The Idaho House on Monday widely approved a bill that expands on the state’s law banning transgender people from using their preferred school bathrooms. House Bill 607, written by the Idaho Family Policy Center, would allow people to sue if government entities and private businesses don’t ensure their restrooms and changing facilities are separated by sex. Bill sponsor Rep. Ted Hill, an Eagle Republican, says the bill is about keeping people safe.
Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, an Idaho Falls Republican, called the bill “an activist’s dream.” “It puts a bounty on the government of $10,000 just simply for somebody being in the wrong room — not for them having done anything, but just having been in the wrong room,” she said on the House floor. “I think that this bill is actually a way to intimidate and harass private businesses to push someone’s particular agenda.” Mickelsen voted for the bill, which passed on a 56-13 vote.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Ted Hill [photo], last appeared here in 2024 for his successful bill banning teachers from referring to students with their preferred pronouns. Also before the Idaho House is a bill that would fine the state capital of Boise for flying the Pride flag. Last year the Boise City Council adopted the progress Pride flag as an official city flag after anti-LGBTQ state lawmakers banned “unofficial” flags from all government buildings.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, second-wave feminism, a.k.a. women’s liberation, was gathering steam, but it still didn’t have widespread support. Many Americans wondered why feminists would protest the revered Miss America pageant, as they did in 1968. “Women’s lib” was a punch line for comedians, and TV shows often presented feminist characters in a negative light. Amid all this, some feminist leaders were worried that their movement would have an image problem because of the presence of … lesbians.
Betty Friedan was one of the feminists particularly worried about lesbians. Friedan authored The Feminine Mystique, a 1963 book that revealed the dissatisfaction many women felt with traditional roles. It helped inspire second-wave feminism, although it was criticized for its focus on affluent white straight women. In 1966, Friedan and others founded the National Organization for Women, which became the leading U.S. feminist group.
At a 1969 NOW meeting, Friedan declared that the movement was being threatened by a “lavender menace,” that is, lesbians. “Mainstream media had already dismissed the feminist movement as ‘a bunch of bra-burning lesbians,’ so Friedan and other straight feminist leaders were acutely sensitive to this labeling — and dismissal — of all feminists as lesbians,” Victoria A. Brownworth wrote in a column published by The Advocate in 2023. “Friedan wanted ‘feminine feminists’ in the movement.”
Friedan went on to purge lesbians from NOW, including Rita Mae Brown, then editor of NOW’s newsletter and soon to be an iconic author, and Ivy Bottini, who had designed the organization’s logo. Friedan feared that lesbians “would kill the women’s movement,” Bottini told The Advocate’s LGBTQ&Apodcast in 2020, adding, “That was Betty Friedan’s image in her head.”
However, they and other lesbians weren’t about to go quietly. They fought back in a big way the following year.
In 1970, NOW’s Second Congress to Unite Women was held in New York City. One night during the conference, women from Radicalesbians and other lesbian-inclusive feminist groups crashed the meeting. They turned the lights off, then turned them back on, and made their presence known, with some lining the aisles and others in the audience. Many of them wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Lavender Menace.”
“I was dressed in a nice blouse. I stood up and I said, ‘Sisters, I’m so tired of being in the closet in the women’s movement. This is too much already.’ And I ripped my blouse off, and I had a ‘Lavender Menace’ T-shirt underneath,” activist Karla Jay told NBC News in 2024.
The lesbian demonstrators and held signs with slogans such as “We are all lesbians,” “Lesbianism is a women’s liberation plot,” and “We are your worst nightmare, your best fantasy.” They took over the stage and demanded that the women’s movement address issues of concern to lesbians.
“NOW leaders attempted to restore their planned session and a few women left, but the majority of the audience was engaged by the action’s humor and theatricality,” notes an online article from the NYC LGBTQ Historical Sites Project. “The Menaces held the floor for over two hours, inviting all attendees to share their thoughts and questions on lesbianism. Many straight women thanked Menaces for making them confront their feelings about lesbianism, and Black and working-class women connected with the Menaces’ feelings of exclusion in the women’s liberation movement.” The following year, NOW adopted a resolution recognizing “oppression of lesbians as a legitimate concern of feminism.”
Lesbian inclusion progressed further at the National Women’s Conference, held in 1977 in Houston to mark International Women’s Year. The conference was something hard to imagine today — it was funded by Congress with bipartisan support, as politicians wanted “to find out what women wanted the government to do,” notes a blog post from the Organization of American Historians. (That didn’t keep far-right leaders, including Phyllis Schlafly, from organizing a competing event.)
