We The People

Category: Top Stories

  • Senate to vote on Tommy Tuberville’s anti-trans athlete bill

    The U.S. Senate will vote on Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s bill to bar transgenderwomen and girls from competing in female school sports.

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune placed the bill on the chamber’s calendar last week, meaning a vote will be held in the next few weeks, The Hill reports. A firm date for the vote has not been set.

    The bill from Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, would stipulate that under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds, “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Tuberville announced its reintroduction last week. He first introduced it in 2023.

    The legislation, Senate Bill 9, additionally would make it a violation of Title IX “for a recipient of Federal funds who operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.” It’s titled the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025.

    A companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives passed in 2023, and its sponsor, Republican Greg Steube of Florida, reintroduced it this year as part of the House Rules Package, and his colleagues have agreed to make it a priority. Tuberville’s 2023 bill never came to a vote in the Senate, which then had a Democratic majority. Now the House, the Senate, and the presidency — as of January 20 — will be under Republican control, so the legislation may well become law, although the House Republican majority is very slim. Donald Trumphas vowed to bar trans girls and women from female sports by executive order.

    “With President Trump’s resounding victory last November, the American people sent a clear message to Washington that they want to protect and preserve the original purpose of Title IX,” Tuberville wrote recently in OutKick. “One of the primary reasons President Trump won in a landslide is because he ran on the issue of saving women’s sports. Seventy percent of Americans agree: men don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms.”

    Polls have found that, but in reality, trans women athletes are a tiny minority. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, told a Senate committee in December that there are fewer than 10 trans athletes out of 510,000 in the thousand-plus NCAA schools. The number may include trans men as well as trans women; Baker didn’t specify. Still, it is tiny.

    Also, scientific studies have indicated that trans women and girls don’t have the inherent advantage over cisgender females that anti-trans forces claim they have. Still, 26 states have adopted laws or regulations barring trans females — and in some cases trans males — from competing in school sports under their gender identity. Some of the bans apply only to K-12 public schools, some to state-funded colleges and universities as well.

    Democratic U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first out trans person in Congress, has said she can’t understand why Republicans are making attacks on trans people a priority. “I’ve had conversations with colleagues about many of the bills that are coming before us, and certainly have heard from some colleagues who, like me, are mystified that this is a priority for a Republican conference that is entering a Republican trifecta, that this is an issue that they prioritize,” McBride recently told The Independent. “And it defies understanding, except for the fact that it’s a pretty obvious part of a politics of misdirection and distraction.”

    Under President Biden’s administration, the Department of Education introduced but then withdrew a rule interpreting Title IX as applying to gender identity. It was likely to be overridden by the incoming Trump administration, in any case.

  • LGBTQ rights group reports progress at U.S. companies despite conservative backlash

    A national rights group said Tuesday that more U.S. companies are providing strong benefits and protections to LGBTQ employees despite an ongoing effort by conservative activists to get high-profile brands to stop participating in the organization’s annual workplace report card.

    The education arm of the Human Rights Campaign released its latest Corporate Equality Index the day after McDonald’s became the latest big company to say it would no longer provide information for the annual evaluation of policies affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

    Last year, Walmart, Ford, Harley-Davidson and other consumer brands that came under pressure said they would end their voluntary participation in the grading system. The HRC rated them anyway, giving Harley-Davidson a score of 10 out of 100 and Ford a 75, for example.

    The index has emerged as a top target of conservative activists as part of a broader campaign to pressure businesses into abandoning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that were designed to reduce discrimination against women, members of racial and ethnic minority groups, and LGBTQ people.

    A 2023 Supreme Court decision that declared race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions unconstitutional emboldened critics of DEI programs to target universities, government agencies and corporations on social media, in the courts and in state legislatures. Some companies, including McDonald’s, cited the high court precedent as their reason for curtailing diversity policies.

    The Human Rights Campaign Foundation said the 2025 equality index nonetheless included 72 employers that were first-time participants, and that 765 of the 1,449 companies graded received a perfect score, 28% more than last year.

    “At times, progress meets backlash, but companies continue to dedicate the time and resources to reinforcing workplace inclusion,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement. “As a result, they are more competitive and more creative while attracting and retaining top talent and widening their consumer base.”

    The number of companies given official ratings included ones that have said they would pull out of the process. Some completed the organization’s survey months before their decisions. The HRC said it would continue to monitor companies that drop out and assign them scores.

