As Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches on November 20, a stark new report from Advocates for Trans Equality reveals the extent of the violence, erasure, and institutional abandonment confronting transgender Americans and the resilience of a community determined to survive it.
The 2025 Remembrance Report, prepared by A4TE’s public education team and seen exclusively by The Advocate, documents 27 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people over the last year and 21 deaths by suicide, a devastating pattern that has become grimly familiar.
Sixty-one percent of the transgender people lost to suicide were between ages 15 and 24, a finding the report connects directly to the dismantling of youth protections, the loss of crisis resources such as the LGBTQ-specific 988 suicide crisis line option 3 ended by the Trump administration in June, and the continued spread of misinformation about gender identity from the highest levels of government.
“We are in an extraordinary moment in the fight for trans lives,” the report warns, describing a federal landscape in which crucial health research has been censored, civil rights protections rolled back, and references to transgender people stripped from public-facing government resources.
In January, when President Donald Trump returned to office, he issued a series of executive orders forcing federal agencies to cease recognizing trans and nonbinary people.
In an interview with The Advocate, Bahari Thomas, A4TE’s director of public education, stated that the report’s findings reflect structural truths that have long shaped the lives of transgender people in the United States.
“At the intersections of racism, transphobia, and misogyny, we have these disproportionate impacts on Black trans women,” Thomas said. “Not only when it comes to physical violence, but also other forms of violence — lack of access to resources, housing, jobs — things that really impact their ability to thrive.”
Heightened toll for Black trans women
The report found that 15 of the 17 transgender women of color killed this year were Black, underscoring a pattern that has persisted for more than a decade.
Gun violence accounted for 17 of the 27 violent deaths, including the killing of Washington, D.C.’sDream Johnson, a Black trans woman shot after men reportedly hurled anti-trans slurs at her.
Thomas cautioned that the data should be read not as isolated tragedies but as a measure of where the country stands.
“If we are not protecting the most marginalized of us, then who is protected at all?” they said. “When we lift up the most marginalized of us, including Black trans women, then we can all be lifted up by that.”
The report also identifies a pervasive crisis of intimate partner violence. Forty percent of violent deaths involved partners or people the victims trusted, including the widely reported case of Sam Nordquist, a Black trans man in New York whose torture and killing drew national scrutiny after police ignored multiple requests from his family to perform wellness checks.
Erasure as a policy position
The data arrives in an era when the federal government has adopted an explicit strategy of erasing transgender people from public life. The report documents how transgender health information has vanished from the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention platforms, how research initiatives were halted or removed, and how agencies were directed to avoid acknowledging transgender identities across their programs.
“When the majority of folks don’t know a trans person, and they’re fed the idea that trans people don’t exist, it furthers this marginalization,” they said. “It opens a door to further discrimination.”
That erasure reverberates in the lives of young people. The report’s suicide data aligns with the Trevor Project’s findings on youth mental health, which show steep declines in well-being when care is restricted, affirming adults are scarce, or policymakers send overt signals that transgender young people should disappear.
“When we take away some of our fundamental rights to medically necessary health care, it tells young people that the adults who are supposed to be responsible for their well-being do not have their backs,” Thomas said. “Being a young person is hard enough.”
A fractured relationship with the police
The report also highlights the deep distrust between transgender communities and law enforcement. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, 62 percent of respondents said they were uncomfortable seeking help from police due to their gender identity. Those fears were reinforced by cases like those of Linda Becerra Moran and Rick Alastor Newman, both of whom were shot and killed by police officers this year.
Thomas acknowledged the impossible calculations many transgender people face when violence comes from someone they know.
“In some cases, law enforcement does fail us,” they said. “I hope that there are other networks of support — chosen family, nonprofits, domestic violence advocates — that can work in tandem with law enforcement. It’s a tough thing to navigate for trans folks, for Black folks in particular, for immigrants.”
What allies need to do now
As Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches, Thomas emphasized that allyship is less a state of being than an ongoing practice — one that must be exercised even in small, private moments.
“You don’t need to know everything about what it means to be trans to say, ‘Hey, maybe show that person some respect,’” they said. Much of that work involves interrupting misinformation “at the dinner table, at school,” or anywhere harmful rhetoric is repeated. “When each person does that, it grows to what can be a mass scale.”
However, Thomas also emphasized that TDOR must allow room not only for mourning but also for possibility.
“Trans Day of Remembrance is not just about honoring the folks who have passed,” they said. “It is also about celebrating the possibilities of the future… an era when we can live free from violence.”
To foster that collective resilience, A4TE will host “Give Them Their Flowers: A Trans Community Gathering,” a virtual, intergenerational event open to the public and featuring community elders, artists, and youth leaders from 6 to 7 p.m. Eastern on November 20.
If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services. Trans Lifeline, designed for transgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline, for LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger), can be reached at (866) 488-7386. Users can also access chat services at TheTrevorProject.org/Help or text START to 678678.
Ethan Brignac, a transgender student at Wylie East High School, has been “Ethan” since seventh grade — to his friends, family and teachers. When he reached high school, his dad further validated his chosen name by requesting “Ethan” be used in school records, including in his email, class rosters and ID, which his teachers honored until this fall.
Three weeks after Brignac started his senior year, Wylie East administrators called him to the library and gave him a new ID. On it, in white capital letters, was a name he hadn’t been called in five years.
“In the first week of school, when I was kind of trying to convince my teachers to call me Ethan, I was like, ‘Hey, look, it’s still on my ID,’” said Brignac, who did not want The Texas Tribune to publish his birth name because it causes him discomfort. “Then one of my teachers this year said, ‘Okay, they’re gonna fix that soon.’”
Now, he said, some teachers seem to wedge his legal name into every interaction, outing him to peers and resurrecting the dread he felt before school records reflected his chosen name.
“It was definitely a big change having my deadname kind of sprawled everywhere,” Brignac said, referring to a derogatory practice of calling a trans person by their birth name. “It was like, wow, okay, that wasn’t just a social media post I saw, this is real life.”
A Wylie spokesperson said the move was “to ensure full compliance with state law, including Senate Bill 12.”
A sweeping piece of legislation that went into effect Sept. 1, SB 12 bars public school employees from socially transitioning a student, which it defines as helping to change a student’s sex assigned at birth by using a different name, pronoun or other practice that denies the birth sex. Dubbed the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” the law allows guardians to report school-supported social transitioning to the school board, among other powers.
The law also prohibits K-12 faculty from referencing LGBTQ+ identities in class instruction and casual conversations, and it bans school-sanctioned clubs that center sexual orientation or gender identity.
Several transgender students at Texas schools that enforce birth names told the Tribune the new policies have transformed school from a place of support to one that rejects who they are. Considered a derogatory practice in the LGBTQ+ community, dead-naming undermines the wishes of trans people and in some cases, forcibly reveals their trans identity, which can cause or worsen mental health problems among these children, studies have found.
Some parents of trans Texas students say they are frustrated because the law appears to ignore their rights for those of other guardians. A few of these parents joined advocacy and teacher groups to file a lawsuit against SB 12 in August, seeking to pause districts from enforcing the law while the case proceeds.
Parents who support SB 12 say the law boosts their role in their children’s education. Many of them want to erase LGBTQ+ topics from K-12 schools, saying they prompt children to question their identities or that schools force progressive views onto their kids.
“We live in an insane world where a school board has to remind teachers that they cannot tell children, you know, suggest to kids they might be homosexual or they might be actually a girl if they’re a biological male,” said Jeffrey Keech, whose children go to Wylie schools. “It’s unbelievable to me that this even is an issue.”
The Tribune contacted two dozen districts across the state, including districts in the Austin, Houston and San Antonio areas, and spoke with a dozen teachers, parents and transgender students about how schools are implementing SB 12, finding that administrators are taking varied approaches. This is because the law leaves the Texas Education Agency and school districts to decide how to implement it, said Rachel Moran, a law professor at Texas A&M University who directs the education law program.
Some Texas school districts and boards, like Wylie, have adopted policies to ban teachers from aiding in social transitioning, but many have not yet — and are still allowing teachers to honor students’ preferred names and pronouns.
TEA would not respond to questions about how school districts are implementing SB 12, how many districts have complied with the law or deadlines for doing so.
Moran said schools might adopt hard-line policies to shield themselves from retribution.
“This is true with any broad mandate — some are going to be overcomplying,” she said. “It has a real chilling effect. They’re afraid to get anywhere close to a perceived line.”
Teachers told the Tribune the law leaves them anxious and confused because they are unsure when they can use nicknames or how they should respond to parents who request their children’s preferred names and pronouns be used. They lament that they won’t be able to support students who come out as queer. School district officials also worry how the policies will interfere with federal and district rules and daily affairs.
Now, Texas public school students sit in the crosshairs of debates over free speech, race, religion and gender and sexuality in school.
SB 12 is part of a slate of laws that increase oversight of K-12 schools, including new rules that mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms and clear the way for book bans. In federal and state governments and now school board meetings, disagreements have escalated from “I don’t think that you have the right idea,” to “I don’t think you’re the right kind of person,” Moran said.
