A former library director in Wyoming has won $700,000 in a settlement after she was fired for refusing to remove books containing content about sexual health and LGBTQ+ identities.
Terri Lesley, director of Campbell County Public Library, was removed from her position in July, 2023 after 27 years of service when the Campbell County library board voted four to one to fire her. The board had pushed for two years to convince Lesley to remove the collection of books, which some had claimed were inappropriate for minors.
Under the settlement, Lesley has agreed to drop her lawsuit against the state, though a separate lawsuit she has filed against the three individuals who challenged the books will move foward.
“I do feel vindicated. It’s been a rough road, but I will never regret standing up for the First Amendment,” Lesley said, via The Associated Press.
Some of the books Lesley refused to remove included Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson, How Do You Make a Baby by Anna Fiske, Doing It by Hannah Witton, Sex is a Funny Word by Corey Silverberg, and Dating and Sex: A Guide for the 21st Century Teen Boy by Andrew P. Smiler.
Lesley’s firing came not long after the library board voted in October, 2022 to leave the American Library Association, a group that promotes libraries, and the Wyoming Library Association, its state chapter.
Books bans were at a record high two years ago when Lesley was fired — a record that has since been broken. During the 2024-2025 school year, PEN America recorded 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts, affecting 3,752 titles. They represented the work of 2,308 authors, 243 illustrators, and 38 translators.
“We hope at least that it sends a message to other library districts, other states, other counties, that the First Amendment is alive and strong and that our values against discrimination also remain alive and strong,” said Lesley’s attorney, Iris Halpern. “These are public entities, they’re government officials, they need to keep in mind their constitutional obligations.”
As the federal government shutdown enters its 12th day on Sunday, the Trumpadministration has implemented a comprehensive purge of the federal public health workforce, laying off thousands of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The cuts have dismantled critical programs in family planning, LGBTQ+ and adolescent health, and infectious disease surveillance, leaving experts warning that the United States is entering the viral respiratory infection season flying blind.
The Office of Management and Budget confirmed “substantial” reductions in force across multiple agencies.
OMB Director Russ Vought, who announced “The RIFs have begun” on X, formerly Twitter, said the cuts represent a shift from traditional furloughs to permanent terminations. In his post, Vought made clear the purge is broad: “These are RIFs, not furloughs.”
Reuters reports that between 1,100 and 1,200 HHS employees have already been fired, with more layoffs expected next week. At the CDC, entire divisions, including those overseeing epidemiology, global health, and the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the agency’s flagship public-health bulletin, were dissolved. One senior scientist told Time that the CDC “is not functional.”
Within HHS, the fallout has been particularly severe. A former senior Biden administration official told The Advocate that the Office of Population Affairs, which administered the nation’s Title X family-planning network, teen-pregnancy prevention, and LGBTQ+ health initiatives, was eliminated entirely. “This wasn’t a budget decision — it was ideological,” the former official said. “These are the programs that centered reproductive and queer health, and now they’re gone.”
Adrian Shanker, who served as deputy assistant secretary for health policy and senior adviser on LGBTQ+ health equity under the Biden administration, told The Advocate the cuts “are devastating” for both federal employees and the American public.
“This new reduction in force is devastating, certainly for the dedicated public health workers who have contributed countless years to advancing the health and well-being of the American people, and certainly don’t deserve to be political pawns in the Trump administration’s shutdown games,” Shanker said. He added that the Office of Population Affairs had provided funding for sex education programs benefiting LGBTQ+ youth and that its elimination “leaves us more vulnerable to health inequities and worsened health outcomes.”
He noted that this marks “the first time that the office itself is being cut” rather than its programs being politicized. In recent weeks, the administration has rolled back support for state grants that included transgender people. “It’s not a small cut — it’s actually the entire office,” Shanker said. “Without these people in place, it’s unlikely that a lot of these programs will be able to continue even after the government reopens.”
These layoffs come just weeks after the CDC’s collapse in leadership. In August, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, then director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, resigned in protest, telling The Advocate that “the CDC you knew is over.” His departure followed the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, who clashed with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy and scientific independence. Daskalakis said the “firewall between science and ideology” had already broken down, an assessment many public-health veterans now say was prophetic.
Other senior scientists, including Debra Houry and Daniel Jernigan, also resigned this summer, warned that the administration was undermining evidence-based policymaking.
