Category: All States

Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling

Read more at ABC News.

Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision.

Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees.

In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.

More fundamentally, she claims the high court’s decision in Obergefell v Hodges — extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment’s due process protections — was “egregiously wrong.”

“The mistake must be corrected,” wrote Davis’ attorney Mathew Staver in the petition. He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell “legal fiction.”

The petition appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.

“If there ever was a case of exceptional importance,” Staver wrote, “the first individual in the Republic’s history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it.”

Lower courts have dismissed Davis’ claims and most legal experts consider her bid a long shot. A federal appeals court panel concluded earlier this year that the former clerk “cannot raise the First Amendment as a defense because she is being held liable for state action, which the First Amendment does not protect.”

Davis, as the Rowan County Clerk in 2015, was the sole authority tasked with issuing marriage licenses on behalf of the government under state law.

“Not a single judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals showed any interest in Davis’s rehearing petition, and we are confident the Supreme Court will likewise agree that Davis’s arguments do not merit further attention,” said William Powell, attorney for David Ermold and David Moore, the now-married Kentucky couple that sued Davis for damages, in a statement to ABC News.

A renewed campaign to reverse legal precedent

Davis’ appeal to the Supreme Court comes as conservative opponents of marriage rights for same-sex couples pursue a renewed campaign to reverse legal precedent and allow each state to set its own policy.

At the time Obergefell was decided in 2015, 35 states had statutory or constitutional bans on same-sex marriages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only eight states had enacted laws explicitly allowing the unions.

So far in 2025, at least nine states have either introduced legislation aimed at blocking new marriage licenses for LGBTQ people or passed resolutions urging the Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell at the earliest opportunity, according to the advocacy group Lambda Legal.

In June, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant Christian denomination — overwhelmingly voted to make “overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family” a top priority.

Support for equal marriage rights softening

While a strong majority of Americans favor equal marriage rights, support appears to have softened in recent years, according to Gallup — 60% of Americans supported same-sex marriages in 2015, rising to 70% support in 2025, but that level has plateaued since 2020.

Among Republicans, support has notably dipped over the past decade, down from 55% in 2021 to 41% this year, Gallup found.

Davis’ petition argues the issue of marriage should be treated the same way the court handled the issue of abortion in its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She zeroes in on Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in that case, in which he explicitly called for revisiting Obergefell.

The justices “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote at the time, referring to the landmark decisions dealing with a fundamental right to privacy, due process and equal protection rights.

“It is hard to say where things will go, but this will be a long slog considering how popular same-sex marriage is now,” said Josh Blackman, a prominent conservative constitutional scholar and professor at South Texas College of Law.

Blackman predicts many members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority would want prospective challenges to Obergefell to percolate in lower courts before revisiting the debate.

The court is expected to formally consider Davis’ petition this fall during a private conference when the justices discuss which cases to add to their docket. If the case is accepted, it would likely be scheduled for oral argument next spring and decided by the end of June 2026. The court could also decline the case, allowing a lower court ruling to stand and avoid entirely the request to revisit Obergefell.

“Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett seem wildly uninterested. Maybe Justice Neil Gorsuch, too,” said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News legal analyst and host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions.

“There is no world in which the court takes the case as a straight gay marriage case,” Isgur added. “It would have to come up as a lower court holding that Obergefell binds judges to accept some other kind of non-traditional marital arrangement.”

Ruling wouldn’t invalidate existing marriages

If the ruling were to be overturned at some point in the future, it would not invalidate marriages already performed, legal experts have pointed out. The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government and all states to recognize legal marriages of same-sex and interracial couples performed in any state — even if there is a future change in the law.

Davis first appealed the Supreme Court in 2019 seeking to have the damages suit against her tossed out, but her petition was rejected. Conservative Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito concurred with the decision at the time.

“This petition implicates important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell, but it does not cleanly present them,” Thomas wrote in a statement.