    McDonald’s was among the companies earning the top score of 100. Walmart and Lowe’s both received 90 points.

    The scores are based on points companies get for a range of workplace metrics, such as having anti-discrimination policies that encompass sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, and offering health benefits that cover same-sex spouses and the needs of transgender individuals.

    This is the second index that assigned points for having gender transition guidelines that managers, transitioning employees and their colleagues can consult. More than 1,000 of the companies graded for 2025 reported adopting such guidelines, a 21% increase, the HRC said.

    “Obviously, there are plenty of examples of organizations that have made some kind of announcement around retreating from some aspects of how they were doing DEI, including things like participation in this survey,” said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU School of Law. “But the vast majority of companies that were doing DEI before are still doing it. The only difference is that they’re changing some programs mostly for legal risk mitigation purposes and or doing it more quietly so that they don’t attract as much attention and scrutiny.”

    The Corporate Equality Index debuted in 2002 and primarily focused on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees didn’t face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Over the years, the criteria to gain a perfect score grew stricter, and experts say the Index helped improve workplace benefits for LGBTQ people.

  • Meta employees speak out against new anti-LGBTQ+ & anti-DEI policies

    New policies from tech giant Meta are enabling bigots to claim that LGBTQ+ people have a “mental illness.” Concurrently, the company announced on Friday that it is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) commitments, sparking backlash from queer employees.

    The first set of policy changes came on Tuesday, after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would be removing content moderators and fact-checkers and loosening restrictions on their hate speech policies.

    Meta’s new guidelines state, “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird’.” 

    The guidelines also provide a list of frequently asked questions for these policies. One asks, “Do insults about mental illness and abnormality violate when targeting people on the basis of gender or sexual orientation?” Meta now sides against queer rights pointing to statements like “Trans people aren’t real. They’re mentally ill,” “Gays are not normal,” “Trans people are freaks,” and “Women are crazy,” as being allowed, as per Platformer.

    Other authorized statements include, “There’s no such thing as trans children,” “God created two genders, ‘transgender’ people are not a real thing,” and “A trans woman isn’t a woman, it’s a pathetic confused man.”

    Meta announces end to its DEI programs

    Then, on Friday, Meta announced that it would end DEI practices in hiring, training and picking suppliers, Axios reported.

    “The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” wrote Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, in an internal memo to employees. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

    She announced that Meta would be ending its DEI team, its programs, end efforts to source business suppliers from diverse-owned businesses, and end its practices ensures that a diverse pool of candidates is considered for every open position and for representation in the company’s public imaging.

    Gale said Meta would focus on supporting small- and medium-sized businesses and focus on “fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.”

    “We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds,” Gale wrote.

    Numerous companies have rolled back their DEI commitments recently, including Walmart, Stanley Black & Decker, Molson Coors, Jack Daniels, Ford Motor Company, John Deere, Lowe’s Hardware, Target and Harley-Davidson.

    Meta employees push back against new content, DEI changes

    One Meta criticized the new content policies on the company’s internal messaging platform, writing, “I am LGBT and mentally ill. Just to let you know that I’ll be taking time out to look after my mental health,” according to 404 Media. This internal dissent was later deleted.

    Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, said to BBC, “We’re very concerned about gender rights, LGBTQ+ rights, trans people’s rights on the platforms because we are seeing many instances where hate speech can lead to real-life harm, so we will be watching that space very carefully,” adding that she is “very concerned” by this decision.

    “The changes to our Hateful Conduct policy seek to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over enforcement,” a member of the policy team said to employees in a thread. “Reaffirming our core value of free expression means that we might see content on our platforms that people find offensive … yesterday’s changes not only open up conversation about these subjects, but allow for counterspeech on what matters to users.”

    A separate employee told 404 Media, “No one is excited or happy about these changes. And obviously the employees who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community are especially unhappy and feel the most unsupported in this. A small number of people are taking time off and are sharing that they are considering leaving the company due to this change.”

    Another one told the same outlet, “I find it very hard to understand how explicitly carving out which groups of marginalized people can have what we otherwise classify hate speech directed at them will be beneficial for the communities we hope to build on our platforms.”

    An additional commenter said, “When I first joined this company, people would criticize me for working here all the time. I defended y’all time and time again, always anchoring that in the end we do try our best even if it doesn’t work out sometimes – but this? appalling.”

