Have you ever wondered what to do with the piles of Advocate or Out magazines you’ve collected through the years? Or swag you’ve collected at Pride events that you keep in storage boxes in closets? What about those ticket stubs to Melissa Etheridge concerts you kept religiously? LGBTQ+ archives throughout the country seek to create a home for those artifacts to help preserve queer history.
Archives can help people understand that they aren’t alone, archivists say, allowing them to see that queer identities have always been around and are a part of history, even if some of that history has been lost or erased.
A proud lesbian at the first Stonewall anniversary march in NYC in June 1970.
Collecting physical pieces of history is Invisible Histories’ mission. It’s a queer community archive working to preserve LGBTQ+ history in the Deep South. Maigen Sullivan and Joshua Burford are the cofounders and co-executive directors. Their work is finding people and organizations willing to donate their items to help preserve the region’s LGBTQ+ legacies.
Seeing a queer historic record can be enlightening, Burford says. It’s evidence that counters the “misconception that queer identity is only for young adults,” he adds, and it can help bridge generational gaps. Queer history provides an “antidote to the isolation and invisibility” that’s been historically experienced by LGBTQ+ people, while also providing accessible records and a more complete picture of community history beyond major events, Burford says. Archives illustrate that queer people have always been here, surviving, thriving, and existing.
Donations to Invisible Histories have included flyers from the Boybutante Ball, a drag event that began raising funds for the Georgia organization AIDS Athens in 1989. The group also has digitized and transcribed oral histories recorded on cassette tapes by southern LGBTQ+ activist Donna Jo Smith, who interviewed a number of fellow queer rights advocates in the ’80s and ’90s.
A child holds a sign at the L.A. Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, in June of 2019.
Items of value to archives don’t have to be decades old, Sullivan and Burford say. “We are in an incredibly acute historical moment. And so your everyday is also really historically significant both now and in the future,” Sullivan says.
Showing “existence and resistance through archival work” is key to fighting authoritarianism, she adds. “We can go into the archives and show you, ‘Look at all these amazing people and what they did.’ Now, what would you like to do with this information? What would you like to do with this power that we’ve given you to imagine the future?” Burford says.
It’s something that Olivia Newsome, a special collections coordinator with the Lesbian Herstory Archives, echoes. This volunteer-run archive has existed since the early 1970s, with a mission to preserve lesbian history. The organization recently featured on social media a scrapbook showing a woman’s membership card to the Gay Activists Alliance as well as a letter from her mother about accepting her daughter.
Wildrose has been a mainstay of LGBTQ+ nightlife in Seattle, Washingon, since 1984.
“Archiving lesbian history, queer histories, as they are being forcibly removed by fascist regimes … is important to remind people that we exist. Archiving your own life and the lives of those around you can be a radical moment of self-actualization. In a world which tells you not to exist, you can engage in the radical act of literally putting yourself into a broader historical context,” Newsome explains.
Sullivan points out there’s also concern that under the Trump administration — which has made news for erasing queer and trans identities from government web pages and policy — could go after archives in academic spaces. That possibility has spurred Invisible Histories to seek to collaborate with academic archives to ensure these collections remain safe and available for years to come.
Ultimately, donating to and learning from archives can be done by anyone, especially in the current political moment. “Archiving isn’t just for famous people, the wealthy, or for white cishet men,” Newsome says. “Archiving is for us all — your life matters and deserves to be remembered.”
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an alarming Request for Information (RFI) to attack the field of gender-affirming care—a safe, effective, and medically necessary practice grounded in decades of research and clinical expertise—as an “unfair and deceptive practice.”
The FTC’s actions are not grounded in evidence and are a distortion of the agency’s mission to protect the public from actual deceptive practices. Instead, they reflect a deep-seated bias against transgender, gender-diverse, and intersex people.
What’s Happening?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an alarming “public inquiry” to attack the field of transition-related healthcare (gender-affirming care)—a safe, effective, and medically necessary practice grounded in decades of research and clinical expertise—as an “unfair and deceptive practice”.
