We are reaching out with a reminder that Equality California (EQCA) will soon be sending out surveys to school districts throughout California for the purpose of updating the information in their Safe and Supportive Schools report, which is published every two years (see here for the most recent edition). This report is a vitally important source of information for LGBTQIA+ families seeking to understand the degree to which their school district is implementing supportive measures for LGBTQIA+ students and families.
As reflected on this map, most school districts in Sonoma County did not respond when the survey last went out in 2018. If you have a student in a local school district or want to help create more LGBTQIA+ inclusive learning environments in our community, please consider using or modifying one of the email templates below from EQCA to contact your superintendent or local school board to encourage them to participate. The survey should be going out to schools during the month of November, so please get in touch with your district at your earliest convenience!
In addition to the information in the templates below, points you can include in your message or follow-up conversation with your district include:
With the availability of one-time pandemic response funds, school districts have a unique opportunity in the next couple of years to invest in social emotional supports and learning loss mitigation efforts for LGBTQIA+ students that would be responsive to many of the issues addressed in the EQCA survey. These measures include investing in professional development for educators around LGBTQIA+ cultural responsiveness, as well as in teaching LGBTQIA+ history and LGBTQIA+ inclusive health education. Funds can also be used for curriculum updates, facilities updates to ensure all gender restroom/locker room access, and support for LGBTQIA+ student clubs such as GSAs. You can find more detail about these and other supportive measures in this May 2021 open letter from the Sonoma County LGBTQIA+ Coalition to all Sonoma County school districts.
Putting supportive measures in place for LGBTQIA+ students will help school districts ensure that they are compliance with AB 493, which became effective on July 1, 2021, and requires the California Department of Education to develop training and resources for educators and other school staff to create more supportive environments for LGBTQIA+ students and connect them with community resources, such as those listed here. Schools are encouraged to utilize these training materials at least once every two years in grades 7 through 12.
For districts with fewer resources available to implement supportive measures in areas of the survey that they are concerned will reflect negatively on them, one way to encourage participation can be to highlight that survey results can be a means of demonstrating a district’s funding needs to the state with regard to compliance with the many laws that are now in place that require LGBTQIA+ student support in California schools.
As listed here, a number of local organizations serve LGBTQIA+ youth and families in Sonoma County, and are available to work with schools in developing and implementing supportive measures for LGBTQIA+ students.
For additional background on current efforts related to the EQCA Safe and Supportive Schools report, as well as the amazing work that our friends at Our Family Coalition have been doing to advance this important initiative, check out this article.
Note that you can also find your Sonoma County school district’s superintendent and contact information here. It may also be helpful to contact district administrators who work in student services, educational services, and/or student wellness. It is our understanding that schools will have until about March to respond to the surveys.
Please consider reaching out to your local school district today, and feel free to contact us at northbaylgbtqifamilies@gmail.com with any questions!
With Gratitude,
Ana Flores Tindall (she/her/they/them) Sal Andropoulos (they/them) Kayla Flores Tindall (she/her) Sam Coates (he/him) Zahyra Garcia (she/her/they/them)
My name is X. I am a parent/community member/other who lives in X.
I’m reaching out with regard to Equality California’s Safe and Supportive Schools Program, a California Department of Education endorsed program which collects data on school district policies and practices with regard to school climate, curriculum, suicide prevention, and other areas. This data is published bi-annually in a report that provides critical information on where districts stand in their implementation of laws and best practices with regard to safe and supportive school environments. Last year’s report is available at this link.
This survey is sent out to school districts every two years to gauge where they are in these areas. In 2018, the last year that the survey went out, your district did not respond. Equality California is now preparing to send out the next survey, with the goal of publishing our findings in 2022. We would like to schedule a time to speak with you about the survey and the importance of your district responding to it via a virtual call.
Please let us know if you’re available for a short, 30 minute meeting to discuss. We hope to work with you to improve school climate in X Unified and across California and to support LGBTQ and all students.
Thank you and all the best, X
***********
(School Board Members)
Hello Board Member X,
My name is X. I am a parent/community member/other who lives in X.
I’m reaching out with regard to Equality California’s Safe and Supportive Schools Program, a California Department of Education endorsed program which collects data on school district policies and practices with regard to school climate, curriculum, suicide prevention, and other areas. This data is published bi-annually in a report that provides critical information on where districts stand in their implementation of laws and best practices with regard to safe and supportive school environments. Last year’s report is available at this link.
This survey is sent out to school districts every two years to gauge where they are in these areas. In 2018, the last year that the survey went out, your district did not respond. Equality California is now preparing to send out the next survey, with the goal of publishing our findings in 2022. We would like to schedule a time to speak with you about the survey and the importance of your district responding to it via a virtual call.
Please let us know if you’re available for a short, 30 minute meeting to discuss. We hope to work with you to improve school climate in X Unified and across California and to support LGBTQ and all students.
The Australian Human Rights Commission issued a report today analyzing the persistent practice of medically unnecessary non-consensual surgeries on children born with variations in their sex characteristics. The commission urged authorities to protect children’s rights to informed consent, and to legally regulate the operations.