Along with discussions of the Equal Rights Amendment, reproductive freedom, childcare, workplace equality, and more, delegates at the conference considered lesbian rights. They came together on a National Plan of Action, consisting of 26 planks that they said “ran the gamut of issues that touch women’s lives.”
“The most controversial plank” was “the one calling for equal protection under the law regardless of ‘sexual preference,’” according to the Organization of American Historians blog. (“Sexual preference,” a term considered offensive today, was accepted language at the time.) In adopting this plank, the conference attendees clapped back at Anita Bryant’s antigay crusade, which had resulted in the repeal of a gay rights ordinance in Miami that year. Such homophobia “led many straight feminists to conclude that their lesbian sisters needed their support,” the OAH article relates.
“When the plank was adopted, lesbians in the balconies erupted with cheers of “thank you, sisters!” the article continues. “One reporter described a great sense of satisfaction that she detected in the feminist delegates, proud of themselves for having adopted the lesbian rights plank in bold defiance of the right. This, she wrote, seemed to confirm that they were, in fact, better than men. It was ‘impossible to imagine a comparable group of men conquering their sexual fear of each other and rising to embrace male homosexuals, and these women knew that.’”
Also at the conference, Friedan apologized for her use of the term “lavender menace.”
The women’s movement hasn’t been without tensions and challenges since then, but the conference did make clear that lesbians were welcome in the movement and integral to it. Such inclusion likely wouldn’t have happened without the Lavender Menace action of 1970, and the women who participated in it have advice for present-day activists.
“Our movement is needed right here, right now,” one of them, Flavia Rando, told NBC in 2024. “It’s really because we’re an easy scapegoat, an easy target. There’s kind of a gender hysteria in the country right now.”
“It didn’t matter that there were only 30 or 40 of us, and I think that young people today can do what they want and not be afraid that there aren’t enough of them to make social change,” Jay told the network. “They have to have the courage of their convictions and go out and organize, and they have to decide what dream they want to follow. Don’t follow my dream. I’m still marching, but I want them to pick up their own torches and march up the street as well.”
A new human rights report has claimed the US is undermining LGBTQ+ and wider human rights across the world, with the second Trump administration marked by a “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations”.
The report from Human Rights Watch, entitled World Report 2026, examines the state of human rights in countries across the globe, with a focus on key events that happened throughout 2025.
“The global human rights system is in peril,” Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said in the introduction to the report.
“Under relentless pressure from US President Donald Trump, and persistently undermined by China and Russia, the rules-based international order is being crushed, threatening to take with it the architecture human rights defenders have come to rely on to advance norms and protect freedoms. To defy this trend, governments that still value human rights, alongside social movements, civil society, and international institutions, need to form a strategic alliance to push back.”
Bolopion went on to say 2025 “may be seen as a tipping point” for human rights.
“In just 12 months, the Trump administration has carried out a broad assault on key pillars of US democracy and the global rules-based order, which the US, despite inconsistencies, was, with other states, instrumental in helping to establish,” he wrote.
“In short order, Trump’s second-term administration has undermined trust in the sanctity of elections, reduced government accountability, gutted food assistance and healthcare subsidies, attacked judicial independence, defied court orders, rolled back women’s rights, obstructed access to abortion care, undermined remedies for racial harm, terminated programs mandating accessibility for people with disabilities, punished free speech, stripped protections from trans and intersex people, eroded privacy, and used government power to intimidate political opponents, the media, law firms, universities, civil society, and even comedians.”
A person waves a transgender pride flag during the People’s March and rally to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., United States, on January 18, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Morris/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Bolopion outlined how the Trump administration has “embraced policies and rhetoric that align with white nationalist ideology”, whilst the US has left dozens of international organisations and has also culled US aid programmes, including those which support children, women and LGBTQ+ people.
In the specific US section of the report, Human Rights Watch states the Trump’s second administration has “been marked from the start by blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations”, adding the nation took significant steps backward on various issues including immigration, health, environment, disability, gender and freedom of speech.
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It outlined how in many parts of the US, officials at all levels of government continue to target LGBTQ+ people, with the administration particularly having escalated attacks on transgender communities.
Following his return to the White House, Trump has signed several executive orders seeking to remove the rights of trans people.