Under Sections 5 and 12 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the FTC has the authority to launch investigations into misleading, unfair, and deceptive trade practices and issue enforcement orders based on their findings, whenever they deem necessary and appropriate. RFIs such as this are likely intended to inform who they investigate and how. This authority extends to the ability to investigate and issue enforcement orders against those marketing and advertising various health products.
Why Does it Matter?
The Trump administration has continued to push false narratives about the transgender community. The FTC’s RFI is their latest effort to discredit our essential health care. Gender-affirming care is a safe, effective, and medically necessary field of medicine grounded in decades of research and clinical expertise. The provision of this healthcare to trans youth is overseen by well-trained clinicians utilizing staged and evidence-based clinical guidelines, that prioritize informed consent and open communication between providers, patients, and their families. For trans people, this care can be lifesaving.
This RFI will also impact intersex adolescents and adults whose healthcare needs significantly overlap with gender-affirming care, and whose identities have also previously been attacked by this administration. Adolescent and adult patients with intersex variations face similar consequences as they often depend on these same medical providers, who treat transgender patients, when seeking care.
The FTC’s actions are not grounded in evidence and distort the agency’s mission to protect the public from actual deceptive practices. Instead, they reflect a deep-seated bias against transgender, gender-diverse, and intersex people. The FTC should focus on stopping real consumer harm—not undermining trusted medical care that saves lives.
Read below for special instructions on how to submit your comment, what to include, and what not to include. Find a template from A4TE to write your comment here.
What You Need to Know Before You Submit
This portal will enable Advocates for Trans Equality to submit your story, on your behalf. This ensures that your submission is not traceable back to the computer or device you used to submit your comment. This “air gap” is a protective measure for our community and our allies. Because Advocates for Trans Equality is submitting your comment on your behalf, you may not notice your comment in the portal right away. We commit to submitting comments by the RFI’s deadline, September 26. Antagonistic, hateful, and threatening comments submitted through this portal will be omitted. If for any reason we encounter difficulty in submitting your comment, we will make every effort to contact you to resolve the issue. We will also retain a copy of your comment securely in our internal records.
Remember Your Audience
We encourage all submitting parties to consider the nature of the actions described in their comments, related to the FTC’s hostile framing of gender-diversity and the provision of gender-affirming care. Given this hostility, the information that you provide should be measured, free of identifying information, and provided in such a manner as to not put yourself or others at risk.
This portal will enable you to submit to the FTC Request for Information (RFI) with a reduced risk of identification than you may have if you were to make your submission directly to the Federal Regulations Portal.
As you draft your comment, depending on your experiences with and relationship to transition-related healthcare, also called “gender-affirming care”, there are certain pieces of information you should consider sharing as well as pieces of information you should highly consider omitting.
Legal Disclaimer: As an intermediary party in your submission, Advocates for Trans Equality and Advocates for Trans Equality Action Fund take no responsibility for comments, statements, or actions described in your submission; nor does our delivery of your submission to the FTC represent an endorsement of said statements, attitudes, or actions.
By submitting text to this portal, you are consenting to having the exact, unedited text of your comment uploaded to the FTC’s Regulations.gov comment portal. If you include your name or other identifiable information, we will include this in your submitted comment.
BEFORE YOU SUBMIT A COMMENT, PLEASE READ:
Tips for your Safety
All submitting individuals should read the following guidelines closely to minimize community risk. Don’t see yourself listed below? That’s okay! You can still submit a comment. Reviewing the information below can still help you craft a comment that is safe and helpful!Expand allCollapse all
All Submitting Individuals
These comments will be viewable by the general public as well as this administration’s Federal Trade Commission. Accordingly, we highly recommend that regardless of your experiences, you withhold and avoid disclosingany identifying information. This includes:
Your full name (consider using a pseudonym);
Your date of birth, social security number, or other identification numbers;
The name of your patients, children, or medical providers;
The state you currently reside in and where transition-related care was received;
Your address;
The exact location, including the name of the clinic or hospital, where you or your child received care;
Where you work
Again, all submitting parties should withhold the information above, as well as any similar identifying information.
