Top Stories

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How did testosterone become so criminalized?

Throughout the late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, Americans became obsessed with anabolic steroid doping – i.e., hormonally altering one’s body to win sports competitions. In 1988, American Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson lost his gold medal from the Seoul Olympics due to doping with anabolic steroids. This was considered a national embarrassment, and after a series of hearings, the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 was passed as part of the Crime Control Act.  Twenty-seven steroids, including testosterone, were classified as Schedule III drugs and subject to imprisonment and fines for possession and distribution. Then-senator Joe Biden was invested in this issue, […]

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Tennessee’s penalties for HIV-positive people are discriminatory, DOJ says

Tennessee’s decades-old aggravated prostitution statute violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday after an investigation, warning that the state could face a lawsuit if officials don’t immediately cease enforcement. Tennessee is the only state in the United States that imposes a lifetime registration as a “violent sex offender” if convicted of engaging in sex work while living with HIV, regardless of whether the person knew they could transmit the disease. LGBTQ and civil rights advocates have long criticized the measure as discriminatory, making it almost impossible to find housing and employment due to the […]

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WY Hate Pastor Wins Right To Harass Queer Students

A Laramie preacher has won a federal lawsuit against the University of Wyoming (UW). He had sued the university for infringing on his constitutionally protected free speech rights. Last December, Laramie Faith Community Church Elder Todd Schmidt displayed an anti-trans banner in the UW student union, identifying an individual transgender student by name. The university banned him from tabling for one year, alleging that he was harassing the student. Schmidt sued UW on First Amendment grounds. He won a preliminary injunction that has already let him return to the student union. Last week, both parties agreed to a judge’s order, […]

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Will first FDA-approved at-home test for gonorrhea, chlamydia ease the epidemic?

The Food and Drug Administration’s first-ever approval of an at-home test for chlamydia and gonorrhea could help drive earlier detection and treatment of these sexually transmitted infections amid a ballooning epidemic in the U.S. But some sexual health advocates worry that the FDA’s proposal to begin stepping up regulation of over-the-counter self-testing of STIs could backfire. The need for new tools to combat these infections is dire.  Diagnoses of gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis have soared in the past two decades. Public health experts argue that this is at least partially driven by woeful long-term flat funding of the Centers for Disease Control and […]

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Police raid Moscow gay bars after a Supreme Court ruling labeled LGBTQ+ movement ‘extremist’

Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization. Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported. Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived. The raids follow a decision by Russia’s Supreme Court to label the […]

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Gender refugees overwhelm sanctuary states & face long waitlists for gender-affirming care

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As Republican-led legislatures have limited or banned access to gender-affirming care for trans people across the country, states like New Mexico are witnessing a large influx of “gender refugees” seeking healthcare. Over the past two-plus years, nearly two dozen states have instituted limits or bans on gender-affirming health care for trans youth and adults. While trans people in red states seek out alternative sources of care and places to live, larger states and metropolitan areas like San Francisco and New York can prove prohibitively expensive. So smaller states like New Mexico, Minnesota, Colorado, Vermont, and Washington, with prohibitions on restricting gender-affirming health care and a lower […]

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Trans community demands lawmakers end onslaught of attacks

 enjoy living in Kansas. Specifically, Lawrence, Kansas, where I can attend a watercolor painting class at the local plant shop on Wednesday, the weekly drag show on Thursday, and a vintage clothing pop-up on Friday. But despite the beauty of the rolling Flint Hills, there is something ugly happening in the place I call home. Growing hostility towards the transgender and non-binary community is being codified through policies and perpetuated through violence that threatens our basic human rights.  Rights activists see such rollbacks of hard-fought progress spreading across the US, and we’re bracing for new attacks that will test the […]

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Hate group reveals plan to overturn conversion therapy bans nationwide

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The Christian anti-LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — is hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn state bans on so-called conversion therapy for minors. Though the court hasn’t agreed to take on the case just yet, it provide insight into how ADF plans on challenging more conversion therapy bans in the future. The ADF is providing legal counsel to licensed marriage and family counselor Brian Tingley in Tingley v. Ferguson, a legal challenge to Washington state’s ban. Tingley says the ban violates his rights to free […]

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This State Tried To Pass Anti-Trans Laws For Years. Then A Right-Wing Media Star Got Involved.

Last September, Riley headed to their clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which was usually brimming with chatter about the day’s research and patient needs.  But that fall morning, Vanderbilt was thrown into chaos, and the clinic for gender-affirming surgeries, which serviced both trans youth and adults, had been shut down for the day. The health care worker, who is using a pseudonym in fear of retaliation from their employer, said the atmosphere among their colleagues in the trans health clinic was a mix of “fear and concern.”  Riley’s clinic remained open, and their colleagues debated whether they were safe at work […]

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Victims of the deadly druggings that terrorized NYC’s gay bars are haunted by unknowns

Eddie Ashley was looking for a hookup. So like countless others on a Saturday night in New York City, he went to The Ritz, a gay bar in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.  He drank too much, he said. And he did end up going home with someone — one of his victims. Eighteen months later, Ashley, 30, was sentenced to nine years in state prison for robbing the man he left the bar with in May 2022, along with various other crimes he pleaded guilty to committing in recent years.  Authorities said Ashley and the victim went to the victim’s […]

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