Once a place to hear diverse perspectives, she worries schools will leave children unable to tolerate different views.
“The stakes are not just whether I win or lose this particular culture war,” Moran said. “It’s whether I preserve a tradition that has been so formative of our democracy.”
School policies vary
In addition to the ban on social transitioning, SB 12 prohibits hiring, training, programs and activities centered on race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation — referenced in the law as diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.
It also requires schools to tell parents their rights, such as allowing them access to school records and course content, and requiring that they give permission for their child to receive health care, hear lessons about sexuality and join clubs.
Among parts of the bill that confuse teachers and administrators is how to respond when parents ask that schools use their child’s preferred name and pronouns or what to call students who have already transitioned.
More than two months after the deadline to comply with SB 12, districts are implementing the bill differently.
Conner Carlow, a former registrar who now works as a classroom support specialist in the Leander school district, said faculty can continue to call students by their preferred name if that was done prior to SB 12 going into effect. However, faculty cannot use new names or new pronouns moving forward, and administrators must approve fresh changes on a case-by-case basis through a form parents submit. These updates are only allowed if they appear unrelated to social transitioning, he said.
The name change form is the only written directive Carlow has gotten regarding SB 12. Leander spokesperson Crestina Hardie would not say how the school district is handling name changes because the board has no policy about it. Hardie said the school district is waiting to enact new rules while it reviews the law and gets clarification from TEA and the district’s legal counsel.
“SB 12 deeply impacts personal and highly complex areas of school life, and the biggest challenge for districts statewide is the lack of clarity and consistency in how these laws intersect with existing Board policy, federal protections and day-to-day school operations,” Hardie said.
The Cypress-Fairbanks and Conroe school districts adopted policies that ban DEI practices and prohibit social transitioning or providing information about it.
Argyle and Academy school districts have posted parental rights resolutions, but nothing on social transitioning.
Deer Park linked SB 12 on its website, but it is unclear how the district will implement the law, including gender-affirming names and pronouns.
Wylie distributed a fact sheet advising employees to use the names and pronouns in school records and barring them from discussing race, color, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Although officials disagreed with parts of the law, Houston-based DRAW Academy rolled out the new rules. The 98 percent Hispanic charter district issued parental notices and consent forms, banned DEI and limited instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, according to superintendent and CEO Patricia Beistegui.
“DRAW Academy stands for Diversity, Roots, and Wings, founded under the core belief that diversity and inclusivity is a strength in our democracy,” Beistegui said in an email. She said SB 12 is designed to make positive changes but actually revokes protections.
SB 12 and the way schools are implementing it forces teachers to blindly try to follow the law, said Charlotte Wilson, a Garland ISD special education teacher.
“It’s not clear to teachers what we can say or even do,” Wilson said, referencing instruction about race and LGBT topics. “Teachers are afraid because we don’t want to lose our certifications.”
Wilson wants a say in her children’s learning, but she thinks the law might lead teachers to skip lessons that touch on prohibited themes, undermining students’ quality of education.
“We already highlight different cultural historical events throughout the year, like MLK Day, Hispanic Heritage Month, women’s history,” Wilson said. “If we approach Pride Month the same way, as part of America’s inclusion, and communicate about what’s being taught, that shouldn’t violate anyone’s rights.”
Carlow said Leander’s bar on LGBTQ+ topics makes it hard to support his students. He remembers grappling with his sexuality as a middle schooler and how hard that was.
“I wasn’t telling my parents what was going on, so I imagine these kids aren’t either,” Carlow said. “The fact they’re willing to tell us before even the parents is a big deal, and now the fact that we have to just not accept them, I mean, it’s awful.”
“Called something I’m not”
The varied approaches to SB 12 means transgender students across Texas are experiencing different levels of alienation.
Pride flags fly and teachers use gender-affirming pronouns at Alief Early College High School, said Marshall Romero, a transgender third-year. The only change he noticed was a permission slip to join the speech and debate club.
An Alief spokesperson said the district also sent parents an opt-in and opt-out form for school health services.
Romero said the school remains largely supportive of LGTBQ+ students.
“I never had to worry about the teacher or any instructor telling me, like, ‘Hey, I can’t call you that, or I’m not going to call you that,’” Romero said. “Being able to be called by a name that reflects who I am, being called by certain pronouns, just really gives me a quality of life that I feel like I can hold on and is worth living.”
Cassie Hilborn, a Woodlands High School junior, yearns to be called her gender-affirming name at school. One of Hilborn’s earliest memories is looking in the mirror and wishing she was a girl. During the pandemic, she watched a YouTube video explaining what it meant to be transgender and finally understood why she felt misaligned with her body.
But the past year’s onslaught of transgender-focused federal and state policies stripped her confidence and dashed her plan to wear feminine clothes and ask her teachers to use her chosen name.
“It feels like every day I look at the news and then the headline just reads, ‘Sorry, more things you’ve lost,’” Hilborn said.
The Conroe school board, which governs Woodlands High School, was among the first in Texas to bar teachers from using gender-affirming names and pronouns.
At the school Dungeons & Dragons club, Hilborn’s peers and faculty adviser call her “Cassie,” but everyone else uses the legal name on her ID, which she hides under blue masking tape. She wants her classmates and teachers to know she’s transgender, but laws like SB 12 have discouraged her from coming out.
“Now, even teachers that might have respected my identity have been told that they unequivocally are not allowed to do so,” Hilborn said.
Once school records reflected Brignac’s preferred name, his grades climbed. He became president of the National Art Honor Society and founded an art mentorship program. He raised his hand so often that one teacher joked about it.
His stepmom Shannon Keene worries that being misgendered at school will thrust him back into isolation, like she saw before he entered high school.
This year’s reversal “made him feel rejected as a human being,” she said.
Having socially transitioned in seventh grade when he cut his hair and asked to go by Ethan, Brignac’s peers have been confused to hear his feminine name now used.
He’s reminded every day that his state and school deny his identity. “It’s rough being called something I’m not,” said Brignac, who now avoids talking in class.
Queer young people have disproportionate rates of depression and mental illness. But a study of 129 transgender and gender nonconforming students found that having their identities affirmed decreases symptoms of severe depression. Being called preferred names and pronouns is correlated with a drop in suicidal thoughts by 29 percent and suicidal behavior by 56 percent, according to the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2018.
Refusing to use preferred names tells transgender and nonbinary students they’re unworthy of respect, said Johnathan Gooch of Equality Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ equality.
“It’s as if someone else picked a nickname for you that you didn’t want, a malicious nickname, that they repeatedly use despite the fact they know what you prefer to be called,” Gooch said.
Parental rights for all?
Some parents who support expelling discussions about queer identities from schools say SB 12 protects children from viewpoints that might spur them to question who they are.
Around three years ago, after Kevin Brooks’ then-middle school daughter returned from school in the Wylie district and said her friend used nonbinary pronouns, he responded: “Sweetheart, don’t buy into that foolishness.”
The army veteran thinks children are too young to learn about LGBTQ+ identities and that it confuses them to hear that gender and sexuality are spectrums, like some schools have taught.
“Why are you teaching these kids that are as young as 5 and 6 years old all this stuff that they don’t need to deal with?” Brooks said. “I told my son the other day, I wish you’d stay innocent till you’re 35 years old, because the stuff that’s going on in the world right now absolutely just, it not only mortifies me, it terrifies me. It just really pisses me off.”
Brooks hasn’t heard of teachers at Wylie discussing LGBTQ+ identities, but he’s terrified to imagine them pledging allegiance to a rainbow flag, which happened in a California classroom in 2021.
In May, Don Zimmerman participated in a protest against a transgender teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in the Round Rock district, where he lives and previously ran for the school board.
Students and at least one faculty member stood across the street with posters saying, “Y’all means all.” To Zimmerman, the faculty member’s presence is proof of schools “coaching children and encouraging them to embrace and publicly protest in favor of this transgender extremism.”
“The school is so hell bent on this agenda of promoting transgenderism and the LGBT lifestyle, …and the parents feel so powerless at stopping the public schools agenda that they go to the Legislature and get these laws passed,” said Zimmerman, who sent his third grader to private school to shield him from LGBTQ+-themed lessons.
Parents of transgender students say new policies complying with the so-called “parents’ bill of rights” are a slap in their face. Keene, Brignac’s stepmom, said policies against using gender-affirming names and pronouns pander to conservative views and hurt gender-queer children, who are 3.3 percent% of youths ages 13-17 in the U.S.
Brignac’s biological mom told the Tribune she is now seeking to change her son’s legal name so he hears Ethan when he graduates.
“I fail to see the correlation between a parent asking that their child be called by their preferred name and pronouns and providing direct instruction on gender identity,” Keene said. “It’s about control, not about rights. And it’s also just blatant disregard for a person’s sense of self. And to do that to kids is unconscionable.”