Around the world since the 1950s, people born with variations in their sex characteristics, sometimes called “intersex,” have been subjected to harmful medically unnecessary “normalizing” surgeries. Surgeons popularized these cosmetic surgeries on infants to remove gonads, reduce the size of the clitoris, or increase the size of the vagina.
But these procedures are not designed to treat a medical problem, and there is no evidence they help children “fit in,” which some surgeons say is their aim. The operations carry high risks of scarring, loss of sexual sensation, incontinence, and psychological trauma. Some surgeries can sterilize the person, which an Australian Senate Committee condemned in 2013.
Its new report calls on the government to develop rights-based standards of care for children born with variation in their sex characteristics. It urges legislation to regulate the surgeries, limiting them only to when the patient has consented or where they are “required urgently to avoid serious harm” and “the risk of harm cannot be mitigated in another less intrusive way, and intervention cannot be further delayed.”
Momentum for change in Australia is afoot. Federal and local governments should urgently consider the commission’s recommendations and ensure that children born perfectly healthy – just a little different – are free to make decisions about their own bodies.
The Dutch monarchy made international news last week after announcing that royals can marry a same-sex partner without giving up their right to the throne. But while the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalize gay marriage, has paved the wave for a queer royal to officially wear the crown, LGBTQ people have long been doing so unofficially.
While it’s difficult to assign modern labels to figures from the past, there were notable leaders from centuries — even millennia — ago, who crossed sexual and gender boundaries. Some were celebrated by their subjects, others vilified.
In light of the Dutch monarchy’s recent announcement and in honor of LGBTQ History Month, which is celebrated in October, here are 13 queer royals you didn’t learn about in school.
Emperor Ai of Han (27 – 1 B.C.)
Made emperor of the Han Dynasty at age 20, Ai was initially well received by his subjects but eventually became associated with corruption and incompetence. He was also widely known to have been romantically involved with one of his ministers, Dong Xian, though both men were married to women.
In the “Hanshu,” or “Book of Han,” Dong and Ai’s relationship is referred to as “the passion of the cut sleeve.” As the story went, the pair had fallen asleep together on a mat and, upon waking, the emperor cut the sleeve off his robe rather than disturb his lover. (The term “cut sleeve” remained a Chinese euphemism for male homosexuality for centuries.)
Dong was granted many honors, eventually being made commander of the military, and he and his family lived inside the imperial compound.
According to historian Brent Hinsch, many Han emperors reportedly had “male favorites” who were listed in both the “Book of Han” and the “Shiji,” or “Records of the Grand Historian.”
“It is not women alone who can use their looks to attract the eyes of the ruler,” the “Shiji” reads, according to Ban Gu’s “History of Early China.” “Courtiers and eunuchs can play that game as well. Many were the men of ancient times who gained favor this way.”
Emperor Hadrian of Rome (76 – 138 A.D.)
Another leader who showered his male lover with attention, Hadrian was in a politically arranged marriage to the great-niece of his predecessor — a loveless union that bore no children. It wasn’t unusual for high-powered Romans to have male partners in addition to their wives, but Hadrian was almost slavishly devoted to his young consort, Antinous.
The Roman emperor Hadrian.ullstein bild via Getty Images
When Antinous mysteriously drowned in the Nile in 130 A.D., Hadrian was so grief-stricken he had the young man deified and put up monuments to him everywhere.
“Hadrian was clearly bereaved and he had lots of images put up,” Thorsten Opper, who curated an exhibit on the emperor at the British Museum, told The Independent in 2008. “When a city [in Egypt] was founded close to the spot where Antinous drowned, he named it Antinopolis. It was a sort of hero cult-worship of Antinous.”
Al-Hakam II of Córdoba (915 – 976)
A 10th century caliph in Córdoba, Spain, Al-Hakam was known for his largely peaceful reign and his love of learning: His library contained more than 400,000 books, and he provided sanctuary to many writers and philosophers.
The caliph’s sexuality has been the source of some debate: According to the French medievalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal, the phrase “hubb al-walad,” found in 16th-century historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari’s compendium “Nafh at-Tib” in reference to Al-Hakam II, translates as a “preference for boys,” though other scholars maintain it refers to paternal love.
The Medieval Europe scholar Francisco Prado-Vilar wrote that knowledge of Al-Hakam’s homosexuality in the court of Córdoba “encouraged the ambitions of the factions gathered around his much younger brother, Prince al-Mughira.”
“In his youth his loves seem to have been entirely homosexual,” queer studies scholar Louis Crompton wrote in “Male Love and Islamic Law in Arab Spain.” “This exclusivity was a problem when he succeeded to the throne, since it was incumbent upon the new caliph to produce a male heir.”
Despite rumors of having a male harem, Al-Hakam did marry a Basque concubine named Subh, but reportedly gave her the masculine nickname Jafar. Subh is said to have worn the short hair and trousers of a ghulam, or young man,to garner her husband’s attention.