Parents and Caregivers of Trans and Gender-Diverse Youth
Great Information to Share
This RFI is seeking information regarding your experiences accessing and navigating the clinical provision of transition-related healthcare with your minor child. The RFI is looking for information from the public regarding how that care was described to you and your child, as well as the conditions under which it was provided. In that regard the following types of information are excellent to share in your submission:
Any barriers to accessing this care;
The ways in which potential adverse effects of various treatments were described to you;
The materials you received about this care;
The depth of the discussion and the number of appointments that pre-dated the first treatment;
How your child was diagnostically assessed;
Your oversight of the treatment process;
The strength of your child’s understanding of their gender identity;
The psychological and mental health support that your child received both before and alongside this care;
The positive effects and benefits of this care for your child;
Your provider’s professionalism;
The deliberate and gradual nature of how this care was provided;
The clinical guidelines that your provider utilized;
Your role in supporting your child in their transition;
The extensive nature of the counseling you and your family received regarding this care.
What to be Cautious of Sharing
This administration, including the FTC, has demonstrated a hostility towards gender-diversity itself as well as the field of transition-related care. Accordingly, the information that you provide has a high potential to be taken out of context and distorted. Within the context of the FTC’s authority to investigate this healthcare, parents/caregivers are likely to be considered “consumers”, much like patients. This, however, is an informed guess and we encourage parents/caregivers to exercise caution with what they communicate in their submission. Some considerations:
Avoid characterizing experiences as quick or brief;
Avoid downplaying providers’ disclosures of potential adverse effects;
Do not share the names of your providers, nor any identifying information about them;
Be cautious regarding how you describe the informed consent process.
Medical and Behavioral Health Professionals
Great Information to Share
This RFI is seeking information regarding how adolescents and their families accessed transition-related healthcare. As healthcare professionals you play an integral role in this process, ensuring that transgender adolescents can access the potentially lifesaving medical care that they need to thrive and lived authentic and fulfilling lives. Your role in this care is also under particular scrutiny by the RFI, and as a result you should carefully consider the information you share and how you share it. We have provided a list of recommended Do’s and Do Not’s for you to take into consideration while your draft your comment
DO:
Keep your submission HIPAA compliant.
Do ensure all information about you and your patients is de-identified.
Do share general, high-level descriptions of your experience and expertise.
For example: “As a pediatric endocrinologist who has treated gender-diverse patients for over 23 years…” or “I am a licensed psychotherapist who has treated over 2,000 adolescents during my career…”.
Describe the depth and length of conversations with patients and their parents in equal measure and weight.
Describe the depth and length of your discussions with families regarding the benefits, common adverse effects, and potential adverse effects of treatment.
Describe the procedures related to policy development within professional medical and behavioral health.
Describe the rigor of the informed consent process.
Describe the evidence-based nature of the care you provide.
Feel free to share articles from peer-reviewed journals.
Describe the materials you provide to parents and patients.
Describe the benefits of treatment that you’ve witnessed for patients and their families.
Describe the staged and intentional nature of your clinical approach.
Describe the length, rigor, and depth of your professional training.
Present evidence-based, peer-reviewed statistics and information regarding the patient population.
Keep information focused on the patient/family relationships, to the exclusion of administrative procedures and practices.
DO NOT:
Provide information about the state you practice medicine in.
Provide identifying information about your practice or your patients.
Provide your name.
Provide the exact name of the institutions where you were trained.
Provide the name of your practice, hospital, or clinic where you practice.
Provide license numbers.
Cite op-eds as substantiating evidence regarding this care.
Downplay your expertise.
Adults Who Received Care as a Minor Adolescent
You are likely to be considered a “consumer” by the FTC, you should still carefully consider the information you share in your comment, as well as how you share it.
