German and Finnish authorities have taken similar steps, and Belgium is planning to do the same, as the Trump administration removes some protections for sexual minorities.
The Netherlands has tightened its travel advice to the United States for LGBTQ+ people, highlighting an unease among European nations about Washington’s policies toward sexual minorities.
The Dutch foreign ministry’s travel advice portal now notes that people belonging to a sexual minority should take into account that “laws and customs in the US towards LGBTQI+ people may differ from those in the Netherlands.”
Dutch public broadcaster NOS points out that the travel advisory previously stated that U.S. laws were “comparable to those in the Netherlands,” with its liberal, progressive stance on LGBTQ+ rights.
Following the Dutch notice, the Belgian government announced that it is also working on adjusting the travel advice in light of stricter border controls and changing attitudes toward transgender people and the wider LGBTQ+ community, Flemish public broadcaster VRT reported.
German and Finnish authorities have also tightened their travel warnings for the U.S. after President Donald Trump took steps to remove some protections for sexual minorities, such as only accepting M or F (male or female) as gender identification on passports and visas.
”It reflects a sad and completely needless reality,” Dutch MEP Kim van Sparrentak, from the Greens group, told POLITICO.
Van Sparrentak, who also heads the European Parliament’s LGBTIQ+ intergroup, stressed that the liberal European fears are “not only for people traveling to the U.S. but for a large part of the U.S. population too, trans and intersex people in particular.”
North Carolina Democrats filed a slew of bills Tuesday all centered around reproductive health and LGBTQ+ protections.
According to Democratic lawmakers, some of the bills will guarantee the rights to use contraception to prevent pregnancy and access fertility treatments through IVF. Others will ban conversion therapy and the use/perception of gender and sexual orientation as a defense in assault and homicide cases. An equality for all bill is also proposed.
“We need to be done with treating people as anything less than full human beings deserving of respect and dignity,” state Sen. Julie Mayfield said.
State Sen. Sophia Chitlik said, “Contraception is taken to support people with a variety of health challenges, including polycystic ovary syndrome.”
While state Democrats said they’re pushing their priorities, Republicans filed Senate Bill 516 Tuesday. Entitled the Women’s Safety and Protection Act, it is sweeping legislation that would limit a transgender person’s access to bathrooms and their ability to change legal documents.
Republicans have previously said banning biological men from women’s bathrooms is a safety measure.
According to Democrats, Republicans are only attacking marginalized communities and putting LGBTQ+ and transgender communities in danger.
“If you don’t believe it, just look out there at all those people who just want to be recognized as humans,” state Rep. Allison Dahle said. “They don’t care if you recognize their pronouns, they just want to be human and live their lives.”
Raleigh leaders are embarking on a special effort to document historic and significant LGBTQ sites around the city.
On Monday night, a consultant hired by the city presented a study of those places, as well as recommendations on the locations that should be given an historic designation.
Over 250 properties have been identified.
Willie Pilkington, a resident in Raleigh said we all have something to contribute.
“When you see a marker, and if it’s a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender reference point, then that’s just one more ‘ah ha’,” he said. “This is who those people are. This what they actually did…and that’s what those markers do.”
City leaders said the effort is a step in preserving the stories and history of the LGBTQ community.
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.
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.
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.)
Several hundred people crowded into the parking lot between Cathedral of Hope and Resource Center on Sunday afternoon for a short rally before pouring out onto Cedar Springs Road and marching to The Crossroads.
The March for Queer & Trans Liberation, organized by a coalition of more than 20 local organizations with GLAAD’s Texas representative and communications director for Texas Latino Pride Jacob Reyes, was held in response to the ongoing wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation and policies coming out of Washington, D.C., and state Capitols around the country, including Austin where Texas lawmakers this session have introduced a record number — 205 — of anti-LGBTQ bills, especially focusing on anti-trans efforts.
In explaining the reasons last week for the march, Cece Cox, CEO for Resource Center which was one of the organizations behind the march said, “The Queer & Trans Liberation March sends a message to all in Dallas and across Texas that when we stand up and show up for our communities, we move closer to reclaiming justice.’
*This is being reported by CNBC. We are also unsure if it applied to legally married same sex couples, since Croatia has a different law with similar rights for same sex couples under the Life Partnership Act, which is not marriage equality.
Forget a penny for your thoughts; what about 13 cents for a house in Croatia?
Legrad, a town in northern Croatia, has been trying to get more people to settle in the area by offering houses for pennies. It’s an initiative they started in 2018.
The small town, with around 2,000 people, borders Hungary and has seen its population dwindle since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.
In January, government officials announced another batch of houses is ready for sale at just 13 cents.
To be eligible to buy one of the houses, applicants must be under 45 years old, in a marital or extramarital partnership, and have no criminal record.