King Edward II of England (1284 – 1327)
King Edward II of England’s intense relationship with Piers Gaveston drew the ire of many nobles at court and forced Edward to send his favorite away more than once.
“When the king’s son gazed upon him, he straightaway felt so much love for him that he entered into a covenant of brotherhood with him and chose and firmly resolved to bind himself to him, before all mortals, in an unbreakable bond of love,” wrote one chronicler at the time.
The sexual nature of their relationship has been alluded to in Christopher Marlowe’s 1592 play, “Edward II,” and addressed more directly in queer filmmaker Derek Jarman’s 1991 film of the same name.
But even contemporaries were claiming the two men were unusually close, with some nicknaming Gaveston a “second king.”
According to English Heritage, which manages historic British monuments, “It is impossible to know the exact nature of their relationship, but there is strong evidence to suggest it was a romantic one.”
Eventually, their relationship estranged Edward from his wife, Isabella of France, and her allies at court. After he returned from exile a third time in 1311, Gaveston was hunted down and decapitated by a group of noblemen, including Edward’s cousin Thomas, the Earl of Lancaster.
In 1326, Isabella and her possible lover, Roger Mortimer, seized power and had Edward deposed and imprisoned. He died at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire a year later.
Rumors that Edward II had been gruesomely executed by having a red-hot poker inserted into his backside spread quickly, likely started by his political enemies.
Queen Ana Nzinga of Ndongo (1583 – 1663)
The gender-nonconforming ruler of Ndongo and Matamba in modern-day Angola, Nzinga fought off Portuguese colonialists, alternately through diplomacy, trade and guerrilla warfare.
She welcomed runaway slaves and European-trained African soldiers, and adopted kilombo, a military strategy in which male youths were taken from their families and raised communally in militias.
In a 1670 book, her Dutch bodyguard, Captain Fuller, described 60-year-old Nzinga as wearing “men’s apparel” during ritual sacrifice, “hanging about her the skins of beasts … with a sword about her neck, an axe at her girdle, and a bow and arrows in her hand.”
Fuller also described a cadre of young men whom Nzinga kept dressed in women’s clothing.
“The thing about Nzinga is her title was Ngola, and Ngola means king,” the Nigerian American photographer Mikael Owunna told NPR in 2017. “Nzinga ruled dressed in full male clothing as a king, and she had a harem of young men dressed as women who were her wives. So in the 1600s, you basically had a butch queen with a bunch of drag queens for wives leading a fight against European colonization.”
King James I of England (1566 – 1625)
The son of Mary, Queen of Scots, this British monarch, known as both King James VI of Scotland and King James I of England, has been described by the historian Michael B. Young as “the most prominent homosexual figure in the early modern period.”
Married to Anne of Denmark, James is thought to have had relationships with several male courtiers — most notably, George Villiers, whom he made the Earl and later the Duke of Buckingham. (In the early 2000s, restoration work on Apethorpe Palace revealed a secret passageway connecting James’ and Villiers’ bedchambers.)
“To the shock of many courtiers, the pair were demonstratively affectionate to each other in public, despite James’ various proclamations against homosexuality,” Daniel Smith wrote in “Love Letters of Kings and Queens.”
A popular epigram at the time compared the Jacobean monarch to his Tudor predecessor, Elizabeth I, declaring, “Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen.”
Contemporary poet Théophile de Viau put it more bluntly: “It is well known that the king of England f—- the Duke of Buckingham.”
Fending off claims of favoritism, James proclaimed, “You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else.”
“I wish … to not to have it thought to be a defect,” he added, “for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, and I have George.”
Queen Christina of Sweden (1626 – 1689)
It’s hard to separate fact from fiction with this 17th-century Swedish royal: Her predilection for wearing men’s clothes and enjoying literature, hunting, alchemy and other male-dominated activities spurred rumors Christina was a sexual deviant or intersex.
“There is nothing feminine about her except her sex,” a Jesuit priest wrote in 1653. “Her voice, her manner of speaking, her walk, her style, her ways are all quite masculine.”
Oliver Cromwell’s secretary of state John Thurloe commented on Christina’s “Amazonian behavior” and said that “nature was mistaken in her,” while salacious French pamphlets claimed she was “one of the most ribald tribades ever heard of,” using the contemporary term for a lesbian.
But how many of those barbs were simply attempts at character assassination isn’t clear.
“The monarch has been described at best as ‘unconventional’ and at worst as an impulsive, over-emotional murderer,” historian Amy Saunders wrote in The Royal Studies Journal. “Christina’s sexuality and gender have been constantly reconstructed, re-examined, and re-interpreted.”
Since childhood, the queen’s closest companion was Countess Ebba Sparre, whom she introduced as “my bed-fellow.”
“How happy I should be if only I could see you, Beautiful One,” Christina wrote to Sparre in 1656. “But I am condemned by destiny to love and cherish you always without seeing you. I cannot be completely happy when I am separated from you.”
“It’s difficult to imagine just how Christina understood her own feelings for Ebba, and for those of other women, like the Comtesse de Suze, on whom she is said to have been keen,” Sarah Waters, author of “Tipping the Velvet,” wrote in the Feminist Review in 1994. “There was certainly gossip about Christina’s relations with women in her own day, identifying her as the aristocratic ‘tribade.’”
