Lambda Legal is taking its fight from the courtroom to the digital stage. With its new national campaign, “All Rise,” the nation’s oldest LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organization is turning a familiar courtroom command into a rallying cry — and a fundraising lifeline. The campaign, built around short- and long-form videos, paid digital ads, and a coordinated influencer blitz rolling out during LGBTQ+ History Month, is designed to keep Lambda Legal’s lawyers in courtrooms across the country as the Trump administration accelerates efforts to roll back hard-won rights.
Backed by creators including Under The Desk News, Rose Montoya, Pattie Gonia, Isaias Hernandez, Blair Imani, Jesse Sullivan, and Chella Man, All Rise blends grassroots donor outreach with emotional storytelling. It marks Lambda Legal’s largest digital awareness push to date and a call for unity and urgency from a group describing itself as the LGBTQ+ community’s “last line of defense.”
For more than five decades, the legal nonprofit has fought in courtrooms for LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV. But in the second term of the Trumpadministration, which has banned gender-affirming care for trans minors, restricted diversity programs, and barred transgender people from militaryservice, the group’s work has become existential.
“This is a break-the-glass moment,” Kevin Jennings, Lambda Legal’s CEO, told The Advocate in an interview. “Everybody needs to throw everything at this right now. Their agenda is nothing less than the destruction of our democracy as we’ve known it.”
A movement facing its reckoning
Lambda Legal’s message arrives amid an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Nearly 2,000 bills have been introduced nationwide over the past two years, and more than 200 have been enacted into law. “We’ve lost the White House, we’ve lost Congress,” Jennings said. “The courts are our only recourse at this point.”
So far, the organization has sued the Trump administration six times and won four cases. Two remain pending. “We could end up six for six,” Jennings said.
According to Lambda Legal’s “Tracking Trump” case tracker, the group currently has six open cases against the administration targeting transgender rights, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and health care. The tracker also notes two preliminary injunctions granted in active cases regarding transgender service members and health care coverage.
The tracker reaffirms Lambda Legal’s long-term success rate: the organization reports an 86 percent win rate against the first Trump administration.
“There’s reason to be hopeful, but don’t be optimistic,” Jennings said. “Optimism assumes it’ll just get better by itself. Our only hope is if people rise together and fight back.”
This is not a rhetorical flourish. In June, Lambda Legal announced the largest fundraising campaign in LGBTQ+ history — $285 million raised through its “Unstoppable Future” initiative. The haul exceeded its goal by more than $100 million, with $80 million in cash on hand and $200 million in long-term commitments. Nearly all of it came from individual donors, not corporations. The infusion allowed the group to expand its legal staff by more than 40 percent.
Jennings described that surge of support as a message to those seeking to dismantle equality: “We will not go back.”
Turning a legal command into a moral imperative
To bring that defiance to life, Lambda Legal turned to Jason Keehn, founder of the mission-driven agency Accompany Creative. Keehn, whose firm was named Ad Age’s Purpose-Led Small Agency of the Year in 2024, said he approached “All Rise” as both a creative brief and a civic duty.
“The phrase has urgency,” Keehn told The Advocate. “It’s about standing up for all of us within the LGBTQ+ community, but also about what happens next if we don’t. Human rights are being eroded, and the message is: you’re next.”
Rather than rely on the anxious tone familiar in political advertising, Keehn said he and his team sought to inspire without numbing audiences. “We didn’t want to add to the toxic negative swirl,” he said. “You can’t be lighthearted about what’s happening, but we also don’t need more messages freaking people out. The better choice is to shine a light on what we can be.”
A portrait of the community under fire and a message of hope
Directed by queer filmmaker Lucio Castro, the campaign features trans military members, trans youth, LGBTQ+ families, and attorneys who represent them in court. “You see lawyers saying directly to the camera, ‘I’m fighting for you every day,’” Keehn said. “That makes the work tangible.”
The videos — some only six seconds long, others a full cinematic arc — are designed for the realities of the modern attention economy. “You need something thumb-stopping on Instagram and something that stays with people longer,” Keehn said. “It all has to ladder up to one big idea.”
The campaign’s insistence on hope, not as sentiment but as strategy, distinguishes it from the darker, fear-based tones that often dominate political messaging. Jennings calls this a deliberate choice. “The ultimate goal of our opponents is to make people feel hopeless,” he said. “Because if you have no hope, you won’t fight.”
Keehn agreed. “Civil rights aren’t just about voting or hiring practices,” he said. “They’re about how we choose to spend our energy and use our talents, and this is our way of doing that.”
For Lambda Legal, the campaign is not an aesthetic exercise but a call to arms.
“You have four assets: your voice, your vote, your time, and your money,” Jennings said. “Some people can write checks. Some people can march. Some people can sue — that’s what we do. Just figure out what you can do and do it.”
Jennings often returns to a simple, chilling analogy. “They picked on trans people first,” he said. “Just like the Nazis picked on Jews.”
It is a warning, not hyperbole — a reminder that authoritarianism rarely begins with mass repression. It starts with tolerated cruelty.
“Hope is not optimism,” Jennings said. “Hope is the belief that if we fight, things might get better. But we have to fight.”
Watch one of the All Rise campaign’s videos below.
Maine U.S. Senate candidate Jordan Wood says the moral test for public office isn’t about perfection — it’s about what people do once their mistakes are exposed. In an interview with The Advocate, the former congressional chief of staff and only out gay candidate in the race said fellow Democrat Graham Platner’s history of antigay posts and his Nazi-era tattoo aren’t just poor judgment. They’re disqualifying.
“I believe deeply in second chances,” Wood said. “But what I saw was someone who doesn’t understand what’s wrong with these statements — how offensive and threatening they are, not just to LGBTQ people, but to people of color and women.”