“They have cut so deep into the muscle of CDC that it will not be able to deliver on routine or emergency situations. I fear it has been damaged beyond repair. We need to prepare for the next incarnation of public health,” Daskalakis told The Advocate on Saturday.
The American Federation of Government Employees has filed lalwsuit to block the firings, arguing that mass layoffs during a shutdown violate civil-service protections. Democratic lawmakers have called the cuts an abuse of executive power.
Since November 2024—and especially in the months since the beginning of President Trump’s second term—anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has increased, violence has escalated, and legislation, executive orders, and other targeted actions have drastically altered the lives of LGBTQ people, especially transgender people. Survey findings from the Movement Advancement Project and NORC show that the majority of LGBTQ adults report harm, mistreatment, and other negative experiences since the 2024 presidential election.
To better understand the impacts of the extraordinarily difficult and stressful political environment, this nationally representative survey provides a critical snapshot into the experiences, concerns, and dramatic life changes LGBTQ people have taken to protect themselves or their families since the November 2024 election. It also shows that LGBTQ people reported increasing their efforts to participate in or protect their community in the face of anti-LGBTQ politics or laws.
The Majority of LGBTQ People, and Even Higher Numbers of Transgender People, Have Made Major Life Decisions Due to Recent LGBTQ-Related Politics Since November 2024, the majority (57%) of LGBTQ people—including 84% of transgender and nonbinary people—have made significant life decisions or taken steps in response to LGBTQ-related politics or laws as seen in Figure 1. These include considering or actually moving to a different state; considering or actually finding a different job; attempting to update legal name or gender markers on identity documents; crossing state lines to receive medical care, and much more.
Figure 1
These are remarkably sobering findings that reflect the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty that many LGBTQ people and their families across the country are currently facing—and the very real and difficult choices about their lives that they are being forced to consider. This is especially true given the relatively short period of time considered by the survey (November 2024 to June 2025), suggesting that as political attacks on LGBTQ people continue, these numbers may grow even higher.
Although 43% of transgender people—and 25% of all LGBTQ people—have considered moving to a different state, a shocking 9% of transgender people report they’ve actually moved to a different state since November 2024, as have five percent (5%) of all LGBTQ people.
The Majority of LGBTQ People Report Discrimination and Harassment Since the November 2024 Election As shown in Figure 2 below, the motivation for the life decisions and other steps LGBTQ people report taking due to LGBTQ-related politics are well-founded: 60% of LGBTQ people, including 82% of transgender and nonbinary people, report that they or an immediate family member have had at least one negative experience related to being LGBTQ since the November 2024 election.
Survey findings also show a clear relationship between LGBTQ respondents’ approval of how their state government is handling LGBTQ issues and the state’s actual LGBTQ policies, as seen in the figure below.
Figure 7
The majority of LGBTQ people—and, consistently, even higher rates of transgender and nonbinary people—reported significant and often negative impacts across the board, such as making major life decisions due to LGBTQ-related laws or politics, experiencing harassment or discrimination, harm to their mental health or overall well-being, and much more.
As political attacks on LGBTQ people by federal, state, and local governments continue, it is likely that these impacts will only accumulate. While the survey illustrates some of the many ways LGBTQ people are taking action to protect not only themselves but also their broader community, it is vital that people beyond LGBTQ people join in these efforts to protect their LGBTQ neighbors, friends, and family members, and to stop the ongoing attacks on LGBTQ people.
For questions, please contact Dana Juniel at dana@mapresearch.org. # # # 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
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a parental rights activist who dubiously claims her child’s middle school helped her child secretly transition. She has now petitioned the Supreme Court to take her case.
Twenty-one additional state attorneys general have signed the brief in support of January Littlejohn, who, in 2022, sued the Leon County School District and staff members at Deer Lake Middle School for allowing her 13-year-old child to use they/them pronouns and go by the “masculine” nickname “J” without informing her.
J began exploring their gender identity during the 2020-21 school year. At the time, the school district was using a 2018 guide that warned outing a student to their parents poses a risk to the student’s well-being. It allowed for a support plan that gave students a say in whether or not they want to be outed to their parents. J chose not to be.
Uthmeier’s brief claims government officials across the United States “are fundamentally altering the upbringing of children and keeping parents in the dark.”
“Dizzying numbers of school districts and a growing number of states have passed similar ‘secret transition’ laws and ordinances without any concerns for parental rights,” the brief states. Utheier is referring to policies that ban the forced outing of students to their parents.