Christina, who abdicated rather than marry, wrote in her memoir that she felt “an insurmountable distaste for marriage” and “for all the things that females talked about and did.”
Though the 1933 film “Queen Christina” inserts a fictional heterosexual romance, the movie cemented screen goddess Greta Garbo’s status as a queer icon.
Queen Anne of England (1665 – 1714)
Anne, who suffered from frail health throughout her life, met Sarah Churchill when the two were girls. They quickly became close confidants, embarking on a relationship that lasted well into adulthood.
“If I could tell how to hinder myself from writing to you every day I would,” Anne wrote to her friend. “But really I cannot … when I am from you I cannot be at ease without enquiring after you.”
Queen Anne of England.Print Collector / /Getty Images
When Anne became queen in 1707, she made Sarah and her husband the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and appointed Sarah the Keeper of the Privy Purse. Anne was married to Prince George of Denmark, but rumors circulated that the two women were having a secret romance.
Eventually Sarah became a bit too accustomed to her access and influence and Anne became more drawn to Sarah’s cousin, Abigail Masham.
In 1708, political pamphlets likely circulated by a jealous Sarah pointed to “dark deeds at night”between Abigail and the queen. After a final falling out at Kensington Palace in 1710, Sarah and Anne never spoke again.
“The Favourite,” a somewhat fictionalized 2018 account of Anne’s relationships with Sarah and Abigail — complete with lesbian liaisons — earned Olivia Colman a best actress Oscar as the conflicted queen.
Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712 – 1786)
Even in his lifetime, this Prussian royal was widely rumored to be a homosexual, though that term wouldn’t be coined till nearly 90 years after his death.
Two years after the king’s death, his physician Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann published a book in which he desperately tried to dispel gossip Frederick had a “Grecian taste in love.”
In “Frederick the Great: King of Prussia,” T.C.W. Blanning writes that Zimmermann claimed the king had a minor deformity on his penis that rendered him impotent. And rather than let that secret out, Frederick pretended to be gay, “so that he would continue to appear virile and capable of sexual intercourse, albeit with men.”
But Frederick’s proclivities were apparent at a young age: As a 16-year-old crown prince, he was caught having an affair with a 17-year-old page.
“We were unaware of my brother’s artifices,” his older sister Wihelmine wrote. “Though I had noticed that he was on more familiar terms with this page than was proper in his position I did not know how intimate the friendship was.”
Their father, King Frederick William, detested what he saw as his son’s effeminacy and was increasingly despotic toward him. Frederick tried to run away with another rumored lover, Hans Hermann von Katte, but the pair were caught.
Von Katte was executed in front of Frederick, shouting, “I die for you with joy in my heart!” before being beheaded.
Frederick became king of Prussia in 1740 and was considered a savvy military leader, politician and patron of the arts committed to the Enlightenment. But he did little to obscure his sexuality: Sanssouci, his palace in Potsdam, was filled with homoerotic art and, across Europe, “les Potsdamists” became slang for homosexuals.
The king allegedly pursued the Venetian philosopher Francesco Algarotti and even famed French philosopher Voltaire, who lived with him at Sanssouci, though it’s not certain if either relationship was sexual.
After Voltaire’s death in 1778, a manuscript of his memoir detailing Frederick’s homosexual tendencies in detail was stolen and published in the Netherlands.
Because of his military acumen, Frederick was glorified by the Nazis as a great German leader, though his sexuality was heavily obscured.
Princess Isabella of Parma (1741 – 1763)
Wed to Archduke Joseph of Austria, Isabella was rumored to truly be in love with Joseph’s sister, Archduchess Maria Christina, known affectionately as Mimi.
She spent all her time at court in Vienna with the archduchess, rather than her husband, and the two exchanged hundreds of letters. Maria Christina’s were destroyed after her death, but Isabella’s make her ardor apparent: “I am told that the day begins with God,” she wrote in one. “I, however, begin the day by thinking of the object of my love, for I think of her incessantly.”
The relationship was also a great source of conflict for Isabella, because it meant betraying her duties as the wife of a prince. More significantly, though, Isabella realized this was the great love of her life, but she knew that for Mimi, it was more of a youthful dalliance.
The princess died giving birth in 1763 at age 21.
Archduke Ludwig Viktor of Austria (1842 – 1919)
Being the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I didn’t save Ludwig Viktor from ruin when he made an unwelcome pass at a man at Vienna’s Centralbad bathhouse.
“It appears there was a row, and the Archduke was knocked down by one of the bathers, an athletic young man of the middle classes,” The Chicago Tribune reported in 1906. “According to witnesses, the young man’s actions were justified.”
Ludwig was banished from Vienna for the remainder of the emperor’s life. “He has also been forced to resign his patronages, and most of his staff have been moved to other positions,” the Tribune reported, adding that the archduke has been “virtually ostracized” from society.