Trump has also moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes across the government and in the military. This move, coupled by campaigning by anti-woke MAGA activist Robby Starbuck, has seen several big name US businesses – including Walmart, Target, Ford, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s – drop their DEI policies, programmes and targets.
As the report outlines: “Twenty-seven states now ban medically indicated gender-affirming care for youth, and several impose criminal penalties on providers. In June, the Supreme Court upheld these bans, which have a devastating impact on young peoples’ health and well-being. Eight states require school staff to disclose students’ gender identity to parents and twenty states restrict bathroom access for transgender people in schools. Nineteen states restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Less than half of US states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Congress has failed to enact comprehensive federal protections for LGBT people in education, housing, public accommodations, and federally funded programs.”
In his introduction, Bolopion mused who will defend human rights in the face of the US “undermining the global human rights system”.
“Despite rhetorical flourishes, many governments treat rights and the rule of law as a hindrance, rather than a benefit, to security and economic growth,” the executive said.
“The European Union, Canada, and Australia appear to hold back out of fear of antagonizing the US and China. Others are weakened by the way political parties displaying illiberal tendencies have skewed their domestic politics and discourse away from a rights-respecting approach. In many parts of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, many voters gladly accept limits on the rights of “others,” whether immigrants, women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, or other marginalized communities.
“But as history shows, would-be autocrats never stop at ‘others’.”
Tennessee lawmakers have advanced a host of anti-LGBTQ bills that would run counter to U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Two measures, both proposed by Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Franklin, would challenge landmark cases that legalized same-sex marriage and established protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, questioned the legality to going against Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Tom Lee, member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Pride Chamber, spoke against the bill, arguing that it could allow discrimination against LGBTQ couples.
“Imagine if under this bill a private employer said, ‘Well, you can’t take family leave because I, as a private citizen, don’t recognize — using the language of the bill — your purported marriage,’” Lee said. “Or a bank says, ‘You’ll pay the higher rate (for unmarried couples). We’re not bound by the 14th Amendment. You’re not married in our eyes.’”
The Banning Bostock Act would codify that laws prohibiting sex discrimination would not prohibit discrimination against a person for being homosexual or transgender, nor would it prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation, sexual behavior, gender identity, or gender non-conforming behavior.
Meanwhile, the next bill would allow private citizens, businesses, and organizations to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage, and protect attorneys from being punished for refusing to celebrate or perform a same sex marriage.
Bulso first appeared here in February 2024 for his ultimately failed bid to ban Pride flags, which he is now attempting again. In April 2024, we heard from Bulso when he objectedto a ban on marriages between first cousins because gays can’t make babies. Last year Bulso launched a failed bid to fill the US House seat left open by the abrupt resignation of Rep. Mark Green.
Transgender women athletes do not have an inherent advantage over cisgender competitors, according to a new study.
That’s what advocates of trans inclusion have been saying for years, while anti-trans forces have been saying the opposite. Now a report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine,which its authors call “the most comprehensive synthesis to date,” counters the idea of inherent advantage.
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The authors, all based at academic and medical institutions in Brazil, looked at 52 studies with 6,485 participants, including 2,943 trans women, 2,309 trans men, 568 cis women, and 665 cis men, ranging in age from 14 to 41. Forty-five of the studies focused on adults, seven on adolescents. Since the authors were reviewing existing studies and not doing new research, their report is what’s known as a meta-analysis.
While current evidence is low and varies in quality, it “does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender,” the authors wrote.
“Empirical evidence challenges initial concerns that transgender women would dominate women’s sports, largely due to the physiological effects of testosterone suppression therapy,” they noted. “In fact, transgender women remain under-represented in elite athletics, highlighting the lack of dominance by transgender athletes in practice.”
Trans women had higher absolute lean body mass than cis women, the authors found, but there were “no significant differences in physical fitness metrics,” such as upper-body strength, lower-body strength, and maximum oxygen consumption after the trans women underwent one to three years of gender-affirming hormone therapy. Because of differences in the studies, the researchers could not establish “direct correlations between muscle mass and functional strength.”
“in fact, the absence of strength disparities between transgender women and cisgender women found in the current review was consistent and contradicts narratives framing male puberty as conferring irreversible athletic advantages despite [gender-affirming hormone therapy],” they remarked.
They emphasized the need for more research. “Few studies controlled for training history, diet, baseline fitness, physical activity and body composition or previous hormone therapy, potentially hindering the isolated effects of [gender-affirming hormone therapy], since high-dose oestrogen may alter both fat and muscle mass estimates,” they wrote.