Most notably, if you want to snag one of these low-cost homes, applicants can’t already own property — though officials don’t specify if that means in Croatia or anywhere else in the world.
Local Croatian media outlet HRT reported that since the program started in 2018, there are more children today than there were five years ago, and as a result, they’re even building a new daycare center.
“A total of five houses ready for occupancy have been sold. Three families have already moved in, and what delights us is that all three families welcomed a new member during their move-in. This has increased the number of children in the daycare center,” Ivan Sabolić, the mayor of Legrad, told HRT.
In 2021, Legrad put up 19 empty houses and abandoned construction sites for sale at the price of 1 kuna, Croatia’s currency at the time. Seventeen were sold, according to Reuters. The houses were in various states of disrepair, so to help out, the municipality said it would pay $25,000 kuna (about $3,558) for any necessary renovations.
For new residents who wanted to buy a privately owned home, the town offered to cover 20% of the price or up to 35,000 kuna (about $5,056). It’s unclear if the town will offer the same incentives this time around.
*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.
The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted 201-166 today to advance a bill that would strip rights of LGBTQ+ residents of the Granite State, with particular harm to transgender people.
HB 148 would roll back some of the gender discrimination protections passed in 2018, opening the door to discrimination in public spaces, including bathrooms. The bills now move to the Senate. In 2018, New Hampshire became the first U.S. state to pass an update to its anti-discrimination law to include transgender people through a fully Republican-controlled House, Senate, and Governor’s office. A bill similar to HB 148 ( HB 396 ) to roll back gender discrimination protections was vetoed by Governor Sununu last year.
Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, public education, and child welfare issued the following statements:
Linds Jakows, founder of 603 Equality, said: Make no mistake: The majority of New Hampshire state representatives said loud and clear today that they intend to use the law to keep transgender and gender non-conforming people out of public life. This was never about bathrooms or parental rights. It is about using the power of the state to deny basic freedoms and control our bodies and lives. Transgender and gender non-conforming people are powerful and loved, and the overwhelming majority of witnesses and New Hampshire residents who signed to oppose these bills will continue to fight for freedom and safety.
Heidi Carrington Heath, executive director of NH Outright, said: LGBTQ+ youth in New Hampshire have the right to access all the spaces and places they need to thrive. They deserve to hear loud and clear from government that they are valued citizens of the Granite State. Transgender youth are a deeply vulnerable population, and today’s vote on HB148 only causes them further harm. This is not the way to live free or die. To our LGBTQ+ youth, especially transgender youth, we will continue to fight and work for a New Hampshire that reflects their inherent worth and dignity.
Chris Erchull, senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), said: “ It is disheartening that members of the House of Representatives voted to strip away important protections for the Granite State’s LGBTQ+ community, especially for transgender residents, who are our friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Senators should reject this mean-spirited bill, which is part of a broader effort by local and national governments to prevent transgender people from simply being able to go about their daily lives. Lawmakers should work to improve the lives of all New Hampshire residents instead of passing an unnecessary law that discriminates against already vulnerable people and makes them even more unsafe. Respecting New Hampshire’s values of liberty and justice means we cannot tolerate any legislation that attacks people simply for who they are and declares them unworthy of protections from discrimination.”
Courtney Reed, policy advocate for the ACLU of New Hampshire, said: “ It is unacceptable to allow discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in New Hampshire legislation, but that is precisely what HB 148 would do. We urge the Senate to oppose this dangerous bill, which would undermine the right to equal protection under the law for transgender people. Our state has a proud tradition of respecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and it is time to make that clear once again.”
Devan Quinn, policy director for the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation , said, “Transgender, non-binary, and intersex people deserve equal treatment in schools, sports, correctional facilities, and every other aspect of public life. These laws will roll back the progress New Hampshire has made in recognizing transgender people in anti-discrimination legislation. Transgender women are women, and trans girls are girls. Like all women and girls, they deserve fair treatment in every aspect of their lives.”
Louise Spencer, Kent Street Coalition , said, “Transgender, non-binary, and intersex people are residents of the Granite State and deserve the same rights, freedom, and opportunities as anyone else here in the Live Free or Die state. For a majority of lawmakers to vote for a bill that denies our neighbors, friends, and families equality under the law is a betrayal not only of what New Hampshire stands for, but more importantly, a betrayal of the people and communities who deserve our unconditional support and respect. We urge the Senate to oppose this bill, which violates the humanity and dignity of LGBTQ+ people.”
Carrboro, the small sister town of Chapel Hill NC, officially recognizes Transgender Day of Visibility. Carrboro’s welcomeness is well known, and elected the first openly gay mayor in the state back in 1995. The proclamation was read by Councilmember Catherine Fray, the first openly non binary person elected to office in NC.
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