These policies do not involve schools encouraging students to be trans or transition, but rather to support any students who willingly communicate that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth and to allow the student to choose when to share that private information with their parents. For some students with anti-trans parents, telling them could be dangerous.
The brief also decries the concept of social transitioning and negates the existence of trans identities altogether, stating that a parent’s right to decide what’s best for their child, “is only more pressing when the ideology pushed by the schools ignores basic reality about the two sexes and further confuses innocent and impressionable children.”
Littlejohn’s case was a major motivation for the passage of Florida’s infamous Don’t Say Gay bill, which severely limited the way LGBTQ+ issues could be addressed in classrooms and which also inspired copycat legislation across the country.
Supporters of the Don’t Say Gay law use stories like Littlejohn’s to argue that schools are violating parents’ rights by teaching that LGBTQ+ people exist – which conservatives have been calling “grooming” – or by somehow forcing kids to be transgender. They argue that the law is required to stop schools from exposing children to ideas that their parents don’t agree with, and they use stories like Littlejohn’s to show that this is a problem.
But there is one problem: Littlejohn’s story may not be true.
While there isn’t much public information about her case, emails that have been made public quite clearly show that Littlejohn, in fact, asked the school to use they/them pronouns for her nonbinary child.
“This has been an incredibly difficult situation for our family and her father and I are trying to be as supportive as we can,” she wrote in an email obtained by CNN. “She is currently identifying as non-binary. She would like to go by the new name [redacted] and prefers the pronouns they/them. We have not changed her name at home yet, but I told her if she wants to go by the name [redacted] with her teachers, I won’t stop her.”
The teacher asked if she could share the email with other teachers.
In a later email, Littlejohn wrote: “Whatever you think is best or [redacted] can handle it herself.”
“This gender situation has thrown us for a loop. I sincerely appreciate your support. I’m going to let her take the lead on this,” she wrote in another email from the same day.
Nevertheless, Littlejohn, a registered Republican, eventually sued the school district in this case. She claims that school officials met with her child and created a Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Student Support Plan in accordance with district policy without consulting her. Leon County Schools, the district Littlejohn’s child is in, said that fewer than 10 students of the 33,000 in the district have such a support plan.
A spokesperson for the district said that they thought they were working “with clear communication” from Littlejohn, but then “outside entities became involved.” The “outside entities” they referred to include the Child & Parental Rights Campaign (CPRC), an anti-transgender legal organization based in Georgia that’s representing Littlejohn in the lawsuit.
Littlejohn has since been a vocal trans rights opponent and aligned herself with hate groups like Florida-made Moms for Liberty.
In March, a federal court upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss her suit.
The school officials named in the case “did not force the Littlejohns’ child to do anything at all,” Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote. “And perhaps most importantly, defendants did not act with intent to injure. To the contrary, they sought to help the child.”
“Even if the Littlejohns felt that defendants’ efforts to help their child were misguided or wrong, the mere fact that the school officials acted contrary to the Littlejohns’ wishes does not mean that their conduct ‘shocks the conscience’ in a constitutional sense,” Rosenbaum wrote.
In a concurring opinion, Judge Kevin C. Newsom said he considered the actions taken by the school district officials “shameful.” But the question at hand, he wrote, was “whether it was unconstitutional.”
“If I were a legislator, I’d vote to change the policy that enabled the defendants’ efforts to keep the Littlejohns in the dark,” he wrote. “But — and it’s a big but — judges aren’t just politicians in robes, and they don’t (or certainly shouldn’t) just vote their personal preferences.”
Immigration narratives in politics and media mostly focus on the southern border, with the current U.S. president evoking racist images of Mexican gang members invading, South American cartels smuggling drugs, and Black immigrants eating cats and dogs in the United States.
These narratives are, in a word, bullshit. At various times, majorities of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. didn’t cross the southern border, they overstayed their visas. Most fentanyl brought into the U.S. was smuggled in by U.S. citizens. Immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than U.S. citizens. And as for cats and dogs, the vice president and others have admitted that the story is BS.
Both mainstream political parties have long treated immigrants like pawns and bargaining chips in an endless game that leaves people’s lives and safety hanging in a confusing bureaucratic maze where legal residence and permanent citizenship remain uncertain and elusive, depending on whoever is president at any given time.
It’s a shame how thoroughly distorted our understanding of immigration has become as a result. A large majority of southern migrants are asylum-seekers fleeing persecution in their home countries, working undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $16 billion annually into Social Security and Medicare (and don’t collect any benefits), and studies show that immigrants increase jobs and housing, despite claims to the contrary.
