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.
Cambridge University’s women-only college is reportedly continuing to welcome trans women, despite the UK Supreme Court ruling on gender.
Newnham College, founded in 1871 and which counts broadcaster Clare Balding, novelist Iris Murdoch and actress Miriam Margolyes among its alumni, is believed to have created a new policy document that allows trans students to access single-sex spaces and facilities.
The decision, reported by MailOnline, comes little more than six months after a decision was handed down in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers, which deemed the definition of “sex” for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act meant biological sex only.
In the wake of the decision, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published interim guidance which recommended organisations, businesses and service providers ban trans men and women from single-sex services and spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets, which aligned with their gender. It also added in “some circumstances” from trans people could be barred from spaces based on “biological sex” too.
The EHRC later clarified that the “circumstances” referred to situations where “reasonable objection” could be taken to a trans person’s presence, such as in female spaces, when “the gender reassignment process has given [a trans man] a masculine appearance or attributes”.
Newnham College is reportedly flying in the face of the Supreme Court ruling. (Canva)
Criticising the college’s decision, postgraduate Maeve Halligan, who founded gender-critical student group the Society of Women, told the Mail: “The category of woman is being totally usurped, hijacked and attacked. Sexism is written into the history of Cambridge University and now it’s come back in disguise.
“This historic college has some of the most famous alumni, such as Germaine Greer. I can only imagine what she would think if she saw [the] new admissions policy.”
In a letter to students, seen by MailOnline, college principal Alison Rose said the policy had been “cleared by lawyers” and meant Newnham would remain inclusive.
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“We are open to all female applicants”
“We are a women-only college, under the provisions of Schedule 12 of the Equality Act 2010 and our charter and statutes,” Rose wrote.
“We are open to all female applicants [and] will consider at the admissions stage those applicants who hold a form of formal identification as female, on a current passport, driving licence, birth certificate or gender recognition certificate.”
Gender-critical campaigner Maya Forstater said Newnham “should have been urgently reconsidering its policy to bring it back into line with the law”, following the Supreme Court’s decision. “Instead it has been looking around for loopholes. This is fruitless and foolish.”
Roz Keith found out her son was transgender on his terms.
The suburban mom was asking about haircuts, and Hunter, just shy of 14 at the time, texted her some photos. “He started texting me pictures of boys with short haircuts. And I said, ‘Oh, these are very masculine. And Hunter said, ‘Uh huh,’ and walked out of the room.”
It was typical teenage behavior, but the conversation that followed was life-changing, Keith said.
“I went upstairs, knocked on his door, and said, ‘What’s going on?’ And that’s when he told me. He said, ‘I’m a boy. I’m transgender.’ That was how he came out to me.”
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Keith was caught off guard on multiple fronts. “All the little things from the time he was super little then became the hammer over the head.” She thought about Hunter playing with boy dolls, preferring time with boys to girls, choosing Narnia’s Prince Caspian over all the Disney princess costumes.
“I saw this one male avatar in a game, this buff, masculine character that he had created, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s a guy.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ You know, no explanation. So, all along, I just kept saying ‘Okay,’ too.”
Keith wasn’t a helicopter parent. “We really encouraged our kids to be independent,” she said, “and we wanted them to be happy and successful and productive, whatever that meant for them.” But she also said a transgender child “just wasn’t in my consideration set.”
“In my world, I didn’t have a friend who had a trans child. We didn’t have any adult in our community who was trans or in the process of coming out or identified in any way remotely that way. So it was really a foreign concept from that perspective.”
While those conversations weren’t happening in Keith’s world, they certainly were in her precocious online teenager’s.
“He figured it out because he was watching YouTube, and he saw a trans person on this show talking about their coming out. And that was his light bulb moment. And he said, ‘Oh my God, that’s me.’”
Hunter spent a long time contemplating his revelation and researching what to do about it before he shared anything with his family.
“He’d been researching for two years,” Keith recalled. “He had a checklist of everything he wanted to do.”