The controversy has rattled Maine’s Democratic primary. Platner, a Marine and Army veteran and political newcomer, admitted to posting homophobic slurs and crude antigay jokes on Reddit as recently as 2021. He apologized for misogynistic and racist comments on Reddit before that. And, he covered up a tattoo he’s worn for 18 years that resembles the Nazi Totenkopf symbol, which he said he got in his 20s during his time in the Marines.
Wood, 36 and married to a Jewish man, said the timing and persistence of those choices matter as much as the acts themselves. “If he had written this as a teenager, it’d be one thing,” he said, referring to the Reddit posts. “But this was 2021. The fact that he was my age when he used that language, that’s what matters.”
He said that if an adult was using that language then “that’s not a youthful mistake — that’s who you are choosing to be.”
Wood said the episode illustrates a larger reckoning facing his generation. He said that today most people live online.
“There’s no such thing as a clean slate anymore. But accountability isn’t about punishing the past. It’s about what you do after you learn why something was wrong,” Wood said. “If someone said something hateful when they were young and later worked to understand and make amends, that’s grace.”
That accountability is something Wood discussed when it came to his former boss, former California U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat running for governor, after videos recently surfaced of her scolding staff and reporters. Those clips sparked debate about leadership, gender, and temperament in public service.
“She’s tough, yes, but she’s also decent and accountable,” Wood, who served as Porter’s chief of staff as far back as the COVID-19 pandemic, said. “She owned it. In this digital age, everyone’s worst moment can go viral. That doesn’t mean we stop believing in redemption.”
“You earn forgiveness,” he said. “You don’t demand it.”
“Courage, not just concern”
Wood’s campaign slogan, “Courage, not just concern,” doubles as a pointed critique of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who’s often expressed alarm over right-wing extremism before voting in line with it. Wood cited Collins’s record as proof that concern without conviction has consequences: her vote to confirm nearly every one of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and Pam Bondi, who helped the Trump team challenge the 2020 election results, as attorney general of the United States. Collins also backed a procedural motion on a bill that would have banned transgender girls from participating in school sports, and she supported Republican measures that weakened the Affordable Care Act before voting against its final repeal in 2017.
“She’s always ‘concerned,’ then votes the other way,” Wood said. “We need leaders who act, not just empathize.”
His platform focuses on anti-corruption reforms, universal health care, and affordable housing — the kinds of policies, he said, that make democracy tangible.
“We don’t save democracy by talking about it,” he said. “We save it by showing that it still works. That it can solve problems for ordinary people.”
Wood also praised Maine Gov. Janet Mills, another Democratic contender for the Senate seat, for defying President Donald Trump’s attacks on transgender youth, saying she “showed what leadership looks like when others were ready to throw trans kids under the bus.” Earlier this year, at the White House, Mills refused to accept Trump’s attacks on trans kids in Maine, telling him, “I will see you in court,” when the president threatened the state’s funding.
Wood said Mills’s example helped him make protection of LGBTQ+ rights — especially trans rights — a centerpiece of his campaign.
“When a lot of Democratic leaders were blaming the loss of the presidential election on trans people, Gov. Mills stood up and said enough,” he said. “She reminded people that the law doesn’t bend to prejudice. That’s courage.”
Wood said he would bring the same approach to the Senate, promising to defend trans people from renewed federal attacks under the Trump administration.
“As a gay parent, I know how this goes. They start by targeting trans kids, but they don’t stop there,” he said. “Once you let them rewrite the rules for one group, they’ll come for every marginalized community. I will never give in to that.”
Inspired by his daughter to run
Long before launching his campaign, Wood helped create End Citizens United, a grassroots reform organization formed in the aftermath of Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that opened the door for unlimited corporate and dark-money spending in politics.
The group, which began as a small network of organizers and law students, pushed for campaign-finance transparency, public financing of elections, and limits on corporate influence. It organized educational efforts and advocacy campaigns to pressure Congress for reform.
“I started at End Citizens United because I saw firsthand how that decision warped our democracy,” Wood said. “It turned elections into auctions. It allowed billionaires and corporations to drown out the rest of us.”
The son of a Baptist pastor and a public-school teacher, Wood came out after college.
Away from politics, Wood’s life looks a lot like that of many young families in Maine. He and his husband are raising their 10-month-old daughter in the small coastal community of Bristol.
“She’s one of the inspirations for my campaign,” he said. “I want her to grow up in a country that, like the one I grew up in, keeps trying to be better: more just, more kind, more free.”
Though the campaign keeps him busy, he said he cherishes quiet time at home with his family.
“When I’m with her, I read to her — the New York Times, whatever book I’m reading,” he said with a laugh. “She doesn’t understand a word of it yet, but just being with her is the joy.”
Jordan Wood (L) with his husband and daughter. Courtesy Jordan Wood
When he’s not on the trail, Wood said he loves playing pickleball and tennis, walking along the coast, and spending time with neighbors in his lobster village.
“I barely leave the state now, and that’s okay,” he said. “Maine is the kind of place where you actually want to stay put.”
He also spoke about his own tattoos — both symbolic of his values and the lessons he’s drawn from experience. “One is the Obama hope logo,” he said. “That campaign got me into politics, and that symbol still reminds me why I do this work — that democracy and hope are intertwined.”
His second tattoo, a small seashell, commemorates his completion of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in northern Spain.
“It’s the emblem of that journey — a reminder of reflection and purpose,” he said. “It’s about carrying meaning, not regret.”
“You can’t delete who you were online,” he said. “But you can show who you’ve become. The real measure is what you do after the screenshots.”
In a political era defined by exposure and denial, Wood’s challenge to his party is quietly radical: integrity as the new electability.