Sacramento, CA, U.S.A. – Feb. 22, 2025: A woman holds up a sign about migration being a human right at the Pro-immigrant Protest in downtown at Cesar Chavez park. | Shutterstock
Often missing from all this rhetoric are the voices of actual immigrants, including LGBTQ+ people and people from non-American continents. We get the contemporary political framing without any nuanced historical context, and lots of xenophobic doomsaying with few words from advocates fighting for immigrants’ dignity and constitutionally protected legal rights.
While LGBTQ Nation has long reported on queer refugees and the administration’s anti-immigrant abuses, this month, we’re elevating marginalized voices and uncovering vital historical context to reveal “The Untold Stories of Queer Immigration.”
One of our earliest stories in this monthly edition is an interview with out U.S. Rep. Emily Randall (D-WA)) discussing her observations at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment facility as well as why immigrant rights matter to non-immigrant citizens.
Our cover story talks to activists and refugees connected to Rainbow Railroad, a not-for-profit organization that helps relocate LGBTQ+ refugees. One article will revisit the historic 1975 case of Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan, a bi-national gay couple whose case was the first U.S. lawsuit to seek federal recognition of a same-sex marriage for immigration purposes.
We’ll share the experiences of African and Iraqi refugees to hear their stories of escape and relocation while navigating possible asylum in the United States. Our interview with the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project will look at the unique needs and challenges in providing support to migrants from across the Black diaspora.
We’ll also take several glimpses into immigration’s cultural aspects by covering the trans and nonbinary celebrities who are fighting the Trump administration’s needlessly biased passport policies, documentaries that examine the queer immigrant experience in the United States, and a look at how migration forced by climate change uniquely impacts LGBTQ+ emigrants.
Many of these stories might otherwise go untold or underappreciated, so we’re proud to help elevate them. They help provide insight and the real human side of a complicated issue and reflect on overlooked aspects of our community’s resilience, resistance, and power in the U.S. and across the globe.
In 2025, book bans in schools are more common than ever. “Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country,” says a new report from PEN America, “The Normalization of Book Banning: Banned in the USA, 2024-2025.” “Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children.”
PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression, defines a school book ban “as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.” These bans “infringe on the rights of students, professional educators, and authors,” the report says, noting that teachers and librarians have chosen books for their educational value.
The book-banning trend has been growing since 2021, PEN America reports. Over the last four school years, book bans occurred in 45 states and 451 public school districts.
Many of the banned books have LGBTQ+ content. “Since book challenges and removals exploded in 2021, books depicting same-sex and trans identities have been conflated as inherently ‘sexual,’” the report states. “In sexualizing LGBTQ+ people, swaths of literature have been removed under the premise of removing ‘inappropriate’ or ‘obscene’ books.” Some of these titles are children’s picture books such as And Tango Makes Three, Everywhere Babies, The Family Book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, and The Purim Superhero. Among the most banned titles in 2024-2025 were young adult books Last Night at the Telegraph Club, about a young Chinese American lesbian, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, in which one of the straight protagonist’s best friends is a gay teen. And queer Black author George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue has become the most challenged book in the nation in the past few years.
In all, during the 2024-2025 school year, PEN America recorded 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts, affecting 3,752 titles. They represented the work of 2,308 authors, 243 illustrators, and 38 translators.
Below, we look at the 10 states that had the most instances of book bans.
Florida
The state led by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis gets the dubious distinction of most book bans during the 2024-2025 school year. Florida saw 2,304 instances of book bans, with 33 school districts that banned at least one title.
Texas
Texas, not surprisingly, ranks high (low?) as well. The state had 1,781 instances of book bans and seven districts that banned a book.
Tennessee
Tennessee had 1,622 instances of book bans and eight districts that banned a book.
Idaho
Idaho had 150 instances of book bans, although just one district banned any book.
Iowa
Iowa had 113 instances of book bans and four districts that banned a book.
Virginia
Virginia saw 97 instances of book bans, with two districts banning at least one title.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania had 73 book ban instances, and three districts banned a book.
Georgia
Georgia had 43 instances of book bans and three districts banning at least one book.
Utah
Utah saw 26 book ban instances but just one district banning a book.
Colorado
Colorado had 20 instances of book bans and two districts banning a book.