With Hunter’s declaration, his state of mind came into focus for his mom.
“Based on things he shared when he was younger, he felt different, and he didn’t know why he felt different, and he didn’t have language to explain it,” Keith realized. “And it created a lot of struggle and conflict, and, I think, anger for him.”
“He said, you know, ‘I just felt like the weird kid.’”
Keith decided to close that gap – for her son and for others.
In 2015, she founded Stand with Trans, a support network devoted to trans kids and their parents and caregivers. The nonprofit provides transgender and nonbinary youth with life-saving programs like mental health services, peer support groups, educational resources, and, most importantly, Keith says, “validation and empowerment.”
Stand With Trans also provides critical support to parents or guardians of trans youth. Its Ally Parents program allows loved ones to text, call, or email other parents of trans youth for connection and advice.
Letting go
“Parents can have a hard time when their child comes out and wants to transition to a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth,” Keith said.
“They struggle to let go of the child they thought they had and the dreams that they had, right? If a child was assigned female at birth, a parent might say, ‘I just imagined her walking down the aisle in the white dress,’ you know? And they grieve this child as if the child has died.”
“I never took that approach,” Keith said, “because I knew that my child was very much alive and that it was my job to make sure that he stayed that way. You know, it was my job to make sure that he was mentally well and that he got what he needed so he could thrive.”
For Hunter and his family, checking off those steps to transition wouldn’t come easily.
“There were no pediatric gender clinics who were seeing trans youth covered by our insurance. There were no therapists who we could find who were trained to see trans adolescents. There were no support groups. There were no parent groups. There was nothing for youth. Like, literally every phone call was a brick wall,” Keith said.
But Hunter wasn’t waiting on the details. He decided to come out on Facebook.
“My daughter came to me and said, ‘Did you see what Hunter posted?’ And I said, ‘No.’”
While Keith and her husband had talked to a few close friends about Hunter, the family hadn’t been sharing much “because it wasn’t our story to share — that was up to him.”
With Hunter’s announcement, “It was like the floodgates had opened,” Keith said.
The family agreed to tell their story.
They began speaking publicly about their experience. “And there was just like this swell of relief, I guess, and joy from families in the community who had been trying to manage this process with their kiddo and had no one to talk to. There was really nobody — medically, psychologically emotionally — just literally no one was there.”
“Families like mine, trans adults, multi-generational families, like, every member of the community were reaching out and saying, ‘Oh, my God, I could have uttered those words. Your son reminds me of my son.’”
Hunter’s story had inspired an outpouring of empathy and recognition, but the story he shared online didn’t address his lingering sense of isolation.
“Even my son said, ‘I don’t know anyone like me.’ And so as we started to meet families,” Keith said.
Stand With Trans founder Roz Keith | Stand With Trans
“I was literally arranging play dates for my 14-15-year-old. Like, I was inviting kids to come over and just hang out, and — fly on the wall — they talked about stupid stuff, like, ‘Oh, don’t you hate getting socks for Christmas presents?’ And it showed these kids that being trans didn’t mean that you weren’t like other kids. You know, you were just another teen.”
Those interactions became the heart of the mission that guides Stand with Trans today.
The rise of parents’ rights
The founding of Stand With Trans accompanied a rising awareness of gender diversity in the 2010s, but with that also came a conservative backlash wrought with anti-trans animus.
Before Hunter came out, “Nobody was talking about bathroom bills and trans girls in sports. Those conversations weren’t happening,” Keith said.
Since then, trans kids like Hunter have been buried under an avalanche of discriminatory legislation, from gender-affirming care bans to a trans-erasing, book-banning frenzy organized by groups like Moms for Liberty to an online hate campaign led by accounts like Libs of TikTok.
Adding fuel to the fire: the president’s obsession with “gender ideology” and his “us” vs “them” politics of division.
The right has hawked its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda under the same, one-sided banner: parents’ rights.
Keith said the phrase is self-serving.