    Responding to the DEI changes, one employee, according to Business Insider, wrote on the internal messaging platform, “This is unfortunate disheartening upsetting to read.” Another wrote, “Wow, we really capitulated on a lot of our supposed values this week.” A third commented, “What happened to the company I joined all those years ago.”

  • Supreme Court will decide if insurance companies must cover PrEP for HIV prevention, cancer screenings

    TheU.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pivotal case that could significantly impact access to preventivehealth care under the Affordable Care Act, including life-saving HIV prevention drugs like pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. The court granted the petition on Friday. The case, which the federal government petitioned for the court’s intervention, is set to be argued this spring, with a decision expected before the Court’s term ends in June.

    The Advocate was the first to report on the existence of this case back in 2022 when it was revealed that conservative attorney Jonathan Mitchell was representing Braidwood Management, Inc., aTexas-based business, and other plaintiffs in challenging the ACA’s requirement that insurers cover preventive services like PrEP without cost-sharing. The plaintiffs, claiming that coverage of PrEP violates their religious beliefs, argue that it promotes “homosexual behavior.”

    Initially, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the ACA mandate violated their religious rights. However, the Department of Justice swiftly appealed, and the Fifth Circuit Court upheld the district court’s decision butlimited the scope of its effect. The decision meant that while the plaintiffs are exempted, the broader mandate requiring insurance providers to cover preventive services, including PrEP, remains in effect nationwide.

    The case is now headed to the Supreme Court, where it will be argued that the ACA’s coverage requirements, which have been instrumental in reducing HIV transmission and improving public health, should be upheld.

    At the heart of the case is the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which issues recommendations for preventive services like PrEP. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Task Force’s structure violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

    The government maintains that the Task Force operates within constitutional bounds, with members serving as “inferior officers” under the secretary’s supervision, that this structure is consistent with constitutional requirements, and that it is vital to ensure that essential preventive services are covered under the ACA.

    The case also raises the specter of rolling back coverage for a range of other critical preventive services, including cancer screenings, diabetes prevention, and vaccinations—services that have long been proven to save lives and reduce health care costs. If the court upholds the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, the federal mandate requiring insurers to cover Task Force recommendations could be significantly weakened, disrupting the health care protections millions of Americans currently rely on.

  • Life for LGBTQ+ Russians is getting more & more dangerous

    Anti-LGBTQ+ persecution has intensified in Russia since the government strengthened its anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law and  outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement.”

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has instituted successively broader anti-LGBTQ+ “propaganda laws” since 2013, and raids and arrests at LGBTQ+ clubs have become commonplace across the country. 

    In October, for example, Police in Moscow raided two gay clubs, detaining over 50 people. Photos and video from the raids was posted on pro-Russia Telegram channels MSK1 and SHOT on October 12 showing masked police storming into downtown Moscow club Central Station, forcing shouting at patrons and forcing them to lie on the ground. One clip shows officers searching people, with one cop violently kicking a detainee’s leg.

    In December, as many as a dozen individuals rounded up at gay clubs in Moscow were found guilty of “hooliganism” by a Russian court and sentenced to administrative detention.

    A report from Voice of America found that 12 criminal cases were brought against LGBTQ+ Russians in 2024 based on the newest propaganda laws, in addition to the first arrests and fines for “extremist symbols” and “LGBT propaganda.” Eleven of the 12 criminal defendants were employees of raided clubs or other LGBTQ+ service providers. “

    “That is, these are not directly activists who, for example, post some information on social networks and, in the opinion of the authorities, are engaged in ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations,’” explained Dmitry Anisimov, press secretary of the OVD-Info project, which released a year-end review of Russian repression in December. None of the cases have yet begun trial, but the defendants could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. 

    2024 also saw a myriad of Russian citizens arrested and fined for online posts that included rainbow flags, some of which were posted years earlier. 

    And unsurprisingly, the LGBTQ+ community is terrified as experts predict the arrests and raids will only worsen in 2025. 

    “People are closing themselves off more and more,” LGBT rights lawyer Max Olenichev told Voice of America. “They don’t go to such places. But I always say that it is important to maintain social connections on a horizontal level. No law can prohibit people from going to the cinema together, having parties at home, and somehow communicating with each other on any topic.”