Department of Defense
It’s not just individual states that are affected, though. There were 590 books removed from Department of Defense Education Activity schools on military bases this year, affecting schools in seven states, two territories, and 11 countries. The department used Donald Trump’s anti-transgender and anti-diversity executive orders as justification for the removals, although none of the orders specifically targeted books. A lawsuit against the removal of books and other content is pending.
Statewide bans
South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah have set up mechanisms to trigger statewide book bans. Tennessee’s has not been used yet, and because of the difficulty in quantifying the effects in South Carolina and Utah, the books affected there are not used in PEN America’s state totals. Still, this is a worrisome trend, according to the group.
Fighting back
Where there are attempts to ban books, there is resistance, PEN America notes. “Of the 87 districts impacted by book bans this year, 70 contained evidence of a public response against censorship, whether from individuals, organized groups, or whole communities,” the report says. To fight book bans, the group recommends contacting elected officials, speaking out on Freedom to Read Day (October 11), and then continuing to speak out and to reach out to organizations campaigning against bans.
Following the assassination of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) co-founder Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, there’s been significant posthumous discussion about who he was and what he left behind. President Trump and the Republican Party have described him as a martyr, making his funeral into a 200,000-person event comparable to those of deceased presidents, while calling for retribution against the “radical left” and trans people, despite the fact that the man who killed him is cisgender and his political affiliation is unclear.
Some liberals have mourned Kirk, casting him as a champion of civil dialogue. Meanwhile, critics of his often hateful beliefs have faced repercussions, with retaliatory firings of educators, writers and reporters.
Given the volume of discussion about Kirk and his legacy surrounding LGBTQ issues, Uncloseted Media decided to assemble the receipts. Here’s a track record of Kirk and TPUSA’s actions and statements on the queer community.
Oct. 4, 2016
TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk publishes a manifesto that outlines the group’s vision and political strategy, where he complains that “personal and overall freedom” are being lost in “exchange for ‘micro’ freedoms like taxpayer-funded contraception and gay marriage.”
He writes that TPUSA’s strategy is inspired by what he describes as the LGBT movement:
“We are using the same message delivery methods and many of the same organizing tactics. They use social media, rallies, and pop-culture messaging, just like we do. Despite our very different agendas, there is no question we have adapted our movements into the times in which we live.”
Kirk also references Jonathan Haidt, a professor of ethical leadership at New York University Stern School of Business, who has likened being a conservative graduate student on campus today to being a closeted gay student in the 1980s.
Nov. 21, 2016
Screenshot of Professor Watchlist.
TPUSA launches the Professor Watchlist, a database cataloging “anti-conservative” college professors. Many targeted professors later face harassment. A gay professor says that when they were placed on the watchlist, they began receiving anti-LGBTQ emails on their work account. And a tenured professor at the University of Florida who was placed on the watchlist and tagged with sharing a “racial ideology” says that all four professors at her university who are on the watchlist are either a person of color or someone who identifies as LGBTQ.
TPUSA co-hosts an event with College Republicans at CU Boulder called “Why Ugly People Hate Me.” The event features far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who was in the middle of his Dangerous Faggot Tour which challenged “political correctness” on college campuses. Yiannopoulos claims to be an “ex-gay,” born-again Christian who “demoted” his husband to “housemate.”
April 25, 2018
Kirk at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2018. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
A Huffington Post report finds that Shialee Grooman, then TPUSA’s national field director, had a long history of racist and homophobic posts, including one that read, “Okay. All of you are f*ggots.” In a statement to HuffPost, Kirk says Grooman is a “former employee,” and TPUSA issues a company-wide memo announcing social media background checks and offers to assist employees in making their social media posts less public.
Nov. 22, 2019
At a TPUSA event called “Culture War” in Florida, Kirk addresses a heckler who accuses him of betraying conservatism by tolerating gay and transgender individuals and warns of a slippery slope to normalizing pedophilia. Kirk tweets, “I believe marriage is one man one woman biblically” but goes on to say that he doesn’t think gay people should be excluded from the conservative movement.
Sept. 14, 2020
TPUSA launches TPUSA LIVE, a new media hub that they say provides “daily conservative content” that includes “hot takes, opinions, and reactions to breaking news.”
Other articles include transphobic headlines inspired by conspiracy theories that trans women are actually male creeps trying to invade women’s spaces. Some headlines include:
TPUSA launches the School Board Watchlist, modeled after their Professor Watchlist, to monitor high school officials they deem too progressive. The watchlist now seems to be defunct.