“I know it would be easier to stay quiet,” he said. “But that’s not who I am. And it’s not who Maine is.”
A government proposal would pave the way to bring criminal charges against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Türkiye, one of the most alarming rollbacks of rights in decades, Human Rights Watch said today. The proposal should be immediately withdrawn.
A draft of the omnibus reform law, referred to as the 11th Judicial Package, was leaked to the media, revealing plans to amend the Turkish penal code and civil code with new articles that threaten the rights of LGBT people. One would criminalize behavior deemed “contrary to biological sex and general morality,” including its so-called “promotion.” Another would sharply restrict access to gender-affirming health care, raising the minimum age to 25 and imposing onerous eligibility conditions. A third would allow for criminal charges against both transgender people and medical professionals who provide care outside these new limits.
“Bringing criminal charges against people for their gender identity or sexual orientation is a profound violation of human dignity and amounts to state-sanctioned oppression,” said Hugh Willamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Turkish government should drop plans to introduce these amendments, which blatantly violate international law and would leave LGBT people in constant fear of arrest and prosecution.”
The draft omnibus law, which also includes criminal justice changes, such as longer prison sentences for children and removal of online content allegedly violating privacy, has emerged in Türkiye’s increasingly conservative and authoritarian political climate. The justification for the proposed anti-LGBT amendments is based on vague claims to protect “the family” and “public morals,” a framing the Erdoğan government has repeatedly employed in recent years to legitimize stigmatizing and excluding LGBT people and to undercut women’s protection and rights.
One amendment to article 225 of the penal code (on “indecent acts”), which uses vague and broad language, provides that anyone who “engages in attitudes or behaviors contrary to biological sex and general morality, or who openly encourages, praises, or promotes such attitudes or behaviors” would face up to three years in prison.
The amendment would also potentially allow criminal charges against civil society organizations supporting sexual and gender minorities and promoting their rights, and against media outlets and journalists for reporting on issues relating to gender identity and sexual orientation.
This amendment also would allow for criminal charges for anyone who takes part in a same-sex engagement or marriage ceremony with penalties of up to four years in prison. Turkish law does not currently allow for same-sex marriage, so any such ceremonies are, by definition, symbolic and private.
Another amendment would change article 40 of the civil code on “Changing Sex,” raising the minimum age for gender-affirming health care including surgery from 18 to 25, mandating permanent infertility for such procedures, and requiring multiple evaluations from government-approved hospitals. Imposing arbitrary age cutoffs for health care and forcing trans people to sacrifice their reproductive capacity are grave violations of their bodily autonomy, health, and equality before the law.
The leaked draft also includes penal code amendments to punish healthcare professionals who perform gender-affirming medical intervention in violation of the proposals with fines and up to seven years in prison. Transgender people receiving medically necessary care deemed illegal under the amendments could be punished with up to three years in prison. By allowing criminal charges against both potential medical providers and patients, the law would force treatment into dangerous and unregulated underground settings, heightening the risks of exploitation, medical complications, and irreversible harm, Human Rights Watch said.
The proposed prison sentences would also make it possible for courts to place people in pretrial detention pending an investigation.
Fifteen LGBT groups in Türkiye have expressed strong concerns about the threat the amendments pose to their fundamental freedoms, right to equality before the law, and participation in a democratic society. In a statement, the Turkish Medical Association emphasized that granting LGBT people access to necessary healthcare services should never be criminalized and highlighted that the proposal violates human rights.
Under international human rights law governments have obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of LGBT people and cannot invoke simple moral disapproval as justification to deny their rights, or resort to discrimination against them, far less criminal charges. Any restrictions on rights must have a legitimate purpose and be established in law, in a manner that is precise, accessible, and foreseeable, so that individuals can both conform with the law and know the precise conduct that will bring them in conflict with the law.
The measures to achieve the purported purpose of the restrictions, such as to protect “public morals” or “the family,” must be established as necessary, proportionate, and nondiscriminatory. Türkiye is a party to a several treaties, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which require these fundamental legal standards.
The European Court of Human Rights, whose judgments are binding on Türkiye, has already made clear in the leading judgment of Bayev and others v Russia that the kind of legislative proposals in the leaked draft law are entirely incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. In recalling its precedent of refusing to uphold “policies and decisions which embody a predisposed bias” on the part of a sexual majority against a sexual minority, the court stated that these types of laws concern both facets of the very existence and identity of individuals and the essence of the right to freedom of expression, and cannot be justified as necessary to protect morals, the family, or children.
The right to freedom of expression as protected under international law includes the right to seek and receive information and ideas of all kinds including “information on subjects dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity.”
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights protects the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and obligates governments to ensure the right to health without discrimination, including on the basis of one’s sexual orientation and gender identity.
“The European Union and Council of Europe and their member states should use all diplomatic and political channels to ensure this regressive draft law, which would put LGBT people in Türkiye in grave danger, is abandoned.” Williamson said. “This is a defining test of Türkiye’s respect for rule of law and fundamental democratic principles on rights and equality.”
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ+ people to all levels of government, proudly congratulates Antwon Womack on his historic Birmingham School Board election victory. Womack is the first out Black LGBTQ+ person elected in Alabama and will become the second out LGBTQ+ person currently serving in elected office in the state.
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President & CEO, Evan Low, remarks on the win: “We are thrilled to gain more LGBTQ+ representation in Alabama with Antwon Womack’s historic win to serve on the Birmingham School Board. School boards are an important place to stand up for student equality and progress. Alabama has one of the lowest rates of LGBTQ+ representation in the country, and this win literally doubles our total of known out LGBTQ+ elected officials in the state. We congratulate Antwon and know he will make a big difference for the youth and families of Birmingham.”