Many LGBTQ advocates say they are apprehensive about the shifting legal and political landscape around marriage rights.

There are an estimated 823,000 married same-sex couples in the U.S., including 591,000 that wed after the Supreme Court decision in June 2015, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School. Nearly one in five of those married couples is parenting a child under 18.

Since the Obergefell decision, the makeup of the Supreme Court has shifted rightward, now including three appointees of President Donald Trump and a 6-justice conservative supermajority.

Chief Justice John Roberts, among the current members of the court who dissented in Obergefell a decade ago, sharply criticized the ruling at the time as “an act of will, not legal judgment” with “no basis in the Constitution.” He also warned then that it “creates serious questions about religious liberty.”

Davis invoked Roberts’ words in her petition to the high court, hopeful that at least four justices will vote to accept her case and hear arguments next year.

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Trump has enacted 69% of Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ+ goals. Here’s what he’ll do next.

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

resident Donald Trump has already achieved 69% of the anti-LGBTQ+ policy goals recommended by Project 2025, the blueprint for his second term created by the Christian Nationalist think-tank The Heritage Foundation, according to the website Project 2025 Tracker.

The website, which describes itself as a “comprehensive, community-driven initiative to track the implementation of Project 2025’s policy proposals,” lists 18 LGBTQ+-related goals. Of them, the tracker categorizes 11 of the blueprint’s goals as “completed,” three as “in progress,” and four as “not started.”

Many of the “completed” goals have dealt with eradicating any funding for gender-affirming healthcare, erasing any mentions of LGBTQ+-inclusive language from federally funded groups, and reinterpreting federal anti-discrimination laws to exclude any protections for trans and nonbinary individuals.

But it’s worth noting that many of the goals that the tracker marked as “completed” were actually policy changes sought in Trump‘s executive orders. Though some of his orders have been pursued by various government agencies and upheld by court decisions, others remain partially blocked in court challenges.

Very few of the “completed” policy goals were accomplished through actual laws passed by Congress. As such, many of Trump’s orders could potentially be overturned by a future president who issues opposing executive orders upon taking office.

The three “in progress” goals involve continuing to deny federal funds to “woke” groups and prioritizing heterosexual families and children in government policies.

The four “not started” goals include protecting religious-based anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, prosecuting any pro-trans educators and librarians as sex offenders, and ending any Medicare coverage for gender-affirming surgeries (even though most major medical associations recommend such care).

Overall, Trump has “completed” 47% of Project 2025’s goals, the tracker states, barely seven months into his second presidential term. Their completion has largely been aided by a Republican-led Congress that has not objected to his unconstitutional and illegal actions that supersede his constitutional authority, as well as by Republican-appointed judges, namely the six-member Supreme Court majority, which has largely allowed his policies to remain in effect without offering much (if any) legal reasoning.

Trump has also achieved some of his goals by illegally denying congressionally authorized federal funding to numerous groups and organizations (both domestically and internationally) or by threatening investigations and prosecutions of groups that defy his orders. Many universities, law firms, broadcasters, and other companies have complied with his orders, even though they likely violate constitutional rights to free speech.

Trump feigned ignorance about Project 2025 and its goals during his 2024 re-election campaign, commenting, “Some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” and “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but have nothing to do with them.”

But as the then-vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) said during the Democratic National Convention, “I coached high school football long enough to know, and trust me on this: When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it.”

Completed

Department of Labor – Provide robust accommodations for religious employees. (Completed July 27)

Department of Labor – Rescind Biden-era Title VII and Title IX rules that strengthened the ability to prosecute sexual assault and discrimination cases. (Completed January 30)

Department of Defense – End all use of public monies for transgender surgeries. (Completed May 12)

Department of Defense – Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. (Completed May 7)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – End all data collection on gender identity. (Completed February 25)

White House – Remove the words “sexual orientation and gender identity,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “gender equality” from every federal rule. (Completed January 30)

Department of Health and Human Services – Reverse prohibitions on healthcare discrimination based on gender identity. (Completed January 27)