Oct. 14, 2021
Kirk publishes an op-ed titled “On Sexual Anarchy” that is rife with anti-LGBTQ animus. He writes:
“The facts that there are only two genders; that transgenderism and gender ‘fluidity’ are lies that hurt people and abuse kids; and that God’s good, loving, and joyful ideal for our lives is for a man and woman to be joined in a lifelong marriage covenant—these are all under official opprobrium in 2021.”
Feb. 18, 2022
A University of South Carolina student posts screenshots of racist and homophobic messages from two group chats affiliated with the school’s TPUSA chapter. The president of the chapter later releases a video apology, saying that “these remarks have no place being made in our organization,” though this video would later be taken down.
On his podcast, Kirk says: “[Gay people] are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.”
In another episode the following week, Kirk falsely links trans people to inflation.
“There’s a direct connection to inflation and the trans issue. You say, ‘Charlie, come on. They couldn’t be further apart.’ No, they’re exactly the same. They’re the same in this aspect—when you believe that men can become women, why wouldn’t you also believe that you could print wealth?”
June 2022
Drew Hernandez, host of TPUSA FRONTLINE on YouTube, spends Pride Month calling LGBTQ people “mentally ill” and dubs it “groomer month.” Hernandez also says parents who bring their children to Pride events should be arrested. Months later, YouTube would remove the videos.
July 6, 2022
On his podcast, Kirk rejects a previous perspective he held: “There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication. It’s a fiction. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.”
Oct. 12, 2022
The Student Government Association at Maryland’s Towson University formally condemns the university’s TPUSA chapter after leaked messagesshow the group’s members allegedly using racist, homophobic and ableist slurs. Some of the messages refer to Pride Month as “f*ggot month” and the monkeypox outbreak as the “f*ggot virus.”
Feb. 17, 2023
Discussing trans women in women’s bathrooms, Kirk says, “These people are sick. … I blame the decline of American men. … Someone should’ve just took care of it the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s or 60s.” Journalist Erin Reed, whose reporting focuses on the trans community, responds to Kirk’s remarks by saying he is “openly calling for the lynching of transgender individuals.”
May 28, 2023
Kirk defends TPUSA’s partnership with Shawn Bergstrand, a registered sex offender who served time in federal prison for attempted “coercion and enticement” after trying to persuade “a minor female” to “engage in sexual activity.”
He defends Bergstrand on X and simultaneously attacks Target for selling Pride merchandise: “I’m told … that he’s a nice person who did something wrong over a decade ago, and unlike Target, he repented and the experience led him to his faith. Good for him. That’s the Gospel.”
Sept. 11, 2023
In a speech, Kirk describes transgender people as a “throbbing middle finger to God” and trans swimmer Lia Thomas as “an abomination to God.”
Oct. 11, 2023
David Boyles, an instructor at Arizona State University, posts a photo of his injuries on Instagram. Photo courtesy of David Boyles.
A TPUSA-affiliated crew assault David Boyles, a queer Arizona State University professor who teaches English and is a co-founder of Drag Story Hour Arizona. The crew shouts accusations about drag shows and sexuality, “accusing [him] personally of pedophilia and hating America,” and ultimately shove him to the ground after he tries to block their camera from recording. Campus police say they investigated the interaction as a “potential bias or prejudicially motivated incident.” Both suspects would plead guilty in court. The professor had been featured on TPUSA’s Professor Watchlist in part for teaching an LGBTQ-themed class on pop culture and politics.
In a debate, Kirk says, “I believe marriage is between one man and one woman, but if you ask me do I have hate in my heart for somebody that doesn’t choose the [heteronormative] lifestyle … of course not.”
April 1, 2024
Kirk calls for gender-affirming clinics to be banned: “We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor.”
Costa Rica‘s first out transgender elected official, Gerhard Phillip Hernández Padilla, is more than just a historic politician — he’s a member of Gen Z who loves Coldplay, art history, and tattoos.
The 25-year-old trans man was elected in February last year as second vice mayor of Moravia, a smaller municipality in the San José province in central Costa Rica with a population of more than 50,000. He will serve the district until the end of his four-year term in 2028, after which he plans to continue his career in politics.
“What I would like to do in politics is bring in opportunities for those who don’t have them yet … making the way a little bit easier for my brothers and sisters from the trans community that are planning to be part of this space as well in the future,” Hernández tells The Advocate.