Antwon Womack, Birmingham School Board Member-elect, says: “Tonight’s election is historic — a victory for equality and progress in the City of Birmingham, State of Alabama. LGBTQIA+ representation matters because it ensures every student feels seen, safe, and supported. Together, we will continue building schools that protect all students, promote inclusion, and create policies rooted in fairness, dignity, and opportunity for every child in Birmingham City Schools!”
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Vice President of Political Programs, Daniel Hernandez, continues: “Electing local LGBTQ+ leaders is a central part of LGBTQ+ Victory Fund’s mission, and as a former school board member, I know just how impactful school boards are in local communities,” says Hernandez. “Antwon has worked hard to achieve his seat at the table, and we celebrate not just his historic win but the important voice he will bring to his work in office.”
Royce Collins, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund Black Leaders Caucus Co-Chair, added: “Antwon Womack’s win is a powerful reminder that local elections shape our communities. As co-chair of the Victory Fund’s Black Leaders Caucus, I’m proud we’re helping elect endorsed, pro-equality leaders nationwide, especially in the South, so more voices like his can lead and deliver.”
LGBTQ+ Victory Fund endorsed Womack for his run, one of over 250 endorsed LGBTQ+ candidates in local, state and federal races. When Womack takes office, he will join more than 1,300 out LGBTQ+ elected officials serving across the United States.
Two years after state lawmakers passed a sweeping law aimed at preventing Texas cities from adopting progressive policies, that law may finally get its first major test.
Three Dallas residents sued the city in Denton County District Court Wednesday to strike down dozens of local ordinances they allege violate the law, dubbed the “Death Star” law by opponents. The law made it illegal for cities and counties to enact local laws that go further than certain broad areas of state law.
Some 83 ordinances could be wiped out if a judge sides with the plaintiffs. Among them are a slew of local protections for LGBTQ+ people, rules that city contractors pay employees a living wage and noise regulations for public parks and recreational facilities.
Read the full article. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill in a ceremony attended by Christian and anti-LGBTQ activists. The Dallas residents are represented by the anti-LGBTQ hate group, the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Texas judges who decline to perform a wedding ceremony based on a “sincerely held religious belief” do not violate the state’s rules on judicial impartiality, according to a comment the Texas Supreme Court added to the state’s judicial conduct code Friday.
The high court’s comment on Oct. 24, effective immediately, could have statewide implications for gay marriage and potentially play a role in a federal lawsuit attempting to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.
The rule change appears to answer a question of state law that the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals posed to the Texas Supreme Court in April, which was prompted by a lawsuit challenging the State Commission on Judicial Conduct’s now-withdrawn sanction of a Waco judge who refused to marry gay couples while continuing to marry straight couples. The plaintiff in that suit, a North Texas county judge, sued saying he was afraid he could face the same punishment.
A Florida teacher has been put on leave after requesting to use the gender-neutral title Mx at work.
The teacher at Alachua County Public Schools has been placed on administrative leave after requesting that students and staff address them with the title Mx.
Mx is a gender-neutral title pronounced as ‘mix’ which some trans, non-binary, gender non-confirming and cis people use as an alternative to gendered honourifics like Miss, Ms, Mrs or Mr. Mx does not indicate a person’s gender.
The state’s attorney general James Uthmeier accused the teacher of violating Florida House Bill 1069, which was signed into law by governor Ron DeSantis in July 2023.
The bill enshrines “sex as an immutable biological trait” and prohibits K-12 employees from using preferred personal titles or pronouns that don’t alight with birth-assigned sex. Florida officials said the teacher’s use of “Mx” violated state law.
The district confirmed that the educator has been placed on leave pending review, but did not released further details.
@pinknews A Florida teacher at Alachua County Public Schools has been placed on administrative leave after requesting students and staff address them with the gender-neutral title “Mx.”The state’s Attorney General James Uthmeier accused the teacher of violating Florida House Bill 1069, which was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis in July 2023, which enshrines “sex as an immutable biological trait”. This law prohibits K-12 employees from using preferred personal titles or pronouns that don’t align with birth-assigned sex.Florida officials said the teacher’s use of “Mx.” violated state law. The district confirmed that the educator has been placed on leave pending review, but did not release further details. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier took to X writing “A female teacher at Talbot Elementary in Gainesville is forcing students and faculty to address her with the prefix ‘Mx.’ instead of ‘Ms.’ or ‘Mrs.’ This violates Florida law and Alachua County School District policy and must stop immediately.” #Florida#USPolitics#Mx#education#lgbtqia♬ Minimal for news / news suspense(1169746) – Hiraoka Kotaro
Uthmeier took to X writing of the case: “A female teacher at Talbot Elementary in Gainesville is forcing students and faculty to address her with the prefix ‘Mx.’ Instead of ‘Ms.’ Or ‘Mrs’. This violates Florida law and Alachua County School District policy and must stop immediately.”
In August, a Florida judge struck down parts of House Bill 1069. Part of the law sets out a process for parents to complain about books and material with which they disagreed, forcing educators to remove them from their libraries “within five school days… until the objection is resolved”.
The wording of the legislation broadly singled out books with “pornographic” content or those which “describe sexual conduct”. Titles pulled from shelves included The Color Purple, On the Road, Looking for Alaska, The Handmaid’s Tale and Slaughterhouse-Five, also known as The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death.
Following legal action by publishers, the Authors Guild, and parents from Escambia County against the removal of dozens of books from school libraries, District Court Judge Carlos Mendoza struck down large parts of the legislation.
“None of these books are obscene,” he said in his ruling. “The restrictions placed on these books are thus unreasonable.”