Also, studies have focused on “physiological outcomes, with little consideration of the social, psychological and cultural factors that also shape sport performance (eg, stigmatisation, discrimination, access to opportunities, self-concept, self-esteem),” the authors pointed out. Trans people face stigma and discrimination, often leading to negative mental health effects, but “the impact of these sociocultural factors on athletic engagement and achievement remains insufficiently addressed in the available studies and, consequently, in this review,” they continued.
“Finally, there is very little literature involving transgender athletes of any age, across all sport settings and at any competitive level,” they wrote. Therefore, future studies must prioritise transgender athletes, assess sport-specific performance metrics and evaluate long-term (eg, >5 years) physiological and psychological changes, controlling for puberty suppression whenever possible.”
However, the study “refutes the logic behind blanket bans on transgender women in sports,” coauthor Bruno Gualano, a physician and researcher at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, told Spanish newspaper El País.“Most of these policies are based on the assumption that transgender women retain inherent physical advantages and would therefore dominate women’s competitions. The data does not support this idea.”
“Good scientific evidence doesn’t dictate values, but it could guide how we apply them,” Gualano he added. “That’s the role this article aims to play. … We believe the debate should be guided by values fundamental to sport itself, such as fairness, inclusion, and human dignity, rather than sweeping bans.”
The New York City Council has advanced a resolution urging Congress to protect LGBTQ history at Stonewall National Monument after the Trump administration ordered Pride flags to be removed from the site.
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Resolution 269 passed the council’s cultural affairs committee 6-0 on Wednesday morning, and now awaits consideration from the full chamber. Lead sponsor Chi Ossé told The Advocate that the resolution marks a step toward combating President Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ agenda.
“These attacks that we’re seeing on LGBTQ history [are] … a distraction from the actual enemies we have at hand, which are Donald Trump [and] the fascist right-wing government,” said Councilmember Ossé, a Democrat who represents the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford–Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.
The Trump administration issued a federal directive last month that prohibited national parks from flying banners other than the U.S. flag, with few exceptions. Similar orders have restricted what flags can be flown at U.S. embassies and military outposts.
The orders seem to be a crackdown on symbols like the Pride flag and Black Lives Matter slogan from appearing at government buildings, which Trump has previously criticized. But hundreds of protesters who have convened outside Stonewall argue the Pride flag is integral to commemorating LGBTQ history at the site.
“They’re trying to erase anything that accurately conveys the history of struggle of marginalized communities in this country,” Jay W. Walker, a New York City activist, told The Advocateat a protest Tuesday.
Patrons of the Stonewall Inn fought back during a June 1969 police raid and helped set in motion a national movement for LGBTQ+ rights. Stonewall is widely regarded as one of the most important sites of LGBTQ history in the United States, and was designated a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2016.
The resolution “goes beyond just a flag,” said Councilmember Justin Sanchez, a co-sponsor, during Wednesday’s committee meeting. “What removing a flag or desecrating any of our park space does is remove the places and the spaces where we get to see and be ourselves.”
Stonewall’s status as federal property means the federal government, and Trump, have jurisdiction over the site. But local officials, including Ossé, members of city council and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, have promised to push back against the Pride flag removal.
“I am outraged by the removal of the Rainbow Pride Flag from Stonewall National Monument,” Mamdani posted on the social media platform X Tuesday. “New York is the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and no act of erasure will ever change, or silence, that history.”
The cultivate program offers a unique opportunity for people with HIV to develop essential leadership skills, including understanding leadership styles, building relationships, and effectively engaging in local health planning. The program aligns with current efforts to enhance community involvement in HIV care systems, addressing the pressing need for informed and active participation in health policy decisions.
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Interested individuals are encouraged to apply promptly to secure a spot in this transformative program. For more information, please contact the Cultivate team at cultivate@aidsunited.org. For media inquires, contact communications@aidsunited.org.
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AIDS United’s grantees and members serve communities representing more than 96% of the U.S. HIV epidemic. The organization has supported more than 600 organizations across 43 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information, visit www.aidsunited.org.
In an interview with Attitude, to celebrate his place on its Attitude 101 Trailblazer of the Year list, the leader revealed that as a teen he was the victim of a homophobic attack.
“I felt, like, a smack on the head and [someone] shouting ‘f*****!’ I fell to the ground and kept being kicked. I just remember crawling up into a ball and hoping it was going to stop.”
Polanski said he went to hospital but never told his parents about the incident.