Department of Education – Issue rules and guidance that “sex” is properly understood as a fixed biological fact. (Completed January 19)

Department of Education – Rescind Biden-era guidance that added a “non-binary” option in civil rights data collected from schools. (Completed January 19)

Department of Education – Abandon the redefinition of “sex” to “sexual orientation and gender identity” in Title IX. (Completed on January 19, but blocked by a court order)

White House – Revoke Biden’s executive order 14020, which established the Gender Policy Council. (Completed January 19)

In progress

Department of Health and Human Services – Revoke guidance that prohibited adoption/foster agencies from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Department of Health and Human Services – Prioritize traditional (heterosexual) marriage in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.

White House – Cut off government contracts to entities that enforce a “woke agenda.”

Not started

Department of Health and Human Services – Rescind Medicare coverage for gender reassignment surgery.

Department of Justice – “Classify educators and public librarians” who discuss “transgender ideology” with minors as “sex offenders”.

Department of Labor – Prohibit employee retirement plans from investing based on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors.

Department of Labor – Issue an order “protecting religious employers and employees,” clarify they may make employment decisions based on religion.

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U.S. Air Force to deny retirement pay for transgender troops being separated from service

Read more at PBS.

The U.S. Air Force said Thursday it would deny all transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement benefits. One Air Force sergeant said he was “betrayed and devastated” by the move.

The move means that transgender service members will now be faced with the choice of either taking a lump-sum separation payment offered to junior troops or be removed from the service.

An Air Force spokesperson told The Associated Press that “although service members with 15 to 18 years of honorable service were permitted to apply for an exception to policy, none of the exceptions to policy were approved.” About a dozen service members had been “prematurely notified” that they would be able to retire before that decision was reversed, according to the spokesperson who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal Air Force policy.

A memo issued Monday announcing the new policy, which was reviewed by the AP, said that the choice to deny retirement benefits was made “after careful consideration of the individual applications.”

All transgender members of the Air Force are being separated from the service under the Trump administration’s policies.

Separation process has hit some bumps

The move comes after the Pentagon was given permission in early May by the Supreme Court to move forward with a ban on all transgender troops serving in the military. Days later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a policy that would offer currently openly serving transgender troops the option to either volunteer to leave and take a large, one-time separation payout or be involuntarily separated at later date.

A Pentagon official told reporters in May that they viewed the policy as treating “anyone impacted by it with dignity and respect.”

However, in late July, transgender troops told Military.com that they were finding the entire separation process, which has included reverting their service records back to their birth gender, “dehumanizing” or “open cruelty.”

Shannon Leary, a lawyer who represents LGBTQ+ people in employment discrimination cases, says she expects lawsuits to challenge Thursday’s decision. “It seems quite arbitrary on its face and cruel,” she said. “These military members have dedicated their lives to serving our country.”

Normally, Leary said, when early retirement is offered in the military, it’s available to all members who have served over 15 years. She said she expects other service branches to follow the Air Force’s path.

One Air Force service member says he’s ‘devastated’

Logan Ireland, a master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force who has 15 years of service, including a deployment to Afghanistan, is one of the airmen impacted by the policy. “I feel betrayed and devastated by the news,” he said.

Ireland said he was told that his retirement was being denied on Wednesday when his chain of command, “with tears in their eyes,” told him the news.

Officials have said that as of Dec. 9, 2024, there were 4,240 troops diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” on active duty, National Guard and Reserve. Pentagon officials have decided to use the condition and its diagnosis as the main way to identify troops who are trans.

However, the two are not an exact match — not every transgender person has the condition. As a result, there is an understanding that the actual number of transgender people within the military’s roughly 2 million troops may be higher.

Under the latest policy, active duty troops had until June 6 to voluntarily identify themselves and receive a payout while troops in the National Guard and Reserve had until July 7. Pentagon officials previously told reporters that they plan to lean on commanders and existing annual medical screenings to find any transgender service members who do not come forward.