The prohibition of material that “describes sexual conduct” was “over-broad and unconstitutional”, he added, because the law “mandates the removal of books that contain even a single reference to the prohibited subject matter, regardless of the holistic value of the book individually or as part of a larger collection”. In addition, the law gave “parents licence to object to materials under a I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach”.
As the internet becomes an increasingly powerful incubator for extremist ideas, young men are finding themselves drawn into online ecosystems that blur the lines between memes, masculinity and hate.
Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than left-wing or Islamist extremists, and studiesindicate that right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism fatalities since 2001. In 2025, online radicalization has become more hidden and widespread, with extremists using encrypted apps, gaming communities and private chatrooms to recruit and groom young people. These platforms make it increasingly difficult to detect or intervene, allowing hate-filled and violent ideologies to spread unchecked.
Anthony Siteman, a senior at Quinnipiac University studying political science and public relations, has spent his undergrad researching how radicalization spreads through digital spaces—and even went undercover in extremist chat rooms to understand it firsthand.
As a white cis straight man, the rhetoric of hate he uncovered made him realize the urgency of developing communication strategies that can deradicalize his peers at a time when ideologies in extremist circles that promote violence against LGBTQ people are penetrating deeper into the minds of young American men.
Watch the video or read the transcript below.
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi everyone, today I am speaking with Anthony Siteman a senior political science and public relations student at Quinnipiac University, whose work specializes in online radicalization, and he even went undercover inside some of these groups as part of that work. Anthony, thank you so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
Anthony Siteman: Thank you, Spencer, for having me here.
SM: So you specialize in online radicalization. What got you interested in that? Because I think it’s a big problem in the United States right now. And a lot of the time it’s actually young white men around your age, likely, who are the perpetrators of this.
AS: Yeah, well, you said it right there. Since I’m a young white male and I’m from a suburban Massachusetts town that is mainly white people. So I’ve been around it my whole life and I’ve always wondered why are these people having the views that they have?
SM: Tell me some of the things you saw in your friend groups that was concerning for you in terms of social media.
AS: Yeah, so my concern is that anytime they open up social media, they’re believing anything that they see. And it’s mainly just, you know, “Oh my god, look at what President Biden’s doing. Oh my god. Look at what the Democrats are doing.” For example, when I first moved to campus, I lived with eight guys, all white guys. And you know just getting to know them and seeing what their views are. It just seems like… One is that they’re not even politically active. They don’t understand what’s going on around the world. So they will just believe whatever they’re seeing without doing any research into it.
SM:Did you notice that when they start seeing a certain kind of content, it just keeps going more and more and more of that down a rabbit hole?
AS: 100%. For example, Nick Fuentes. He’s really been blowing up on people’s algorithms. And one time, just a couple of weeks ago, one of my friends was screen sharing his TikTok to the TV and every single post was just Nick Fuentes’.
SM: What do you think of that?
AS: It’s not good. We use these social media platforms every day and we expect them to be so good and great, but they’re really shaping the way we view things, the way that we see things, by pushing these algorithms. When I was doing the research into this—I obviously don’t support any of this stuff—trying to search about radicalization, it would damage my algorithm so much because everything I started getting was pro-Trump, pro-Trump or pro-Republican or just anti-Democrats.
SM: So interesting. And why do you think, especially for like young bros, really, you know, like something about the Nick Fuenteses, about the Andrew Tates, about these people does resonate with your demographic. Why do you think that is in 2025?
AS: I just think that it’s because those conversations, what Andrew Tate or Nick Fuentes are saying, is sometimes what kids my age just talk about. And for them to hear it from someone that has some sort of status, some sort of fame, money? That it just really resonates with them because usually you only hear [those] conversations just with a group of teenagers and them talking amongst themselves. So when they hear that someone with some influence is saying the same things as them, it really pushes them to really believe what they’re saying.
SM: I’m gonna sound like a geriatric millennial here, but meme culture and the idea of the cool effect, like there’s something cool and edgy about these guys, I think, to a lot of young men in America. What do you think is up there?
AS: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. For example, Andrew Tate, he says like, “This is how to be a man. If you wanna be a man, this is how you gotta treat people, this is how you gotta view things. You gotta look at life this way.” Same thing with Nick Fuentes. [He’s] saying like, “If you really care about the white race, if you care about America, then you should be protecting it through these beliefs,” which is just white nationalism.
SM: Growing up in the last 20 years, if I look at what’s happened, there’s been a lot of progress for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights. So I would think that Gen Z guys would be way more sympathetic to women and LGBTQ people, but that’s not necessarily the case. For a lot of guys, it’s gone the opposite direction. What do you think’s behind that?
AS: Despite what progress this country has made or progress around the world, they put this lifestyle out to people and it’s like, “If you follow what I’m doing, what I’m saying, what I’m believing in, then you will get this lifestyle.” People are so influenced by them because no one else [is] saying these things. If you’re saying the stuff that Nick Fuentes or Andrew Tate are saying online you’re going to get “canceled” or you’re just not going to get a following. But since they already have that following, they’re allowed to say that stuff, and then people will fall for it.
SM: Right. Wow. Really interesting. And then there’s obviously the Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tates, but then there is a lot deeper radicalization as well that can happen. So tell me about your research project. What was it and what did you set out to do?
AS: Yeah, so my research was just focusing on radicalization on social media platforms. I originally started with just Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok. But the most I could really find is just the people we were just talking about: Tate, Fuentes. So I realized that, yes, they’re monitored to a degree. They still have these hateful people on it, but there isn’t so much radicalization. That’s when I started to go to other platforms like Telegram. I went on Discord. When I was on those apps, then that’s when I was able to find like these more secret groups of people who have all the same opinions and views. But since Discord and Telegram, for example, those are channel-only apps. So you can’t just like, you don’t have profiles. And that’s when I started finding the real radicalization.
