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18 GOP attorneys general file brief accusing doctors of lying to make money with needless trans care

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Eighteen state attorneys general signed a brief asking a federal judge in Florida to allow states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender people from being covered under state Medicaid programs, using inflammatory language to explain why trans people shouldn’t have equal access to health care. Last year, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) finalized a rule banning healthcare providers from billing the state’s Medicaid program for trans people’s gender-affirming care, a rule that covered puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgical procedures for adults. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program providing healthcare coverage for low-income people. Related: Four trans […]

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Japan Court Rules Against Mandatory Transgender Sterilization

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A Japanese family court has ruled that the country’s requirement that transgender people be surgically sterilized to change their legal gender is unconstitutional. The ruling is the first of its kind in Japan, and comes as the Supreme Court considers a separate case about the same issue. In 2021, Gen Suzuki, a transgender man, filed a court request to have his legal gender recognized as male without undergoing sterilization surgery as prescribed by national law. This week the Shizuoka Family Court ruled in his favor, with the judge writing: “Surgery to remove the gonads has the serious and irreversible result of loss of reproductive function. […]

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Philadelphia becomes safe haven for trans people seeking gender-affirming healthcare

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Philadelphia has become a safe haven for trans people seeking gender-affirming healthcare. On Tuesday (17 October), mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order at City Hall, giving anyone who goes to the state access to treatment. The executive order prohibits the local government from using any resources to assist states seeking to investigate or punish people for providing or receiving gender-affirming care in the Pennsylvanian city, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.  Ahead of signing executive order 4-23, Kenney said: “We won’t help those who seek to discriminate against trans people.”  Sultan Shakir, the president and executive officer of the Mazzoni Center, a […]

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FBI crime statistics show anti-LGBTQ hate crimes on the rise

Anti-LGBTQ hate crimes rose sharply in 2022, jumping more than 19 percent over 2021, according to the FBI’s annual crime report released Monday. More than 11,600 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI in 2022, the highest number recorded since the agency began tracking them in 1991. A majority of hate crimes recorded last year targeted Black people, according to the report. Hate crimes targeting LGBTQ people were up significantly compared with 2021, with 622 reported single-bias, anti-LGBTQ hate crimes. Hate crimes motivated by an anti-transgender bias rose more than 35 percent year over year, reaching 338 incidents. Kelley Robinson, president of the […]

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India’s Top Court Rejects Marriage Equality in Landmark LGBTQ+ Ruling

 India’s top court has declined to legally recognize same-sex unions in a landmark ruling that also emphasized the rights of the LGBTQcommunity to be free of prejudice and discrimination. Campaigners had sought to obtain the right to marry under Indian law, giving them access to the same privileges extended to heterosexual couples, but while that was denied they welcomed the court’s recognition of their relationships. A five-judge constitution bench led by India’s chief justice delivered the much-anticipated verdict on Tuesday, streamed live across the nation and to crowds outside the court who gathered to watch on their cellphones. During the two-hour ruling, […]

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Anti-LGBTQ+ Vandals Wage War on Washington’s Safe Spaces

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Homophobic vandals have attacked multiple LGBTQ+ targets in eastern Washington this month, painting over a rainbow crosswalk, defacing an LGBTQ+ youth resource center with antigay slurs, destroying Halloween decorations, and ripping down a flag at the home of a local politician. The Odyssey Youth Movement in the South Perry neighborhood of Spokane suffered three consecutive nights of vandalism this month, according to local NBC affiliate KHQ. The sign and rainbow crosswalk outside its facility were defaced with paint on October 5. The following evening the property was again defaced with hateful slurs painted on the doors, windows, and sign. And on October 7, witnesses […]

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Hong Kong court rules that gay couples get equal housing rights

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday dismissed a government bid to deny same-sex married couples the right to rent and own public housing saying that it was “discriminatory in nature” and a complete denial of such couples’ rights. The ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal is the latest in a series of legal breakthroughs for gay rights advocates in the global financial hub this year. The government had challenged two High Court rulings that it was “unconstitutional and unlawful” for the city’s housing authority to exclude same-sex couples who married abroad from public housing. The appeal involved two cases, one […]

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Black Trans Woman Chyna Long Shot and Killed in Milwaukee

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Chyna Long, a Black transgender woman, was found shot to death on a street in Milwaukee on Sunday. Family members think she may have been targeted for being trans; she had often been harassed about her identity, Milwaukee TV station WISN reports. Family and friends who gathered for a vigil Thursday night said police told them a suspect was in custody, but police would not confirm this to the station. Her loved ones remembered her fondly. “She wasn’t apologetic about nothing,” April Gipson, her aunt, said at the vigil, according to WISN. “This was who she was. And we accepted her, with all our hearts.” Of […]

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Biden Champions LGBTQ+ Rights Amidst Global Challenges in Keynote Speech

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At the 2023 Human Rights Campaign National Dinner held at the Washington Convention Center on Saturday, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden passionately spoke in support of the LGBTQ+ community, emphasizing their continued commitment to combat discrimination and violence.  The occasion marked the fourth time Biden has spoken at the annual gala, but his first as president. The first lady spoke first. During her speech, she was met with chants of “Four more years!” from the audience. For more than one minute, the crowd cheered and chanted as the standing ovation continued.  Responding with gratitude, Jill Biden said, “Well, I can certainly say […]

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World Bank to implement LGBTQ safeguards before new Uganda funding resumes

The World Bank will aim to ensure gay and transgender Ugandans are not discriminated against in its programs before resuming new funding, which was halted in August over an anti-LGBTQ law, a bank executive said. World Bank project documents will make it clear that LGBTQ Ugandans should not face discrimination and that staff will not be arrested for including them, Victoria Kwakwa, the bank’s head for eastern and southern Africa, told Reuters. Rights groups have said that the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which was enacted in May and prescribes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, has unleashed a torrent of abuse against LGBTQ people, mostly […]

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