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State Department Removes Anti-LGBTQ+ Violence From Human Rights Report Draft

Read more at Huff Post.

The Trump administration has removed all references to violence against LGBTQ+ people and gender-based violence in drafts of the State Department’s much anticipated annual report on international human rights.

The draft of the report, which was leaked to and first reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday, scales back its critiques of abuses in countries with a record of human rights abuses. In particular, the Post learned of drafts of human rights reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia that completely excise references of LGBTQ+ people and violence toward those communities.

The erasure of LGBTQ+ people and the abuses they face in the draft report underscores the Trump administration’s intention to scale back references to human rights broadly and take its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda worldwide.

“The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report,” a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to brief the news media, told reporters on Wednesday. “The human rights report focuses on core issues.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

In a section about El Salvador, the draft report notes the country had “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses.” In a previous report from 2023, the State Department found “significant human rights issues” in El Salvador, including “politically motivated killings” and “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.”

This spring, President Donald Trump secured a multimillion-dollar deal with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to allow 252 Venezuelan men in the U.S. to be deported and housed within the country’s notorious new Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.

After being jailed for more than 120 days at CECOT, the men, most of who had no criminal history, told stories of being physically and mentally abused for days on end.

Jerce Reyes Barrios, one of the men held at CECOT, told HuffPost reporters Jessica Schulberg and Matt Shuham about his harrowing experience inside the prison. Reyes Barrios recalled a prison official saying, “Welcome to hell on earth, where you’ll be condemned to spend the rest of your lives; where I’m going to make sure that you never eat chicken or meat again.”

Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist, alleged that CECOT guards groped him and forced him to perform oral sex while he was in solitary confinement.

A former State Department employee, Keifer Buckingham, said the removal of references to violence against LGBTQ+ people was a “glaring omission,” especially when it comes to Russia. In 2023, Russia’s supreme court deemed what it called an “international LGBT public movement” as extremist, and the courts began their first convictions of people last year under the order.

In February of 2024, a man in Volgograd was found guilty of “displaying the symbols of an extremist organisation” after posting a photo of the LGBTQ pride flag on social media. That same month, a woman near Moscow was sentenced to five days detention for wearing frog-shaped earrings that were rainbow colored.

The drafts of the reports for El Salvador and Russia were marked “finalized,” and the draft for Israel was marked “quality check,” according to the Post. It is still unclear when the reports, which are typically released to the public each March or April, will be sent to Congress and then the public, and if they will include these omissions.

U.S. diplomats have released the State Department’s annual human rights reports for nearly 50 years. Historically their findings have been widely read and anticipated by foreign leaders and diplomats, and have been used in legal proceedings both domestically and abroad.

However, this year human rights advocates decried the news about the ways in which the Trump administration has softened the descriptions of human rights abuses, especially the violence against LGBTQ+ people.

Uzra Zeya, the CEO of Human Rights First, an international human rights nonprofit, said in a statement that the changes were “a radical break” from the original goal to “objectively and even-handedly describe the human rights situation in every country and territory in the world.”

“This severely undermines their credibility and value in guiding U.S. decision-making on a wide range of critical foreign policy issues. Purging mention of elections, corruption, and global human rights abuses against LGBTQI+ persons, persons with disabilities, women and girls, refugees and other vulnerable groups runs counter to American interests and values and makes Americans abroad less safe and informed,” she continued.

Amanda Klasing, the national director of government relations for Amnesty International, said in a statement that she believes the mandate to scale back the report came from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who instructed employees to delete sections that included stories from survivors of human rights violations and to ignore instances of repression in certain countries.

“The secretary’s instructions were to cut everything not legislatively mandated, but the leaked documents appear to show effort to narrow the scope of what the world hears about human rights abuses around the world,” she wrote.

“The downplaying or exclusion of key issues, such as discrimination and attacks on civil society, from this year’s report will hinder efforts from governments and civil society organizations around the world to respond to these abuses,” she continued.