“The Viennese are very tolerant of scandals in imperial and aristocratic circles,” the paper wrote, “but Ludwig Viktor’s affairs proved to be too much even for them.”
The archduke spent the rest of his life in seclusion at Klessheim Palace near Salzburg, where he died at the age of 76 in 1919, three years after his brother’s death and one year after the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved after the end of World War I.
Mwanga II of Buganda (1868 – 1903)
Discussion of Uganda’s treatment of homosexuality usually settles on President Yoweri Museveni’s “Kill the Gays” bill, but this 19th century kabaka, or king, of Buganda allegedly had sexual relationships with men along with his 16 wives.
In 1886, Mwanga II ordered the brutal torture and deaths of dozens of courtiers and pages, with many burned alive. While some sources claimed the incident stemmed from the victims’ attempt to save a British missionary, The New York Times reported the massacre was sparked by “the refusal of a Christian lad acting as the king’s page to commit an abominable crime.”
Whatever the cause, the mass slaughter earned international condemnation and further destabilized Mwanga’s rule, leading to his eventual exile and British annexation of Uganda in the 1890s.
The victims were beatified as martyrs in 1920, and then canonized in 1964. There is a shrine dedicated to them in Namugongo and Martyr’s Day is still celebrated in Uganda every June.
Over time, they became national heroes and the “founding narrative of Christianity in Africa,” political scientist Rahul Rao told The Atlantic.
More than a century later, right-wing religious and political leaders like Museveni still use the martyrs to justify attacks on the LGBTQ community in Uganda.
“I hear there was homosexuality in Mwanga’s palace,” Museveni told a crowd of thousands on Martyr Day in 2010, the Atlantic reported. “This was not part of our culture. I hear he learnt it from the Arabs. But the martyrs refused these falsehoods and went for the truth, which is why we are honoring them today.”
King Umberto II of Italy (1904 – 1983)
After Mussolini’s fall, Umberto’s father, King Victor Emmanuel III, was viewed as a Fascist sympathizer. Under pressure from Allied forces, he abdicated in favor of his wastrel son, Umberto, in 1943.
Italian King Umberto II greets the crowd gathered on Piazza del Quirinale in Rome in 1946.Mondadori Portfolio / Mondadori Portfolio / Getty Images
Umberto was married to Queen Marie-José of Belgium and the couple had four children. But the Orva, Mussolini’s secret police, had kept dossiers on Umberto’s male lovers, who reportedly included famed filmmaker Luchino Visconti, boxer Primo Carnero, and French actor Jean Marais.
One former fling said when he was a young lieutenant in Turin, the prince courted him incessantly, giving him a silver cigarette lighter with the inscription “Dimmi di sì!” (“Say yes to me!”).
Critics decried Umberto as dim-witted, shallow and a poor leader.
The same year he was made regent, Umberto was outed by the Fascist press in an attempt to discredit him. It worked: After just 34 days the public voted to abolish the monarchy.
Separating from his wife in 1946, Umberto lived out the rest of his life in exile. He died in Geneva at age 78.
Six boys and one non-binary student are suing a Texas school district after they were reportedly handed suspensions for having long hair.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas filed a lawsuit last week against the Magnolia Independent School District on behalf of the students, aged between seven and 17.
According to the ACLU, the district has been “engaging in explicit gender discrimination” by enforcing sex-specific dress and grooming rules for students, and “harshly punishing” them if they do not comply.
The Magnolia ISD handbook states that hair must “be no longer than the bottom of a dress shirt collar, bottom of the ear, and out of the eyes for male students”, and must “not be pinned up in any fashion nor be worn in a ponytail or bun for male students”.
No such rules exist for female students.
The lawsuit claims that multiple students have been placed in “in-school suspension” or a “disciplinary alternative education program” over the length of their hair.
According to the school district handbook, the “disciplinary alternative education program” is used for offences like making a false report of a terrorist threat or bullying another student to the point that they take their own life.
Brian Klosterboer, ACLU of Texas staff attorney, said in a statement: “At a time when students have already been through so much due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is outrageous that Magnolia ISD administrators are pushing students out of school because of their gender and hair.
“We have warned the district repeatedly that its gender-based hair policy violates the Constitution, but the district continues to derail students’ lives and deny their right to a public education free from discrimination.
“Magnolia ISD is failing to live up to its motto ‘to be the best district in the state of Texas,’ and the district needs to stop hurting its students.”
The 11-year-old non-binary plaintiff was ‘ostracised’ by the school district over their long hair
According to the lawsuit, the 11-year-old non-binary plaintiff, identified as TM, was sent to in-school suspension for nine days over their long hair.
“Sometimes TM expresses their gender identity more like a boy, but other times TM expresses their gender identity more like a girl,” the lawsuit reads.
“TM has worn long hair for the last couple years as a critical component of expressing their gender identity.
“If TM is forced to wear short hair based on gender stereotypes associated with their gender assigned at birth, TM will lose a vital part of who they are and sacrifice an essential element of their gender expression.”
It added that TM had been “ostracised and separated from their friends” by the in-school suspension, and it was only ended after their mother went to the press.