“I don’t think that any government should be allowed to say what my child has or doesn’t have access to, because I’m the parent. They’re not in my home parenting my child, so they don’t know what they’re going through. How do you make that global statement?” she asked.
“It is up to me to make a decision about my child’s medical care,” Keith said. “And as far as my child goes, if he was denied the opportunity to go on testosterone and not medically transition, I think our conversation would be very different.”
Keith points to a perversion of theology as one basis of the far-right’s anti-trans animus.
“I’m not Christian. I was raised Jewish. But my understanding from my friends who are Christian and very affirming and very accepting, their response is, ‘The Jesus I know would open the door for everyone, and would welcome everyone to the table.’ There’s really a disconnect between saying you’re a Christian and then not being open to accepting people as they are, as they show up.”
“Far be it for me to tell anyone what they should believe,” Keith added, “but you don’t get to bring it into my home and tell me how to care for my child, because those aren’t my beliefs. That’s not what I understand, right? It’s a secular society.”
“Your belief system should not infringe on my rights.”
Seeing around the corner
Stand with Trans was born to help protect trans kids from the attacks by providing love, knowledge and support — and power over their own lives.
“Our mission is so simple,” Keith said. “It’s empowering and supporting trans youth and their loved ones. So that’s it. We know that if we educate and support the caregivers, the loved ones, the parents, that the young people are going to do better, and if we find ways to make life better and easier for them, they’re not only going to survive, but they’re going to thrive.
“I know with my own kid, they couldn’t see themselves having a future. I think it’s hard enough for young people who don’t see around the corners, right? It’s hard to even imagine, like, ‘What do I want to be when I grow up.’ But for trans kids, it’s even harder.
“So it’s really important for us to show these young people that they can do whatever they want to do,” Keith said.
“Being trans is one part of their identity. It doesn’t define who they are.”
Stories of anti-trans vitriol dominate the media, which makes it easy to forget just how many folks out there give endless love and support to the trans people in their lives.
Every day, hundreds of thousands of parents across the country fight with all their might to provide their trans kids with love, hope, and a community of support. They fight to shield their kids from pain and to make them feel proud of who they are.
The November Issue of LGBTQ Nation celebrates the incredible parents uplifting their trans children at one of the most challenging times in history for the community. It highlights the passionate, furious, and exhausting behind-the-scenes work these unsung heroes do to give their kids the lives they deserve.
LGBTQ Nation asked these parents a simple question: What do you wish the world knew or understood about your trans child? We received dozens of responses, and will publish some of our favorites every Friday this month (you can also still submit).
In every single message, one thing became clear: These parents want nothing more than for the world to see the humanity in their kids, to see past the pronouns and body parts and understand that they are so much more than their genders.
Here is what 10 of these parents, who we have allowed to remain anonymous, had to say.
He is going to be a veterinarian
“I wish the world knew that my trans kid is just like everyone else. He’s funny, he’s kind, he loves his family and his family loves him. He is going to be a veterinarian when he finishes school and he’s a great student with life goals. He needs the world to see him as the generous young man he is because he is not a sin. He is the greatest gift and we are lucky to have him.“
She’s a loving big sister
“While people on the news are shouting about how trans girls are a threat to women everywhere, my willowy, soft-spoken daughter is here finishing up high school, making plans to study marine biology. She is kind, witty, wise beyond her years, passionate about the environment and human rights, and such a loving big sister. Our trans daughters are our hope for the future, not a threat to it.“
| Shutterstock
They still give the same smiles
“They are still my kids, the same smiles, the same giggles, the same dreams for their future. No one plans on having two trans children. It’s the same way one plans on having a child prodigy in piano or a math genius. A parent adapts to the needs challenges and individuality of their children. Full stop. If you don’t have a math genius, you may not understand the decisions the parents of a math genius would make. You don’t know. Don’t judge.“
He makes a mean candle
“I wish the world understood that his gender identity is the least interesting thing about him. He is intelligent, snarky, funny, loving, kind, generous, resilient, and so much more. He loves cooking, reading, fantasy sports, and, just like any other teen, hanging out with his friends. He speaks Mandarin, rolls sushi, and makes a mean candle.“
He is a community-builder
“He is funny, smart, brave, and caring. He is a community-builder, an activist, a listener, and a friend. He truly puts his whole heart into making the world a better place for everyone!“
| Shutterstock
It’s all for them
“The most important thing I learned was that it wasn’t about me.”
