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The queerest education in America: How LGBTQ+ kids thrive at this Indiana school

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It’s 7:45 a.m. on an uncharacteristically warm late February Monday in Indiana, and eager students are trickling into school an hour early – not because they have to, but because they want to. In the softly lit dawn of South Bend, an industrial Midwestern city aspiring for urban renewal, there’s a school that’s rewriting the story of what it’s like to grow up queer in America. A sanctuary for LGBTQ+ kids Inside the walls of what was once a grand church – complete with steeple and bell tower – sits River Montessori High School. This space, once a key site for the […]

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Judge strikes down NY county’s ban on female transgender athletes after roller derby league sues

A New York judge on Friday struck down a Long Island county’s order banning female transgender athletes after a local women’s roller derby league challenged it. Judge Francis Ricigliano ruled that Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman didn’t have the authority to issue his February executive order, which denies park permits to any women’s and girl’s teams, leagues or organizations that allow female transgender athletes to participate. He wrote in his 13-page decision that Blakeman’s order was aimed at preventing transgender women from participating in girls’ and women’s athletics in county parks, “despite there being no corresponding legislative enactment” providing him with such authority. “In doing so, […]

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LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws have public support: Arizona none

Twenty-two states have comprehensive LGBTQ+ civil rights laws on the books. Arizona, though, is not one of them. The fight to pass an anti-discrimination bill is now more than twenty years old here. Since at least 2002, Arizona lawmakers—mostly Democrats, but also some Republicans—have repeatedly introduced bills that would include sexual orientation and gender identity among the state’s protected classes, such as race, sex, and religion. And although those bills varied in scope, they would have generally protected LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment, housing, or public accommodations. But none of those bills went anywhere. Instead, protection within the state […]

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California surfing competition told it must let trans woman compete

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A surfing competition has been told to let transgender women compete or risk a violation of a local law. A two-day surf contest is set to take place in Huntington Beach, California, this weekend (11 May), but, in a decision that has divided opinion, contest organisers informed Australian trans surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson that she could not take part.  The California Coastal Commission has said local events that ban trans women from participating in the women’s division could face being shut down.  Lowerson said she applied for the competition as she fitted within criteria set by the International Surfing Association with regard […]

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Lesbian and bisexual women die earlier than straight women, decades long study finds

Lesbian and bisexual women die significantly earlier than heterosexual women, according to a new study, and it’s likely due in part to discrimination. The role sexuality plays in overall health is a subject that’s attracted researchers for decades, resulting in a large body of evidence of how LGBTQ people experience a variety of negative outcomes, from mental health issues to chronic disease, at elevated rates. But what hadn’t been widely studied is how these outcomes actually affect mortality rates. The paper, published last month in JAMA, reviewed decades’ worth of data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, which began in 1989 as part of […]

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How a trans sex worker from Paraguay became friends with the Pope

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On Thursday, Pope Francis presided over a ceremony that laid out his vision for the coming 2025 Jubilee, a once-every-quarter-century event that will bring tens of millions of Catholic pilgrims to Rome. The papal bull, delivered in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica, laid out a vision of hope for the coming Holy Year, asking for gestures of solidarity with the poor, prisoners, migrants and Mother Nature. Since he rose to the papacy in 2013 and famously declared, “Who am I to judge,” hope for those neglected, disenfranchised, and ostracized people has been central to his tenure. Lately, those people […]

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Pittsburgh’s gay police chief is stopping crime and living proud

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Pittsburgh in the late 1980s and 1990s wasn’t known as an LGBTQ+ stomping ground — regardless of what you might have seen on Queer as Folk. After I graduated from college, I worked briefly in the Pittsburgh area and usually met my friends in downtown Pittsburgh for happy hours. I would get drunk, I’d sneak away from them, and go to a gay bar. I have no idea how I found what I think was the only gay bar in the city. I couldn’t remember the name of the bar until recently. But I do know one night, I went down the wrong way […]

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Mississippi enacts transgender bathroom ban in public schools

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law Monday that would bar transgender people from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities in the state’s public schools.  The legislation, titled the Securing Areas for Females Effectively and Responsibly Act, or the “SAFER Act,” mandates that the state’s schools have single-sex restrooms, changing rooms and dormitories. Its text defines someone’s sex as “‘determined solely by a birth,’ without regard to the fluidity of how someone acts or feels.” Reeves, a Republican, wrote in a statement on X that the law — which takes effect immediately — is intended to “keep Mississippi’s daughters […]

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Man sets two lesbian couples on fire in “abhorrent” potential hate crime

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One woman was killed and three others severely injured Monday when a man set fire to the room the four women were sharing in a Buenos Aires boarding house. While police have not yet specified a motive in the horrendous attack, the Buenos Aires Herald reports that the victims were two lesbian couples. In a statement, the Argentine LGBT Federation called the attack “potentially one of the most abhorrent hate crimes in recent years.” According to the Buenos Aires Herald, the woman who died has been identified as Pamela Cobas. The three others were taken to local hospitals. On Monday, one remained in critical […]

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Gay couple files first-of-its-kind class action against NYC for IVF benefits

A gay couple filed a first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit against New York City on Thursday alleging that the city’s health insurance plan is discriminatory because it doesn’t cover in vitro fertilization, or IVF, for male couples.  The lawsuit is the latest development in what has become a yearslong effort by the couple to get the city to change its IVF benefits, which the couple argues makes accommodations for heterosexual and lesbian couples, and for single women. Corey Briskin and Nicholas Maggipinto said they have been talking about having children since 2014, ahead of their engagement. They planned to use a […]

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