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    ‘Chipping away at democracy’: authors fear outcome of US supreme court’s LGBTQ+ book ruling

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    Sarah Brannen, an illustrator and children’s book author, was riding in the car with her sister when she received an alert on her phone in late June. She was in a group chat with other authors whose books were being debated in a US supreme court case, and the messages soon poured in. Her book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which highlights a same-sex marriage, was at the center of a contentious case that had widespread implications for public school education throughout the nation.As per the 27 June ruling, a group of Maryland parents now have the option to remove their public elementary school students from classes where Uncle Bobby’s Wedding and other storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes are read. The justices decided through a 6-3 vote that the Montgomery county school board violated parents’ right to freely exercise their religion by forbidding kids from opting out of instruction. The parents argued that the board impeded them from teaching their kids about gender and sexuality in a way that aligned with their belief system.“I’m terribly concerned that one of the implications of this is that LGBTQ children and children with LGBTQ families will see some children having to leave the classroom because they’re reading a book about their families,” Brannen said. “I think it is just a terrible thing to tell young children that there’s something wrong with them so that some children can’t even hear about their family.”Brannen and other authors whose books are at the center of the case fear that the ruling could lead to parents taking their children out of any lessons that they disagree with in the future, including inclusive tellings of history. Additionally, they contend that it’s important that public school education reflects the world, which consists of diverse family structures, gender and sexual identities. Teaching kids about LGBTQ+ people and diverse families can make them more empathetic and socially competent, studies have found. Along with Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which was illustrated by Lucia Soto, the parents’ complaint included six other books, including Born Ready by Jodie Patterson, My Rainbow by US representative DeShanna Neal and Trinity Neal, and Pride Puppy! by Robin Stevenson.View image in fullscreen“When you start to chip away at what public education was created to do,” said Neal, “you are chipping away at the very foundation of what democracy, and liberty and freedom are supposed to be.”‘Critical thinkers that can move America forward’Research has shown that it is never too young to expose children to diversity, said Rachel H Farr, a University of Kentucky professor and associate chair of psychology. Her work focuses on LGBTQ+ parents and families. She has found that kids with LGBTQ+ parents report having higher social competence than their peers because they have learned to accept that it is OK for people to be different. Exposure to diverse family structures through books, she said, could also help kids with heterosexual parents better understand the world around them.“When children learn about people who may be different than they are, that can help with things like understanding … that people can have a different point of view,” Farr said. “That can help with things like perspective-taking, kindness, empathy, a sense of belonging: things that I think many of us would argue are experiences and skills that we want children and people around us to have.”In Born Ready, a transgender boy expresses his frustration with being misgendered, until he comes to a place where he feels affirmed in his gender identity. For Patterson, the recent ruling symbolizes a shift in education from a place where preconceived beliefs are challenged and individual thoughts are formed, to a space where students are taught from a narrow perspective. It is likely that students will encounter LGBTQ+ people throughout their lives, she said, and it is important that they be prepared.“It is imperative to have experiences that are beyond the belief you might hold at that moment, so that we can be a talented country with critical thinkers that can move America forward,” Patterson said. “And I do believe that all the progress that we’ve seen in America has been through collaboration through thought, through bringing opposing opinions together and finding a space that is not necessarily one or the other but a combination.”If parents can choose to opt their children out of subjects that they don’t believe in, she said, “does that also allow for people like Native Americans to opt out of a story about Christopher Columbus or Black families to opt out of what we call American history, which is often unjustly told through the eyes of white men?” Patterson sees it as dangerous for people to not be exposed to ideas that they disagree with, because it makes them singularly informed.In the dissenting opinion of the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the decision “threatens the very essence of a public education”, adding that it “strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society”.View image in fullscreenAccording to Farr’s research, schools are an important platform for children to learn how to form their opinions. Exposure to diversity, she said, has been shown to instill children with values of respect and kindness.“The flip side of not exposing kids to diversity, unfortunately, is that the opposite can happen. It might inadvertently increase bias, suggesting that there is only one right way to think or to be in the world,” Farr said, “as opposed to developing an appreciation that there’s a lot of different ways to be in the world, and to express oneself.”Stevenson, the author of Pride Puppy!, a story about a queer family attending a Pride parade, thinks that allowing students to leave the classroom will also make queer families invisible. The ruling “segregates books about queer people, books about families like mine, and treats these books differently from other books, and in so doing, it sends a terribly harmful message to all kids, but particularly to kids who are LGBTQ+ themselves, and kids from LGBTQ+ families”, Stevenson said. “It also has the potential to accelerate this epidemic of book bans that we are already in the midst of.”As the US supreme court deliberated on the case, DeShanna Neal, a Delaware representative and co-author of My Rainbow, worked with their legislative colleagues on a bill to protect book bans in the state of Delaware. In My Rainbow, Neal makes a rainbow-colored wig for their trans daughter, Trinity, to help her express her gender identity. The Freedom to Read Act passed on 30 June, which Neal sees as a sign that they and their colleagues are working to keep the state safe. After it passed, Neal received a text message from a colleague that read: “You will never have to worry about My Rainbow being banned in Delaware.” More