Great Information to Share
Any barriers to accessing this care;
The ways in which potential adverse effects of various treatments were described to you and your parents;
Your ability to understand and consent to care;
The materials you received about this care;
The depth of the discussion and the number of appointments that pre-dated the first treatment;
The depth and strength of your understanding of your gender-identity prior to initiating care;
The psychological and mental health support that you received alongside this care;
The positive effects and benefits of this care;
Your provider’s professionalism;
The staged nature of how this care was provided;
The clinical guidelines that your provider utilized;
Your parents’ role in supporting your child in their transition;
The extensive nature of the counseling you and your family received regarding this care.
What to be Cautious of Sharing
Avoid characterizing experiences as quick or brief;
Avoid downplaying providers’ disclosures of potential adverse effects;
Do not share the names of your providers, nor any identifying information about them;
Be cautious regarding how you describe the informed consent process.
Ready to submit your comment? Click below to tell your story.
In this rapidly changing landscape, MAP’s LGBTQ Equality Maps provide a detailed snapshot of the current state of LGBTQ laws and policies in the United States. See below for a listing of state and local level policy changes, plus MAP’s bill tracking and policy research updates, as of August 25, 2025.
▸▸ State Policy Updates Ongoing developments with gender marker changes on identity documentsIn Kansas, residents’ ability to change the gender marker on their driver’s licensesremains contested. After a 2023 law was enacted defining “sex” throughout state law to enable discrimination against transgender people, the state’s attorney general successfully sued the state’s license-issuing agency to force them to stop issuing gender marker changes for transgender people — something the state had been permitting, without issue, since at least 2007.This June, a Kansas appeals court ruled that gender marker changes on driver’s licenses should resume, and that the state’s attorney general had failed to prove any harm would be caused by allowing such gender marker changes. But despite the court ruling, the state’s attorney general instructed the state’s licensing agency to continue to refuse to process gender marker changes while he appeals the ruling and the litigation continues.In Indiana, the state issued a proposed rule — not yet in effect — that would prevent people from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate. For justification, the administrative rule refers to a March executive order from the governor defining “sex” throughout state law in exclusionary and discriminatory ways. Public comments were accepted through July 18, with a tentative effective date in October 2025.
Note: MAP will update the Equality Maps if and when either of these developments are in effect.
“Shield” or “refuge” laws protecting transgender health careSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here.June 20: Delaware’s governor issued an executive order to protect both patients and providers of medically necessary care for transgender people. Delaware is now one of three states with a “shield” executive order that protects access to transgender health care.
Regulating gender to allow discrimination against transgender and nonbinary peopleSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here.
In 2025 alone, eight states total have enacted a new law (7) or executive order (1) defining “sex” throughout state law. To date, 18 states total have such a policy, and more than one in four transgender people (28%) across the country live in these states.June 20: Texas became the 16th state with a law or executive order defining “sex” throughout state law.June 30: Ohio became the 17th state to enact a law, after lawmakers used the state’s budget process to insert and force through multiple anti-LGBTQ provisions. While the governor vetoed some of these provisions, he did not veto this gender regulation/sex definition provision.July 29: North Carolina became the 18th state to enact a law, following the legislature’s override of the governor’s veto.
“Don’t Say LGBTQ” curriculum censorship lawsSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here.June 20: Texas became the 12th state with a “Don’t Say LGBTQ” law. It applies to all grades pre-kindergarten through 12. The same bill also banned DEI-related programs and activities in schools, student groups about sexual orientation or gender identity (such as gay-straight alliances [GSAs]), and more. ACLU has already announced they will sue to challenge unconstitutional aspects of the bill.
Bans on medical care for transgender youthSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here, including a chronology and details on effective dates, exceptions, lawsuits, and more.July 17: Puerto Rico became the first U.S. territory — joining 27 U.S. states — to ban medically necessary care for transgender youth. Unlike other state bans, Puerto Rico’s law explicitly applies up to age 21, making it the farthest-reaching such ban to date. The law also creates criminal penalties for medical providers, with up to 15 years in prison if convicted.August 1: New Hampshire expanded its existing ban on some forms of surgical care for transgender minors to now include both additional forms of surgical care and prescription medication for transgender youth. The expansions will not go into effect until January 1, 2026, and there is a grandfather clause allowing youth who begin prescription medication prior to January 1 to continue receiving that medical care.
