Perspectives

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Perth Beats Out Denver To Host 2030 Gay Games

Out In Perth reports: Perth has won the 2030 Gay Games, an event that is set to bring thousands of people to city to participate in sport, cultural and community events. The announcement was made in Valencia Spain, the city that will host the 2026 games. The final choice was between Denver, Colorado and Perth, but the process began with 25 cities across five continents bidding for the event. Unlike the Olympics, there is no qualifying round, those who are willing to make the trip to the host city and take part are welcomed, and there is no requirement to disclose […]

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Gender is not an ideology — but conservative groups know learning about it empowers people

Political attacks on teaching about gender in colleges and universities are about more than just gender: They are part of a grander project of eroding civil and human rights, limiting personal freedoms and undermining democracy in the name of “traditional” values. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring there are two sexes determined solely by the kind of reproductive cells the body makes, and that the federal government would recognize nothing else. The order claims to protect the “freedom to express the binary nature of sex” and bans the use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology.” Legal […]

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Swimmer banned after refusing gender test: ‘My life and privacy have been invaded enough’

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Hannah Caldas has been banned by World Aquatics for five years for refusing to take part in a gender-verification test, but she says if the suspension is the price she has to pay to “protect my most intimate medical information” then she is “happy to pay”. Caldas, who also goes by Ana, took part in the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Doha in 2024, finishing first in her age category in the women’s 100m freestyle, and also competed in the Spring Nationals run by US Masters Swimming (USMS) in San Antonio, Texas in April, winning several events. In response to the […]

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Queer survival in Mississippi and the bars that saved us

On Highway 90, between the shrimp boats and the neon of the casinos, there’s a quiet kind of resistance. The type that pulses under dance floors, tucked behind unmarked doors. Gay bars on the Mississippi Gulf Coast don’t wear their pride like big-city clubs. They don’t have rainbow flags stretching across intersections or drag brunches advertised on billboards. They live low to the ground, out of sight but very much alive. They’ve had to. In places like Biloxi, Gulfport, and D’Iberville, being queer has never been entirely safe. But the bars? They were the closest thing to it. I remember my first gay […]

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Minnesota Supreme Court rules USA Powerlifting’s ban on trans women is discrimination

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The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that USA Powerlifting discriminated against a transgender woman by banning her from women’s competitions. The court determined in an opinion issued Wednesday that preventing JayCee Cooper from competing in women’s categories constitutes unlawful discrimination under the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that USAPL is “not permitted to deny Cooper the full and equal enjoyment of its place of public accommodation because of her transgenderstatus nor engage in business discrimination as to Cooper because of her transgender status.” “USA Powerlifting’s policy expressly prohibiting transgender women from competing in the women’s division of a powerlifting competition is facially discriminatory […]

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Teaching tolerance isn’t indoctrination. It’s protection

The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision earlier this summer that has a significant impact on classrooms nationwide. In their 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority completely missed the point as to why LGBTQ-inclusive education matters. By giving parents the option to pull their kids out of lessons that include LGBTQ+ characters or content, the Court prioritized personal religious objections over creating schools where students can learn without feeling invisible. Justice Alito‘s majority opinion is especially troubling. He treats LGBTQ-inclusive education as if it were some optional “add-on” that schools can easily work around. As a former teacher, I can confidently say that is […]

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Olympics: Secret Process Threatens Fairness and Inclusion

The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to create a new working groupon the “protection of the female category” without disclosing its members or process presents an alarming risk for all women athletes, the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) said today. This move, a departure from the transparency for three other new working groups, signals a dangerous retreat from the IOC’s human rights commitments, including its 2021 Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations. It opens the way for restoring practices that have long threatened women’s rights and protection.  “This opaque process stands in stark contrast to the comprehensive, […]

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From purity rings to ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ the right’s war on sex ed never ended

Recently, the Administration for Children and Families sent letters to health departments in states and territories across the United States, requiring them to remove “all references to gender ideology” from the Personal Responsibility Education Program that provides federal funding for sex education. It’s a disturbing move that mirrors how, from the 1980s through the early 2000s, the Bush administrations threatened to and did cut federal funding to states and schools that refused to teach abstinence-only sex education as part of the Purity Culture Movement. Similar to contemporary “Don’t Say Gay” movements that empower parents seeking to remove references to LGBTQ+ individuals from classrooms and libraries, abstinence-only sex […]

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Judge halts New York county from enforcing trans athlete ban after roller derby league sues

A New York county’s law banning transgender women from playing on female sports teams at county-run parks and recreational facilities has been halted for now. A state appeals court on Wednesday barred Nassau County from enforcing the ban while a legal challenge brought on behalf of a local women’s roller derby league plays out. The decision comes after a lower court judge upheld the local law Monday, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued on the roller derby league’s behalf, vowed to challenge the ruling. Judge R. Bruce Cozzens had ruled the county ban was “narrowly tailored” […]

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The sham of oral arguments on conversion therapy is meant to show SCOTUS is ‘unbiased’

When the U.S. Supreme Court commences proceedings Tuesday to hear oral arguments over whether a Colorado therapist can offer “conversion therapy” to queer youth, the stakes are far greater than one state’s law.  Chiles v. Salazar, a challenge to Colorado’s ban on ‘conversion therapy for minors, is about whether the highest court in the land will once again choose bigotry over humanity and call it constitutional. And it will likely do it based on a lie. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending conversion therapy in the case, is accused of misquoting and misrepresenting a 2016 study by scholars Lisa Diamond and Clifford Rosky. In […]

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