SM: And tell me what you mean by that. What do you mean by real radicalization?
AS: So yeah, when I view radicalization, I view it as when people are believing in extremist beliefs and then start using violence or support violence to achieve them. So in those apps, they’re always blaming someone. It’s never their fault. It’s always “us versus them.” And what makes Telegram so useful for these people is that all the messages are encrypted so that it’s hard for them to get leaked or for them to get out there. It’s all basically anonymous.
SM: What were some of the messages or the consistent themes you noticed in these message boards on Telegram?
AS: Yeah, so when I was looking at them mainly, it was before the 2024 election and a lot of the messaging was like, “Democrats, they’re fraud. They’re all illegal. They support all of these bad causes.”
SM: You said that your definition of radicalization is when it gets to a level where there’s violence involved, right? Did you see some of that in Telegram?
AS: Yes, obviously it wasn’t like physical violence, but there’s a lot of people saying, you know, very hateful things, like “Burn all Jews” or “We should send them to the gas chambers.” What they did utilize a lot are memes of these violent events. So, for example, if they have a murder video… because you can access LiveLeak videos online and some of these channels, they would meme them.
SM: What does that mean? To meme a video that’s live of somebody getting murdered?
AS: So for example, there’s a game called Call of Duty and they release trailers for it, obviously. And they took a shooting video at a mosque in New Zealand where over like 50 people died. And they took the clips from that shooting and put it in like a trailer format.
SM: What is the impetus for people doing that with that shooting? Is it Islamophobia? Is it just people being idiots?
AS: I thinkthey just have too much time on their hands. I think that they do wanna instill fear in people and they wanna just take bad events and turn it into something that is “cool.” So I think they wanna do it to just create some more fear and be like, “Look at what we can do.”
SM: And you referenced something that actually just came out of the news today, that there was a big, I think, Telegram leak where young Republican leaders were using hundreds of racist and anti-LGBTQ slurs in a group chat, as well as jokes about slavery and rape. Why do you think it’s just so pervasive, that level of hate? Among, you know, groups that are seemingly just part of the GOP Young People’s Club. And how do you think American politics has played into that? Because obviously, President Trump’s rhetoric is pretty rough sometimes, too. Do you think because it comes from the top, that green lights it for young men in America at large?
AS: Yeah, I think since Trump has [come] into office, he has kind of sent politics down to a very low level where you can kind of say whatever you want, do whatever you want. Since his rhetoric is so bad, it just stoops everyone to such a low level.
SM: What do you think are the groups that we should be most concerned about right now? Because I know you did some research on the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups. What should people be worried about based on what you found in your research?
AS: It can be anyone, it really can. Anyone can be an extremist, anyone could be radicalized. But if I had to say one group, it would just have to be white nationalists. It would have to be white nationalists who believe that America is losing its white identity, that they need to fight to come back, to fight to get their place back in this country.
SM: And why do you think that?
AS: Because just from my research of what I’ve done, they contribute to 75% of extremist-related killings. In the past, about 10 years, there’s been around 440 killings, and yeah, they account for 75% of them. So they are the majority of people who are committing these extremist acts in this country.
SM: Which groups right now are you most concerned about, if any?
AS: I would say the Proud Boys, despite what they say now that they’re not racist and that they’re accepting of all people, yes they are still [an] issue. When I was in their Telegrams, they have chapters all over this country and all over the world, frankly. They have chapters in New Zealand, Australia, all the European countries. So they’re pretty prevalent everywhere. One concern I’m thinking, too, is the rise of Nazis again. I’ve seen that with a lot of Jewish hate and with the rhetoric towards Jewish people now, especially with the war.
SM: And you see that being played out, that kind of anti-Semitic hate in these channels on Telegram.
AS: It’s a mix. I feel like that’s a place where it has split these extremists because there’s the extremists who side with Israel and then there’s extremists who side with Palestine. So I feel like that issue really split them in a way.
SM: When I was doing my work in far-right extremism, there were those groups, there were groups like the Michigan Militia and the Boogaloo Boys, et cetera. But a lot of it was, to your point, decentralized groups. And one of those white supremacists said it was fragmented into a million little pieces as lone wolves. Are you concerned about individuals specifically and the idea of lone wolf acts of radicalization or terrorism?
AS: Yes, because they can be anonymous in that way if they’re not tied to any group and if they are just logging on to their computer sending out hate messages, sending out fake disinformation and all this other stuff? Then yes, it is an issue with these decentralized groups. It’s hard to stop decentralized groups because you don’t know where they’re coming from. You don’t know what platform they’re going to move to next. You don’t know if they’re not even meeting on these social media platforms and they have a secret society where they meet in person somewhere. So it’s hard to really track them. No one uses a real name. No one’s using pictures of themselves. It’s all just them hiding behind a username or hiding behind just a profile.
SM: And they’re probably using things like VPNs and like you said, encrypted messaging. So it’s very hard to track where they are.
AS: Yeah, and one thing I’ve noticed too is that some of these extremists, they’re not even from America. They utilize bots a lot. They utilize taking people’s information and making profiles for them. Especially older people, because as you know, 60-, 70-, 80-year-olds aren’t going to be on apps like X. Sure, there are some. But they’re going to get their information stolen and used on those apps and they won’t even know about it. And so when you see Twitter threads of this elderly woman just arguing why Democrats are so bad, a lot of the time it’s not an elderly woman. It’s someone behind the screen or it’s just a bot running the account.
SM:That’s really interesting. So you think that’s pretty prevalent? These fake kind of older Americans are just patriots, if you will, being run by other types of people.