Changes in MAP’s policy score categorizationsSee our Overall, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity Policy Tally maps here, summarizing states’ scores across all the 50+ laws and policies we track.Virginia’s undermining of its own law against conversion “therapy” dropped the state to “Fair” on our Overall Tally.
▸▸ Local Policy Updates Conversion “therapy” ordinancesSee our Equality Map with local-level data here and state-by-state listings at each state’s profile.June 23: Columbia, South Carolina, repealed its ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth from the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion “therapy.” This repeal was effectively forced by a development in June, when the state enacted a first-of-its-kind law withholding state funds from any municipality that has a local-level law protecting minors from conversion “therapy.” Because the state’s capital, Columbia, was the only city in the state with these protections, this law effectively targeted Columbia, threatening to withhold nearly $4 million in state funding from the city unless they repealed their ordinance.August 19: Whitehall, Ohio, enacted a new ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth from conversion “therapy.” Whitehall is the 14th municipality in Ohio with such an ordinance.Nondiscrimination ordinancesSee our Equality Maps with local-level data here and state-by-state listings at each state’s profile.August 19: Whitehall, Ohio’s new ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth from conversion “therapy” also prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, and public accommodations. While the state lacks similar statewide protections, Whitehall is the 40th municipality in Ohio with fully inclusive, local-level nondiscrimination protections.▸▸ LGBTQ Bill Tracking UpdatesTo continue highlighting trends across the country, included below are our current bill tracking counts for anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures.Note: these counts may differ from other organizations or public counts for a variety of reasons, and this work is greatly facilitated by the work of other organizations including the ACLU, Trans Formations Project, and the Equality Federation and their member state groups.
As of August 7, 2025, MAP tracked over 715 anti-LGBTQ bills that were introduced across 49 states — i.e., every state but Vermont — in the 2024–2025 legislative sessions.
Click here to learn more about how the LGBTQ policy landscape has evolved over the last year and how to support on-the-ground changemakers in the fight for equality. ▸▸ MAP Policy Research UpdatesIn July, and in partnership with The Trevor Project, MAP published a new report,LGBTQ Policy Spotlight: Laws Protecting LGBTQ Youth From Conversion “Therapy.”
With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear a case (Chiles v. Salazar) in late 2025 challenging the legality of laws protecting LGBTQ youth against these dangerous and discredited practices, this timely analysis details the history of these laws, the present and shifting landscape of both protective laws and counter-efforts to undermine these protections, and the importance of continuing to protect LGBTQ youth.
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
A man has thanked his followers for their support as he battles to free his boyfriend from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.
Eric Duran has been recording his efforts to free boyfriend Juan since 21 July. In a TikTok posted on Sunday (31 August), he said Juan, with whom he has been in a relationship for more than a year, is being held in Louisiana, having been moved from Colorado and Arizona.
“I got a call from someone whose brother-in-law is with Juan and shared they were transferred to this facility,” Duran wrote. “I was then able to confirm through the ICE locator as his information finally showed in the system. Thank you again for all the support.”
He then mentioned the GoFundMe that has been launched to “help us with legal fees, making sure he has money in there, and potentially setting up to live in a different country”.
Ninety per cent of $5,500 (£4,000) target has already been raised.
‘Physically exhausting and labour-intensive’
“This is all an intentional and calculated effort by the system to make sure he doesn’t get his due process, because Tuesday was his bond hearing and they moved him before that,” Duran went on to say.
The system isn’t there to “support in any way, shape or form,” and nobody truly knows where these individuals are. And at one stage he was told his boyfriend had been “sent home”, Duran claimed.
“The only human experience out of all of this is being able to build a community and being able to show up and support each other. That was truly how I was able to know and confirm that Juan was at the Louisiana facility.
“It’s on us to make sure we know where our loved ones are. All this has been so costly, all this is so physically exhausting and labour-intensive and mentally taxing. I’m so happy there is a community that wants to support in any way they can, so thank you again.”