  • Turkey’s Erdogan launches ‘Year of the Family’ with an attack on the LGBTQ community

    President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the launch of Turkey’s “Year of the Family” on Monday with an attack on the LGBTQ community and the announcement of measures to boost birth rates.

    Citing the “historical truth that a strong family paves the way for a strong state,” Erdogan unveiled a series of financial measures to support young families.

    The president returned to themes he has espoused before about LGBTQ people, including the portrayal of the LGBTQ movement as part of a foreign conspiracy aimed at undermining Turkey.

    “It is our common responsibility to protect our children and youth from harmful trends and perverse ideologies. Neoliberal cultural trends are crossing borders and penetrating all corners of the world,” he told an audience in Ankara. “They also lead to LGBT and other movements gaining ground.

    “The target of gender neutralization policies, in which LGBT is used as a battering ram, is the family. Criticism of LGBT is immediately silenced, just like the legitimate criticisms of Zionism. Anyone who defends nature and the family is subject to heavy oppression.”

    Despite its low profile in Turkey, the LGBTQ community has emerged as one of the main targets of the government and its supporters in recent years.

    Pride parades have been banned since 2015, with those seeking to participate facing tear gas and police barricades. In recent years, meanwhile, anti-LGBTQ rallies have received state support.

    Turning to the “alarming” decline in the population growth rate, Erdogan said Turkey was “losing blood” and recalled his 2007 demand that families have at least three children.

    The president also pointed to people getting married later in life and rising divorce rates as causes for concern. Turkey’s annual population growth rate dropped from 2.53% in 2015 to 0.23% last year.

    “If we do not take the necessary measures, the problem will reach irreparable levels. In such an environment, population loss is inevitable,” he added.

    To combat the threat to the family, Erdogan revealed policies such as interest-free loans for newlyweds; improved monetary allowances for the parents of new-born children; financial, counseling and housing support to encourage new families; and free or low-cost childcare.

  • Amazon removes ‘equity for Black people’ and ‘LGBTQ+ rights’ from company policies

    Amazon has quietly removed several policies from its public websites aimed at protecting workers, including “solidarity” pledges with its Black employees and health care benefits for transgender workers. 

    The pages were removed about a month ago, according to The Washington Post. The changes include several to policy, as well as department titles. A section previously called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” is now “Inclusive Experiences and Technology,” and the section “advance DEI through technology” is now a pledge to “advance the employee experience.”

    One of the removed policies includes an outline of the gender-affirming carebenefits provided to employees under Amazon’s health care plan, which it said were “based on the Standards of Care published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).” Also removed was the company’s pledge that it is “working at the U.S. federal and state level on legislation” that would provide anti-discrimination protections for transgender people.

    Though Amazon previously stated that it stood “in solidarity” with its Black employees, the company also removed that section, as well as one claiming to support “legislation to combat misconduct and racial bias in policing, efforts to protect and expand voting rights, and initiatives that provide better health and educational outcomes for Black people.”

    Spokesperson Kelly Nantel confirmed to the outlet that the company “update[s] this page from time to time to ensure that it reflects updates we’ve made to various programs and positions.”

    Several major U.S. businesses have announced they would be ending their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the past year, including Ford Motor Company, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, and Tractor Supply among others. The decisions came after pressure from conservative extremists online, including failed filmmaker turned failed congressional candidate Robby Starbuck, who has taken credit for the companies’ decisions. However, experts believe that Starbuck’s pressure alone does not explain the shift.

    Meta recently announced the end of its DEI programs almost immediately after announcing new content rules that allow users to abuse LGBTQ+ people, citing the shifting “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States.” McDonald’s also cited Supreme Court decision against affirmative action in its decision to end DEI programs the, as well as changes among “other companies.”

  • America’s first gay rights group formed a century ago this year & you’ve probably never heard of it

    One hundred years ago, queerness was illegal in just about every way in the U.S. There were laws against cross-dressing and sodomy, being trans or queer was classified as a mental illness, and it was legal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. At the same time, there was a thriving underground subculture of balls, drag shows, and salons. 

    During the Harlem Renaissance and blues craze, queer people were open in their own circles, but organizing politically for equality was not in the collective consciousness. The community centers, groups, and newsletters that would become the foundation for the fight for equality wouldn’t come around until the 1950s.  