He explained: “This was around [the] Section 28 [era]. You weren’t [finding community] in school; it didn’t feel like there were community support groups. The way I was finding out who I was was through bars and nightclubs, which is a pretty unacceptable place for a 14, 15, 16-year-old to be hanging out.”
Section 28 banned what the Tories called the promotion of homosexuality by schools and local authorities.
The law was repealed on 21 June, 2001, in Scotland, and on 18 November, 2003, it was taken off the statute books across the rest of the UK.
Elsewhere in the interview, Polanski described his approach as “bold politics”, meaning that he works directly with communities while aiming to focus policies away from “the rich who are hoarding that power and that wealth”.
In January, Polanski showed his support for London’s LGBTQ+ community by turning up at a bar to party with them.
Polanski joined clubbers for the launch of his party’s Green Space – a new nationwide community initiative from the Green Party. All money raised from the event will go towards getting Greens elected.
Last week, the Trump administration removed a large Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, which sits adjacent to The Stonewall Inn—the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
“Under government-wide guidance … only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions,” a spokesperson for the National Park Service told Gay City News. “Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance.”
The news went viral and sparked outrage both online and in person: Bravo TV host and executive producer Andy Cohen wrote in the comments of an Uncloseted Media post: “Put [the flag] back every day.” And on Tuesday, a rally in front of the monument drew over 100 protesters.
“To think you can go to Stonewall and just take down the Pride flag—that is telling of the time we are living in,” Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the bar and co-founder of the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, told The New York Times. “The flag is not just an abstract symbol; it tells LGBTQ people, especially younger ones, that their history will not be sidelined.”
The Trump administration’s erasure of LGBTQ history has been aggressive and fast. Here are just a few of the moves he’s made in his first year in office:
Jan. 21, 2025: Nearly all LGBTQ and HIV-focused content and resources are deleted from the White House’s website.
Feb. 3, 2025: Mentions of LGBTQ people are erased or minimized across federal government websites. The LGBTQ acronym is morphed to exclude transgender people on the State Department’s “Resources for LGB Prospective Adoptive Parents” page and the “Social Security for LGBQ People” page. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also removes mentions of trans people from their Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which asks about LGBTQ-related bullying.
June 3, 2025: During the first week of Pride Month, the Department of Defense removes LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk’s name from a U.S. naval vessel and plans to rename it.
July 10, 2025: Mentions of bisexuality are removed from parts of the National Park Service’s website on the Stonewall National Monument, though some would later be restored. This comes five months after mentions of trans people were erased.
Aug. 21, 2025: The White House publishes a list of 20 Smithsonian exhibits deemed objectionable, including many that highlight LGBTQ communities. Targeted works include the American History Museum’s LGBTQ+ exhibit that explores queer and disabled people.
Sept. 20, 2025: The CDC removes or restricts webpages related to LGBTQ health and equity. Deleted pages include “About Shigella Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men” and “STI Information for Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons.”
Oct. 1, 2025: FBI Director Kash Patel fires a trainee for displaying a Pride flag on his desk, labeling it an improper “political” message.
It’s head spinning to think about all that’s been lost in the first year of Trump 2.0. But it shouldn’t be surprising. Trump is surrounded with queerphobic people: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson believesthat “any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful.” And Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth served as publisher for a magazine where editors said that “the movement to legitimize the homosexual lifestyle and homosexual marriages … must be vigorously opposed.”
As I reflect on all of this, my takeaway is that we need to see the U.S. government under Trump for what it is: an anti-LGBTQ hate group. Given their actions, we should see them as no different from groups like the MassResistance or Alliance Defending Freedom, organizations that have made fighting against LGBTQ rights a core part of their missions.
It feels extreme to suggest this simply because it’s the U.S. government we’re talking about. But when I assess the facts and interrogate my own bias, reporting that the Trump administration is a homophobic and transphobic institution is—at this point—a reflection of an objective truth.
Three Michigan school districts, including Lansing, are under investigation by the Department of Justice for instructions and policies related to LGBTQ individuals. The DOJ announced Wednesday it is investigating the Lansing, Detroit Public, and Godfrey-Lee Public school districts to “determine whether have included sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI) content in any class for grades pre-K-12.”
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to ending the growing trend of local school authorities embedding sexuality and gender ideology in every aspect of public education,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. “Supreme Court precedent is clear: parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children, which includes exempting them from ideological instruction which conflicts with their families’ sincerely held religious beliefs.”