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      ‘Harvey would say, we’re on the brink’: why conservatives are coming for a gay rights hero

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      As San Francisco’s pride festivities came to a close last week, a cloud hung over the otherwise joyful celebrations as the city’s LGBTQ+ community learned that the US government had stripped a naval ship of its name honoring the gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.Donald Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, claimed the action showed the administration’s commitment to “taking the politics” out of military naming conventions. San Francisco’s queer community saw things differently.For many, the move was yet another example of Trump taking a swipe at progressive values. To others, the decision to remove Milk’s name from the frigate represented something more sinister: an intention, on the part of an emboldened administration, to take the LGBTQ+ community out of public view and to strike their accomplishments from the historical record.“On its own, it is not the most significant offense that we’ve witnessed in the past six months,” said Marc Stein, a professor of history at San Francisco State University who researches sexuality and politics. “But when combined with so many other things, it sends a powerful message.”Hegseth’s announcement is the latest attack on Milk’s legacy from conservatives in California and on the national stage. In 2023, the southern California city of Temecula made news when its school board attempted to remove references to Milk from elementary school textbooks. Before that, it was revealed that Tucker Carlson, while a college student, had apparently been connected to a society celebrating Milk’s murderer.Since Trump took office, the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights and visibility has only accelerated, from a directive to purge the military of transgender service members, to a supreme court decision allowing K-12 students to opt out of reading materials with LGBTQ+ themes.Taken together, LGBTQ+ advocates and community members fear that much of the progress made to secure their rights since Milk’s assassination in 1978 is in peril.“The renaming of the ship is part of a broader pattern wherein the Trump administration and its allies are trying to roll back the advances of the last several decades,” said Stein.At the Cinch Saloon, a historic gay bar in San Francisco’s Castro district, June’s Pride month celebrations were held against a backdrop of conversations about the fate of the community. Bartender Eric Berchtold expressed fear that the administration is working up to rescind the right to same-sex marriage. “It’s blatant malice,” Berchtold said. “They want to erase us and eradicate our history like we don’t exist.”Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride, said that fears of rolling back progress have been felt most acutely by older members of the community who were part of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s and 70s.View image in fullscreenAmong those affected people are Cleve Jones, an activist and friend of Milk’s who worked in Milk’s office when he was city supervisor. “I can remember when we were criminalized, when we were routinely beaten and fired, when you could not have a job if you were known to be gay,” said Jones.When Milk was elected as city supervisor in 1977, he was the country’s first openly gay politician. Two decades prior, he had been forced to resign from the navy due to his sexuality.That’s why publicly displaying Milk’s name on a military vessel represents much more than a public gesture, explained Craig Loftin, professor of American studies at California State University, Fullerton and a scholar of LGBTQ+ history. “In the big-picture history of LGBTQ people, the quest for public visibility and recognition is at the core and center of that narrative,” he said.“[Milk] was a leader in this idea of not hiding in the shadows.”A swinging pendulumThat isn’t to say that the quest for gay liberation has been linear.While the gay liberation movement made enormous strides on the fronts of decriminalization and visibility in the 1960s and 70s, the rise of the religious right as a powerful political bloc in the 80s paused progress. That coincided with the onset of the Aids pandemic, which devastated gay communities across the country – nowhere more acutely than in San Francisco. In response to silence on the part of the federal government and the Reagan administration, a new wave of activism was spurred that demanded research into treatment and condemned homophobic discrimination.“It’s waxed and waned,” said Loftin. “It took several years before we had activist groups like Aact Up channeling their rage in a strategic, focused way that yielded significant results and moved gay culture further than where it had been,” Loftin said. In the decades that followed, the community saw same-sex marriage legalized, the military’s “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy repealed, and, most recently, a surge of visibility for trans Americans. “There is a pendulum quality to a lot of history, but especially LGBT history.”Knowing this, Loftin is hopeful that the community will come together and fight back with vigor. “My optimistic thought is that because they’re hitting us so hard and so fast, the pendulum will swing back the other direction, hopefully harder and faster,” he said. “[Trump] is awakening a dragon.”View image in fullscreenBerchtold, the Cinch Saloon bartender, said he saw a lot more activism among patrons today than he did when he started working at the bar 22 years ago.Jones is more fearful. To him, there is a gulf between an older generation that remembers the traumas of past decades, and a younger cohort that takes the advances for granted.“Younger ones never watched everyone they knew die,” said Jones. “I carry those memories with me as I interact daily with young people who are completely oblivious to that reality.”‘Everything feels very fragile’To Stein and others, what is most jarring about the renaming of USNS Harvey Milk is that it lifts the veil on which groups the administration plans to target. Until now, policy decisions have primarily focused on restricting the rights of trans Americans – which advocates say has had the effect of making cisgender members of the LGBTQ+ community complacent.“It is a lie that the administration is only going after trans people,” said Stein. “They are especially targeting trans people … but [cis] gay and lesbian people should not feel like they are going to be safe from what’s happening.”Jones echoed: “There is a significant number of gay and lesbian men and women who may think this is going to stop with trans people. That’s just foolishness.”View image in fullscreenAdvocates and scholars also see attacks on the LGBTQ+ community as connected to the administration’s larger ambitions to curb civil liberties, including those of women and immigrants.“There is going to be great variation depending on … where you live,” said Stein, drawing a thread between disparities in access to gender-affirming care, abortion rights and immigrant protections. “Those of us who are in San Francisco and California are protected in some respects from the worst of what’s going on, but we also live in a nation with a powerful federal government.“Everything is very fragile at this moment,” added Ford. “You can’t take for granted that they’re not going to try to take your rights.”Jones says that if he were alive today, Harvey Milk would agree. A Jewish American who came of age during the second world war, he would have seen the government’s actions as indicative of an unhealthy democracy and sounded the alarm.“He would say, ‘Watch out. We are on the brink. It is happening again. It is unfolding all around us.’” More