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ICE officials reportedly ‘burnt out’ by Trump’s immigration crackdown
According to reports, ICE officials are facing “burnout and frustration” as president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown continues.
Reuters claimed that agents had complained about White House demands for high arrest quotas, said to be as high as 3,000 a day – 10 times the number under president Joe Biden.
“The demands they placed on us were unrealistic. It was not done in a safe manner or the manner to make us most successful,” one official is quoted as saying.
A former ICE agent was initially told by colleagues that they were happy the “cuffs are off” but several months later, he told Reuters that they were now “overwhelmed” by the arrest numbers and “would prefer to go back to focused targeting”.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing to block a new state law that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools. “Senate Bill 12 is a blatant attempt to erase students’ identities and silence the stories that make Texas strong,” said Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Every student — no matter their race, gender, or background — deserves to feel seen, safe, and supported in school.”
Because of SB 12’s ban on discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, opponents have compared it to Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which attracted widespread media attention in 2022 due to its far-reaching impacts in public schools. Civil rights lawyers sued to block it, saying the law violated free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. The Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SB 12 author state Sen. Brandon Creighton [photo] last appeared here in June 2025 for his bill requiring students to produce an ID in order to participate in campus protests.
Also in June 2025, Creighton appeared here for his bill that would defund blue cities over “liberal policies” such as LGBTQ rights.
He appeared here in April 2025 for his bill that would force colleges to rewrite history texts to remove mentions of “social, political or economic inequalities” in the United States.
Creighton first appeared on JMG in 2019 for his bill seeking to overturn LGBTQ protections enacted by Texas cities.
In March 2023, he appeared here for his bill that would deny the prospect of tenure to newly-hired university professors.
Creighton has spearheaded the Texas campaign to protect Confederate monuments. He appeared here in August 2023 for his bill that forced the closure of the University of Houston’s LGBTQ Resource Center.
Creighton may soon leave the Texas Senate to become chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.
Texas state troopers now follow Democratic lawmakers’ every move to ensure they vote on redistricting. So one out lawmaker led police to a Dallas drag room.
Texas state Rep. Venton Jones, the Texas House Democratic Caucus whip and one of the few out lawmakers in the Lone Star State, met with fellow Democratic state Rep. Terry Meza at the Rose Room, a gay bar in Dallas’s Oak Lawn gayborhood, according to Chron.
The lawmakers were there to meet with the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, but their attendance meant dragging police escorts into the venue.
“We are always happy to have Reps. Meza and @VentonJonesTX at meetings of @StonewallDalCo!” Todd Hill, secretary of the Stonewall Democrats chapter, posted on X. “We also hosted Congresswoman @juliejohnsonTX and her Capitol Hill police officer. We appreciate everyone’s service and support of the LGBTQ+ community.”
The escorts were ordered after lawmakers left the state, denying a quorum to Republican legislative leaders for a time to thwart a mid-decade redistricting, an effort spearheaded by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to manipulate the makeup of the U.S. House ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
Jones was among those who left the state earlier this month. He has been outspoken against the maps. He has criticized the heavy-handed tactics used by Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows to make sure Texas Democrats don’t stall the political manipulation of boundaries any farther.
“So the Speaker of the Texas House has just elected to hold members hostage until, not flood relief is addressed, but until racist maps are voted on,” Jones posted on X last week. “Flood relief was never the mission. It was these maps. These maps can only be created by diluting the representation and voices of Black and Brown people. NOW law enforcement is continuing to be used against duly elected members force a vote.”
Hundreds of people marched along Washington Avenue on Sunday in a protest against Florida’s order to remove rainbow-painted crosswalks, a move critics say targets LGBTQ+ pride and local control.
The demonstration, called the “Forever Proud March,” was organized by Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez and the Greater Miami LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Marchers carried rainbow flags and signs, chanting, “This is what democracy looks like” and “Pride rights are human rights.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who was at the protest, said the state’s directive to strip away the crosswalks was arbitrary and harmful, arguing that the designs make intersections safer for pedestrians and serve as symbols of inclusion. She called the order “about erasing people’s identity” and said it undermines local authority.