Hernández was only 19 when he was elected to the Municipal Council of Moravia in 2020, making him the council’s youngest member and the first out trans man in Costa Rican politics. He ran for office in 2024 alongside mayor Diego Armando López López and first vice mayor Alejandra Hernández Novoa under the Partido Somos Moravia (We Are Moravia Party), emerging victorious with 45.36 percentof the vote.
Though he’s achieved success at a young age, it did not come easily. Hernández says he faces discrimination “on a daily basis” for all facets of his identity — even his tattoos, which he shows off proudly. One on his forearm features the words “Viva la Vida” next to a watermelon, a reference to both the Coldplay song and the Frida Kahlo painting of the same name.
“I have three challenges: of course being transgender, of course being young, and of course having my tattoos and piercings,” Hernández says. “In a very conservative society, that’s not well seen. When you are facing this kind of authority position or leadership position, most of the time, they don’t see you as an authority. They are always trying to challenge your authority.”
The trans community still isn’t widely accepted in Costa Rica, though progress has been made in recent years. Trans people were granted the right to legally change their gender on official documents without surgical or judicial intervention in 2018 through an executive decree, and some gender-affirming care is funded through the state health system.
However, Hernández says the treatments that are available — such as hormone therapy — are the “worst of the market,” and the majority of gender-affirming operations are not publicly funded. He explains that trans people must “have a lot of money to go outside [the country] — probably to the U.S. — to get a surgery.”
As trans people continue to face systemic discrimination, Hernández is particularly focused on creating opportunities for them through employment and education, with focuses in language, technology, and culture. He notes that “even being transgender, I know that I’m a white man, that I was able to access college, so I have an advantage that some of my brothers and sisters don’t have.”
“When I got into politics, I thought that I was able to change the world. I think that’s a thought that most of us have at the beginning,” Hernández says. “However, when you get in there, you see how things are for real. So, my thoughts right now are not changing the world, but changing from small things to bigger ones. I like to impact the youth because I think we’re the future. Actually, not the future — we’re the present.”
Until his time in office ends — or until Coldplay tours in San José — Hernández will be diligently serving his constituents, he says. He wants the world to know that “not only trans people, but people from Costa Rica in general, are people that are always trying to be resilient, to work, to educate ourselves.”
“We are more than transgender. We are human beings. We have families, we have jobs, and we are always trying to improve ourselves, to develop ourselves, and trying to learn,” Hernández says. “We have a lot to give to the world from Costa Rica and from the trans community. We have a lot to give to the world, a lot to learn as well, and a lot to teach to all of you.”
New street art in Walker’s Point commemorates the neighorhood’s rich LGBTQ history. Crosswalks at the intersection of 2nd Street and National Avenue are now painted rainbow, in a design by street artist Jeremy Novy. The project was led by the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project, as a way to show the neighborhood’s pride and inclusiveness as a safe space for all.
The new artwork was unveiled at a dedication ceremony Oct. 6, with remarks from Milwaukee leaders including Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
“Today we’re here to celebrate legacy. For more than 80 years, the Walker’s Point neighborhood has been a safe haven for Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ community,” Johnson said. “Now this place is where people could come as they find acceptance, as they find belonging, and where they really find joy in our city.”
Read the full article. The crosswalk was funded by private donations. Meanwhile, yesterday in Miami Beach a state crew jackhammered away the rainbow mosaic crosswalk leading to the city’s famed “gay beach.”
Banned Books Week takes place October 5-11, 2025. The annual event raises awareness of the harm and the rising trend of book challenges and bans, especially targeting books by and about LGBTQ people and books about race and racism.
Why are book bans happening?
Book bans are part of a sweeping crackdown aimed at censoring and limiting the rising visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ people and youth.
The book ban surge of the last few years coincided with a steady increase in LGBTQ visibility and acceptance over the past decade. LGBTQ people now make up 9.3% of the overall population, up from 3.5% in 2012. One in five GenZ adults, the youngest generation measured, is out as LGBTQ.
Book bans remain widely unpopular: 71% of voters, including 75% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans, oppose efforts to have books removed from their local public libraries and believe that librarians do a good job offering books with diverse viewpoints. Gallup found that 70% of U.S. parents of K-12 students are either completely or somewhat satisfied with the education that their oldest child is receiving.
What is being banned?
LGBTQ books and books about race and racism dominatethe list of most challenged titles as tracked by the American Library Association (ALA). “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson and “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe remain at the top of most banned titles tracked by the ALA.