On Nov. 4, Erica Deuso made history when she became the first openly transgender mayor-elect of Pennsylvania, a milestone for inclusive political campaigns. Deuso won nearly 65% of the vote and was part of a great nightfor Democrats, with Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill all winning their races in New York City, Virginia and New Jersey, respectively.
Three days after she was elected, Uncloseted Media spoke with Deuso about how her political campaign strategies—which included focusing on “good neighbor” issues rather than on her gender identity—pushed her to win big.
Watch the full video above or read the transcript below.
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi everyone, I’m Spencer Macnaughton. I am joined today by Mayor-elect Erica Deuso. She is a scientist, advocate and community leader who was just elected as mayor of Downingtown, becoming the first openly transgender mayor in Pennsylvania. Mayor-elect, thank you so much for being here today.
Erica Deuso: Thank you for having me.
SM: So let’s get right into it. You won and you made history in Pennsylvania. How are you feeling?
ED: It was a very long day but we were very happy to see the results. It was a clean sweep here in Chester County. All of our statewide won, all of our countywide won, and very many of our local municipal offices won too. So we’re very pleased with that. As for me, I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I looked at this as being “I’m running for mayor. I’m running to be the mayor of a small town in Pennsylvania,” and I looked at this as I knew the history, but I didn’t really know how big it was going to be. And then I took Wednesday off to sort of relax and recharge, and that’s when I started getting all the requests for interviews and talking points, phone interviews, in-person interviews, Zoom interviews. I underestimated how big this would be. So, I’m humbled by all the reactions and I’m ready to get to work.
SM: What do you mean you were surprised by how big this would be? What surprised you about the reaction?
ED: Well, you know, I’ve always looked at it like “I’m a scientist. I’m a business woman. I’m a sister, a daughter, a wife.” You know, my gender identity, myself, I don’t think about it. You know it’s been 16 years since I transitioned. So it’s not something that’s really front of mind for me anymore. And so, I came in this thinking I was gonna run on local issues: traffic, housing affordability, flooding mitigation, public safety. And that’s what I ran on. So coming into Tuesday, I knew the history, but I also knew that I didn’t run on my gender identity. And I was hoping that people around Downingtown would feel very much the same way. That they care about the kitchen table issues that face small towns all around this country. And so to see the outpouring of love and respect and just people calling from all over the country, people calling from all over the world, it’s very, very humbling to me. And I say that with as much gratitude as I can.
SM: Fantastic! And for those who don’t know, since we have a national audience, Downingtown is a small, predominantly white town of roughly 8,000 people, located in Chester County, west of Philadelphia. It typically swings Democratic, and its historical roots are in industrial and mill, as an industrial mill town, and it has a higher average household income than the national average, and typically swings Democrat. But I wanna know, what does Downingtown mean [to] you? How would you describe this town that just elected you as their mayor-elect?
ED: Well, very much like a lot of small towns, the town is defined by the people, you know? We have something very that we’re very proud of and that’s this good neighbor spirit where everybody comes out and helps everybody else. So when there’s a family in danger of poverty or housing issues, we come out as a community and support them. We had an individual who was abducted by ICE, and we’ve thrown rallies and raised money for the family, and we’re making sure that the family has what they need as far as money, food, housing, while the family patriarch is in ICE custody. When we had flooding, Hurricane Ida in 2021, historical flood, we started a program called Downingtown Strong. So we have this good neighbor spirit and that comes from the people, not the town itself. The town could be anywhere, but the people of Downingtown will always be what makes this town special.
Photos by Mark Fiske, courtesy of Deuso. Erica Deuso, Pennsylvania’s first trans mayor, pictured in Downingtown, PA.
The Political Campaign Strategies Behind Deuso’s Win
SM: And I hear you say multiple times, “good neighbor,” and I know that almost has been the slogan of your campaign, right? Tell me more about the political strategy behind the idea of branding your campaign as somebody who looks out for the good neighbor.
ED: So when I first moved here in 2007, it was before I transitioned. It was back in the aughts and people were still being discriminated [against] probably more than today. It just wasn’t news. And I was very scared. I was scared of what my neighbors would think, scared of what the town in general would think. The outpouring of love and support when I went through my transition was just amazing. So I look at this as giving back to the people who made me feel at home, made me feel welcome, even through the toughest part of my life. And I think when it comes to building my campaign, that’s where it was centered, is that I was trying to give back. Trying to thank the town for being there for me by saying that I’m going to be there for you.
SM: That’s beautiful. And take me back to when you did come out publicly. Do you have any kind of concrete examples that you can point to of when you remember the community coming around for you?
ED: So,I had a neighbor who lived across the street from me. I had just come out. She didn’t know. She knew me, but she didn’t know me well. So as I’m starting to come out, my hair’s getting longer, I’m dressing differently, I’m trying out new names and things like that. And it was winter time. She came out, we helped shovel out her car because she needed to get to work. And she asked me, “Hey, you know, what’s going on? I’ve seen a bunch of changes, but I don’t know what’s going on.” So I told her. And she’s like, “If you need anything, if you need me to stick up for you in town, if you need me to take you to a doctor’s appointment, if you need anything, just let me know.” And it was maybe a week later, we were out together, we grabbed some coffee and somebody, when I went and gave them my name, they called out, they just said, “Eric.” My friend, my new friend, who had known me basically for a week, goes up to the counter and says, “It’s Erica, get the name right.” And they turned, you know, they blushed. They said, “Oh, we’re so sorry, we got the name wrong” and everything. And I’ve never had a problem with that coffee shop since. It’s those sort of things where it’s just, if somebody misgenders you, if somebody dead names you, my community has my back.
SM: Having those people who have your back and stand up for you, Downingtown community members, how does that make you feel on an emotional level? What does it do for your mental health?
ED: It makes me feel at ease, you know. It makes me feel less tense, less anxiety. When you’re first coming out, you’re taking those first steps with trepidation. You’re wondering, “Is today going to be the day that someone’s going to call me a man? Is today the day where somebody’s going to call me out for using the bathroom at the McDonald’s, or who’s going to laugh at the way that I’m dressed or my makeup or something?” And to know that people have my back, to know I have friends and community members who are there to support and understand and learn and grow with me, that means everything because it made transition so much easier.
SM: And, you know, obviously Downingtown sounds like they’ve been an amazing support, most of the members. But I’m sure not everyone is supportive. And I’m sure you’ve met some people and interacted with people who maybe have never met a trans person before while you were campaigning. What did you find through your campaign worked the best in accessing people who may be misinformed about trans people, who may have never met a trans person and who could never imagine a trans person as their elected leader? What were the kind of tools that worked the best from a communication strategy point of view?
ED: Humor. Humor always works the greatest. I remember going to somebody’s door and a woman came to the door. She said, “Oh, I’m not voting for him.” And I’m like, “Who are you—there’s no hims around here.” And she said, “Oh, I thought you were a man.” And I’m like, “Nope, no, I haven’t been a man for 16 years. You know? And even then that’s questionable.” And she started to laugh. And I said, “Right now, I’m just worried about our town. I’m worried about the traffic on our street here. You know, we have this new development up the street, it empties right onto your street here. What’s going on with that? How has that affected you?” And she said, “Well, to be honest, it’s been a pain because I need to get to work right around the time that the kids are getting picked up from school. And it’s tough because now I have to wait for all the traffic and then the school buses.” And just by using that little bit of humor at the beginning, it bridged that gap. It made me be able to have a conversation with this person who originally had just dismissed me out of hand.
Photo by Mark Fiske, courtesy of Deuso.
SM: And it probably disarmed them and opened up a door for them to feel comfortable enough to ask you questions they might not be sure they can ask.
ED: All too often you see trans people being labeled as angry or upset or you’re going to trigger them by using a name or using a pronoun that they don’t agree with. And, to me, I just look at it from a point of humor and be able to disarm people through a little bit of humor, a little bit of good nature, and not taking things so seriously. Because at the end of the day, we’re all in this together. And if I can use a little bit of humor to disarm a situation and do some education, that’s far easier than coming at it from a place of anger or being upset.
SM: That’s so interesting. Any other strategies that you found worked?
ED: Just focusing on the issues has been the biggest thing. The other side of the aisle, people who want to bring hate and division into this town, came at me trying to make this campaign about my identity. They tried to find anything that I would post, like when I was endorsed by groups like Advocates for Trans Equality or the Victory Fund or LPAC. I would post things on social media saying, “Hey, I’m really proud to have been endorsed by these groups.” And they would take that as, you know, I’m trying to shove gender ideology on them. When in fact, it’s really just [that] we have a robust LGBTQ community in Chester County. And here in Pennsylvania, we have about 71,000 trans people. I want to make sure that they’re represented. And the rabble rousers, the people trying to push against me, tried to make this divisive about my gender. But it didn’t really work when all I’m talking about is public safety, traffic and flooding.
Photo by Mark Fiske, courtesy of Deuso. Erica Deuso engaging in political outreach on National Day of Action.