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      VA hospitals remove politics and marital status from guidelines protecting patients from discrimination

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      The Department of Veterans Affairs has imposed new guidelines on VA hospitals nationwide that remove language that explicitly prohibited doctors from discriminating against patients based on their political beliefs or marital status.The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.Under federal law, eligible veterans must be given hospital care and services, and the revised VA hospital rules still instruct medical staff that they cannot discriminate against veterans on the basis of race, color, religion and sex. But language within VA hospital bylaws requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated from these bylaws, raising questions about whether individual workers could now be free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not expressly protected by federal law.Explicit protections for VA doctors and other medical staff based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity have also been removed, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.In making the changes, VA officials cite Donald Trump’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.The Department of Veterans Affairs is the nation’s largest integrated hospital system, with more than 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics. It employs 26,000 doctors and serves 9 million patients annually.In an emailed response to questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that language requiring medical staff to treat patients without discriminating on the basis of politics and marital status had been removed from the bylaws , but he said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”.He said the rule changes were nothing more than “a formality”, but confirmed that they were made to comply with Trump’s executive order. Kasperowicz also said the revisions were necessary to “ensure VA policy comports with federal law”. He did not say which federal law or laws required these changes.The VA said federal laws and a 2013 policy directive that prohibits discrimination on the basis of marital status or political affiliation would not allow patients within the categories removed from its bylaws to be excluded from treatment or allow discrimination against medical professionals.“Under no circumstances whatsoever would VA ever deny appropriate care to any eligible veterans or appropriate employment to any qualified potential employees,” a VA representative said.Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items – including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” – have been removed from that list.Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation”.Medical experts said the implications of rule changes uncovered by the Guardian could be far-reaching.They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.Dr Arthur Caplan, founding head of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, called the new rules “extremely disturbing and unethical”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It seems on its face an effort to exert political control over the VA medical staff,” he said. “What we typically tell people in healthcare is: ‘You keep your politics at home and take care of your patients.’” Caplan said the rules opened the door to doctors questioning patients about whether they attended a Trump rally or declining to provide healthcare to a veteran because they wore a button critical of JD Vance or voiced support for gay rights.“Those views aren’t relevant to caring for patients. So why would we put anyone at risk of losing care that way?” Caplan said.During the 2024 presidential campaign and throughout the early months of his second term, Trump repeatedly made threats against a host of people whom he saw as his political antagonists, including senators, judges and then president Joe Biden. He called journalists and Democrats “the enemy within”.In interviews, veterans said the impact of the new policy would probably fall hardest on female veterans, LGBTQ+ veterans and those who live in rural areas where there are fewer doctors overall. “I’m lucky. I have my choice of three clinics,” said Tia Christopher, a navy veteran who reported being raped in service in 2000.Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Christopher advocates on behalf of military sexual trauma survivors throughout the country. Under the new policy, some may have to register at a hospital in another region and travel more than a hundred miles to see a doctor. It “could have a huge ripple effect”, she said.As concerned as they were about the new policies themselves, medical experts were equally worried about the way they came about. Sources at multiple VA hospitals, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation, told the Guardian that the rule changes were imposed without consultation with the system’s doctors – a characterization the VA’s Kasperowicz did not dispute.Such a move would run counter to standards established by the Joint Commission, a non-profit organization that accredits hospitals. Kasperowicz said the agency worked with the Joint Commission “to ensure these changes would have no impact on VA’s accreditation”.At its annual convention in Chicago this week, the American Medical Association’s 733-member policymaking body passed a resolution reaffirming “its commitment to medical staff self-governance … and urges all healthcare institutions, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs, to ensure that any amendments to medical staff bylaws are subject to approval by medical staff in accordance with Joint Commission standards”.The changes are part of a larger attack on the independence of medicine and science by the Trump administration, Caplan said, which has included restrictions and cuts at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, last week fired every member of a key panel that advises the government on vaccines. The Guardian has earlier reported on a VA edict forbidding agency researchers from publishing in scientific journals without clearance from the agency’s political appointees. More

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      ‘These guys are idiots’: Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black call out government’s Harvey Milk erasure

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      Sean Penn, the Oscar-winning actor of the 2008 Harvey Milk biopic Milk and Milk writer Dustin Lance Black have spoken out against US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to remove the gay rights icon’s name from a navy ship.“This is yet another move to distract and to fuel the culture wars that create division,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter in a phone call on Wednesday. “It’s meant to get us to react in ways that are self-centered so that we are further distanced from our brothers and sisters in equally important civil rights fights in this country. It’s divide and conquer.”Penn, who won his second best actor Oscar for playing the former San Francisco supervisor, added in an email: “I’ve never before seen a Secretary of Defense so aggressively demote himself to the rank of Chief PETTY Officer.”The order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, christened in San Diego in 2021 for the prominent gay rights and navy veteran, was part of an internal memo that was leaked on Tuesday. The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson confirmed that the ship’s new name “will be announced after internal reviews are complete”.The timing of the decision for mid-June, a month meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, was reportedly intentional. The renaming is supposed to ensure “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture”, referring to Donald Trump, Hegseth and navy secretary John Phelan, according to the memorandum.“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander in chief’s priorities, our nation’s history and the warrior ethos,” the Pentagon said in a statement.“These guys are idiots,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter. “Pete Hegseth does not seem like a smart man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man. He seems small and petty. I would love to introduce him to some LGBTQ folks who are warriors who have had to be warriors our entire life just to live our lives openly as who we are.”Milk, written by Black and directed by Gus Van Sant, depicted Milk’s political ascendancy in San Francisco, where he became the first publicly gay man to be elected to public office when he won a seat on the city’s board of supervisors. He was assassinated along with mayor George Moscone by former city supervisor Dan White in 1978. White was convicted on two counts of voluntary manslaughter and served just five years in prison.The USNS Harvey Milk was initially named in 2016 during the administration of Barack Obama. According to the leaked memo, Phelan is also considering new titles for vessels named after such civil rights icons as Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harriet Tubman and Cesar Chavez.“Harvey Milk is an icon, a civil rights icon, and for good reason,” Black said. “That’s not going to change. Renaming a ship isn’t going to change that. If people are pissed off, good, be pissed off – but take the appropriate action. Do what Harvey Milk had said we need to do, and it’s about bringing back together the coalition of the ‘us’-es that helps move the pendulum of progress forward. Stop the infighting and lock arms again. That’s what Harvey would say.” More

