National

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NEW SURVEY REVEALS DRAMATIC CHANGES FOR LGBTQ ADULTS SINCE NOVEMBER 2024

LGBTQ adults as a whole—but transgender and nonbinary adults especially—are experiencing an extraordinarily difficult and stressful political environment, leading to significant impacts on their everyday lives. The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) conducted a nationally representative survey with NORC at the University of Chicago to better understand the impacts of recent political developments. Survey findings show that the majority of LGBTQ adults report harm, mistreatment, and other negative experiences since the 2024 presidential election. Click below to navigate this brief. Note that each section concludes with a set of arrows (↑ ↑ ↑) that redirect back to the table of contents. contents […]

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Veteran politico believes the end is near for Donald Trump: “Your activism is working”

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Political expert Robert Reich believes the tide may finally be turning against Donald Trump.  “The slumbering giant of America is awakening,” wrote Reich – who served as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor and is now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley – in a recent op-ed. He was referring to what he called an “extraordinary week” during which irate Americans “forced Disney to put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air” and during which Trump’s “dictatorial narcissism revealed itself nearly as dramatically in the criminal indictment of former FBI director James Comey.” “Over 6 million people […]

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US judge resigns after being recorded making racist and anti-LGBTQ+ remarks

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A Michigan judge, Kathleen Ryan, has voluntarily resigned after an investigation uncovered recordings of her feelings about the LGBTQ+ community and Black people.  Judge Kathleen Ryan, a self-proclaimed “new racist”, has departed from her Oakland County bench following the investigation.  As reported by WXYZ Detroit, in one recording from September 2024, Ryan shared offensive viewpoints about both demographics and said she isn’t “systemically racist” but a “new racist”.  The recordings were sent to public officials, including Oakland County executive Dave Coulter, who is gay. Some of Ryan’s slurs about the community were directed at him, according to Detroit Free Press.  Ryan, who has […]

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GOP lawmaker said trans people “harm” children. Now he’s going to prison for child porn.

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South Carolina state Rep. RJ May (R) — an anti-LGBTQ+ politician who has accused drag queens and transgender people of harming kids — was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to five counts of distributing child sex abuse material (CSAM).  May — who was honored by the anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty in 2023 as its Legislator of the Year — first denied the charges after investigators found evidence that he had shared hundreds of images of kids, including pictures of adults raping seven-year-olds. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who sentenced May, said the CSAM he shared was “more […]

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‘Legendary activist’ and ‘powerhouse for the LGBTQ+ community’ Rick Garcia dies aged 69

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Chicago LGBTQ+ activist Rick Garcia has died at the age of 69.  Garcia, who was a leader in the Illinois city’s civil rights movement, died on 12 January. His advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community dates back decades. In 1996, the Chicago Reader reported that he kept his sexual orientation a secret throughout high school and into college. In 1976, he attended a speech by theology professor Father Louis Hanlon, who spoke about the “sin” of homosexuality. Garcia had none of it and spoke out against Hanlon, telling him: “Gay people are entitled to friendship, love, and justice, according to the American Catholic bishops. […]

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As LGBTQ+ people go back into the closet under Trump, the Human Rights Campaign reveals plan to fight back

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In Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House, where President Donald Trump is directing what civil rights advocates describe as an accelerating authoritarian overhaul of federal power, the Human Rights Campaign on Thursday released a new political playbook and a stark assessment of what the first year of Trump’s second term has meant for LGBTQ+ Americans. The organization’s twin reports, One Year Out: LGBTQ+ Messaging Playbook for the Midterms and One Year In: LGBTQ+ Americans Under the Trump Administration, sketch both a campaign strategy and a warning flare. Together, they argue that LGBTQ+ Americans are becoming less visible, less safe, and less secure as federal protections shrink and culture war policies […]

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Landmark commission unanimously approves church’s rainbow steps: “This is religious expression”

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Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas received formal approval from the city’s Landmark Commission last week after officials, members, and volunteers painted the Late Gothic Revival building’s staircase the colors of the rainbow in October. The building has local landmark status, and it’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The dramatic gesture reimagining the church steps was executed as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) carried out the Trump administration’s order to tear up rainbow crosswalks across the state, including one in front of the church’s historic building, home to a large and welcoming Methodist congregation. The city of Arlington, […]

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LGBTQ+ Americans are going back in the closet under Donald Trump: report

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LGBTQ+ people are going back into the closet during Donald Trump‘s second term as queer visibility decreases across the board, new research has found.  Nearly half of LGBTQ+ adults (47.5 percent) report being less out somewhere in their lives over the last 12 months, according to the Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey from the Human Rights Campaign, including workplaces (26.5 percent), healthcare (25.4 percent), and public spaces (28.3 percent).  Over half of LGBTQ+ workers (57.4 percent) with employers that ended or scaled back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) reported experiencing stigma and bias at work. This stigma appears to be increasing in all areas, as 51.1 percent […]

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Secular Student Alliance Stress Importance of 1st Amendment Rights as WTAMU Free Speech Trial Begins

West Texas A&M University is facing an ongoing federal court battle after administrators attempted to ban student-organized drag performances, a move judges have repeatedly ruled likely violates the First Amendment. The dispute began in 2023, when WTAMU President Walter Wendler prohibited drag shows on campus, citing his personal religious beliefs as part of his justification in a campus-wide letter. Spectrum WT, an LGBTQ+ student organization, sued, saying the ban amounted to unconstitutional content-based censorship at a public university. While the U.S. Supreme Court declined emergency relief in 2024, federal courts ruled decisively in 2025, with a district judge blocking the ban and the 5th Circuit […]

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Abigail Spanberger becomes VA’s first woman governor, honoring history and diversity in inaugural speech

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On a cold, gray, and drizzly morning in Richmond, thousands of Virginiansgathered on the steps of the state capitol to witness a moment more than two centuries in the making: the inauguration of Abigail Spanberger as Virginia’s 75th governor and the first woman ever elected to the office. Shortly before noon, Spanberger arrived at the Virginia State Capitol in a motorcade, pulling in behind the building, out of view of the crowds that had gathered in Capitol Square. Joined by her husband, the Democrat wore a brilliant blue-purple pantsuit. Most supporters never saw her arrival. Moments later, she emerged onto the dais to sustained applause, […]

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