    In Berlin, however, where there was a booming queer scene, Magnus Hirschfeld began the official movement for LGBTQ+ rights. He founded the first organization for LGBTQ+ rights in the world — the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee — in 1897 and the world-renowned Institute for Sexual Research in 1919. 

    A man who would follow in Hirschfeld’s historic footsteps was born in 1892 in Bavaria, and in 1913 he emigrated to Chicago, where his name became Henry Gerber at Ellis Island (sources disagree on his birth name). He would go on to found the first gay rights organization in the United States after being briefly institutionalized for homosexuality in 1917.

    Gerber returned to Germany from 1920 to 1923, when he served with the U.S. Army in the wake of World War I. There, he was in contact with Hirschfeld and learned more about what gay rights advocacy could look like, including subscribing to some of the first LGBTQ+ publications. He returned to Chicago determined to start a parallel effort in the U.S.

    He spent a year recruiting founding members, and on December 10, 1924, he filed with the state of Illinois for the incorporation of a nonprofit organization called the Society for Human Rights. The state granted him a charter on December 24, officially marking the first LGBTQ+ rights organization in the United States.

    Sodomy remained illegal in Illinois until 1962 (when it would become the first state in the nation to repeal its antisodomy law), and Gerber and his group could not claim they were advocating for crime. As such, the stated purpose was broad: “to promote and protect the interests of people who by reasons of mental and physical abnormalities are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence and to combat the public prejudices against them by dissemination of factors according to modern science among intellectuals of mature age.”

    Gerber began to publish the first known gay publication in the country, Friendship and Freedom, which only had two issues. Dissemination of queer content through the postal service was illegal under the anti-obscenity Comstock Act, so readers were limited. But Hirschfeld did receive a copy, as did Harry Hay, who would go on to co-found the gay rights organization the Mattachine Society in 1950. Hay said receiving that publication directly contributed to his creation of that group, which was the first openly LGBTQ+ group in the country.

    There were seven founding members of the Society for Human Rights, including the group President John T. Graves, a Black clergyman. The vice-president, Al Weininger, ended up having an inadvertent hand in the organization’s swift end.

    Weininger was married with two children, and one of his family members (some sources say his wife, others his daughter) reported to a social worker that he was part of a group of “degenerates” just seven months after the organization formed. Police arrested Gerber, Graves, Weininger, and others. Other than Gerber, the fate of the rest of the members has been lost to history. 

    Gerber was released after spending his life savings on his defense across three trials and losing his job as a U.S. postal worker. The police confiscated all of his papers, and zero copies of Friendship and Freedom exist today. 

    “It’s hard to imagine the courage and strength and determination of someone like Henry Gerber in 1924 determining to do a new thing in the U.S.,” teacher Rodney Wilson, the founder of LGBTQ+ History Month, told LGBTQ Nation. “He was a man ahead of his time by about half a century.”

    “The fact that Gerber and the other men who founded the Society were able to get it recognized by the government, were able to exist for months, creating a space within Gerber’s home that was safe — this proved that something seemingly ‘impossible’ like gay rights in the 1920s was possible, even if it had to be done in a coded, secret way,” added Erin Bell, Operations Director of the Gerber/Hart LGBTQ+ Library & Archives in Chicago. “It took an extreme amount of courage, and there’s courage to be found in community spaces.”

    Gerber/Hart is a nonprofit organization named for both Henry Gerber and Pearl M. Hart, a Chicago lawyer and advocate. The organization served as the first institutional home for LGBTQ+ History Month in the 1990s.

    “At Gerber/Hart, we pay homage to Henry Gerber in more than just our name,” Bell said. “In life, he was committed to fostering community and spreading awareness of the need for gay rights and acceptance. We want to honor his advocacy work through programs and services aimed at supporting the queer community: from operating our library as a free space for members of the public to come peruse and borrow materials, to majority-free programs that are both fun and educational, to striving to bridge the access gap by making more online resources.”

    While many have never heard of Gerber or the Society for Human Rights, Bell and Wilson both say awareness is increasing. A book about Gerber — An Angel in Sodom — was published in 2022. But even those who have never heard of him are connected to his legacy. He helped to inspire future leaders and assisted behind the scenes for decades, witnessing the movement blossom until his death in 1972. 

    The centennial celebration of the Society for Human Rights is also the centennial of the official movement for LGBTQ+ equality in the United States. 