What Political Outreach Means for Deuso
SM: I think what you just said is kind of a micro representation of the strategies that worked in many other elections this week, right? Where you found, you know, Mayor-elect Mamdani of New York City focusing on affordability, but at the same time not ditching trans and queer people along the way. At the same time, we have the federal government winning from being hateful toward trans people. In my opinion, as somebody who looks at this all day, we’re reaching a precipice among the American populace where they’re starting to realize the BS of all of this misinformation and starting to recognize that “I don’t have to vote for a politician just because they’re against a group. I can actually care about the issues” kind of thing. Does that track?
ED: It does. I mean, if you look at the campaigns of Mayor-elect Mamdani, Governor-elect Spanberger, Governor-elect Sherrill in New Jersey, the anti-trans ads did nothing. I had somebody circulate a letter a couple days before the election saying that the flooding issues that I had were garbage, saying that I was misleading people with my gender identity. And they brought it around town through our local Turning Point Action group here in Chester County. They had middle schoolers running these letters and putting them on people’s doors and under placemats. The reaction to that was, “This is awful to a person around town.” I heard literally hundreds of people at the polls tell me, “You know, I wasn’t going to come out and vote today but getting that letter brought me out and not for what they thought it was going to do.” Um, I think people are just starting to see LGBTQ people, immigrants, people of other races, ethnic backgrounds, that didn’t scare people off the way that the opposition thought it was going to scare people off. We’re moving to a place where if a person is the most qualified person, I think people want that. And it starts up at the top. People are seeing that maybe we didn’t elect the most qualified person to be president right now. All these things that the current administration wants to do just to make some people’s lives harder is turning a lot of other people off. So if we focus on the things that really matter to the American people, to the people of Downingtown, the people of Pennsylvania, I think that’s what’s really gonna win people. If you compare somebody’s health care premiums to whether or not someone’s transgender, I think they’re gonna be more worried about the health care premiums at this point.
Pennsylvania Governor Election: The Bigger Picture
SM: So fascinating, and I think all of that resonates. And I think a lot of Americans are ready to just care about the issues and tackle the issues specifically. With that said, you are making history, right? As Pennsylvania’s first openly transgender mayor, what does that mean for you? How are you gonna balance focusing on the issues while also honoring this history that you’ve made?
ED: So it means a lot to me, my own gender identity. I’m so happy to be able to represent our community in this situation, but there’s a lot to do. The mayor of Downingtown’s major responsibility is working with the police, to make sure the police have what they need to do the job that they need to do. Working as mayor, I’m gonna make myself accountable, I’m going to make myself available. We’ve never had office hours here for a mayor, so I’m gonna set up office hours. I will be there to talk to you, listen to you, understand what the problems are—sorry, there’s a little bug—understand where the problems are in town.
SM: Obviously you’re courageous, but are you afraid in any ways being in this elected position, given how much animus there is towards the trans community right now in America?
ED: I was. At the very beginning of this, right after the primary, and it was a landslide. So that made a lot of people happy, but at the same time it really made some people unhappy. And there was some chatter, there were some potentials for violence. And we made sure that when we had some events this summer and this fall that we were doing our best to make sure we were protected. And we had two security people at a Fall Fest that we had here where people knew where I was going to be at every minute of the day, that day, and this was weeks after the Charlie Kirk assassination. And just because of the use of firearms, it was such an open place, I did invest personally in some protective armor underneath my clothes for that. Thankfully, we didn’t need it. So, we were safe with that. But still, we kept security in mind. Thankfully, there was no violence to speak of. Just a lot of people speaking out of a place of ignorance and misunderstanding.
SM: You’re saying armor, you wore a bulletproof vest?
ED: Yes.
SM: Wow, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t have done that and you wouldn’t have hired security if you weren’t transgender, is that fair?
ED: That is fair. This town leans Democratic. I’m not worried about a lot of the majority of the people of this town. And really the people of this town who could vote in the borough were not the problem. It was people from the outlying areas of this town, the townships that surround us. That’s where a lot of the divisiveness and people trying to force this campaign to be about my gender. That’s where they came from. We couldn’t really control them very well. So we just need to prepare for every eventuality.
SM: Obviously, there’s been transphobic comments on social media as there always are. Sometimes you’ve been responding and sometimes you haven’t. What’s kind of behind the decisions of when to engage and when to leave it?
ED: So I think when some of these comments come from a place of ignorance, there’s an opportunity for education. I remember one comment where somebody said, “You wanna just chop off your genitals” and things like that. And I said, “Look, if you follow the WPATH guidelines, everything starts with mental health,” and they came back and said, “I had no clue that there was this much involved with it.” To know that, yeah, they may disagree with it still, but at least they have a better understanding of the process and it isn’t just, somebody wakes up tomorrow and decides that they wanna go have surgery. It doesn’t work that way. And for other reasons, I don’t want a kid [or] another trans person to see my posts, see all the hate, and then not see me push back against it, you know? I don’t want them to think that I’m just gonna sit back and take it when other people in power are telling me, “You can’t use this bathroom,” or “You have to change your passport or your driver’s license or something that you have to change it back.” No, I’m not going to just stay silent because that trans kid is looking at me. They’re looking at me for leadership. And if I just stay silent on those sort of things, that person’s thinking, “Well, there’s no one standing up for me.”
SM: You must feel like you have a duty to engage.
ED: Exactly, that’s how I feel about it, is that, you know, when there’s something, you have to push back against it because there’s always people watching.
PA Governor Election and National Political Trends
SM: What would you say to politicians at the highest level of government in America right now who are stoking this fire of transphobia and anti-trans animus?
ED: Let’s have a conversation. I think if we can find 5% of an issue where we can agree on, I think we can build on that. Let’s bring the temperature down on LGBTQ issues. Let’s stop worrying about whether or not someone can change the letter on their passport. And let’s have a conversation about how best we can treat everybody as Americans. And as equals.
SM: And you would sit down with the Donald Trumps and the other people to talk about that? You would be open to that?
ED: If there was somebody who was willing to have an actual conversation where we could find common ground and build on it, I would sit down with anybody. That said, if I know that it’s not turning into a good-faith argument, that conversation is going to be over, and we’ll find somebody else who will have a good-faith conversation.
Photo by Mark Fiske, courtesy of Deuso. Erica Deuso connecting with families of Downingtown during her political campaign.
What It Means to Be a Trans Politician in Today’s Climate
SM: I want to go back to little Erica. At what age do you think you realized you were trans, and tell me a little bit about those early realizations.
ED: So, I believe I was 4. It was very early on, but that was 1984, at a time when people didn’t know anything about this. My parents obviously didn’t know anything about it. I lived with that for six years, knowing that I didn’t have the language, I didn’t have the verbiage, I didn’t understand what was going on. It was a time when kids didn’t go to therapists. And so I waited until I was 10 to tell my parents. And, obviously, it was 1990, and things didn’t go over well at that point. It wasn’t something they knew anything about and they came at it from a place of fear, not understanding. So I sort of shoved it down a little bit, and then college came around and I tried to do something about it again in college when I was 19. And I met my ex on the way to therapy. So put it on the shelf again. And it wasn’t until I was 29 that I realized, “Hey, I don’t wanna turn 30 and not know who I really am.” So I went to a therapist who specializes in gender identity and gender dysphoria here in the area. And by the end of the first session, she said, “I don’t think I’ve met another person who fits as many criteria for this as you do.” So we started on the path. I did get amicably divorced from my ex. Still friendly. I’m very happy for her. She has a very cute little girl, happily married again. I’m happily married now again. And life is good. And very, very happy with the way things happen. And everything happens for a reason. And I firmly believe that I’m living this life for a reason. Maybe it’s to be the mayor. Maybe it’s for something greater. Who knows? But right now I’m focused on being the best mayor Downingtown has ever had.
SM: What would your message to young kids be who might have dreams of being mayor or other, you know, amazing career paths, but aren’t sure if they can be out and proud and do these and achieve these ambitions?
ED: You will surprise yourself with what you’re capable of once you say that “I’m going to just be myself, no matter what anybody else says.” There will always be people who push you to be different, whether you’re trans or not, but you have to persevere and say, “This is who I am. This is what I’m going to do with my life,” and just keep pushing because you only have one life, and you need to live it in the way that’s going to bring you the most joy and the most happiness and be the best for yourself.
SM: What are you most excited [about] when it comes to getting to work?
ED: Well, I want everybody to know, who voted me in, that I’m eternally grateful for the responsibility that you have given me. I’m not gonna let you down.
SM: Fabulous. Well Mayor-elect Deuso, I think you should be very proud. You’re a role model overnight, kind of, which might have even surprised you. And I wish you the best of luck as Mayor of Downingtown. Thank you so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
ED: Thank you so much for having me, and my door’s always open.
Since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, Uncloseted Media has been checking in every 100 days to document each move in the administration’s ongoing and relentless attack on the LGBTQ community. These last few months have continued the trend of each 100 days being worse than the last. Trump has weaponized the assassination of Charlie Kirk to put an even bigger target on trans Americans, and he has been testing out new rhetoric, claiming that Democrats want “transgender for everybody,” a line he’s now used so many times that we couldn’t include every reference. With that in mind, here’s the administration’s complete track record on LGBTQ issues from days 201-300.