TM was granted a 60-day “pause” on the sex-based dress code being enforced, which will soon come to an end, putting them at “imminent risk of being sent back to [in-school suspension] and/or [disciplinary alternative education program]”.
According to Out, Magnolia ISD said in a statement that it “looks forward to the opportunity to respond” to the suit in court.
It continued: “This system of differentiated dress and grooming standards have been affirmed by courts and does not inhibit equal access to educational opportunities under Title IX.
“The rules are included in the student handbook each year and are similar to the codes of approximately half of the public school districts in Texas.”
On Tuesday (26 October), a judge temporarily blocked the school district’s enforcement of the sex-based grooming policy while legal proceedings are ongoing.
In the fourth century BC, a fearsome army named the Sacred Band of Thebes was formed, and it was made up entirely of gay couples.
Lawmakers in countries across the world have been banning LGBT+ people from their militaries for more than a century, from America’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and trans military ban, to the UK’s ban on LGBT+ people in the armed forces, which was only lifted in 2000.
While the US insisted during the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that LGBT+ service members “would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order, discipline and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability”, history tells a very different story.
The Sacred Band of Thebes was formed in Ancient Greece by a general named Gorgidas in 378 BC.
In forming the 300-strong army, Gorgidas took an unusual approach; he personally chose each member based on merit and ability, rather than social status, and only selected gay couples.
What at first seems like a strange decision makes perfect sense when explained by Plato.
In Plato’s Symposium, written just a few years after the formation of the Sacred Band of Thebes, he said: “And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world.
“For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this.
“Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?”
And Plato was right.
The Sacred Band of Thebes became a fearsome army, tirelessly training to prepare themselves for battle at any minute, including through wrestling and dance.
They won multiple battles, even taking down the Spartan army, despite being vastly outnumbered.
The couples were each made up of a “lover”, who was older and more experienced, and a “beloved”, who was younger.
The ages of the soldiers were never recorded, but James DeVoto, in his book The Sacred Band, suggests that by comparing them to other armies at the time, it is likely they joined at around 20 to 21 years old, and retired by 30.
The word “sacred” in the name of the army is thought to reference a sacred vow that the couples made to one another.
The Sacred Band of Thebes was so awe-inspiring, even their enemies cried when they were defeated
The Sacred Band of Thebes was finally defeated in 338 BC, 40 years after its formation.
They fought in the Battle of Chaeronea, joining Athens to fight against Philip II of Macedon, but were eventually surrounded.
The ancient gay army was offered the chance to surrender, but as Plato predicted, they refused to give up in front of their lovers.
Every member was killed, but according to Plutarch, Philip II broke down in tears after defeating them.
He is recorded as saying: “Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.”
Meet Brandon Straka, a 44-year-old New York-based hairstylist and Trump lover that just plead guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge for his role in the January 6 Capitol Insurrection. In addition to begging his “followers” for money, Straka complains that he can’t seem to get a date.
Gee, we wonder why.
Straka first waded into politics in 2018 by launching the #WalkAway campaign, an online push to convince queer Americans to not support Democratic politicians. Straka claimed that Democrats have never been friends to the LGBTQ community, despite Barack Obama and Joe Biden being the first sitting US President and Vice President to endorse marriage equality. Straka also ignores that the Republican party continues to show open hostility toward queer Americans.
Earlier this month, Straka entered his guilty plea with a federal court. He will face sentencing in December. LGBTQ Nation reports that just two days later, he emailed his #WalkAway mailing list asking them to send him money for his legal bills.
“Start posting positive things that you believe about me,” he wrote. “Push back against the one sided hate attacks that are happening right now. I still have nothing to say about my case, other than this- as it’s being widely (and likely INTENTIONALLY) misreported: I did NOT enter the Capitol building… Almost every story I’ve read so far says or implies that I went inside. I did NOT. The amount of hatred being leveled at me this week is unlike anything I’ve experienced the past 4 years. I feel like I’m being attacked by an army.”
“Tell your husbands, boyfriends, sons, and fathers to sign up for my emails,” he then added. “I only get about 1 out of 100 emails from men. lol. I love my women followers, but also want to hear from the guys that we’re all going to get through this in one piece.”
Once again: gee, we wonder why.
Straka goes on to claim that he’s been banned from most online vending platforms, including PayPal Venmo, and Stripe. He further says he has set up an account with a “conservative” processing company.
During the January 6 Insurrection, Straka live-tweeted from the riots, writing “Patriots at the Capitol – HOLD. THE. LINE!!!!” Later that same day, he added “So congress moves forward, Patriots storm the Capitol- now everybody is virtual signaling their embarrassment that this happened.”
Two days later, Straka deleted his social media accounts. Facebook also deleted his #WalkAway page, saying it violated the company’s ban on obscene or violent content. Later in January, the FBI arrested Straka after several videos of him surfaced at the Captiol shouting “We’re going in!” and “Go! Go!” Another video also apparently shows him encouraging an attack on a police officer, with Straka encouraging other insurrectionists to steal the officer’s riot shield.