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      LGBTQ+ leaders condemn Trump plan to drop Harvey Milk’s name from navy ship

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      Leaders in San Francisco are blasting the Trump administration for stripping the name of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk from a US naval ship, and especially during Pride month, when people gather to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.Milk is a revered figure in San Francisco history, a former city supervisor and gay rights advocate who was fatally shot along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978 by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. Just last month, California marked what would have been Milk’s 95th birthday with proclamations heralding his authenticity, kindness and calls for unity.He served for four years in the navy during the Korean war, before he was forced out for being gay. Milk later moved to San Francisco, where he became one of the first openly gay politicians in the world with his election to the board of supervisors in 1977.Cleve Jones, a close friend and LGBTQ+ activist, dismissed the renaming as an attempt by the Trump administration to distract the American public from far more serious concerns, including the ongoing war in Gaza and looming cuts to Medicaid and social security.“Yes, this is cruel and petty and stupid, and yes, it’s an insult to my community,” Jones said. “I would be willing to wager a considerable sum that American families sitting around that proverbial kitchen table this evening are not going to be talking about how much safer they feel now that Harvey’s name is going to be taken off that ship.”The Pentagon has not confirmed news of the renaming, a highly rare move, but unnamed officials say the change was laid out in an internal memo. It is in keeping with attempts by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the broader Trump administration to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion. A new name has not yet been selected for the USNS Harvey Milk.Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk, said in a phone call on Wednesday that he and the Harvey Milk Foundation have reached out to the Pentagon, which confirmed a proposed name change was on the table.“And our hope is that the recommendation is put aside, but if it’s not, it will be a rallying cry not just for our community but for all minority communities,” said Stuart Milk, who is executive chair of the foundation, adding that his uncle always said that gay rights, and those of other marginalized communities, required constant vigilance.“So I don’t think he’d be surprised,” Milk said, “but he’d be calling on us to remain vigilant, to stay active.”Elected officials, including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, called the move a shameful attempt to erase the contributions of LGBTQ+ people and an insult to fundamental American values of honoring veterans and those who worked to build a better country. Pelosi and Newsom are both San Francisco Democrats.Newsom took aim at Hegseth, calling the attempt: “A cowardly act from a man desperate to distract us from his inability to lead the Pentagon” on the social media platform X.The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-navy secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.Sean Penn portrayed Milk in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie depicting his audacious rise in politics and his death by a supervisor who cast the sole “no” vote on his legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.Milk’s career, and his killing, was also the subject of a documentary that won an Academy Award in 1985.While the renaming attempt is rare, the Biden administration changed the names of two navy ships in 2023 as part of the effort to remove Confederate names from US military installations. More

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      Teen trans athlete at center of rightwing attacks wins track events in California