The Trump administration’s erasure of LGBTQ+ people and gender-based violence has continued on other international stages. At a United Nations meeting in June, a U.S. delegate spent much of her time in a routing meeting on pollution to discuss the United States’ new “national position” on gender.

“Use of the term ‘gender’ replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity and is demeaning and unfair, especially to women and girls,” the delegate said.

In at least six speeches before the United Nations, U.S. delegates have condemned what it calls “gender ideology,” and pushed the Trump administration’s support for recognizing so-called “biological sex,” according to ProPublica.

During his first day in office, Trump signed an executive declaring that the federal government only recognizes “two sexes, male and female,” and signaled that all references to “gender” would thus be replaced with the term “biological sex.”

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See where gender identity care is restricted and where it’s protected across the US

Read more at CNN.

The US Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender identity care for transgender minors earlier this summer has fueled ongoing polarization around LGBTQ issues and controversial policies across the nation. The high court has also agreed to take on more cases dealing with trans rights in its next session that begins in October.

Twenty-seven states have passed laws limiting access to gender identity health care for transgender children and teenagers, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy think tank. An estimated 40% of trans youth ages 13 to 17 live in these states.

VIEW GRAPHIC IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE.

There have already been more anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures so far this year than in any full year since at least 2020, a CNN analysis of American Civil Liberties Union data found. These bills span various aspects of everyday life, including bathroom access, school sports and identification documents.

CNN is tracking where these laws are being passed and where these bills are being introduced. This story will be updated.

Gender identity care includes medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned sex— the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender, the gender by which one wants to be known.

Most of the states limiting gender identity care for trans minors adopted their bans in 2023, a record-breaking year for such laws. So far this year, one state — Kansas — has passed a ban, prohibiting the use of state funds to provide or subsidize health care for transgender youth.

Not all laws are currently being enforced, however. The ban in Arkansas has been permanently blocked by a federal court, though the state said it would appeal the ruling. Montana’s ban is also permanently blocked, according to KFF. Though Arizona has a 2022 law on the books banning surgical care for transgender minors, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed an executive order in 2023 ensuring access to gender identity health care.

VIEW GRAPHIC IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE.

Another record year for anti-LGBTQ bills

Nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced into state legislatures as of July 11, which is already more than any other year on record, according to the ACLU.

Education and health care continue to be key targets. There were more bills restricting student and educator rights — enforcing school sports bans and targeting students’ access to facilities consistent with their gender identities, for example — than any other category of bills, according to a CNN analysis of ACLU data.

VIEW GRAPHIC IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE.

Legislators in Texas have introduced 88 anti-LGBTQ bills so far this year, more than double the number of bills being considered in any other state. Four of those — including one that limits changes to gender markers on state medical records — have been passed into law.

In late July, Texas lawmakers are reconvening for a 30-day special session. On the agenda is a transgender bathroom bill.

Lawmakers in every state, except for Vermont, have filed at least one anti-LGBTQ bill in 2025, according to a CNN analysis. Twenty-two states have signed those bills into law.

VIEW GRAPHIC IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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Why Every Realtor Needs MULTIPLE State Licenses—Protect Yourself from Political Fallout

Are you a real estate agent in a politically unstable or conservative state? Discover why smart REALTORS® are getting licensed in multiple states to protect their careers from sudden political shifts, discrimination, or licensing denial. In this video, we explain:

✅ Why holding real estate licenses in multiple states is crucial in 2025

✅ How anti-LGBTQ+ laws and political agendas are threatening professionals

✅ Steps to apply for additional real estate licenses quickly and affordably

✅ Best states to consider for backup licensure

✅ Real stories from agents facing political backlash

Real estate license reciprocity allows licensed agents to obtain a license in another state without completing all standard pre-licensing education requirements. Reciprocity agreements vary by state, with some offering full reciprocity to all states and others providing partial or no reciprocity. Below is a summary of reciprocity agreements and the associated education requirements for select states:

Alabama Reciprocity: Full reciprocity with all states. Requirements: Complete a 6-hour course in Alabama real estate law and pass the Alabama portion of the licensing exam.