The Florida Highway Patrol arrested three people on Sunday during a protest near the crosswalk outside of the former Pulse nightclub. The “Chalk For Pride” event was scheduled for 6 p.m. at South Orange Avenue and West Esther Street to protest the removal of “Pride crosswalks” and the “abuse of laws that threaten our freedom of expression,” according to a news release.
According to the FHP, 39-year-old Zane Aparicio , 25-year-old Mary Jane East and 26-year-old Donavon Short were arrested and taken to the Orange County jail.
On Friday night — Orestes Sebastian Suarez, 29 — was arrested after being accused of using chalk to color the bottom of his shoe before crossing the road, leaving footprints. Suarez faced a charge of defacing a traffic device ($1,000 or more) and was held overnight on a $5,000 bond until a judge on Saturday afternoon found no probable cause for the arrest and said that Suarez would be released.
Earlier this year, TikToker Kathryn Jones began a quest to visit every exhibit at the Smithsonian museums and read every plaque.Justine Goode / NBC News; Getty Images
Pausing next to a hulking steam locomotive at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on Friday, Kathryn Jones bent down to look at a tiny silk slipper.
“I’ve never seen one in person. It’s so small,” she said, pointing at the shoe once worn by a Chinese immigrant with bound feet. “That’s why I love museums. It takes those facts and solidifies it.”
The recording of a trail whistle hooted in the background, bringing to life the 1887 Jupiter steam engine that hauled fruit picked by immigrants in Watsonville, California.
“The immersion, the sounds, the small little touches that suck you in. I’m a sucker for small objects,” she said as she walked through “America on the Move,” her 100th Smithsonian exhibit this year.
In January, Jones began a quest to visit every exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, D.C., and read every plaque. During the past eight months, she has visited 100 exhibits at 13 museums, meticulously logging her time on detailed spreadsheets. According to her records, that’s 73 hours inside the museums and almost 51 total hours reading signs.
She traverses each exhibit twice, first reading every description and watching every video, then looking at the exhibit again and filming video for her TikTok account.
Kathryn Jones visits the “America on the Move” exhibit at the National Museum of American History Behring Center.Fiona Glisson / NBC News
“My goal for that is almost to kind of provide a marketing sizzle reel for the exhibit,” she said. “A priority of mine is getting people in museums, getting people curious, reminding people that learning is fun as well as hopefully right, breaking down the stigma that museums and galleries are stuffy and exclusive and people can’t come.”
Jones paused to take in historic footage of a streetcar passing the White House. “This is what I love to see, D.C. streets which I recognize,” she said. “Look how close to the White House they are with a streetcar.”
She added, “People on roller skates! I did not expect that. A tour! This is so cool.”
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on April 3, 2019.Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP file
This year, Jones found herself at a professional crossroads after leaving her job as a vice president of marketing.
“I called it my grown-up gap year,” she said. “There were so many aspects of what I was doing that I loved, but I was just kind of burnt out and felt adrift. So, I took the year off with the intention to figure out what brought me joy in life, what I wanted to do.”
Making videos about the Smithsonian, she discovered a passion for content creation, which she intends to continue after filming her last Smithsonian exhibition.
“I tried, I think, three times and failed before I did my first exhibit. I went to a museum with the intention to read everything, and was either too anxious to do it, embarrassed to be filming in public,” she said. “I’m really proud of myself for the strides that I’ve made in my ability to focus, my confidence in myself.”
As Jones has built her channel, the Smithsonian has found itself under increased scrutiny. Last month, the Trump administration informed Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch that it would begin a systematic review to “remove divisive or partisan narratives” in advance of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” he wrote. “We are not going to allow this to happen.”
The first phase of the review will focus on eight Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Portrait Gallery.
In an interview with Fox News, Lindsey Halligan, one of the White House officials who signed the administration’s Aug. 12 letter to the Smithsonian, addressed the review.