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      A teenage transgender athlete in California, who has been at the center of widespread political attacks by rightwing pundits and the Trump administration, won in two track events over the weekend. The 16-year-old athlete, AB Hernandez, tied for first place alongside two other athletes in the high jump, and tied for first place in the triple jump.This comes as the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from California for allowing trans athletes to compete in girls’ sports.The meet took place days after the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports in the state, changed its rules. Now, if a transgender athlete places in a girls’ event, the athlete who finishes just behind will also receive the same place and medal.Despite protests at the meet, the athletes expressed joy during the meet, multiple outlets reported.“Sharing the podium was nothing but an honor,” another high school athlete said to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Although the publicity she’s been receiving has been pretty negative, I believe she deserves publicity because she’s a superstar. She’s a rock star. She’s representing who she is.”View image in fullscreenHernandez finished the high jump with a mark of 5ft 7in (1.7 meters), the Associated Press reported, with no failed attempts. The two co-winners also cleared that height after each logged a failed attempt. The three shared the first-place win, smiling as they stepped together onto the podium.Hernandez received first place in the triple jump, sharing the top spot with an athlete who trailed by just more than a half-meter, the AP said. Earlier in the afternoon, Hernandez placed second in the long jump.Hernandez and her participation in the meet brought national attention and attacks by the Trump administration. She has become the target of a national, rightwing campaign to ban trans athletes from youth sports. The justice department said it would investigate the California Interscholastic Federation and the school district to determine whether they violated federal sex-discrimination law.The federation’s rule change reflects efforts to find a middle ground in the debate over trans girls’ participation in high school sports. They announced the change after Trump threatened to pull federal funding from California unless it bars trans athletes from competing on girls’ teams. But the federation said it decided on the change before the Trump threats.Hernandez’s participation in the sport is allowed by a 2013 state law, stating that students can compete in the category reflecting their gender identity.At least 24 states have laws on the books barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain women’s or girls’ sports competitions, the AP reported. More

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      Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: ‘Our joy is resistance’