    The celebration reminds us of all the group has taught: to gather in community, to help in community, to organize in community. As LGBTQ+ history is removed from curriculums as part of a broad anti-LGBTQ+ movement, organizations like Bell’s and Wilson’s continue to share our heritage outside of state-sanctioned channels.

    “We are grounded in the present moment only when we understand the moments of the past,” Wilson said. “Understanding history empowers us to stand our ground and to advance the causes that others, like Henry Gerber, began advancing long ago. Historical literacy is required to be a fully functioning, empowered human being able to contribute to the conversation and move the moment forward.”

  • Ed Sedarbaum, veteran Queens, N.Y., gay activist, has died at 78

    Ed Sedarbaum, a pioneer in the LGBTQ+ rights movement in New York City’sQueens borough, has died at age 78.

    Sedarbaum died November 20 in Williamstown, Mass., but his death is just now being reported by New York’s Gay City News. He was the widower of famed gay cartoonist and onetime Advocate contributor Howard Cruse, who died in 2019, aged 75.

    Sedarbaum was motivated to start Queens Gays and Lesbians United, a.k.a. Q-GLU, in 1991 in response to the murder of Julio Rivera in an antigay crime in Queens the previous year. As the New York City Council had just expanded from 35 to 51 members, “it seemed a great time to make our local candidates declare their positions on our lives,” he once said, according to Gay City News. “So I organized a candidates night at a local church, and everyone was shocked that over 100 people showed up. Of course I took names and addresses (remember when addresses were useful in organizing?) and invited them to my apartment to talk about what kind of organization they wanted and needed. And that’s how Q-GLU was born.”

    At the candidates night, “John Sabini won over the audience in a walk,” Sedarbaum recalled. “His chief opponent, [incumbent] Helen Sears, doomed herself with us by saying she cared for our community but opposed domestic partnership because it would ‘undermine something we all believe in — the family.’ The sound of 100 people gasping in disbelief was powerful.” Sabini won the primary over Sears.

    Sedarbaum ran for New York State Senate in 1998, challenging incumbent George Onorato in the Democratic primary. Sedarbaum did not win, but he was endorsed by The New York Times, and his candidacy “put the LGBTQ community on the map in Queens,” former New York City Council member Jimmy Van Bramer told Gay City News. Van Bramer and Daniel Dromm were elected to the City Council from the borough in 2009, and Lynn Schulman and Tiffany Cabán in 2021, all members of the community.

    When the “Coming Out in Queens” exhibit opened at the Queens Museum in 2017, Dromm called Sedarbaum “the grandfather of the Queens movement.”

    Sedarbaum’s activism included a stint with the New York City Anti-Violence Project, where he trained police on how to have better relations with LGBTQ+ Queens residents, and coordinating the AVP’s Hate Crimes Bill Coalition to lobby for the New York State Hate Crimes Act, which finally passed in 2000. Among his other positions were associate director of the Anti-Defamation League, founder and first CEO of the SAGE/Queens GLBT Senior Center, and executive director of the Loft LGBTQ+ Center in New York’s Westchester County.

    “Ed was tireless, fierce, and funny,” Matt Foreman, who was executive director of the AVP during Sedarbaum’s time there, told Gay City News. Foreman recalled Sedarbaum’s protests against Mary Cummins, the anti-LGBTQ+ head of Queens Community School District 24, over her opposition to an inclusive curriculum called Children of the Rainbow in the early 1990s. “After insulting and fruitless conversations with Mary Cummins over her hate-based attacks against the Children of the Rainbow curriculum, it was his idea to organize protests in all five boroughs, culminating with a march through her own neighborhood,” Foreman said. “It was a great slap in her face and inspiring for us all. That was Ed.”

    Sedarbaum and Cruse moved to North Adams, Mass., in 2003 and married in 2004, when Massachusetts became the first state with marriage equality.Sedarbaum formed Rainbow Seniors of Berkshire County in Massachusetts in 2015. The Queens apartment building where he and Cruse lived from 1979 to 2002 is on the list of New York City LGBT Historic Sites. The New York City Council is considering a proposal to name a street near there for the two men.