Loving them is easy
“I wish the world knew how hard it was for my child to tell me that they felt different inside and they were scared I wouldn’t love them anymore. I wish the world knew that in that moment, I had never loved them more.”
She can sing
“She is incredibly talented. She can sing and play guitar. She is kind, witty, a brilliant mind and has so much empathy for others. She is just like any teenage girl. That’s the part that’s most important. She’s just trying to get by and find her place in the world like everyone else. Being trans is only a small fraction of who she is.“
| Shutterstock
She loves harder than anyone
“I wish people knew that she is wildly brilliant. She loves Taylor Swift, unicorns, mac and cheese and flared leggings. She hates brushing her hair and when her socks don’t feel just right. Her favorite days are the days she’s building legos, watching Spidey and his Amazing Friends or playing on the trampoline with her friends. She loves harder than anyone I’ve ever met and is filled with so much silliness and joy. She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I am so proud to be her mom.“
She leads & we follow
“That she is only ever been herself. She leads and we follow. She’s not a trans kid, she’s a dancer, a lego master, a reader, an archer, a harpest, a mentor for english readers, a keen gardener. She’s a big sister, a little niece, a best friend, a granddaughter, my eldest child. She’s sensitive, funny, messy, clever, acrobatic, curious. She’s not a trans kid. She’s a kid, who happens to be trans.“
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Molly Sprayregen is the Deputy Editor of LGBTQ Nation and has been reporting on queer stories for almost a decade. She has written for Them, Out, Forbes, Into, Huffington Post, and others. She has a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Northwestern University.
The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group, received the green light to teach medical professionals through Washington State University’s continuing medical education (CME) program — meaning medical providers may now use SEGM courses to fulfill requirements to maintain their licensure.
Critics argue the move by WSU gives the appearance of legitimacy to a group with opaque funding and a disturbing proximity to far-right, Christian fundamentalist forces. It also means well-meaning providers who want to enhance their practice with trans-competent care may be misdirected to SEGM propaganda instead of evidence-based best practices. Most damning, critics say, is that listing SEGM as a CME option lends undue legitimacy to a dangerous cell of what the Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed an anti-trans pseudoscience network.
“They’re an issue group that has a position on transgender health care,” said Evan Urquhart, a science journalist and founder of Assigned Media. “Whatever they do serves that particular agenda. It’s not about an openness to evidence in the spirit of scientific exploration; they advocate against gender-affirming care, using misinformation.”
The CME series, which is available for free viewing online, appears to be composed of lectures and panels from SEGM’s October 2023 conference. It is marketed to a wide range of medical providers, from psychologists and physicians to dietitians, dentists, and pharmacists.
To the untrained eye, the content may seem innocuous — one lecture claims to examine the role of psychotherapy in treating gender dysphoria. Another one reviews international literature on trans issues. But coming from SEGM, they take on a more sinister role. Conversion therapy tactics and restrictive, debunked screeds against trans people’s medical self-determination (such as the United Kingdom’s Cass Review) are being presented as sound science. And while scientific debate is always an important step in improving medicine, the program is full of red flags that betray a political, as opposed to academic, agenda.
In fact, Dr. Gordon Guyatt, who is regarded as the “godfather” of evidence-based medicine for his part in pioneering evidentiary metrics, spoke at that 2023 conference. Despite arguably being the most high-profile academic in the room, however, his presentation didn’t make it into the CME course.
Earlier this year, Guyatt co-published a letter lambasting SEGM for its anti-trans and anti-science views and practices, as outlined in a recent Mother Jones investigation into the group. Guyatt said he hadn’t known about SEGM’s sordid past when he accepted the invitation, and he has since rebuked it for its ideological and unacademic practices, calling SEGM “an unconscionable use of our work to deny people gender-affirming care.”
