LGBTQ

Welcome to the (somewhat shorter this week) LGBTQ Nation News Quiz. We’ve kept you up-to-date on politics, current events, and news from the LGBTQ+ community all week. Now, this is your chance to look back on what happened. We’ll be testing your knowledge with a series of questions taken from our headlines this past week. Try the

Marchers carry a rainbow flag to the Alabama Capital during the 2019 Pride March and Rally Photo: Mickey Welsh / Advertiser/ via IMAGN Alabama’s legislature is advancing two censorious anti-LGBTQ bills: H.B. 130 would ban LGBTQ+ flags in classrooms and expand the state’s “Don’t say gay” law to include grades 6-8; H.B. 385 would jail

A woman receiving a facial injection Photo: Shutterstock The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have said that “vampire facials” conducted in an unlicensed New Mexico spa caused multiple women to contract HIV. It’s the first time that the cosmetic procedure has been linked to an HIV outbreak. The facials, also known as platelet-rich

Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network. Photo: KUSA screenshot Colorado’s Supreme Court has said that an anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group may start collecting signatures to approve Ballot Measure 142, a proposed law that would require schools to out transgender students to their potentially unsupportive parents. The group now has until August

Crystal, aka Colin Seymour Photo: Screenshot Laurence Fox, a prominent right-wing activist and former actor in the United Kingdom, has been told to pay £180,000 ($225,242) to two LGBTQ+ men, former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Crystal, following comments Fox made on X (formerly Twitter) falsely referring to them as

Malcolm Kenyatta Photo: Malcolm for PA Out gay Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D) won his primary race against Mark Pinsley for the role of auditor general, an administrative position overseeing the state’s accounting and financial functions. Kenyatta’s victory makes him the first out gay man to be selected by a major party for a

Shangela at the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2019 Photo: Dan MacMedan-USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN A former production assistant (PA) on HBO’s docuseries We’re Here has dropped his rape lawsuit against Darius Jeremy “DJ” Pierce, a former RuPaul’s Drag Race competitor better known as Shangela. Pierce still faces sexual assault allegations from five

Maelle Jacques Photo: Screenshot During a hearing yesterday regarding trans sports ban bill S.B. 375, transgender teenager Maëlle Jacques delivered a powerful speech that appealed to the humanity of transgender teens, highlighting the harm bills like this do to the transgender community. “Joining the male teams wouldn’t even be a choice for me with the

In a significant blow to the conservative, anti-trans argument that transgender women possess insurmountable biological advantages over cisgender women that should make them ineligible to compete in women’s sports, new research suggests that the opposite may in fact be true. A new study, funded in part by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and published recently

Almost 50 years after a 16-year-old boy on a weeks-long heroin bender terrorized the gay community in New Orleans, killing at least three gay men after accompanying them to their homes, he’s earned an early release. Warren Harris Jr. was convicted in 1977 on three counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of Jack

River Nevaeh Goddard Photo: Screenshot A nonbinary 17-year-old, River Nevaeh Goddard, was found dead earlier this month, and their boyfriend has been arrested in connection to the death. But he’s not being charged with murder. Police were responding to a welfare check at the home of their boyfriend, Shane Curry, in Stow, Massachusetts on April

A Grindr banner on the the New York Stock Exchange building in November 2022 Photo: Shutterstock Over 670 Grindr users in the U.K. are suing the queer hook-up app for allegedly and non-consensually sharing their “highly sensitive” private information — including ethnicity, orientation, and HIV-status — with third parties for commercial purposes. Grindr has denied

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton Photo: YouTube screenshot Big Mama Thornton — a six-foot tall, 300-pound, Black, gender-nonconforming blue musician who wore men’s apparel and sang with a growl — has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her influence on the genre. Though Thornton didn’t personally identify as LGBTQ+, modern

In state after state, GOP-dominated state legislatures are adjourning without passing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Now, Iowa has become the latest state to fail to pass any of the numerous bills introduced this session. It joins Kentucky, Georgia, and West Virginia in the cohort of states failing to pass a single bill. Florida passed only one. Iowa