Aug. 9, 2025
Trump announces that he is nominating Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce as deputy ambassador to the United Nations. Bruce, an out lesbian, opposes transgender health care for minors and claims LGBTQ Pride commercials “really do damage to the gay and lesbian community.”
Aug. 11, 2025
During a public safety press conference, Trump orders the National Guardto deploy in Washington, D.C., claiming it will curb crime despite it being down. While doing so, he attacks the LGBTQ community, saying, “That’s why [Democrats] want men playing in women’s sports, that’s why they want transgender for everybody. Everybody, transgender.”
Aug. 12, 2025
Trump orders a review of the Smithsonian Institution to determine whether it aligns with his administration’s standards. He targets the museum’s exhibits on transgender athletes, ballroom drag and the evolution of LGBTQ identities, as well as a painting of a Black trans statue of Liberty—that was later withdrawn by the artist—in the National Portrait Library.
The same day, the State Department releases a revised 2024 Human Rights Report that omits references to LGBTQ people and erases mentions of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The report also removes critiques of governments for mistreating LGBTQ communities. For example, it removes information about Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ laws that encourage citizens to report their LGBTQ neighbors and that ban depictions of homosexuality or gender transition in schools or the media.
Aug. 14, 2025
The Department of Education (DOE) launches an investigation into four Kansas school districts, accusing them of violating Title IX as they “permit students to participate in sports and access intimate facilities based on ’gender identity’ rather than biological sex.”
Aug. 15, 2025
Budget cuts stemming from Trump’s federal workforce reductions eliminate $600,000 in funding for the D.C. Office of LGBTQ Affairs for 2026.
The same day, the administration announces plans to eliminate gender-affirming care from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program starting in 2026, cutting coverage for over 8 million people. The policy would block access to hormones and surgeries for federal workers and their families.
Aug. 20, 2025
The media reports on court filings that reveal that the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued subpoenas to hospitals for private medical records of LGBTQ patients 18 and younger. The DOJ requests billing data, communication with drug manufacturers, Social Security numbers and recordings from providers who treat gender non-conforming minors. Doctors across the country report threats and fear government retaliation.
“The subpoena is a breathtakingly invasive government overreach. … It’s specifically and strategically designed to intimidate health care providers and health care institutions into abandoning their patients,” says Jennifer L. Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD law, an LGBTQ legal group and civil rights organization.
Aug. 21, 2025
The White House publishes a list of 20 Smithsonian exhibits deemed “objectionable,” including many that highlight LGBTQ and non-white artists. Targeted works include the American History Museum’s LGBTQ+ exhibit that explores queer and disabled identities, as well as a Title IX anniversary display featuring transgender athletes.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cuts $12 million of federal funding for California’s “Personal Responsibility Education Program,” which provides sex education to teens. HHS officials cite the state’s refusal to remove lessons on so-called “radical gender ideology.”
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) upholds an executive order which directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to cut more than 1,700 grants, nearly 200 of which provide funding for HIV/AIDS.
The New York Times reports that the Trump administration will withhold more than half of the congressionally appropriated $6 billion for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Experts say the cuts threaten HIV/AIDS services worldwide, as the Kenyan HIV/AIDs network NEPHAK announces layoffs and closures of health centers.
Aug. 23, 2025
ICE violently detains Brazilian trans woman Alice Correia Barbosa, later announcing plans to deport her.
Aug. 26, 2025
The administration warns U.S. states and territories that they will lose federal funding for sex education unless they “remove all references to gender ideology.” Forty-six states and D.C. receive letters ordering the purge of all “gender ideology” content within 60 days.
Aug. 28, 2025
The DOE orders Denver Public Schools to replace gender-neutral restrooms with sex-designated facilities within 10 days. If they don’t comply, the DOE suggests they will lose federal funding.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tells Fox News that the HHS is studying whether gender-transition medications or antidepressants cause violence, citing a church shooting in Minneapolis by a transgender woman. Research shows no such connection, and nearly all mass shootings are committed by cisgender men.
Aug. 29, 2025
In an interview with the Daily Caller, a right-wing opinion website, Trump baselessly claims that banning transgender troops improves military readiness. He falsely links transgender identities to violence and repeats debunked claims about gender-affirming care.
The Harvard Crimson posts Dean David J. Deming’s announcement that the university will no longer host programming for specific races or identity groups, signaling deeper cuts to diversity efforts. The move follows Trump’s demands that Harvard dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs or lose billions in federal research funding. Since Trump took office, Harvard has removed DEI language, closed identity-based offices and folded LGBTQ, women’s and minority programs into a single “Harvard Foundation.”
On a podcast with former George W. Bush special assistant Scott Jennings, Trump conflates crime with support for transgender people, saying Democrats are “fighting for criminals, just like they fought for transgender for everybody … all these crazy things.”
Sept. 3, 2025
After a settlement requiring the administration to restore health and science information to federal websites, HHS officials tell the Associated Press that they remain “committed to its mission of removing radical gender and DEI ideology from federal programs.” The reversal follows an executive order meant to eliminate the term “gender” from policies and delete public health pages about pregnancy risks, opioid addiction and AIDS.
During an Oval Office meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, Trump once again says Democrats “gave us things like men playing in women’s sports, open borders for everybody, transgender for everybody.”
In response to the Minneapolis mass shooting, CNN reports that the DOJ is considering restricting transgender Americans’ Second Amendment rights by building off of Trump’s trans military ban and using it as justification for a firearm ban—something that would only be possible by declaring them mentally “defective.” The proposal sparks backlash from the National Rifle Association, who says in a statement that they “will not support … sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.”
A Maine principals’ group challenges a subpoena from the DOJ that seeks athletic rosters statewide as part of the administration’s effort to ban transgender students from sports. The group argues the request would expose private student information unrelated to the case.
A federal appeals panel upholds an injunction blocking the Trump administration’s plan to deny accurate passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans. Judges rule the government failed to show how inclusive passports violate federal law. In its decision, the court writes:
“Based on the named plaintiffs’ affidavits and the expert declarations submitted by the plaintiffs, the district court made factual findings that the plaintiffs will suffer a variety of immediate and irreparable harms from the present enforcement of the challenged policy, including ‘a greater risk of experiencing harassment and violence’ while traveling abroad.”
Sept. 5, 2025
CNN uncovers years of homophobic and misogynistic posts by E.J. Antoni, Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, contributor to Project 2025 and a “bystander” on Jan. 6, has repeatedly mocked LGBTQ people and journalists and appears to have been running an X account where he posted that “there is only one sexual orientation – everything else is a disorientation.” The administration would withdraw his nomination Sept. 30.
Sept. 8, 2025
Three military families sue the Department of Defense after the Trump administration’s ban on transgender health care. “This is a sweeping reversal of military health policy and a betrayal of military families who have sacrificed for our country,” says Sarah Austin, staff attorney at GLAD Law.
Speaking to the Religious Liberty Commission, Trump rambles, “On day one of my administration, I signed an executive order to slash federal funding for any school that pushes transgender insanity on our youth.” He goes on to falsely claim that some states can force children to transition without the parents knowing.
Sept. 9, 2025
A federal judge blocks the administration’s attempt to subpoena medical records of transgender minors at Boston Children’s Hospital. The court finds that:
“The Administration has been explicit about its disapproval of the transgender community and its aim to end GAC [gender-affirming care]. … It is abundantly clear that the true purpose of issuing the subpoena is to interfere with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ right to protect GAC within its borders, to harass and intimidate BCH to stop providing such care, and to dissuade patients from seeking such care.”
Sept. 11, 2025
The Wall Street Journal publishes a leaked Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives memo which falsely claims that shell casings found near the scene of Kirk’s murder were engraved with expressions of“transgender and anti-fascist ideology.”
Sept. 12, 2025
The DOJ removes a study from its website showing that far-right extremists have killed more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group. The archived report disappears two days after anti-LGBTQconservative Charlie Kirk is assassinated.
Sept. 15, 2025
In a press conference, Trump says he would “have no problem” removing Pride flags from Washington, D.C. streets after Brian Glenn, a far-right content creator, says that “a lot of people are very threatened by this flag.” Glenn attempts to paint the Progress Pride flag as the “transtifa” flag and suggests that “if you can label them a domestic terrorist group, in all reality, you could take that flag down.”
Trump acknowledges legal limits under free speech law but adds, “I think you probably could. Again, you’ll be sued, and it’s okay. I’ve been sued before a couple of times.”
The family of a young trans student from Iowa who took his own life earlier this month, has spoken out about the bullying he faced during his short life.
His mother, Ashley Campbell, told the Des Moines Register that he had been bullied in and out of school for years. He had tried to end his own life twice, even before attending the school.
“Protecting trans kids is important but so is not being cruel, just being understanding,” she said. “I think it’s a bigger issue than just gender. My child couldn’t handle it because that was what he was bullied [about] the most. He never should have had to endure that.”