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      As the first Pride month under Donald Trump’s second presidency approaches, LGBTQ+ businesses are stepping up, evolving quickly to meet the community’s growing concerns.Since day one, Trump has signed executive orders targeting the LGBTQ+ community, particularly the trans and gender non-conforming population. He aims to eradicate “gender ideology” by enforcing a two-sex binary determined at conception, reinstating and expanding the military ban on transgender service members, and directing agencies to prevent gender-affirming care for youth.This leaves the LGBTQ+ community feeling apprehensive about losing further rights and protections.The Guardian spoke with four queer business owners, and one message was clear: queer businesses are here to support the community now more than ever and spread joy as resistance.Uptick in weddingsBusiness is surging for New England-based wedding photographer Lindsey “Lensy” Michelle as queer couples decide to take their vows, fearing the Trump administration will go after marriage equality. Michelle says she’s only getting louder and even “more queer”.“I’m not changing anything about my business, no matter what the government says,” Michelle said. “We elected a president who doesn’t support this type of marriage, or at the very least doesn’t care enough to try to protect it.”View image in fullscreenShe is seeing queer couples accelerate their wedding plans in fear of Trump and the supreme court overturning 2015’s ruling on Obergefell v Hodges, which recognized same-sex marriages. Michelle currently offers accessible pricing for queer couples.“[Pride] is a good time to remind wedding vendors to stop advertising to only brides or using very gendered language, or assuming that every couple has a bride and a groom,” she said. “Performative allyship is really dangerous, and for businesses June can be a time of greater reflection on how they can be more clear and inclusive.”According to Michelle, there is an emerging trend for queer couples to distinguish legal marriage from a wedding ceremony. Many of her clients explained that they are registering their marriage now out of an “abundance of caution” because they don’t feel like “their rights will be protected”, she said.“It’s a privilege when you’re able to celebrate instead of protest and queerness is always rebellious,” she said. “You protest when things aren’t welcoming to begin with and you celebrate when you’re able to but I think also you have to do both. Otherwise, it becomes quite sad.”After noticing an uptick in demand, she created an LGBTQ+ wedding directory of more than 130 businesses. She didn’t stop there: Michelle then teamed up with five other vendors to throw a queer mass wedding ball for six lucky couples on 5 January.“We don’t really feel like celebrating. We feel like crying and we feel helpless and all we’re trying to do is get married,” Michelle said. “We just wanted to throw a party. This event is coming out of the time of fear and uncertainty, but that’s always been the queer story.”View image in fullscreenThe team behind the wedding ball are “open to the idea” of hosting a similar event in other states, particularly in Republican-led ones.Nine states are urging the supreme court to reverse Obergefell v Hodges.“We’re scared, and I don’t put that lightly,” Michelle said.We will surviveIn Decatur, Georgia, Charis Books & More aims to alleviate the fears the queer and trans community are experiencing.“My job is to support young people and those with children and to say: ‘Look, we have spent most of our history as queer and trans people as outlaws and we can be outlaws again. But, we will survive, we are very creative and we’ll figure out how to get through this time,’” said Errol Anderson, the executive director of Charis Books & More’s non-profit arm, Charis Circle.View image in fullscreenCharis Circle hosts events like story time and offers support groups, especially for the trans community. They have four support groups for trans and gender non-conforming individuals across ages. Georgians in less welcoming parts of the state see Charis “as a beacon”, according to Anderson.“We’re seeing these particularly aggressive attacks on trans people for the past couple years now being mirrored in national legislation and it’s very scary,” Anderson said. “A lot of people right now feel very hopeless, but we need to remember we do actually have a lot of power to speak up for what we believe in and our voices do matter.”Joy as resistanceNew York’s 34-year-old queer bar Henrietta Hudson is returning to its roots as a political activist space, especially as Pride approaches.View image in fullscreen“Acutely since the inauguration, but really since the election, there’s a different tone to how people come to [the bar]. It feels more necessary,” Hutch Hutchinson said. “People are craving to be around other queer people and to be in a safer space. We have to buckle down for the family we have here.”Hutchinson, who uses he/they pronouns, is the director of operations at Henrietta Hudson. He said Pride is already in the air as the bar has seen a surge in energy and purpose.“[Pride] often does feel like a protest and we call our Pride as occupying Hudson, a very definitive statement on us taking up space in the West Village,” he said. “The general feeling at Henrietta Hudson is that we’ve just become more political. This place has been through so many eras of queer resistance and uprising. We are relighting that fire.”They lend their bar to vetted non-profits and local grassroots organizations for events giving back to the LGBTQ+ community, such as a Pride week fundraiser benefiting the BTFA Collective for Black trans femme artists and the annual NYC Dyke March.Hutchinson explained that the bar will always take explicit stances to protect and support the community. It posted a message on their Instagram, calling out the “immoral”, “dangerous” and “unlawful” attacks by Trump’s administration.“We talk, as a [staff] about, what does resistance look like? Sure, resistance is showing up to rallies and supporting the ACLU, learning your rights, marching and protesting,” he added. “But it’s so important for us to dance and to see each other smile and laugh and sing. Our joy is resistance.”Being visible is more importantDown in St Louis, Missouri, art collective Swan Meadow plans to be a safe third space for the community where members can “simply exist as who they are”. Partners Fern and Mellody Meadow, who both use they/them pronouns, emptied their savings to open the collective last fall after a close presidential election.View image in fullscreen“We are always trying to craft events and spaces for people to come to and to sit with complicated emotions and thoughts and to talk to people about them,” Fern said. “It can be isolating and so frustrating to know that things are wrong that are outside of our control, but when you come together as a community, so much positive change can happen.”They open their workshop multiple times a month for free community-focused events such as “crafternoons”. ​Some events act as fundraisers for local mutual aid organizations such as the Community Closet, which distributes free household, cleaning and hygiene items. The collective also offers branding, photography and printing services.The Meadows envision Swan Meadow taking on a larger role in political advocacy for the community.“As pushback becomes more prevalent and discrimination becomes more normal, being visible is more important than ever,” Mellody said. “I’m tired of living through history.” More

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      Google and Home Depot drop Pride Toronto sponsorship amid Trump’s DEI war