In addition to his role in the Capitol insurrection and the #WalkAway campaign, Straka also became a viral story in 2020 when American Airlines banned him following his refusal to wear a mask on a flight.
The president of Lithuania met with a mother concerned for her LGBT+ child’s future, and the future of every other child like them.
Gitanas Nausėda, president of Lithuania, has been vocal about his belief in what he calls traditional family values. He has rallied against what he termed “genderist propaganda” and has said that family is between a man and a woman.
“As a president of the Lithuanian Republic, I will use my powers to make sure it is so,” he said at a rally in May.
Rasa Račienė is a mother and a medical doctor, and last week penned an open letter to the president expressing her concern for her child’s welfare as a member of the LGBT+ community in Lithuania.
In the letter she asked that Nausėda and his fellow party members “use rhetoric that unites, rather than divides Lithuania”. Račienė also said that she hears abusive remarks about LGBT+ people on a daily basis in her locality.
“My heart is in pain because all these words are about my child,” she wrote. “Every day, I worry that something may happen to my child, that all the bullying and hate in the public space will destroy my child emotionally and break him. Believe me, it is unbearable, it is humiliating and it hurts me to the core.”
Račienė encouraged the president to consult with members of the LGBT+ community and NGOs which fight for the rights of the community as opposed to “third parties” such as the Catholic Church.
The letter went on to ask for the president’s “personal promise” that the country will soon enjoy respectful civil partnership laws. A vote to debate a same-sex partnership bill in May lost in parliament by several votes.
Nausėda appeared to responded to the letter with a cautiously open mind, telling reporters: “I am ready to talk; I am ready to listen.”
However he did go on to express concern for what he referred to as “the persecution” of people who hold anti-LGBT+ views.
“When the mother speaks about bullying, about threats, we all face this phenomenon today, regardless of sexual orientation. There is clearly too much confrontation in Lithuania today,” Nausėda said.
“It will be really interesting for me to talk with her about her views on the persecution of other groups in society for thinking differently than this group.”
The meeting between Račienė and Nausėda took place Monday (25 October). An advisor to the president said that “a very sensitive conversation took place between the two parents”, Žmonės.ltreported.
Račienė told reporters that she felt heard by the president.
“I understand that the president is not only the head of the country – he is also a man,” she said. She felt that she was heard “as a mother”, saying that their conversation was detailed.
On 29 August 1867, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs stood up in the Congress of German Jurists and passionately called for anti-gay laws to be repealed.
It was a momentous occasion in the worldwide history of LGBT+ rights – but it was also significant for another reason, as it became the first public coming out on record.
That incredible moment was just one chapter in Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ long battle to win recognition for people who found themselves sexually attracted to the same gender.
Throughout his life, Ulrichs fought tirelessly to improve the standing of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in a hostile society. Fundamentally, he believed that sexual orientation was innate – a groundbreaking notion during his lifetime – and he wrote extensively about his ideas.
We remember the life and legacy of Ulrichs – a man who shocked society with his trailblazing efforts to normalise queerness during a time when LGBT+ identities were neither understood nor accepted.
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was born in Aurich, north-west Germany, on 28 August 1825. He knew he was different from other children from an early age – he often wore girls’ clothes in his youth and preferred being friends with girls.
Ulrichs went on to study at Göttingen University and Berlin University before he embarked on a career in the Hanoverian civil service – but his time as a public servant was cut short when rumours of his same-sex affairs started to swirl. He ultimately resigned before he could be sacked and he went on to work as a journalist for German newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung.
In 1862, Ulrichs took the significant step of telling his family and friends that he was sexually attracted to other men. At that time, the word “homosexual” hadn’t even been invented – and it was many years before the word “gay” was used to describe same-sex attraction. It was for this reason that Ulrichs started penning his own essays that allowed him to explore and innovate.
By the time he came out to his family, Ulrichs had come up with the word “Urning” to describe men who were sexually attracted to other men. This word featured prominently in his first five essays, Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Studies on the Riddle of Male-Male Love).
In those essays, Ulrichs coined the word “Dioning” to describe lesbians, and he also came up with terms to refer to bisexual and intersex people. His terminology was based on passages from Plato’s Symposium.
It was in those essays that Ulrichs posited the idea that same-sex love was both biological and natural – that it was an innate, something people were born with and which they could not change. That idea was revolutionary in an era when homosexuality was rarely discussed in anything but negative terms.
Naturally, Ulrichs was nervous about putting his writings out into the world – which is at least part of the reason he initially published under the pseudonym Numa Numantius. However, he later acknowledged that the writings were his own and his final volume was published under his own name.
In his groundbreaking essays, Ulrichs campaigned for the legal rights of gay people. He initially believed that homosexuality in men was caused by having a female soul or “psyche” trapped inside the male body – however, he later argued that same-sex desire was entirely natural.
Using that logic, Ulrichs argued that same-sex relationships should be legally permitted – and he even suggested that gay people should have the right to marry.
As Hubert Kennedy in his article “Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality”, writes: “This was a major departure from previous and subsequent theories that saw the practice of homosexuality/’sodomy’ as an acquired vice.”