Colorado Reciprocity: Full reciprocity with all states. Requirements: Pass the Colorado state portion of the real estate exam.

Florida Reciprocity: Mutual recognition agreements with Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. Requirements: Pass a 40-question Florida-specific real estate law exam with a score of at least 30.

Georgia Reciprocity: Full reciprocity with all states. Requirements: Hold a current, active license in another state and pass the Georgia state portion of the licensing exam. Illinois Reciprocity: Reciprocity agreements with Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Requirements: Pass the Illinois state portion of the licensing exam.

Mississippi Reciprocity: Full reciprocity with all states. Requirements: Pass the Mississippi state portion of the licensing exam.

Virginia Reciprocity: Full reciprocity with all states. Requirements: Complete a 60-hour “Principles of Real Estate” course and pass the Virginia state portion of the licensing exam.

Wisconsin Reciprocity: Reciprocity agreements with Illinois and Indiana. Requirements: Agents from these states are exempt from Wisconsin’s education requirement; agents from other states must complete a 13-hour education requirement.

It’s important to note that many states without formal reciprocity agreements may still allow experienced agents to waive certain requirements, such as the national portion of the licensing exam or pre-licensing education. However, they often require completion of state-specific education or examinations. For example:

Iowa: Offers reciprocity with Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, and North Dakota. Applicants must prove they took the real estate exam in another state, submit their certificate and license history, and undergo a criminal background check.

Kentucky: Offers reciprocity with Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Requirements vary based on the state and license type but generally include completing a 40-hour reciprocal license course and submitting to a background check.

South Carolina: Extends reciprocity to licenses from other states held within six months before applying. Brokers must have been active for at least three years. Additional requirements include passing the state portion of the exam and submitting certification(s) of licensure from any jurisdictions in which you’ve held a license in the last five years. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, it’s advisable to consult the real estate commission or regulatory authority of the state where you seek licensure.

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Poll of scientists shows large majority weighing leaving US

*This is being reported by The Hill.

More than three-quarters of scientists in the U.S are weighing leaving the country and are looking at Europe and Canada as their top relocation spots, according to a survey released Thursday. 

The scientific journal Nature poll found that 75.3 percent of scientists are considering leaving the U.S. after the administration cut funding for research. Nearly a quarter of respondents, 24.7 percent, disagreed. 

The highest contingent of researchers who are looking to move out of the country were those who are early in their careers. Nearly 550, out of 690 who responded to the survey, said they are considering leaving the U.S. Out of the 340 Ph.D. students, 255 shared the same inclination, the poll found.

The administration, along with tech billionaire and close Trump adviser Elon Musk, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency, has terminated entire agencies and made cuts in the last two months in an effort to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.

Some of those reductions were felt at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where all grants for equity issues, which encompass studying Black maternal health and HIV, were canceled. The cap on indirect costs of NIH grants was capped at 15 percent. 

The NIH was also ordered recently to halt efforts to terminate the funding for grants intended for hospitals, universities and other institutions by a federal judge after numerous lawsuits. 

Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was concerned about the recent cuts to grants flowing through the NIH. 

“I’m worried on a lot of fronts,” Sebelius said Wednesday. “The kinds of cuts that were just announced are devastating and will set science back and set research back.”

These cuts have also affected the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has been hit with layoffs.

More than three-quarters of Americans, 76 percent, said they have a great or fair amount of confidence in scientists to do what is best for the public, according to a Pew Research Center survey that was published in mid-November last year. The figure was a minor uptick from October 2023, when 73 percent of respondents said the same. 

Around 1,650 people responded to Nature’s survey. The margin of error and the dates the survey was conducted were not available to The Hill.

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Trump administration cancels at least 68 grants focused on LGBTQ health questions

*This is reported by WFMY 2.