  • Adult trans bathroom ban heard in Montana — first anti-trans hearing of 2025

    In 2025, the targeting of transgender people in bathrooms has emerged as a top Republican priority. Following the 2024 election, Congresswoman Nancy Mace launched an aggressive hate campaign against the first transgender congresswoman, Sarah McBride. Over several days, Mace posted hundreds of demeaning comments about McBride on social media, demanding that she be banned from using women’s restrooms. Her efforts culminated in Speaker Mike Johnson adopting a policy barring McBride from using such restrooms. Now, Montana Republicans are taking this crusade even further: they have announced that one of the first bills to be considered in 2025 will be a bathroom ban for transgender adults in public buildings. If passed, the legislation could have profound consequences for the state’s two transgender elected officials, Representatives SJ Howell and Zooey Zephyr, as well as all transgender people in the state.

    The bill, House Bill 121, was introduced by Republican Kerri Seekins-Crowe, who once stated that she would not allow her child to transition if it would prevent their suicide. It has garnered 35 co-sponsors—a significant portion of Montana’s Republican Party. If enacted, it would rank among the most extreme bathroom bans in the country, prohibiting transgender individuals from using restrooms that match their gender identity in all publicly owned facilities across the state.

    Notably, the bill’s scope covers all “public buildings,” defined as any facility “owned or leased by a public agency.” This broad definition extends to rest stops, public colleges and universities, public schools, libraries, museums, state airports, publicly owned hospitals, park restrooms, and more. The measure would also include Montana’s state capitol building and courthouses.

    The bill comes on the heels of a contentious vote by Montana’s Republican rules committee, which narrowly rejected a proposal to bar transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr from using women’s restrooms in the state capitol. During that meeting, Republican David Bedey, one of four Republicans to vote against the measure, expressed skepticism about its utility, stating, “This particular action will have the effect of making people famous in the national news and will not contribute to the effective conduct of our business.” The proposal ultimately failed.

    Transgender bathroom bans targeting trans legislators have become a prominent feature of the national political landscape. One of Speaker Mike Johnson’s first actions, driven by pressure from Congresswoman Nancy Mace, was to bar transgender individuals from using bathrooms in United States House buildings—a move aimed directly at Representative Sarah McBride. Mace, who has used slurs against transgender sit-ins and consistently misgendered McBride, escalated her attacks today by posting on social media, referring to the congresswoman as “a man in a suit with makeup.” Though the rule was not in the rules package passed by the United States House, Johnson clarified that it will indeed be in effect and enforced as he “controls the facilities.”

    Mace has announced a similar federal bill that would ban transgender individuals from using bathrooms matching their gender identity on all federal properties, a measure with potentially far-reaching consequences. If enacted, the ban would apply to national parks, cultural landmarks such as the Smithsonian Museums, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Zoo, as well as military bases, VA hospitals, federal government buildings, and major DC-area airports like Dulles and Reagan.

    Bathroom bans have tremendously negative impacts on transgender people. In some lawsuits, it has been revealed that such bans have led to UTIs and medical issues for trans people who have been forced to hold their pee for extended periods of time. They force transgender men into women’s restrooms and transgender women into men’s restrooms, which often leads to far more disruption and discomfort by all parties involved. Even when complying with the law, transgender people are often faced with violence, such as in Ohio when the owner of a campground told a transgender man that he was to use the ladies room because he was assigned female at birth. He complied with this demand and went to the women’s restroom. On doing so, other campers accused him of being a transgender woman and proceeded to beat him.

    Cisgender individuals are unlikely to avoid the repercussions of such laws either. These policies often disproportionately target gender-nonconforming cisgender people, who are mistakenly accused of being transgender. For instance, cisgender women with short hair are frequently singled out. An example from Las Vegas highlighted this issue when a woman was harassed in a bathroom after being falsely accused of being transgender, leading to police involvement. Video of the incident quickly went viral.

    The Montana bill is particularly notable for being one of the first anti-trans measures to be considered in 2025—a year already shaping up to be especially challenging for transgender people as Republicans nationwide appear to be prioritizing the issue. Montana’s legislature, which convened on Monday, is set to hold its first hearing on the bill in the House Judiciary Committee this Friday. Nationally, the focus on anti-trans legislation is also prevalent: the very first billlisted in the House rules package seeks to ban transgender athletes from sports, and over 140 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have already been introduced across the country in the opening days of the 2025 legislative session.

    Readers in Montana can contact their legislators using a lookup tool provided by Datamade.

    This article first appeared on Erin in the Morning.