National

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Whispering Wind Spirit Bear, a non-binary Indigenous person, killed during robbery

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Whispering Wind Bear Spirit, a non-binary Indigenous person, has been shot and killed in York, Pennsylvania. Whispering Wind has become at least the 22nd known trans person violently killed in the US in 2021, according to HRC, though estimates by other groups are higher and all agree that any reported numbers are likely an underestimate. According to the Advocate, Whispering Wind was shot in the torso late on Monday, 3 May, while trying to stop an attempted robbery at a home they were staying in. They were rushed into emergency surgery but passed away in the early hours of 4 May at […]

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Vermont becomes 13th state to officially ban gay and trans panic defenses

Vermont has banned gay and trans panic defences, marking a major victory for the state’s LGBT+ community. Republican governor Phil Scott signed H 128 into law on Wednesday (5 May) after the state legislature nearly unanimously passed it earlier this year. The legislation prohibits the usage of a victim’s gender identity or sexual orientation as a justification for the criminal actions of a defendant. The decades-old legal strategy, commonly known as the LGBT+ “panic defence”, asks a jury to find that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for another person’s violent reaction, including murder. It can also be […]

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Black LGBT+ teen found dead weeks ago, but police are only now investigating

Mikayla Miller, a 16-year-old member of the LGBT+ community, was found dead hanging from a tree in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, last month. In the death of a teenager that has touched off feelings of anger and suspicion against the authorities, Miller was found dead in a woodland area just a stone’s throw away from her home on the morning of 18 April. Just hours before her death, Miller had been attacked by a group of teens in the common area of her apartment complex, left with a bloodied lip, police said. State law enforcement initially refused to treat her death as […]

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Atlanta Police Seek Help In Spree Of Grindr Robberies

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports: Authorities are warning members of Atlanta’s LGBT community to remain cautious following a string of robberies that began as conversations on the popular gay dating app Grindr. Investigators said several men have been robbed in recent months and believe there may be additional victims who have not come forward. “From February to May, we have had eight instances where male victims were lured to remote locations by use of the Grindr app,” said Sgt. Rodney Jones, who works in APD’s robbery unit. “After the date concludes, the suspect will rob the victim, often taking their wallets, keys […]

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How do you make the government fairer to underserved communities? The Biden administration wants to know.

In a first-of-its-kind effort, the Biden administration is asking people from both the public and the private sectors for their ideas about how to make sure the federal government equitably serves historically underserved communities. Responses to a “request for information” from the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, would help identify gaps in budgeting and policy that aggravate inequality, particularly among communities of color, women, religious minorities, LGBTQ people, disabled people and rural communities, the agency said in announcing the initiative Tuesday. The office, which works to assist the president in meeting policy, budget and regulatory goals, will coordinate […]

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Undoing 4 years of ‘damage’: LGBTQ advocates on Biden’s first 100 days

Finn Cooper, who lives in Cincinnati, volunteered for the Michigan Democratic Party to call voters in the swing state on behalf of the Biden-Harris presidential campaign in the months leading up to the election. Cooper, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said they supported Joe Biden’s message on LGBTQ rights. “I thought he seemed like a good candidate — much better than Trump, of course, and I do think he has done infinitely better than Donald Trump on these issues,” Cooper, 20, said. “At the administration level, I think he’s done well. The problem I think more comes down to the legislative […]

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Biden administration to let embassies fly the Pride flag on the same pole as the US flag

The Biden-Harris administration has given blanket approval for US embassies to fly the LGBT+ Pride flag on the same flagpole as the US flag. Secretary of state Antony Blinken has made good on his vow to authorise US diplomatic outposts across the world to fly both flags with, well, pride from the same halyard. n doing so, Blinken overturned a Trump-era ban that paves the way for envoys to fly them before 17 May, which is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, and Pride Month in June. According to a confidential cable reviewed by Foreign Policy, while the directive removes both the ban […]

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Survivor of Pulse nightclub massacre is tired of gun violence being ‘normalized’

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Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting, has insisted that it “isn’t impossible to solve” gun violence. Since the the June 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which saw 49 mostly Latinx LGBT+ people killed, there have been at least 50 mass shootings in the US, according to GLAAD. Wolf was one of the survivors of the atrocity and a lead gun reform advocate. Speaking with the podcast LGBTQ&A, produced by The Advocatemagazine in partnership with GLAAD, Wolf said: “It’s sad that we’ve almost allowed ourselves to feel like violence is inevitable, especially against young people. “The reality is not that […]

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Montana Gov Signs Anti-LGBT “Religious Freedom” Bill

The Montana Standard reports: Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte on Thursday signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, bolstering religious beliefs as a claim or defense in court. Democrats and other opponents have decried the new law, arguing it would empower people to freely discriminate against LGBTQ people with beliefs that they are immune in the courts. Democratic lawmakers in both chambers who are LGBTQ shared soul-bearing testimony in floor sessions about the message the bill’s passage would send to communities who already suffer discrimination. The legislation spurred opponents to rally outside the Capitol, while more than 250 companies co-signed a letter opposing SB […]

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Vermont to become 13th US state to ban ‘senseless’ gay and trans panic defences

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Vermont is on track to become the 13th US state to ban the outdated and abhorrent gay and trans panic defences. The Vermont Senate unanimously voted Wednesday (21 April) to sign a state measure that will stop defendants from citing a victim’s sexuality or gender, perceived or otherwise, to justify the killing of queer people. The decades-old legal strategy, long used to chillingly win a jury’s sympathy, lessen charges or shorten a sentence, says that people kill or become violent in a state of temporary insanity because the victim is LGBT+. While the defence has never been used in the […]

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