In one essay, Ulrichs wrote: “The Urning [gay man], too, is a person. He, too, therefore, has inalienable rights. His sexual orientation is a right established by nature.
“Legislators have no right to veto nature; no right to persecute nature in the course of its work; no right to torture living creatures who are subject to those drives nature gave them.
“The Urning is also a citizen. He, too, has civil rights; and according to these rights, the state has certain duties to fulfill as well.
“The state does not have the right to act on whimsy or for the sheer love of persecution. The state is not authorized, as in the past, to treat Urnings as outside the pale of the law.”
Ulrichs defended those whose sexual nature was ‘opposite of the which is usual’
That brings us to August 1867, when Ulrichs stood up in the Congress of German Jurists and issued a passionate call for gay people to afforded equality under the law.
Speaking in Munich in front of 500 lawyers, state officials and academics, Ulrichs argued that discriminatory anti-sodomy laws should be overturned.
“Gentlemen, my proposal is directed toward a revision of the current penal law,” he said, according to Robert Beachy’s 2014 book Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity, as reported byThe New York Times.
In his rousing speech, Ulrichs referred to gay people as a “class of persons” who were facing state persecution simply because “nature has planted in them a sexual nature that is opposite of that which is usual”.
That moment is generally accepted as the first public “coming out” in history – standing before his peers and advocating for the rights of homosexuals left no doubt in people’s minds about his own sexual orientation.
Historian Robert Beachy once said: “I think it is reasonable to describe him as the first gay person to publicly out himself. There is nothing comparable in the historical record. There is just nothing else like this out there.”
Needless to say, Ulrichs’ speech was not well received. The men gathered in the Congress of German Jurists shouted him down and loudly objected to what he was saying. He was ultimately forced off the stage, proving that society was not yet ready for the empowering message he wanted to bring to the masses.
That wasn’t the only opposition Ulrichs faced – his essays were banned and confiscated by police during his lifetime, and he was routinely ridiculed by a hostile media. Despite his best efforts, anti-gay laws continued to thrive and criminalise queer existence for many years to come.
Ulrichs eventually left Germany and relocated to Italy in 1880. He spent the final 15 years of his life there, where he earned a living by tutoring foreign languages. He also continued to write extensively – he published a journal in his later life which argued that Latin should be revived as an international language.
Ulrichs travelled around Italy for a few years before settling in L’Aquila. In 1895, shortly before his death, the University of Naples gave him an honorary diploma for his work. He died aged 69 in L’Aquila on 14 July 1895.
Today, there are streets named after Ulrichs in Berlin, Munich, Hanover, and Bremen. In Munich, his birthday is celebrated each year with poetry and a street party in the city’s Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz, and L’Aquila, where he is buried, holds an annual pilgrimage to his grave.
While Ulrichs didn’t succeed in his battle to have anti-gay laws overturned, his pioneering writings and speeches are remembered today for their revolutionary qualities. Ulrichs wasn’t interested in bowing down to the status quo – he worked hard to shatter social norms around sexuality.
For that, LGBT+ people today owe Ulrichs a great debt.
The federal government is funding organizations that illegally discriminate against LGBTQ candidates to become foster care parents for unaccompanied refugee children, a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
According to the 29-page complaint, Kelly Easter has been turned away twice from fostering a migrant child in the federal foster care program while living in Nashville, Tennessee.
The lawsuit alleges that Michigan-based Bethany Christian Services refused to permit Easter to be a foster parent late last year because she is a lesbian. Bethany is the only organization located near Easter that is participating in the federal program.
A few months after turning Easter away, Bethany’s leadership announced in March that it had changed its policy and would now be accepting applications from LGBTQ families, the lawsuit says.
But the agency told Easter she would have to drive to its office in Smyrna, Tennessee, a half-hour away, because its office located closer to her Nashville home is under contract with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which won’t certify same-sex couples as foster parents.
Catholic Bishops receives federal funds to provide foster care services and Bethany receives money from the Catholic Bishops at its Nashville site. Bethany’s Smyrna site is funded through a different source.
“It hurt to be turned away – twice – solely because of my identity,” Easter said in a statement. “I’ve been a Christian since I was a little girl and my personal relationship with God is the most important thing to me. I also know that LGBTQ people can have thriving families and that they are as important and deserving as any other.”
The lawsuit, claiming First and Fifth Amendment violations, names the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of Refugee Resettlement as defendants. The heads of each agency were also named, including HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. The agencies did not immediately respond to email requests for comment on Wednesday.
“By preventing children under their care and custody from being placed in homes of LGBTQ people based on USCCB’s religious beliefs, the government … disserves and demeans LGBTQ children for whom they are responsible, stigmatizing them as less deserving and less worthy of respect than other children,” the lawsuit argues.
In a statement, a Bethany spokesperson said that the organization is “committed to welcoming and serving all individuals and families” and that “no one will be rejected because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“We invite anyone who is interested in providing children with a safe, loving home to contact us and begin the licensing process today,” the organization added.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington D.C.
