Trend – LGBTQ Attacks

The U.S. House Transportation-HUD and Interior spending bills would block funding for LGBTQ pride flags at certain federal departments and agencies. Shown are the rainbow pride flag and an American flag. (Getty Images)

U.S. House GOP in spending bills takes aim at federal LGBTQ, racial equity policies

BY: - November 6, 2023

U.S. House Republicans are continuing to use government spending bills to engage in culture war battles, with legislation debated during the past week that would ban pride flags on some federal buildings, strip funding from a new museum for Latino history and target certain LGBTQ and racial equity policies and programs. The hot-button provisions in […]

Veranda L'Ni performing in the Cleveland Drag Showcase. (Photo by Porch Porch Productions.)

Drag queens grateful after Ohio Supreme Court removes performance ban from ballot

BY: - October 11, 2023

Ohio drag queens are thanking the Ohio Supreme Court for removing a proposal from city of Bellefontaine ballots that would ban public performances. Drag is more than just performance art for Cleveland drag queen Veranda L’Ni — it’s also community. “It’s the most creative art form in the world — we get to change our […]

During the 2022–23 school year, book bans occurred in 153 districts across 33 states, according to a PEN America report. (Getty Images)

First Amendment advocates fight growing number of U.S. book bans

BY: - October 6, 2023

WASHINGTON — One of Thomasina Brown’s favorite books is a memoir about a girl who deals with the grief of losing her father and struggles with her sexual identity. Brown, a 16-year-old student at Nixa High School in Nixa, Missouri, said in an interview that she felt a connection with the book, as she grieved […]

COMMENTARY

Vouchers awards public Ohio tax dollars to discriminatory private religious schools

BY: - September 19, 2023

Public financing of parochial school prejudice is the law in Ohio. Take a minute to process, I’ll wait. The state has opened its coffers to Catholic schools that discriminate. The overwhelming amount of Ohio’s voucher money — free taxpayer money to offset private and religious school tuition — goes to Catholic schools.  The Catholic Diocese […]

U.S. Senate hearing on book bans probes censorship attempts in local libraries

BY: - September 14, 2023

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators at a committee hearing Tuesday discussed the consequences of book bans and parents’ desire to control what their kids read — though they also acknowledged it’s not an issue for Congress to settle. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony about book bans, focusing on how censorship limits liberty and literature. The […]

Catholic Diocese of Cleveland’s new policy rejects transgender people, same sex couples

BY: - September 12, 2023

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland created a new policy around gender identity and sexuality, and more than 80 schools around Northeast Ohio will have to follow what the Diocese calls “God’s Intentional Design.” The Catholic church was the first real community Eliana Turan had. She was forced out at age 12, she said. “While I […]

Federal judge allows Ohio school policy on transgender bathroom use

BY: - August 8, 2023

A federal judge has ruled that an Ohio school district can go forward with a policy allowing trans students to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. “Not every contentious debate, concerning matters of public importance, presents a cognizable federal lawsuit,” U.S. District Judge Michael J. Newman wrote in his decision. A group of […]

Myriam Reynolds of Texas, the mother of a transgender son, said before he received care, he was unhappy and she has “no doubt that the health care my son accessed was life-saving.” (Screenshot from committee webcast)

Parents have no right to allow their children’s gender transition, Republicans say

BY: - July 31, 2023

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on a panel for limited federal government on Thursday argued that parents should not be allowed to let their transgender children have access to gender-affirming care. “A parent has no right to sexually transition a young child,” the chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, […]

Sean Woolley, 15, right, and his mother, Ashley Moore, hold hands as they attend a protest of transgender youth, their families and supporters at the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson, Miss., in January. The protest was against a measure to ban gender-affirming care for trans children that eventually became law. Health care providers in Mississippi and other states that have banned gender-affirming care are shying away from offering other services. Rogelio V. Solis/The Associated Press

Laws banning gender-affirming treatments can block trans youth from receiving other care

BY: - July 31, 2023

In some states, new laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth are dissuading health care providers from offering mental health services and other medical care that isn’t explicitly banned by those laws. In the first few weeks after Mississippi’s law went into effect in February, nurse practitioner Stacie Pace said she was fielding calls and […]

LGBTQ project funding in two states stripped by U.S. House Republicans from spending bill

BY: - July 20, 2023

WASHINGTON — In a tense meeting marked by Democratic charges of hatred and bigotry, Republicans on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee voted Tuesday to strip funding for three LGBTQ community projects, just weeks after they included the money in the annual transportation and housing spending bill. At one point, Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican […]

Drag queens ride on a float during a Stonewall Pride parade. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Ohio House Republicans introduce law to ban drag shows outside of adult entertainment venues

BY: - July 19, 2023

Two Ohio Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would ban drag performers from working anywhere that isn’t designated as an adult entertainment facility. The way the law is written, it would also appear to ban any theatrical performance where a character wears clothing opposite gender at birth. House Bill 245 prohibits “adult cabaret performances in […]

Kristen Chapman is moving from Tennessee to Virginia so her 15 year-old transgender daughter can continue receiving gender-affirming care. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Harm of anti-LGBTQ laws includes economic pain for communities, families

BY: - July 19, 2023

Roberto Che Espinoza had been thinking about leaving Tennessee after the 2024 election, but in June they noticed that the state attorney general was seeking medical records on gender-affirming medical care, which Espinoza, a nonbinary transgender man, said included their own records. “Being on any kind of list … I knew after the release of […]