Miles’ death came a day after a substitute teacher refused to use his preferred pronouns. Eleven months earlier, his family had informed the school that he was trans. School principal Tim Carver informed other parents and guardians in an email and directed them to resources, emphasising that counselling would be available to students.
“Our thoughts will continue to be with Miles’ family,” he has said. ”Please be sure to reach out if you or your child would benefit from additional support. We are here to help.”
Officials from the Urbandale Community School District said they remained “steadfast in our dedication to cultivating a safe, caring and supportive learning environment for all students and staff”.
According to a survey for The Trevor Project, across the US in 2024, 39 per cent of LGBTQ+ youngsters, aged between 13 and 24 – including 46 per cent of transgender and non-binary young people – had “seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year”.
‘You are enough. No matter what they say, you’re worthy’
The lyrics of a song, called “Love Worthy”, shared by Ashley read: “Even when the world feels cold and rough, you got to know that you are enough. No matter what they say, you’re worthy. Loved in every way. Just hold on and don’t give up ‘cuz you are, you are loved.”
Miles’ father Rocky Phipps told the Register: “If I could give one message to all the kids, [it’s] if you see someone bullying another person, call them out. Bullies don’t like to be called out. Always be kind because you never know what that person is going through.”
A GoFundMe has been launched to help the Phipps and Campbell families with funeral and memorial expenses, including the siting of a park bench outside Miles’ favourite place, the Urbandale Library.
The GoFundMe remembers him as “a kind, talented and creative soul who expressed himself through music” [who] loved “skateboarding, bicycling and spending time outdoors”.
It goes on to say: “Miles was a proud transgender male who was driven, and faced the world with courage, authenticity and grace, even in the face of bullying and misunderstanding. He is deeply loved and will forever be cherished by his family. His parents and older sister will forever celebrate his laughter, his music and his beautiful heart.”
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
LGBTQ+ people are significantly more likely to report being stopped, detained, and falsely accused by law enforcement compared to non-LGBTQ+ people, and it’s keeping them from calling for help.
A recent review of more than 25 years of research on interactions between LGBTQ+ people and law enforcement by the Williams Institute found that LGBTQ+ people were more likely than non-LGBTQ+ people to face mistreatment from police. LGBTQ+ people were more likely have been stopped (51 percent vs. 42 percent), searched (27 percent vs. 16 percent), arrested (20 percent vs. 14 percent), and held in custody (19 percent vs. 14 percent) over the course of their lives.
“Experiences of police mistreatment may discourage LGBTQ people from reporting crimes or engaging with law enforcement,” Joshua Arrayales, lead author and Law Fellow at the Williams Institute, said in a statement. “Reporting crimes is essential for accurate crime statistics, proper allocation of crime prevention resources, and support services that address the unique needs of LGBTQ survivors.”
Police still engage in tactics such as raids and entrapment, the report notes, leading to distrust between the community and law enforcement. Over one-fifth (21 percent) of LGBTQ+ people reported at least one police-initiated contact in the prior 12 months, compared to 15 percent of non-LGBTQ+ people. LGBQ people were nearly six times as likely as the general population (6 percent vs. 1 percent) to have been stopped by police in a public space.
Bisexual and transgender respondents were even more likely to report being stopped or detained by police, causing nearly half (46 percent) of trans people saying they would be reluctant to contact the police if they needed help, compared to one-third (33 percent) who would feel comfortable doing so.
LGBQ people felt similarly, with around 13 percent saying they did not call the police when they needed help. Almost one-fourth (22 percent) of LGBQ people said that they would not contact the police again, compared to 6 percent of the general population.
“Negative interactions with police affect LGBTQ people beyond the immediate incident,” said Christy Mallory, study author and Interim Executive Director and Legal Director at the Williams Institute. “Research has found associations between police violence and harassment and binge drinking, stress, depression, and other negative health outcomes.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to enforce a policy aimed at limiting transgender rights that would restrict sex designations on passports to “male” and “female” based on sex assigned at birth.
The justices granted an emergency request filed by the administration, which is seeking to reverse a policy introduced during the Biden administration that allowed people to put “X” as a gender marker or self-select male or female.
“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” the court said in the unsigned order.
The three liberal justices on the conservative-majority court dissented.
“The Government seeks to enforce a questionably legal new policy immediately, but it offers no evidence that it will suffer any harm if it is temporarily enjoined from doing so, while the plaintiffs will be subject to imminent, concrete injury if the policy goes into effect,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissenting opinion.
Since 1992, the State Department has, in certain circumstances, allowed people to choose a male or female marker that does not correspond to their genders at birth. The Biden administration introduced the “X” option in 2021 and made it easier for transgender applicants by removing the need for medical proof of gender transition.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that the decision reflects the administration’s view that “there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth.”
The Trump policy effectively means that transgender people, even those who have fully transitioned and have medical records to prove it, will not be able to have gender markers that correspond with their identities.
“This is a heartbreaking setback for the freedom of all people to be themselves, and fuel on the fire the Trump administration is stoking against transgender people and their constitutional rights,” Jon Davidson, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union representing transgender people who challenged the policy, said in a statement.
President Donald Trump announced on his first day in office, Jan. 20, a rollback of the Biden rule and also said people must have passports that reflect their genders at birth.
The Trump policy was challenged by several transgender people, who alleged that it violated their right to equal protection under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, as well as a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act.
Ashton Orr, a transgender man from West Virginia, is the named plaintiff in the case. He applied for a passport with a male sex marker in January and, in February, was told by the State Department that he could have only a female sex marker.
A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled against the administration, saying people should be able to choose their own markers or “X” as an alternative. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put the ruling on hold while litigation continued.
The new Trump policy is “eminently lawful,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in court papers. “The Constitution does not prohibit the government from defining sex in terms of an individual’s biological classification,” he argued.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs — Orr and six other transgender people — say the Trump policy bucks a 30-year trend of giving applicants a choice over how they are identified.
“This new policy puts transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people in potential danger whenever they use a passport,” the lawyers wrote in court papers.
The Trump administration this year has regularly rushed to the Supreme Court when its policies are blocked by lower courts.
The passport case marks the 22nd time the court has granted an emergency request filed by the administration via what has been dubbed the “shadow docket,” according to an NBC News tally. The administration has, so far, lost only two of those cases.
It is not a final ruling and litigation will continue, but it signals how the case will ultimately be decided.
The Supreme Court’s frequent interventions early in litigation, often with little or no explanation, have prompted some federal judges to express frustration with how the justices are managing the situation.
Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing Kim Davis’ latest push for the Supreme Court to overturn gay marriage, wants to reshape American society in a far-right Christian image—one in which LGBTQ people are excluded. They’ve been fighting LGBTQ rights for years, from Lawrence v. Texasto Proposition 8 to Obergefell. Along the way, they’ve claimed that gay people “know intuitively that what they are doing is immoral, unnatural, and self-destructive” and that they are “not controlled by reason,” but rather by “lust.”
While the brunt of their work focuses on right-wing litigation, their efforts don’t stop there.
An Uncloseted Media investigation has uncovered that Liberty Counsel operates as an umbrella organization that has either founded or heavily supported a large network of affiliated organizations working to pursue far-right Christian politics by influencing key American institutions.
“What I compare it to are gears in a machine, and each one serves a different purpose,” Anne Nelson, author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” told Uncloseted Media.
These groups use education to spread far-right Christian doctrine, they galvanize churches to become activist hubs and they work behind the scenes to influence Supreme Court justices and other government officials.
All of these groups, many of which are frequently referred to as “ministries,” share the enthusiastic support of Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver and the common goals of fighting against LGBTQ rights, cracking down on abortion, influencing American law and politics and more.
“This array of ‘ministries’ reflects the varied fronts in the religious right’s war against LGBTQ Americans and our freedom,” says Peter Montgomery, research director at People for the American Way, an advocacy group aimed at challenging the far right. He says that this network strategically works in tandem to drum up support among congregations and conservative women and to influence American media, courts and schools.
To make sense of these dizzying connections, we spoke with key experts…
… and we dug into the group’s that are part of Liberty Counsel’s expansive network. Here’s what we found about each of them:
1. Liberty Counsel Action
Screenshot from Liberty Counsel Action.
Liberty Counsel Action is a companion to Liberty Counsel. While the two groups are formally distinct and have slightly different leadership, Mat Staver is chairman for both groups, and they have very similar website architecture. The primary distinction is that Liberty Counsel is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a designation for religious and charitable organizations, while Liberty Counsel Action is a 501(c)(4), a designation for social welfare groups. While the designations are similar, donations to 501(c)(3) organizations are tax-deductible, but the groups cannot endorse or donate to political campaigns. Meanwhile, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations are not tax-deductible, but they can donate to and endorse candidates.
Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Montgomery says it’s a fairly common strategy for organizations to maintain different groups like this. While Liberty Counsel is able to bring in more money due to tax incentives for donors, Liberty Counsel Action can freely engage in political advocacy.
