San Francisco – Greg Owen writes in LGBTQ Nation that a remarkable collection of well-known U.S. conservatives are openly supporting Uganda’s latest “Kill the Gays” law, claiming LGBTQ+ rights in Africa are just another form of “neo-colonialism.” Media Matters reports the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh mocked those condemning the draconian legislation passed by Uganda’s Assembly in March as “cultural colonialists” whining over “protecting so-called LGBTQ rights” and claimed opponents of the bill “don’t think that Uganda has any particular right to govern itself and have its own culture and its own way of life.” (See also: Matt Walsh: Transphobe of […]
North Dakota wages war on LGBTQ+ communities
Bismarck – Emily Chudy writes for PinkNews that North Dakota legislators have been widely criticized for passing a record-setting ten anti-LGBTQ+ bills in one day. The state senate passed all ten bills on April 3rd, with eight now headed to the desk of North Dakota’s Republican governor Doug Burgum, where they will either be signed into law or vetoed. Two have been returned to the state’s House of Representatives after having amendments added. The raft of horrifying legislation includes bans on trans students joining sports teams that match their gender identity, sweeping bans on gender-affirming healthcare for young people, and […]
Church holding drag event firebombed, but little damage
Chesterland, Ohio – Chanetlle Billson reports for PinkNews that police were called at around 1:00 p.m. on March 25 to a report of arson at the Community Church of Chesterland, where a Drag Queen Story Time event was due to take place. Officers found a crude, home-made Molotov cocktail bomb had hit the church, resulting in damage, along with minor scorching to the exterior. A sign had also been vandalized. The attack came as the church planned to hold the drag event, hosted by marketing and communications company The Fairmount Group. President and chief executive of The Fairmount Group, Mallory […]
Russia arrests couple for violating gay propaganda law
Kazan, Russia – Daniel Villarreal reports in LGBTQ Nation that on March 5th, authorities in the southwestern city of Kazan approached 21-year-old Chinese national Haoyang Xu after he and his partner, 23-year-old Russian native Gela Gogishvili, had finished visiting a museum with friends, Newsweek reported. Authorities asked Xu for his passport and student visa. He didn’t have them on him. After accompanying the couple to retrieve the documents, officers took them to the Yapeyeva police station and informed them that they had broken the propaganda law. The officers allegedly forbade the couple from speaking to lawyers and tried to make […]
Florida Board of Education Slammed for Don’t Say LGBTQ+ Expansion
Tallahassee – On April 19th, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Equality Florida, joined teachers, parents, and students in slamming Florida’s Board of Education for voting to expand Gov. Ron DeSantis’s shameful “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” bill to all grades. At a roundtable event in Tallahassee, they also spoke out against the Florida legislature’s unprecedented efforts to advance a slate of hateful anti-LGBTQ+ bills and proposals attacking the LGBTQ+ community. The rights of millions of Floridians are being rolled back by Gov. DeSantis and his allies who – to pander to the most extreme fringes of their base – have proposed […]
Iranian LGBTQ+ activist released after receiving death sentence
London – Amelia Hansford reports for Pink News that Elham Choubdar, one of two women sentenced to death on charges of “promoting homosexuality”, has been released from custody in Iran. The LGBTQ+ activist was released on Monday, March 13th after her bail of one billion rial (approximately £19,500) was paid. She was arrested in 2021 alongside Sareh Sedighi-Hamadani on charges of “corruption on Earth” for “promoting homosexuality” and “depravity”. They were also charged with “promoting Christianity” and of “communicating with the media opposing the Islamic Republic”. It was reported by Amnesty International in January that Iran had overturned the death […]
Community Overload: Too much of a bad thing
I’ve had trouble lately expressing how I feel. Well to be honest, I am very overloaded by what is happening to my community. My editor finally sent me an email asking what’s up. My problem is I feel beat down. Because every time I turn on a radio or TV it’s full of hate against the transgender community. I never thought I would come out, much less end up in a war for the survival of people like me. The right of our very existence is at stake. This has been extremely draining. Even pushing me somewhat back into my […]
Breaking Free From Self-Doubt
“Internalized stigma” – I hear that phrase a lot in the spaces I frequent. I hear it so often I think it’s become a buzzword. Why do I feel bad? Internalized stigma. Why are you down on yourself? Internalized stigma. Why can’t this or that person get out of their own way? Internalized stigma. There’s very little commentary on what Internalized stigma is, just that we are having reactions to it. So … let’s define it. Overcoming internalized stigma Stigma is negative stereotypes and attitudes about a specific group of people. Internalized stigma (or “felt stigma”) is when we take […]
All About Pronouns: A guide to the perplexed
What are pronouns? Pronouns are words we use to refer to someone in the third person. Examples include they / them, she / her, and he / him. What does gender have to do with pronouns? In the English language, pronouns have historically been gendered, meaning they convey information about the person’s gender, whether that information is accurate or not. For many of us whose identity sits outside the binary or whose gender does not align with sex assigned at birth, being called by the wrong pronoun is uncomfortable and sometimes hurtful or traumatic. It’s important to not make assumptions about […]
In Remembrance: Carl Patrick ‘Charles’ Hughes
Carl Patrick “Charles” Hughes, a founding member of the Baltimore Gay Alliance and Gay Community Center of Baltimore, died March 7th in his Charles Village home of 53 years. He was 78 and had been diagnosed with an inoperable aneurysm after suffering a heart attack in October. The aneurysm was the likely cause of his death. Cover image: Charles (right) and Scott Emmons at gay pride in New York in the 1970s Charles, also known as Buster, was born in Palm Beach, Florida, but lived most of his life in Baltimore City. He was the son of Joseph Hughes, a […]