Owasso Public Schools graduate Marley H. in the Human Rights Campaign’s new ad. Photo: Screenshot A little over two months after the death of trans teen Nex Benedict, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has released a new ad featuring an Owasso High School alum describing the culture of anti-LGBTQ+ bullying she experienced first-hand at the

It had taken weeks to make the appointment, and still, all they could offer me was a phone call. So instead of seeing my doctor in a nice warm room, I was standing in a cold parking lot in January. I cringed as he asked me to “outline the problem.” Lowering my voice so the

Photo: Bil Browning/Shutterstock A 36-year-old trans man named Tee Arnold died earlier this month after he was shot outside a shopping mall in Hallandale Beach, Florida in the middle of the night. Hallandale Beach police Captain Aaron Smith does not believe the murder was a hate crime and says it was “an isolated incident” sparked

While William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is problematic on many levels, one simple and sustaining truth surfaces in Shylock’s queries to his interlocutors: “I am a Jew! Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to

A 24-year-old ex-Marine was sentenced to nine years in prison for firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Orange County, CA in 2022, just one act in a laundry list of planned attacks by the defendant and his neo-Nazi associates. Chance Brannon of San Juan Capistrano, California, was an active-duty member of the U.S. Marine Corps

WNBA superstar Brittney Griner is expecting her first child with her wife, attorney Cherelle Griner. The couple posted a sweet announcement on Instagram in which followers can see an ultrasound as well as the couple holding hands – their matching cross tattoos on full display. “Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting

Welcome to the (somewhat shorter this week) LGBTQ Nation News Quiz. We’ve kept you up-to-date on politics, current events, and news from the LGBTQ+ community all week. Now, this is your chance to look back on what happened. We’ll be testing your knowledge with a series of questions taken from our headlines this past week. Try the

The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has unveiled its long-awaited overview of Title IX anti-discrimination protections for transgender and other queer students. The new rules do not cover the hot-button issue of transgender student-athletes, but the new rules have still been praised and criticized by LGBTQ+ and civil rights groups nonetheless. The new rules, which

LGBTQ+ adults overwhelmingly favor President Joe Biden – and Democrats generally – over former President Donald Trump and Republicans, a new survey has found. But while queer respondents also said the Democratic Party should be doing more to fight anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, the survey also revealed that LGBTQ+ issues aren’t the most important thing on queer

Oklahoma Educational Superintendent Ryan Walters Photo: BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN Ryan Walters, the right-wing superintendent of the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), only spoke for about 12 minutes before ending his talk at Oklahoma State University (OSU) yesterday. During his on-campus appearance, pro-LGBTQ+ protestors angrily shouted him down, calling

Two transgender women have filed a class-action lawsuit against Montana and several state agencies over the government’s policy forbidding people from changing sex markers on their birth certificates. The inability to change this document puts trans people at risk of discrimination and harassment, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs say. The lawsuit takes issue with a 2022 rule

Michigan State University police have identified seven suspects involved in an attack on two university students in the school library on Monday after the group allegedly made offensive remarks based on the victims’ sexual identity. “The suspects assaulted two victims, potentially selecting the victims because of the suspects’ sexual orientation bias,” MSU Police and Public

As trans people continue to be targeted in state legislatures, they are finding mundane acts like using public bathrooms and finding new doctors risky, according to a recent poll. In Florida, for example, some trans folks say they are peeing in in bottles to avoid the harassment they face in public bathrooms after Gov. Ron

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Chaya Raichik Photo: Composite via Jack Gruber / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) coordinated with numerous far-right social media influencers — including Chaya Raichik, who goes by Libs of TikTok — to promote a bogus voting reform bill that Johnson introduced last week alongside former

The Greeting Card Association (GCA) awarded their prestigious Annual Louie Awards this week, and the three finalists in the LGBTQ+ category are worlds beyond your typical Hallmark drugstore purchase. GCA also introduced the new Maker of Note awards. These awards honor and elevate the rich diversity of the makers and publishers within the greeting card