 A surge of grant cancellations hit researchers focused on the health of gay, lesbian and transgender people last week, as the Trump administration continues to target what it describes as ideologically driven science.

Last week the U.S. government terminated at least 68 grants to 46 institutions totaling nearly $40 million when awarded, according to a government website. Some of the grant money has already been spent, but at least $1.36 million in future support was yanked as a result of the cuts, a significant undercount because estimates were available for less than a third of grants.

Most were in some way related to sexual minorities, including research focused on HIV prevention. Other canceled studies centered on cancer, youth suicide and bone health.

Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said the agency is “dedicated to restoring our agencies to their tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science.” The grants were awarded by the National Institutes of Health, an agency under HHS.

One canceled project at Vanderbilt University had been following the overall health of more than 1,200 LGBTQ people age 50 and older. Most of the money has been spent from the grant funding the project, but it was up for renewal in April, said Tara McKay, who leads Vanderbilt’s LGBTQ+ Policy Lab.

She said the grant won’t be renewed because of the termination, which jeopardizes any long-term results. Still, the Vanderbilt project had already generated two dozen published papers, including work used to train doctors to provide better care to LGBTQ people, increasing the likelihood of cancer screenings and other preventive care.

“That saves us a lot of money in health care and saves lives,” McKay said.

Insights from minority populations can increase knowledge that affects everyone, said Simon Rosser, who studies cancer in gay and bisexual men at the University of Minnesota.

“We now no longer have anywhere studying LGBT cancer in the United States,” said Rosser, who saw his grants canceled on Friday.

“When you decide to cancel all the grants on sexual minorities, you really slow down scientific discovery, for everyone,” Rosser said. Young researchers will lose their jobs, and the field as a whole will suffer, he added.

“It’s a loss of a whole generation of science,” Rosser said.

Termination letters seen by The Associated Press gave as reasons that the research was “unscientific” or did “nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.”

That language felt personal and stinging, McKay said.

“My project’s been accused of having no benefit to the American people. And, you know, queer and trans folks are Americans also,” McKay said.

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State Department to remove LGBTQ information from annual human rights report

*This is being reported by the Washington Blade

The State Department has not commented a report that indicates it plans to remove LGBTQ-specific information from their annual human rights report.

Politico on March 19 reported the Trump-Vance administration “is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community, and more.” The Politico article notes it obtained “documents” and spoke with “a current and a former State Department official who were familiar with the plan.”

“We are not previewing the human rights report at this time,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Blade on March 21.

Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year. 

The 2023 report specifically noted Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act that contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.” The 2022 report highlighted, among other things, anti-LGBTQ crackdowns in Afghanistan, Russia, and Hungary and so-called conversion therapy.

President Donald Trump since he took office has signed a number of executive orders that have specifically targeted the LGBTQ and intersex community. These include the “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” directive that, among other things, bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

The State Department has eliminated references to transgender travelers from its travel advisories. Germany, Denmark, and Finland have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who are planning to visit the U.S.

A directive that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued bans embassies and other U.S. diplomatic institutions from flying the Pride flag. (Former President Joe Biden in March 2024 signed a government spending bill with a provision that banned Pride flags from flying over U.S. embassies.)

The U.S. has withdrawn from the U.N. LGBTI Core Group, a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights, and the Organization of American States’ LGBTI Core Group. The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to suspend most U.S. foreign aid spending has been a “catastrophe” for the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement.

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NIH at DOGE Behest Cancels Nearly $2.2 Million in University Minority Research Grants

*The below is part of a larger report from Ohio’s NBC4.

Nearly $2.2 million worth of grant funding for university research was cancelled earlier this month by the NIH at the behest of DOGE. The majority of the funding dealt with the LGBTQ community. The remainder was specific to structural racism.

The report of course stems from a post on X by DOGE “itself”. The news article does confirm the cancellation of the cannabis use study funding. Others have not been independently verified as having been cancelled.

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