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      In another blow to one of the largest celebrations of LGTBQ+ people in North America, Pride Toronto has unexpectedly lost two more major corporate sponsors, just weeks before the festival in a setback the festival’s organizer says is direct result of Donald Trump’s campaign to eradicate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the US.Google and Home Depot both announced their plans to abandon the festival in the form of one-line emails, said Kojo Modeste, the executive director of the Canadian event.Organizers have warned that the loss of sponsors will pose operational challenges for Pride Toronto that attracts 3 million attendees annually. Other organisations, including local trade unions, have stepped in to help make up the shortfall, but Modeste told the Guardian he was deeply worried about the celebration’s future.“Am I going to have to drastically cut what the festival looks like for 2026? This is not the place that I want to be in,” he said.Home Depot told the Guardian it continually reviews its non-profit giving and decided not to contribute this year. Google told the newspaper it would be supporting “Toronto Googlers” marching in the parade and “community moments” from Pride.The sudden exit of Google and Home Depot follows the departure in February of three other prominent sponsors. At the time, Modeste did not name them, but on Friday he revealed that they were Nissan, Adidas and Clorox.Nissan Canada said it was unable to sponsor Pride in Toronto due to a “local decision” that it says was based on a reevaluation of marketing and media activities. Adidas and Clorox have been approached for comment.“These are American companies and they are showing their true colours,” said Modeste. “We thought they were with the community, but clearly, they’re not.”Corporate sponsorship not only goes towards paying staff, but hundreds of local artists and to keep Pride as a free event.Modeste said he grew up in a period before widespread Pride celebrations – and did not want that to be the experience of current younger generations. “I don’t want to be the one to have to make that decision, to take Pride away from the community,” he said.The White House’s condemnation of diversity and inclusion efforts has resulted in corporations shirking away from festivals that they once loudly supported, said Sui Sui, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University whose research focuses on DEI initiatives.Sui said that the move also signals that commitments large sponsors made in the past were tenuous and motivated not because of genuine support, but because of the perceived profitability of aligning with such causes.The months-long purge of US federal government workers by the Trump administration has resulted in the firings of tens of thousands of people, including those who worked in forwarding diversity and equity initiatives.Sui said that the chill around sponsors for pride events has also affected New York City and Philadelphia. Mastercard, Nissan, Pepsi, Garnier and more major backers have abandoned the New York celebration, while Target and Philadelphia Union exited Philly Pride 365.“Canada is following suit,” she said.For the future, Pride Toronto and other pride events may need to rely more significantly on grassroots efforts to keep events going, she said.“It’s for them to see who truly believes the importance of Pride.” More

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      US judge orders Trump administration to return wrongly deported gay man

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      A federal judge ordered the Trump administration late Friday night to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man it deported to Mexico, in spite of his fears of being harmed there, and who has since been returned to Guatemala.The man, who is gay, had applied for asylum in the US last year after he was attacked twice in homophobic acts of violence in Guatemala. He was protected from being returned to his home country under a US immigration judge’s order at the time, but the Trump administration put him on a bus and sent him to Mexico instead.The US district judge Brian Murphy found the man’s deportation likely “lacked any semblance of due process”. In a declaration to the court, the man, identified by his initials OCG in legal filings, said that since he was returned to Guatemala two months ago, “I have been living in hiding, in constant panic and constant fear”.An earlier court proceeding determined that OCG risked persecution or torture if returned to Guatemala, but he also feared returning to Mexico. He presented evidence of being raped and held for ransom there while seeking asylum in the US.“No one has ever suggested that OCG poses any sort of security threat,” Murphy wrote in his order. “In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.”Murphy’s order adds to a string of findings by federal courts against recent Trump administration deportations.Last week, Murphy, a Biden appointee, found that the Trump administration had violated an order he issued barring government officials from deporting people to countries not their own without first giving them sufficient time to object.In a hearing, the homeland security department said that seven immigrants had been deported Tuesday on a flight to a third country, but they refused to say where the men were going. It was later revealed that the men were told they were being sent to South Sudan.In that case, Murphy said that the government had given the seven men little more than 24 hours’ notice that they were being removed from the US, which he called “plainly insufficient”, and could result in a finding of criminal contempt.Other cases that have been spotlighted for rapid deportations include that of Kilmar Ábrego García, who was sent to El Salvador. The US supreme court ordered the government to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, but the White House has said it is not within its power to do so.That case sparked a legal joust over the supreme court’s practicable meaning of “facilitate”.In his ruling, Murphy noted the dispute over the use of the verb, saying that returning OCG to the US is not that complicated.“The Court notes that ‘facilitate’ in this context should carry less baggage than in several other notable cases,” he wrote. “OCG is not held by any foreign government. Defendants have declined to make any argument that facilitating his return would be costly, burdensome, or otherwise impede the government’s objectives.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More