National

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Keeping LGBTQ Families Safe: Recommendations and Best Practices

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There are important, commonsense things LGBTQ people and families can do to protect themselves to ensure our identities, families, and wishes are legally clear and respected. For decades, LGBTQ legal organizations and advocates have set the foundation and created pathways forward for us as LGBTQ people to be safe and recognized. Those include the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLAD Law, the Transgender Law Center, and more.  Some recommendations include: Right now there is a lot of uncertainty. It’s hard to provide broad legal advice without knowing individual circumstances, but what we do know […]

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LGBTQ+ parents are rushing to safeguard their parental rights before Donald Trump is president

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LGBTQ+ parents are reportedly scrambling to secure their parental rights before Donald Trump takes the oath of office. Attorney Meghan Alexander told Advocate she usually receives about three calls a week from LGBTQ+ parents seeking second-parent adoptions. The week Trump won, she fielded 26 calls. Since then, they have just kept coming.  Project 2025, which is believed to be the blueprint for the Trump administration, essentially calls to eliminate LGBTQ+ rights and states, “Only heterosexual, two-parent families are safe for children.”  “The advice is the same as it’s been for the last couple of decades, which is to do a second-parent adoption,” Alexander […]

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Texas City Council that targeted LGBTQ+ people gets voted out — and replaced with first gay member

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Voters in Odessa, Texas, rejected three incumbent City Council members just one month after they voted to implement a harsh anti-trans bathroom ban, replacing one with the city’s first out gay council member. Craig Stoker, the executive director for Meals on Wheels in Odessa, won his November election for at-large City Council member with 56 percent of the vote — in the same county President-elect Donald Trump won 76 percent of the vote.  Stoker beat Denise Swanner by campaigning on infrastructure — specifically roads and garbage pickup — in contrast to the incumbent, whose campaign sent out mailers comparing the two’s opposite positions by listing […]

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Lesbian Connection: How a grassroots magazine shaped generations of queer women

For half a century, Lesbian Connection has been more than just a magazine — it’s been a lifeline, newsletter, public forum and rallying cry for queer women worldwide. Launched in September 1974 as a humble, grassroots publication, this reader-written magazine has survived the test of time, connecting women-loving women through personal stories, advice columns and community updates long before social media made such communication second nature. The inspiration for Lesbian Connection magazine, affectionately known as “LC” or “Elsie” by its readers, struck during a cross-country road trip in 1973. Michigan taxi driver Margy Lesher and her then-girlfriend, Goldie, decided to hop in their […]

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New Jersey governor signs law blocking book bans

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed a law Monday prohibiting public schools and libraries from banning books and protecting librarians who obey state law. Murphy’s signing of the Freedom to Read Act comes amid an ongoing push by conservative lawmakers and activists across the country to challenge books they consider inappropriate for minors, particularly those about LGBTQ issues and race. Lawmakers in at least 13 states this year have introduced legislation to disrupt library services or limit their materials, according to an NBC News tally. “Across the nation, we have seen attempts to suppress and censor the stories and experiences of […]

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Parkland Activist David Hogg Runs For DNC Vice Chair

ABC News reports: David Hogg, gun control activist, March for Our Lives co-founder and Parkland school shooting survivor, is running for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, ABC News has learned. “I think this role is a great way of, for one, bringing newer voices into the Democratic Party,” Hogg told ABC News. “I just want to be one of several of those voices to help represent young people and also, more than anything, make sure that we’re standing up to the consulting class that increasingly the Democratic Party is representing instead of the working class.” The DNC offers four […]

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The 5 states with the smallest amount of LGBTQ+ people

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The hubs and duds of queer life in modern America have been revealed, thanks to a report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. The good news: wherever you are, you’re not alone. Overall, 14.1 million people reported that they “identify as LGBT” between 2020 and 2021, making up a significant portion of the population at 5.6 percent. By state, there wasn’t a single area with an LGBTQ+ population of less than 4 percent.  However, compared to others, some states still have less than half as many queer people proportionally. While the report did not give any reasoning as […]

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Three more inductees announced for LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame

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The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute has chosen three more 2024 inductees to its LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame. They are North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge John Arrowood, Virginia state Sen. Danica Roem, and Claudia López, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. They join Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in this year’s class, as voted by the LGBTQ+ Victory Action Board of Directors. Buttigieg, who has also been mayor of South Bend, Ind., and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, was inducted in August during the Democratic National Convention. The new honorees will be inducted December 7 during the 2024 International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. “The 2024 nominees are not only historic firsts […]

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Voters Send Powerful Message to Anti-Trans, Moms for Liberty-aligned Candidates

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In multiple states this election year, voters signaled an overall shift away from “parents’ rights” issues, fear mongering, and partisan politics, including the rejection of anti-trans candidate for North Carolina governor Mark Robinson as well as other state and local educational posts. North Carolina voters also rejected Moms for Liberty-endorsed Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Michele Morrow, whose campaign and record was nearly equally as disturbing as Robinson’s Morrow’s anti-LGBTQ record included a defamatory rant against opponent Mo Green, who received the endorsement of state LGBTQ organization Equality North Carolina. Morrow falsely and dangerously misrepresented the plus symbol in LGBTQ+ in a post on Twitter/X: “NEWSFLASH…the ‘+’ includes PEDOPH*L*A!!” The […]

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Interview: Trump Poses More Threats to Rights of LGBT People

US President-elect Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric concerning the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGBT) people is nothing new. His first term in office from 2017 until 2021 resulted in a wave of discriminatory measures aimed at limiting protections for LGBT people across the United States. Since then, state legislatures around the country have continued to pursue or pass draconian bills to limit the presence of LGBT people in public life, including rolling back freedoms for trans children. Senior Web Producer Paul Aufiero spoke with LGBT rights specialist Ryan Thoreson about what’s at stake under a second Trump presidency. What does a second […]

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