Some of the group’s campaigns include fighting the Equality Act and calling for Congress to investigate pro-Palestinian student organizations. One of their initiatives this year has been drafting “Abortion in Our Water,” a report that outlines how abortion pills are polluting U.S. water supplies, a claim that environmental scientists have rejected. They’re also currently pushing for Republicans not to “cave to the Schumer Shakedown,” a nickname they’ve used for the ongoing government shutdown
For more direct political action, Liberty Counsel Action also had a super PACwhich spent nearly $70,000 on opposing Barack Obama’s reelection.
Montgomery says having these different branches allows Liberty Counsel to achieve more diverse control in politics and the law.
“Some of [their goals] they can achieve through the courts, some of it is gonna be through political advocacy. So then you start an advocacy affiliate, and then you start a PAC because you want to elect people who can help you get this vision of the country,” he says.
2. Faith and Liberty
Screenshot from Faith and Liberty.
Founded in 1995, Faith and Liberty—originally named Faith and Action—is a Washington, D.C. based Christian ministry that has historically courted Supreme Court justices and other government officials behind closed doors. The group’s former president, Rev. Rob Schenck, decided to leave the Christian right in 2016 after the movement’s embrace of then-candidate Donald Trump compounded his growing doubts about the ideology.
“MAGA I don’t even define as Christianity anymore,” Schenck told Uncloseted Media. “It’s an apostasy—it’s a defection from the Christian faith. It is, in fact, the diametric opposite of what Jesus taught and modeled.”
Schenck says that the group would host dinners, prayers and other meetings with conservative politicians and Supreme Court justices including Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia, where they would encourage the justices to adopt more radical rhetoric and policies.
“We would tell [the justices] over and over again: The people love you when you are bold and uncompromising and unapologetic, so be strong—we are with you, we’re behind you,” Schenck says, adding that his former organization was internally nicknamed the “Ministry of Emboldenment.”
Other activities of the ministry included outreach to young people at colleges and youth programs with an eye toward recruiting future right-wing political and judicial figures. This included hosting events and offering internships for conservative teenagers in the U.S. Capitol.
Schenck says attendees of these events would discuss how the federal government works, “meet the conservative justices, sit in on cases relevant to our Christian conservative agenda, and attend lectures about the judicial branch sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society.” Schenck says he later saw many of these individuals in the Capitol, and that the group encouraged their federal judge contacts to prioritize graduates from conservative Christian universities for clerkships and other staff positions.
While Schenck intended to dismantle Faith and Action following his shift in beliefs, he allowed the group to be acquired by Liberty Counsel in 2018 after pressure from the board and donors.
In 2022, Rolling Stone reported that Schenck’s successor—Peggy Nienaber—was caught on a hot mic bragging about praying with Supreme Court justices prior to their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which cited a brief filed by Liberty Counsel. Staver told Rolling Stone that these allegations are “entirely untrue.”
Schenck says Nienaber—who was his deputy when he led the company—always had a great ability to get into rooms with America’s key lawmakers.
“Peggy was very good at what she did, and she was particularly skilled at gaining access to people who had all kinds of defensive measures to protect them from the public … or from people that they did not want to entertain,” he says. “It would shock me if Mat [Staver] did not deploy her for those purposes, and I do know she had well-established relationships inside the Supreme Court, certainly inside … the Republican sides of both houses [of Congress].”
In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel says, “Mat Staver has not spoken to Rob Schenck since 2017, and he has no knowledge of what Peggy Nienaber does and what she does now is vastly different than what she did when she worked for him. … It is preposterous to think a Supreme Court Justice can be influenced. We have no such agenda. We do litigate in the courts and have been successful at all levels by advocating for correct legal principles.”
3. The Salt and Light Council
The Salt and Light Council trains U.S. pastors on how to start a “Biblical Citizenship Ministry” at their churches. These ministries are meant to encourage congregations to engage in politics to “defend and promote life, natural marriage, [and] our constitutional and religious liberties.” The group was founded in 2008 by Dran Reese, and it became a ministry of Liberty Counsel in 2013. While the group now appears to operate independently, Staver remains chairmanof its board.
Pastors who sign up to start a Biblical Citizenship Ministry pick someone from their congregation to lead it, send them to attend The Salt and Light Council’s trainings and then receive two topics a week to bring to their congregants, with the group also promising legal support from Liberty Counsel for these pastors.
Salt and Light chapters, which now exist at over 120 churches and synagogues in 30 states, are frequently active in anti-LGBTQ activism: Reese has been caught spreading false stories about sexual harassment by trans girls in bathrooms, and the group has fought to protest Drag Queen Story Hoursand cancel LGBTQ-friendly book fairs.
Perhaps most influentially, the group is a part of the Remnant Alliance, a Texas-based coalition of far-right Christian groups that have been collaborating to swing school board elections and implement policies such as LGBTQ book bans across the state.
Montgomery says the group’s decentralized model allows them to operate on a surprisingly efficient budget.
“[It] doesn’t have a huge budget, doesn’t have a huge staff, because it’s mostly about encouraging local churches to start their own chapters and do their own thing,” he says. “The council provides them with resources, like brochures on issues or voter guides.”
4. We Impact the Nation (WIN)
Screenshot from We Impact the Nation.
Founded in 2005 as Women Impacting the Nation, this group is a project of Boca Raton-based conservative activist Sue Trombino. Prior to its rebranding to We Impact the Nation in 2024, the group became a project of Liberty Counsel for a few years beginning in 2011.
WIN founder Sue Trombino on Newsmax in 2015 (Newsmax).
During this time, Liberty Counsel sponsored WIN’s annualconference called “For Such a Time as This,” featuring scripture readings and baptism and offering renewed commitments to faith and service.
As recently as September, WIN distributed copies of “Take Back America,” a book written by Staver that argues that “God is the foundation of good government and national prosperity” and that “we need God in America again.”
Today, the group hosts talks, conferences and local chapter meetings with the goal of activating women to be conservative activists. They are most active in Southeast Florida, where they host monthly meetings and were a significant player in the campaign which defeated a constitutional amendment that would have protected abortion in the state.
The group has also historically been active in spreading anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, advocating for bathroom bans as early as 2013, arguing against conversion therapy bans, and calling forfunding to be cut to groups that disobey Trump’s executive orders against “gender ideology.”
5. Covenant Journey Academy
Screenshot via Covenant Journey Academy.
Covenant Journey Academy is an online K-12 school that incorporates Christianity into its curricula. Founded by Staver and launched by Liberty Counsel in 2023, the group targets parents who want to homeschool their kids and is billed as an alternative to “woke” public schools. The academy is now accredited in its home state of Florida and is even eligible for a state scholarship program.
Each of the academy’s courses features what they call “Biblical Integration.”
One Bible class for middle schoolers called Lightbearerspromises that students will “learn how to apply their Christian faith to every area of life and study” and covers topics such as “abortion, apologetics, cults, evolution, feminism, homosexuality, naturalism, moral relativism, pluralism, relationships, and socialism.” Staver haspromotedCovenant Journey Academy as a way for parents to avoid “LGBT propaganda” and “LGBTQ grooming.”
6. New Revolution
Screenshot via New Revolution Facebook.
New Revolution is a publishing service owned by Liberty Counsel that helps produce media for Christian organizations.
The group has published a book depicting foundational sex researcher Alfred Kinsey as a “mad scientist” and “pervert extraordinaire;” and Kim Davis’ memoir, which they say “goes behind the scenes to reveal how God gave this unlikely candidate a platform to defend marriage and religious freedom.”
In February, they advertised their services to other far-right groups at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention.
7. National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC)
Screenshot via NHCLC.
NHCLC is an organization that represents Hispanic Christian churches, with
Every month, Xian Brooks heads to Range USA in Louisville to practice his shot.
“We can talk about ‘community’ and ‘showing up for each other’ all day, but when it matters most, you only have yourself, and you need to be able to count on that [to defend yourself],” Brooks, a 42-year-old who was born and raised in Kentucky, told Queer Kentucky and Uncloseted Media.
Xian Brooks. Photo by Natosha Via for Uncloseted Media and Queer Kentucky.
Like many other trans people of color in the red and rural state of Kentucky, Brooks recognizes that he’s more likely to be a target of violence because of his gender identity and the color of his skin.
That’s in part because of the history the state has when it comes to gun violence. In 2023, for example, Zachee Imanitwitaho—known to her friends as Zachee—was shot and killed outside of the JBS Foods plant where she worked in Louisville. The gunman and Zachee’s coworker, Edilberto Lores-Reyes, confessed to killing her.
While Reyes’ official motive remains unknown, Zachee’s killing represents an alarming trend: a sharp increase in anti-trans violence.
In those six years, 73% of the victims were killed with a gun.
Despite these numbers, the rhetoric and policies of the federal government paint trans people as perpetrators of gun violence. Within hours of the killing of far-right Trump ally and anti-LGBTQ activist Charlie Kirk, rumors circulated that a transgender person was responsible. In the aftermath, conservatives, including South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, called for the institutionalization of trans people.