PEN America’s Most Banned Books of 2024-2025 includes titles that are more than two decades old, such as Crank (2004), Forever… (1975), and A Clockwork Orange (1962). Book Riot’s Kelly Jensen analyzed the challenged books on both lists, summarizing they show “how slapdash and nonsensical the push to ban books is. ”
“There’s nothing cohesive here except an interest in removing the stories, voices, and perspectives of people of color, of queer people, and of books that speak honestly to the issues of sex, sexuality, puberty, and adolescence,” Jensen wrote.
Who is instigating book bans?
The ALA has traced the origins of book bans, noting most (72%) start with extremist coordinated pressure groups and the elected officials they pressure, not local community or parent demand.
“The 120 titles most frequently targeted for censorship during 2024 are all identified on partisan book rating sites which provide tools for activists to demand the censorship of library books,” ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom noted.
What is new in book bans?
The fronts of attack continue to expand. A new PEN America report recorded 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts during the 2024-25 school year.
Attacks on local, state, and federal levels risk a kind of “everyday banning,”PEN notes, “the normalization and routinization of censorship” fueled by capitulation from administrators, staff, and elected officials who find it easier to remove a book than fight for it.
Normalization is too-often encouraged through threats, harassment, and intimidation. GLAAD’s ALERT Desk is continually tracking anti-LGBTQ incidents nationwide, including the targeting of school board members. Read out board members’ first person stories on the importance of representation and safety.
Communities are fighting back and winning
GLAAD has updated itstoolkit: Banned Books: A Guide for Community Response and Action to include more success stories and strategies from communities who have fought bans and won.
“GLAAD created this guide with resources from professional library and free speech advocates. By using the power of storytelling and engaging media, communities can unite with their neighbors, send a powerful signal of welcome and acceptance, and strengthen all communities,” GLAAD President and CEO, and author Sarah Kate Ellis said.
“While book bans attempt to curb fundamental freedoms, they are far from the final chapter. Communities who care about each vulnerable reader and a future where all can be free should get the last word,” Ellis said.
EveryLibrary’sFight for the First is a key resource in the local success stories detailed in GLAAD’s toolkit for communities.
EveryLibrary has asimple tool to help supporters create and send messages in the media, including a Letter to the Editor in your local news outlets.
What You Can Do
Check out or buy a banned book.
Out author, actor, and social justice advocate George Takei is this year’s Honorary Chair of Banned Books Week.Learn about Takei’s advocacy for LGBTQ people and Japanese Americans including through his graphic memoirs, “They Called Us Enemy,” about Takei’s childhood spent in a prison camp created by the U.S. government during World War II to detain Japanese Americans, and “It Rhymes with Takei,” his memoir about coming out.
Call, write a letter, attend a meeting, and share your story.
Call a decision-maker, write a letter to the editor, find out about your local library’s materials and challenge policies, attend a library or school board meeting.
Banned Books Week concludes with Let Freedom Read Day, October 11th. Supporters are urged to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to use their voices for library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make books available.
Sign up to support or donate to a nonprofit group. The Banned Books Week coalition includes more than a dozen organizations working to ensure access to books and protection of vulnerable readers. GLAAD is a Banned Books Week coalition contributor.
Attend a Banned Books Weeks event. Find it via this searchable map for events in local bookstores, libraries, in-person and virtually.
EveryLibrary is hosting a weeklong online festival of panel discussions for Banned Books Week to include LGBTQ authors Clay Cane, Katherine Locke, Charlotte Sullivan Wild and Cadwell Turnbull.
Recognize and respond to censorship in your community. Little Free Library, the American Library Association, and PEN America released a new map to show hotspots for censorship around the country and how Little Free Library owners counter by including more titles in their book houses.
“This newly updated map empowers communities to protect intellectual freedom, champion diverse voices, and ensure that the joy of reading remains accessible to all,” said Daniel Gumnit, Chief Executive Officer of Little Free Library.
Organize. Create. Show solidarity. Show up. Book bans are an LGBTQ issue, but they’re an all-Americans issue too.
“Book bans harm public school systems and restrict education,” PEN America notes. They drain school resources and taxpayer funds. They distract and discourage teachers. They decrease student engagement in reading and critical thinking.
“The consequences of book bans extend to everyone in our country,” GLAAD’s Sarah Kate Ellis said.
“Every American needs stories about LGBTQ people, Black people, queer and transgender people of color, and all marginalized groups to better understand our shared history and to fight for a future where we can all belong and be safe.”
