophobic and threatening graffiti Sunday. The Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization that is leading the housing project’s construction, LGBTQ Senior Housing Inc., shared photos of the hateful messages — including “we will burn this” and “the f—– will die by fire” — on Facebook over the weekend. “We were heartbroken to wake up this morning to the terrible news that The Pryde was vandalized overnight with hate speech and threats spraypainted on virtually every sign,” the group wrote in a statement on Facebook, referring to the project’s name. “We will not let bullies and […]

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Same-sex couples updating legal status after abortion ruling

Emails and phone calls from same-sex couples, worried about the legal status of their marriages and keeping their children, flooded attorney Sydney Duncan’s office within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. The ruling last week didn’t directly affect the 2015 decision that paved the way for same-sex marriage. But, Duncan said, it was still a warning shot for families headed by same-sex parents who fear their rights could evaporate like those of people seeking to end a pregnancy. “That has a lot of people scared and, I think, rightfully so,” said Duncan, who specializes […]

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Hawaii museum revisits history of gender-fluid healers

More than 500 years ago, Hawaiians placed four boulders on a Waikiki beach to honor visitors from the court of Tahiti’s king who had healed the sick. They were “mahu,” which in Hawaiian language and culture refers to someone with dual male and female spirit and a mixture of gender traits. The stones were neglected for many years, as Christian missionaries and other colonizing Westerners suppressed the role of mahu in Hawaiian society. At one point a bowling alley was built over the boulders. Officials restored the stones multiple times since the 1960s but informational plaques installed next to them […]

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Proud Boys flashmob library’s family Pride event as terrorized staff frantically cancels event

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Members of the Proud Boys disrupted yet another Pride-themed children’s program at a public library earlier this week. On Monday, seven men wearing the violent far-right group’s signature black and yellow polo shirts and other Proud Boys paraphernalia entered the St. Joseph County Public Library’s Virginia M. Tutt Branch in South Bend, IN where the Rainbow Family Storytime and arts and crafts event was scheduled to take place. Photos posted on social media also show the men flashing white supremacist hand signs while smiling for the camera. Members of the extremist group, whose leaders were indicted earlier this month on charges of […]

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Democrats introduce Transgender Bill of Rights to fight Republican anti-LGBTQ attacks

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As Republican attacks on transgender people continue nationwide, five Democratic House representatives have introduced a Transgender Bill of Rights that would protect trans and non-binary people. The bill would ban discrimination against gender identity and expression in public accommodations, employment, housing, and credit. The bill would also ensure access to gender-affirming medical care — including abortion and contraception — and would ban forced surgery on intersex children and infants. Intersex individuals are often subject to unnecessary genital surgeries before they can provide informed consent. The bill would ban so-called “conversion therapy,” the pseudoscientific form of mental torture that purports to […]

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As Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law takes effect, schools roll out LGBTQ restrictions

As Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law — or what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law —  comes into effect Friday, some of the state’s public school districts have begun rolling out new policies to limit LGBTQ issues and identities from being discussed in the classroom. On Tuesday night, the Leon County School Board unanimously approved its “LGBTQ Inclusive School Guide,” which includes a provision to alert parents if a student who is “open about their gender identity” is in their child’s physical education class or with them on an overnight school trip. “Upon notification or determination of a student […]

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Pelosi hints at legislation to codify same-sex marriage rights

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted at the possibility of legislation to codify the right of same-sex couples to marry, which many fear is in danger after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, as part of an effort to secure “freedoms which Americans currently enjoy.” Pelosi suggested such legislation could be in the works in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Monday to fellow members of the House Democratic caucus addressing plans for congressional action after the ruling last week in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization, which eliminated the right for women to access an abortion. The concurrence of […]

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Clarence Thomas wants to let anti-LGBTQ church sue because they were called a “hate group”

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expressed interest in loosening libel and defamation laws to allow an anti-LGBTQ hate church to sue an organization that called them out as a hate group. Thomas, who supports ending same-sex marriage in the U.S., expressed this interest in his recent dissent disagreeing with the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the anti-LGBTQ church’s case. He was the lone dissenter to comment on the court’s recent refusal to hear a lawsuit brought by D. James Kennedy Ministries, an evangelical Christian media company that operates the Florida-based Coral Ridge Ministries (CRM). CRM sued the Southern Poverty […]

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LGBTQ lawmakers win primaries in 3 states

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The most recent round of primary elections this week saw wins for LGBTQ lawmakers in at least three states ahead of November’s general election. Former meteorologist Eric Sorensen won the Democratic primary for Illinois’s 17th Congressional District, putting him on track to be the first out LGBTQ lawmaker ever elected to Congress from the state. He’ll face off against Republican nominee Esther Joy King in November in a race that the New York Times is calling a toss-up. In Colorado, incumbent Gov. Jared Polis (D) will defend his seat against Republican nominee Heidi Ganahl. The only out gay man elected governor of a U.S. […]

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These anti-LGBTQ laws go into effect today

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Nearly a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills are scheduled to go into effect today in states across the U.S. Alabama, Florida, Indiana, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah will all see restrictions placed on trans athletes, bans on LGBTQ topics in public schools, and other laws. More than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state houses across the county this year. Over two dozen have passed, and ten of those go into effect today—a grim record for 2022. According to the Trevor Project, July 1 represents the single day when the most anti-LGBTQ bills will be implemented this year. “We’ve already seen […]

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