And after the mass shooting in Minneapolis in August that killed two children, it was reported that the Justice Department was discussing stripping gun rights away from trans people. However, the National Rifle Association pushed back, saying they will not “support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights.”
This swath of misinformation has put trans people on edge as Americans have been manipulated to view them as a threat to their safety. And it’s causing many trans people in Kentucky to arm up or find other ways to defend themselves.
Steve Drayton, a founding member of Pink Pistols of the Bluegrass, a Lexington, Kentucky chapter of the national LGBTQ gun rights group, says he has seen an increase in trans members in the months since Kirk was killed.
“It brought the focus back onto the transgender community, and not rightfully so,” he told Queer Kentucky and Uncloseted Media.
“If only we put this kind of focus on every other type of murder. They’re taking a group of individuals and painting them as awful people, which they’re not. They’re educated, they’re teachers, they’re firefighters, they’re human beings. They’re wives, they’re husbands.”
While the false narrative around trans people as disproportionately likely to commit gun violence was already simmering in America, Kirk’s murder took it to a boil. Trump-affiliated conservative groups like The Oversight Project, a venture incubated by the Heritage Foundation, have urged the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create a new category of terrorism called “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism.” And a Trump executive order from September designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist group.
In the order, Trump references the gender identity of trans terrorists but never of cisgender terrorists, describing “a transgender Antifa terrorist,” “a deranged transgender individual” and “a transgender individual whose manifesto included plans to ‘kill Donald Trump.’”
Photo by Natosha Via for Uncloseted Media and Queer Kentucky.
“I’ve gotten a lot more tense,” says Brooks. “I’m more distrustful, and my head is on a swivel more. I always know where the exits are when I go somewhere.”
Brooks says he started carrying his Taurus G2C instead of keeping it at his home in 2018 after two Black people were gunned down and killed because of their race at a Kroger in suburban Louisville.
“Miss Vicki was my mom’s neighbor,” says Brooks, referring to one of the victims. “During [the altercation], there was a person in the parking lot that had a firearm that tried to neutralize the threat. If I had taken my mom to the grocery store that day, my firearm would have been locked up and not with me.”
Brooks grew up in Louisville’s West End in the Shawnee neighborhood, which experiences a disproportionate amount of violence.
Photo by Natosha Via for Uncloseted Media and Queer Kentucky.
“A lot of us were taught to fear guns because a lot of people’s family members were dying by guns,” he says. “It was taught that guns were not toys. We couldn’t have water guns, pop guns or even [play] finger guns.”
But as a Black trans man in today’s political climate, Brooks made the decision to start carrying.
While he says his race causes him to fear for his safety the most, his fears of violence due to his trans identity have been increasing since the 2024 presidential election.
“Nothing is hypothetical anymore,” he says. “I don’t think anybody should be too comfortable.”
That’s part of the reason Brooks is now advocating for gun safety and education for trans people and people of color. While Brooks isn’t a licensed educator, he feels he has no choice but to help and wishes politicians weren’t fueling a climate that is putting his community in danger. “I’m down to take any Black or trans person to the gun range on me. Let’s go. … We can talk about gun safety and teach you what to expect.”
Sarah Moore, senior manager of news and research at GLAAD and lead for the group’s ALERT Desk, which tracks anti-LGBTQ extremism, says that more than half of reports to the desk from June 2024 to June 2025 involved anti-trans incidents.
“It’s coming out in both violent and nonviolent actions,” Moore told Uncloseted Media and Queer Kentucky. “Whether that be protests, online harassment or actual acts of violence against the community, as well as the legislation that we’re seeing that’s attempting to govern trans people’s bodies and lives.”
According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, there have been 286 anti-trans laws passed in the U.S. since 2022, with 122 of them passing in 2025. In Kentucky alone, there have been five laws passed this year on top of the infamous Senate Bill 150 from 2023, which bans gender-affirming care for minors, implements anti-LGBTQ censorship in Kentucky schools and prohibits trans students from using bathrooms and facilities that match their gender identity.
Moore says there is “a very direct correlation to these acts of [anti-trans] violence” and the political rhetoric and policies of the U.S. government.
She says that earlier this year in Seattle, a trans woman was attacked by a group of men while walking down the street. While they were assaulting her, they were yelling slurs and shouting “Semper Fi,” the official motto of the United States Marine Corps. The woman asked them why they were attacking her and explained to them that she was a military veteran. “Trump kicked people like you out of the military,” the men responded.
“We’re seeing examples like that where people will actually cite directly these acts of federal or state-level legislation as part of their justification for acts of violence against the community,” says Moore.
When Trump took office last year, Alex, a 32-year-old trans man in Louisville, Kentucky, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns, says he purchased a second gun because he saw his community becoming the “scapegoat to all of America’s problems.”
“Now, I have taken a self-defense course, conceal carry my firearm, keep those kitty ear knuckle things on my keychain, and have a knife,” he told Queer Kentucky and Uncloseted Media. “I always know at least two or three ways to exit any situation I am in.”
Unlike Brooks, Alex chooses to carry in situations that he deems are more dangerous, like when he travels rural Kentucky with his trans wife.
“Getting sideways glances from people [in a small town Walmart] who can see that I’m somewhere on the queer spectrum—I carry in case they were to follow me to my car and/or pick a fight,” he says. “Additionally, if they don’t clock me, but were to clock my partner and if someone decided to start trouble there, that would not be tolerated.”
The Trump administration’s portrayal that Alex and other trans people in Kentucky are more likely to commit acts of violence is simply false. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 5,748 mass shooting incidents in the U.S. between Jan. 1, 2013 and Sept. 15, 2025. Of those, just 0.1%of them—or five in total—involved a trans shooter.
According to a 2021 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, transgender people are more than four times as likely as cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault and aggravated or simple assault.
Alex was raped when he was 26 and says the trauma of the situation compels him to prepare for future victimization. “We are a means to an end,” he says. “It’s very disheartening and I work every day to not internalize their ideas about me. We are not dangerous, we are not wasted space, we just want to exist and be safe.”
Julie, a 33-year-old Louisville transgender woman who requested to use only her first name for safety reasons, agrees. Since 2021, she has carried a concealed weapon. She says fear of transgender people is nothing new.
“They’ve been scared of us the whole time and also, people are scared of guns,” she says. “So if you take the boogeyman, which is trans people right now, and then you say they have guns and they’re shooting at Christian people. You know what I mean? That’s what it is.”
Julie says transgender people are peaceful and wishes the politicians would leave them alone. She says that if a transgender person, or anyone, is buying a gun out of emotional fear and feels afraid to leave the house, they should check in with themselves or reconsider the purchase.
Photo by Natosha Via for Uncloseted Media and Queer Kentucky.
“The last option is to point a gun at somebody. It’s the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth option. Before you draw your gun, you can always reason with somebody, and you can always reason with them after you draw your gun,” she says. “You can reason with them while you’re pointing, but you cannot reason with somebody after you shoot them. And that is very important to think about.”
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Aaaaaand he’s back…. Disgraced gay former Congressman George Santos has inserted himself in the presidential election with his “expert” take on hard-right, culture-warring Republicans with a drag-addled past.
The onetime Republican New York representative, who’s facing multiple campaign finance indictments following his expulsion from the U.S. House of Representatives, shared his reaction to the revelation that Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), attended a party while he was a student at Yale Law School dressed as a woman in an interview with TMZ.
According to Santos, the controversy surrounding Vance’s cross-dressing at a costume party is “disingenuous” and “most dudes at some point have played around” dressing up as a woman.
“It’s definitely not drag,” Santos said of Vance’s amateur ensemble.
Photos shared by a former Yale classmate revealed Vance posing seductively wearing a long blonde wig, black knit blouse, a colorful skirt and a chunky chain necklace. In one photo, he carries a black purse over his shoulder.
“Holy crap, is that bad drag,” Santos commented about the photos.
“I mean, the guy went to a costume party, put on a freakin’ cheap wig from Party City, or something similar,” the one-time Brazilian drag queen posited. “To call that drag is disingenuous, and I think most dudes at some have played around with costumes that were gender-bender.”
Straight “couples do that all the time,” Santos claimed. “The wife will dress up as a guy. Husband will dress up as a woman. So it’s not drag. It’s definitely not drag.”
Like the self-loathing Santos, Vance has been consistently hostile to the LGBTQ+ community.
Last year, along with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the House, Vance introduced legislation in the Senate to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth at the federal level and to make such care more difficult for trans adults to obtain.
Vance has expressed his support for Don’t Say Gay legislation prohibiting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identities in schools, writing, “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”
Vance spoke out against laws protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination following the 2020 Supreme Court Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, which found that anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is a form of sex-based discrimination. He called the legal reasoning behind the decision a “betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists.”
Vance also opposes the Equality Act, legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity in federal anti-discrimination laws.
News of Santos’ own drag past in Brazil — as a pageant queen named Kitara Ravache — surfaced amid a tsunami of larcenous revelations about the Long Island Republican in 2023. The newly-sworn-in rep spent weeks denying the rumors before eventually owning up to his alter ego.