AS: Yeah, a hundred percent, and I like that you said the word “patriots” because that’s always the word that they have in the bio, like, “American Patriot, U.S. veteran for 20 years,” and you can really tell too because they start like responding to all the same posts with the same message, or they start reposting the same image in all these other threads. So there’s ways to tell, but a normal person isn’t going to go through this person’s profile and figure it out.
SM: What are the main, kind of, rhetorical devices, things you have noticed as it relates to the LGBTQ community and how people are coming after that demographic group in these channels of radicalization?
AS: Yeah, like you said with the pedophilia a lot of like I saw was that “oh LGBTQ people are grooming these kids.” That they want these kids to be in drag shows and just the normal rhetoric that has been being said for the past eight years that we obviously know isn’t true. Mainly about LGBTQ individuals grooming the younger generation to try to pull them into their sickness. And that’s another word too is that they use the word illness, sickness, that they’re not right.
SM: And how prevalent is that? There’s a lot of that, I would guess.
AS:Yeah, so some of the things I saw since it was June, it was a pride month, and they would post on June 1st “Happy groomer awareness month.”
Meme of LGBTQ groomers found online. Courtesy of Siteman.
SM:That’s interesting. What else are you concerned about with artificial intelligence and radicalization? I mean, you’ve mentioned that a few times and that does sound a little scary when you put it like that.
AS: With artificial intelligence, you can get it to say whatever you want and you can get it to post whatever you want. So for example, they could have accounts that are just literally run by AI and spread just such nasty, nasty rhetoric and it’s not gonna get tied back to anyone because it’s AI running the account. They could have someone, just a fake persona on it. But there’s not going to be many repercussions for the account saying it since it’s run by AI.
SM: Super interesting and you know, we’re talking a lot about rhetoric here, right? Why is that still concerning though when it comes to something more violent and actually committing acts of violence and, God forbid, a mass shooting or a terrorist attack or something like that?
AS: Yeah, that rhetoric itself, it’s damaging. Because even though people may not act on it, [they] hear that and internalize it. And if people are in a bad spot, maybe they will act on that type of stuff.
SM: Will you ever see, do you ever see people actually threatening violence in Telegram and saying, “Let’s do event X?”
AS: I would say yes, but they were obviously empty threats, to me at least. I could tell that they would say stuff like, “Let’s go to the streets. Let’s go to a pride parade and go blow it up.”
SM:What about the rhetoric around women specifically and queer women?
AS: They treat women as just [an] extension to the man. That women [are] good only if they listen to you and do everything that you say. The only good thing I heard them say about women is that they give birth to children.
SM: The trans community, specifically, has really been under attack by the politicians in this country, and after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the rhetoric about who the murderer was, even though there was no evidence that the perpetrator was trans, was grossly tied to transgender people. Even though, again, no evidence. What do you make of all of that?
AS:I think that that whole rhetoric came out just because they just wanted someone to blame that wasn’t themselves.
AS: These people are obviously not hearing trans voices. They don’t know any trans voices. They don’t know trans people. They just totally deny their existence. So they just want someone to blame. And it’s probably the easiest for them to blame because that’s what they’ve been using for the past like six years. That “trans are grooming people in libraries, trans are going to the bathrooms” and insane people all that stuff. So it’s just kind of their scapegoat.
SM: I think a lot of it does come down to conceptions of masculinity and bro culture. You talk a lot about communicative devices to kind of push back against this. What else can be done among men in this country to tamp down on that rhetoric, to make it not as cool?
AS: If you hear friends who talk like this, you have to have a conversation with them. And I know that’s what everyone says, but seriously. From what I’ve seen with my friends who have been somewhat radicalized, the best way to get to them is to just sit down and talk to them and just go through everything that they’re saying. Like, you know this isn’t true. You know this isn’t right.
SM:I think a lot of guys might be listening to this being like, “That sounds so hard.” So do you have an example of a conversation you’ve had that you felt has actually worked?
AS: Don’t make them ever feel stupid like, “Oh like why the hell would you believe that?” So you don’t want to be like, “You can’t look at this, you can’t view this.” You just have to be like, “I understand what you’re trying to say. I understand how you got to this view. But you have to understand that this isn’t the full story.” If you find a common ground between the issue that both of you can actually agree on, that’s a good start because it gives you that ability to be like, “You know what, maybe we aren’t that different after all.” And that’s something I’ve really found out like talking with people that claim they’re on the right is that when they start talking and they start saying what they actually believe and how they view things, they sound a lot more left than actual right; they just want to be right because of what you’re saying, that bro culture. Like, “Oh men are on the right and girls are on the left.”
SM: Do you think there is a stereotype that being liberal in America right now is feminine?
AS:Yeah, a hundred percent. 100%. I mean, obviously, I disagree with that. Like I go to a private school and it’s like 90% white. And I remember like when Trump won, it was like, like no liberal wussies allowed. There’s a connotation that if you’re liberal, you’re a loser.
SM: That’s so interesting.
AS: Which obviously isn’t true, and I think that the only reason why they really connect with the Republican Party right now is one, that they fall for a lot of the manipulation and tactics they’re using. But also that the right uses the American flag and the symbols of [patriotism] in America much more than the left does, so for someone who actually fought for the country, they’re more likely to go on the right because they’re more like American flags and country music. Whereas the left, you don’t really see that.
SM: So interesting. What else can we do? Because I think it’s such a big problem in this country getting, honestly, your demographic, 21-year-old white straight men, to be less radical. You can be whatever political party you want, but like, can you leave the radicalization at the door? How do you get people to do that?
AS: Yeah, it is hard. And that’s what I’m still trying to figure out right now. I just did some work looking at counter-radicalization, which is like, for example, there’s a program called ExitUSA where they do private mentoring one-on-one. And that really helps someone. But the issue with that is that people who are radicalized, it’s not easy for them to admit that they’re radicalized. So those are great resources for people that are willing to make that change. But as of right now, it’s hard and that’s why I think talking is just the best thing, just talking to people and just really, like, understand what their views are.