Meanwhile, the CME prominently features a panel moderated by Jamie Reed, a disgraced anti-trans activist who made unsubstantiated if not flat-out false accusations against her former employers at a Missouri gender clinic, where she was a caseworker. She has since spent her time traveling around the country touting “falsified” data and pushing conspiracy theories about how transitioning makes one more likely to commit acts of political terror and violence.
SEGM has publicly refuted its designation as a hate group and rejected the idea that it peddles misinformation. The group often uses its proximity to outliers in the trans community — like Dr. Erica Anderson, who also spoke at the conference — as a shield against accusations of transphobia or ideological motivations.
“SEGM as an organization has taken great care to avoid wading into political debates, seeking only to enable evidence-based decision-making about care for gender-dysphoric youth, without prescribing specific policy solutions,” a Sept. 25 press release from the group reads. “We reject the politicization of questioning how best to care for gender-dysphoric youth.”
However, the group’s leaders and its very foundation are steeped in anti-trans political advocacy. Before the incorporation papers were even finalized, co-founder Dr. Stephen Beck was using the SEGM moniker to advocate for Trumpian policies that effectively write trans Americans out of existence. In 2020, SEGM board member Dr. William Malone testified in support of an Idaho bill that would have made it a felony crime to prescribe hormone blockers to trans minors, while leaving cisgender youth access to that same care intact. The organization has also filed a 2021 amicus brief in Arizona arguing against state health insurance coverage for chest surgery for transgender boys, plus a 2024 anti-trans amicus brief during the Skrmettiproceedings. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
A spokesperson for WSU, Pam Scott, told Erin in the Morning that the inclusion of SEGM in their CME offerings does not represent an endorsement of the espoused views.
“For the situation in question, the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine acted as an accreditor, through its Continuing Medical Education (CME) program,” Scott said via email, noting WSU did not create the courses nor compensate SEGM or any of its “faculty” speakers for the program.
But when the university acts as an accreditor, it is expected to adhere to standards set by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).
“Accreditation indicates that the courses met ACCME’s requirements for scientific balance and educational integrity,” Scott said.
When Erin in the Morning asked about the use of content from a hate group in a CME course, ACCME president Dr. Graham McMahon said the matter may warrant further scrutiny.
“The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) is committed to ensuring that all accredited CME activities are valid, evidence-based, and free of commercial or other biases,” McMahon said via email. “While we are not in a position to comment publicly on an activity that we have not (yet) reviewed or audited for compliance, the description you provided raises questions that appear appropriate for an inquiry. We welcome a formal submission through our confidential complaint process.”
Meanwhile, Dr. M.A. Miller, an assistant professor of gender, race, and health at WSU who researches the intersections of gender, race, and health, told Erin in the Morning that SEGM’s affiliation with the medical school has alarmed some LGBTQ+ community members at the university.
Miller was cautious to reaffirm the importance of academic freedom in this political moment. “We’re in this pretty intense battleground space of embracing freedom of speech, even if it’s speech that we don’t like,” they said. State repression under the Trump regime has led to a flood of anti-trans academic attacks, such as the Texas professor fired for teaching college students about nonbinary people, the Florida teacher ousted for using a trans teen’s preferred name, the countless faculty members branded “groomers” or “pedophiles” for acknowledging the biological reality of sexual and gender diversity, or the student works being censored for featuring queer art.
But Miller felt lending WSU’s official accrediting capacity to platform proponents of debunked ideas — like “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” a quack theorypainting transness as a social contagion, or “exploratory therapy,” which has been called rebranded conversion therapy — goes beyond the spirit of diverse thought and debate.
“It’s another thing entirely to suggest that medical providers can be credentialed in something that has already been unanimously understood as not only pseudoscientific, but also deeply, deeply dangerous to already vulnerable populations,” Miller said.