“The fact that … our country was involved in slavery is awful — no one thinks otherwise,” she said. “But what I saw when I was going through the museums, personally, was an overemphasis on slavery, and I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we’ve come since slavery.”
A display featuring former slave Clara Brown at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
The Smithsonian Institution was in the administration’s crosshairs prior to last month’s review announcement. In March, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directed the institution to “prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”
In April, an exhibit by African LGBTQ artists was abruptly postponed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. The following month, NBC News documented more than 30 artifacts that were removed from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. And in July, artist Amy Sherald canceled an upcoming show at the National Portrait Gallery after she said curators expressed concerns about a painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty.
“It became clear during my exchanges with the gallery how quickly curatorial independence collapses when politics enters the room,” she wrote on MSNBC.com. “Museums are not stages for loyalty. They are civic laboratories. They are places where we wrestle with contradictions, encounter the unfamiliar and widen our circle of empathy. But only if they remain free.”
This is not the first time that the Smithsonian has found itself in the crossfire of a culture war. In 2010, the institution withdrew part of an exhibition called Hide/Seek featuring works by LGBTQ artists after sustained outcry by then-House Speaker John Boehner and Catholic organizations.
The institution was also roiled by a debate over a National Air and Space Museum exhibit of the Enola Gay aircraft, which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Critics derided plans to include Japanese perspectives and information about the effects of nuclear warfare as an example of “politically correct curating.”
“The Smithsonian has faced crisis moments in the past … but the crisis moments have never come from a direct political assault, certainly not at the hands of the executive,” said Dr. Sam Redman, director of the public history program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “I know we use the word unprecedented a lot in this era, but this is truly unprecedented in terms of thinking about the Smithsonian.”
Kathryn Jones reads a plaque about Charlotte Hawkins Brown, an author, educator, and civil rights activist.Fiona Glisson / NBC News
Some museum scholars dispute the Trump administration’s claims that the Smithsonian overemphasizes narratives by Black and LGBTQ artists.
“We all know that museums are historically and culturally extremely conservative, and that there’s a striking lack of exhibitions devoted to women artists, or women’s history or Black artists or LGBTQ,” said Lisa Strong, director of the art and museum studies master’s program at Georgetown University. “Museums know this and have been working, working to fix this.”
A 2022 report by journalists Julia Halperin and Charlotte Burns for Artnet found 14.9% of exhibits at 31 major U.S. museums, including the National Portrait Gallery, between 2008 and 2020 were of work by female-identifying artists, and 6.3 % were of work by Black American artists.
Jones said her priority on her TikTok channel is encouraging people to visit the Smithsonian museums and local museums that document history.
“Hearing those stories of people that have suffered before, problems that we face, that’s honestly why I kind of started doing this challenge,” she said. “Because when we read these stories and see things, the more we know, the better we can empathize with other people, because we have other experiences to pull from.”
She sat in the arched alcove of a railroad waiting room to listen to the story of Charlotte Hawkins Brown, who traveled to the Jim Crow South on racially segregated railroad cars during the 1920s.
“She talks about how someone said to her, ‘This is God’s country. You can’t sit there,’” Jones said.
“Hearing those stories, I do think it’s important to confront those things, because that led to where we are now,” she said. “People are affected by that. Some people will carry the scars of that.”
As part of a wider rollback on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI), the Ivy League university will no longer designate residential proctors or tutors specifically for LGBTQ+ or first-generation/low-income undergraduates, according to the college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.
The tutors and proctors will have their tasks folded into “specialty” roles. The change was reportedly announced last week in an email from associate dean of students Lauren Brandt.
Proctors and tutors are live-in advisers who support and help plan activities for students in their first year at Harvard.
A document included with Brandt’s email informed students that “Culture and Community” proctors and tutors would now work to “foster cultivation of bonds and bridges to enable all members of our community to grow with and learn from each other”, The Crimson reported.
“The description of the responsibilities of the… tutors does not mention providing support to students with specific backgrounds or identities,” the report went on to say.