SM:You’re in a group of bros, let’s say a frat party, let’s make it super stereotypical, and everyone else is just spitting transphobia. I would be nervous to interject. How do you intervene in a way that doesn’t make you literally wanna disintegrate?
AS: For me I’d just be like, “Yo, think before you talk. One of these people among us could be transgender. You don’t know what you’re saying and how it affects people, and I know you’re trying to be cool, but you know let’s be respectful.” Because if they’re willing to stoop that low to talk all this hate about one group, then I can stoop that low, and I know that’s maybe not the best tactic but I mean it has worked for me. It really puts them in perspective. It puts them in their place.
SM: I do think the word “cool” is like a big word that I keep thinking about in this conversation, that people think it’s cool to be transphobic or it’s cool to be misogynistic, right? How do we change what young American guys think is cool?
AS: I think it has to come from up top from our leaders allowing this rhetoric to begin with, because it’s like they allow these people to just think that these things are okay to say because their own people are saying it. Yeah, once we have two parties that can just really understand that what these people are saying is not okay, and if they hear these acts of violence or [this] bad language that they go to take action and be like, “This is not okay” to all of their supporters. A good way to help my generation understand it is put on the debate between Obama and Mitt Romney, they’re just so cordial. It’s like, it hasn’t always been like this. You can be on two opposite sides and you can still love each other and still be friends.
SM: And you really haven’t grown up at all with that type of political discourse because when Trump came down that escalator in 2016, you were 12.
AS: Yeah, yeah.
SM: Which is wild to think about. Anthony Siteman, thank you so much for your research in this important space of online radicalization and for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today. I really appreciate it.
AS: Of course. Thank you, Spencer. It has been great being on here. Thank you so much.
The online three-day class, “Advancing Excellence in Transgender Health: A Core Course for the Whole Care Team,” had originally been scheduled from Oct. 31 through Nov. 2, but The Harvard Crimsonreported the Fenway Institute-developed course had been postponed.
That came after the National Review contacted the university and questioned how it could legally waive $650 fees for transgender and gender-diverse participants. The outlet said rather than providing an answer to the query, the school said the course had been postponed.
The Crimson said the school’s website afterward stopped listing any cost for the course and eliminated any mention of the fee waivers.
The website now states: “Upcoming dates to be announced soon.” Under pricing, the site mentions a $10 non-refundable processing fee on registrations, but lists no price for the course in question.
A course description remains viewable. That states the curriculum was developed “in response to the high volume of queries from clinicians and health care staff seeking to learn about providing high-quality care for adults, adolescents, and children who are transgender or gender diverse.”
Identifying the class as a conference, it says participants would discuss best clinical practices grounded in research evidence.
“Sessions are led by expert faculty specialized in transgender health-focused research and patient care. The conference is appropriate for all members of health care teams, including physicians, behavioral health care providers, physician assistants, nurses, and other staff,” the website states.
“In addition to didactic presentations, attendees will learn from lived experience panels and have the opportunity to engage in interactive discussions that highlight medical and behavioral health approaches to gender-affirming care, led by experienced clinicians specialized in transgender health.”
The medical has not signaled when the class may be rescheduled. A spokesperson for the institution told The Crimson the course “will be rescheduled for later this academic year.”
“HMS remains committed to ensuring that the courses we accredit comply with applicable laws,” the statement reads.
The Fenway Institute told the outlet it remains committed to the course and ensuring the “vital training reaches as many people as possible.”
This week Brazil is hosting the 4th National Conference on the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People, an ambitious effort to chart new directions for public policy on equality and inclusion. Beyond its national scope, the conference underscores Brazil’s reemergence as a key voice in global equality debates. And as many countries, including in the Global North, roll back support of LGBTQIA+ rights, the conference shows how the Global South can lead in renewing commitment to equality and human rights.
The conference seeks to convene government, civil society, and grassroots actors from across Brazil and shape a new National Plan for the Promotion of Human Rights and Citizenship of LGBTQIA+ People. Discussions are organized around themes of confronting violence, promoting decent work and income generation, advancing intersectionality and internationalization, and adopting a national policy on the rights of LGBTQIA+ people. Together, they reflect a comprehensive vision that links democracy, participation, and equality, and are expected to set the stage for renewed federal commitments and stronger policy implementation in the years ahead.
The first edition of the conference, held in 2008 under the theme “Human Rights and Public Policies: The Path to Ensure the Citizenship of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Travestis, and Transexuals,” was groundbreaking in embedding the rights of LGBTQIA+ people within Brazil’s broader social policy agenda. The second and third editions followed in 2011 and 2016. Former Brazilian President Michel Temer issued a decree to hold the conference, but it never happened. His successor President Jair Bolsonaro revoked the decree and adopted openly hostile rhetoric toward LGBTQIA+ populations.
The conference’s return comes at a pivotal moment. Violence against LGBTQIA+ people remains alarmingly high in Brazil, particularly against trans and gender-diverse people. Legal protections are robust, but enforcement remains a challenge. Meanwhile, lawmakers and gender-critical social movements continue to threaten hard-won rights, including around gender and sexuality educationand gender-affirming care.
The conference can also serve as a model and galvanize other Latin American countries to strengthen their own participation, partnerships, and normative frameworks on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.
But advancing policy frameworks is only the beginning. Ensuring effective implementation, holding institutions accountable, and translating conference resolutions into equality demand sustained political will and resourcing. Brazil’s renewed engagement offers hope that transformative, inclusive policymaking in the Global South can shape not only national futures but also support the global struggle for human rights.
