Tag: history

While no one was watching: Belmont NC removes LGBTQ employee protections

Read more at QNotes Carolinas.

Karen Hinkley, an attorney in Belmont, filed a lawsuit in Gaston County on October 30 claiming the city of Belmont violated North Carolina’s open-government laws when the city council removed workplace protections for LGBTQ employees in March.

The City of Belmont, a suburban community with a population around 15,000, is generally viewed as more politically moderate than the rest of Gaston County, where Donald Trump received about 62% of the vote in 2024.

In June 2020 Belmont added protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity for its employees after a statewide moratorium on local nondiscrimination ordinances was due to expire. Several other cities such as Asheville, Charlotte, and Durham also added protections for LGBTQ residents and employees around this time.

The lawsuit centers on a March 3 vote in which the city council unanimously approved a new personnel policy that no longer includes explicit nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Gaston Gazette reported that “After several unsuccessful public records requests for documentation of behind-the-scenes conversations among City council members, Hinkley filed a lawsuit.”

North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law states that it “is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations, and actions of public bodies be conducted openly.”

According to the suit, city officials discussed the policy change outside of public meetings and used private text messages to coordinate the decision, violating North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law and Public Records Law. Hinkley argues that these private exchanges and the lack of transparency denied residents their legal right to witness how local policies are made.

The Gazette also reported that Hinckley “spoke about the policy change during public comment at a meeting on April 7. The video recording of that meeting began late and lacked audio for about 30 minutes, she said in the lawsuit, and minutes of the meeting misrepresented her comments. To Hinkley, the paraphrased notes about her comments in the official minutes of that meeting make it sound like she was supporting the removal of the protective language when the opposite is true,” she said.

Belmont city officials have not publicly commented on the lawsuit.

If the lawsuit is successful, the case could require Belmont to revisit its decision and restore LGBTQ protections, while also serving as a reminder that local governments must conduct business openly and transparently, and that secret policymaking, even on sensitive issues, can carry legal repercussions.

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Russia Finds LGBTQ Travel Agent Guilty Of Extremism After Suicide

Read more at Barron’s.

A Moscow court Friday found an LGBTQ travel agent who had killed himself in custody a year ago guilty of extremism, as Russia increasingly targets individuals it says undermine “traditional” values.

The posthumous ruling came a year after 48-year-old Andrei Kotov was found dead in his cell in a Moscow pre-trial detention centre.

Russia has heavily targeted the LGBTQ community under President Vladimir Putin, and Friday’s ruling against somebody who had died a year earlier is seen as a particularly symbolic example of how zealous the crackdown is.

Kotov, who ran a travel company called Men Travel, had said he was beaten by 15 men when he was arrested in November 2024.

The Moscow Golovinsky court found him guilty of taking part in “extremist activity” as well as using underage people for pornography, the independent Mediazona website reported from inside the court.

His lawyer had said in December 2024 that Kotov’s body was found in his cell and that investigators told her he died by suicide.

Rights groups have accused authorities of using the case as a show trial — not dropping it after his death to scare LGBTQ people.

In November 2024, Kotov described his arrest in court: “Fifteen people came to me at night, beat me, were punching me in the face.”

Putin has for years denounced anything that goes against what he calls “traditional family values” as un-Russian and influenced by the West.

In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court banned what it called the “international social LGBT movement” as an “extremist organisation”.

Human Rights Watch has said that the ruling “opened the floodgates for arbitrary prosecutions of individuals who are LGBT or perceived to be, along with anyone who defends their rights or expresses solidarity with them”.

Russia has never been a hospitable environment for LGBTQ people, but has become far more dangerous since Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, which massively accelerated the country’s hardline conservative turn.

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Supreme Court rejects bid to overturn same-sex marriage ruling

Read more at The Hill.

The Supreme Court rejected a longshot effort Monday to overturn its ruling guaranteeing same-sex marriage nationwide. 

Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis directly asked the justices to overrule the 2015 landmark decision after a jury awarded damages to a couple whom Davis refused to issue a marriage license. 

“The Court can and should fix this mistake,” her attorneys wrote in court filings. 

In a brief order, the justices declined to take up Davis’s appeal alongside dozens of other petitions up for consideration at the justices’ weekly closed-door conference. There were no noted dissents.

Court watchers viewed Davis’s appeal as a longshot effort, but it sparked trepidation among LGBTQ rights groups since several conservative justices who dissented in the decade-old case remain on the court. 

Davis gained national attention after she raised religious objections to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. 

Among the refused couples was David Ermold and David Moore, who sued. Davis was found to have violated a judge’s order in another case, which required her to keep issuing licenses. 

Davis was jailed for five days, the couple obtained their license and Kentucky later passed a law enabling clerks to keep their signatures off marriage certificates. 

But Davis kept fighting in court after the couple won $100,000 in emotional distress damages from a jury plus $260,000 in attorneys’ fees. 

Primarily, Davis’s appeal concerned arguments that she has a private First Amendment religious defense against the award, despite acting as a government official.  

She tacked onto it a request to overturn Obergefell outright, insisting the whole lawsuit would fall if the justices do so. 

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Texas will now let judges refuse to marry same-sex couples if it goes against their religion

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday gave judges in the state a pass if they don’t want to marry same-sex couples, unilaterally granting public officials the right to discriminate against queer couples.

In an end run around equal protection concerns, the high court amended the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct to read, “It is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.”

The change follows years of litigation that inspired a lawsuit by a county judge in Texas asking federal courts to declare that Texas law does not and cannot punish him for his practice of officiating opposite-sex, but not same-sex, marriages in the state.

Jack County Judge Brian Umphress, who sued in 2020 because he only wanted to perform weddings for opposite-sex couples, argued that his conduct would run afoul of the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, despite protections he believed he enjoyed consistent with his religious freedom rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Houston Public Media reports.

In response, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit put the lower federal-court proceedings on hold and asked the Texas Supreme Court to answer the question, “Does Canon 4A(1) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct prohibit judges from publicly refusing, for moral or religious reasons, to perform same-sex weddings while continuing to perform opposite-sex weddings?” That part of the code requires judges to refrain from behavior that would “cast reasonable doubt on the judge’s capacity to act impartially as a judge.”

The high court’s answer came with the amended code of conduct, bypassing public argument.  

Judge Umphress’ fear of sanction for his discriminatory conduct was based on the case of McLennan County Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley in Waco, who spent years in court arguing she had a right to refuse to marry gay couples.

Hensley replied to requests from gay couples with a statement that read, “I’m sorry, but Judge Hensley has a sincerely held religious belief as a Christian, and will not be able to perform any same-sex weddings.”

That conduct earned a public warning from the Judicial Conduct Commission, which said Hensley was violating a requirement that justices of the peace be impartial, even in extrajudicial duties like officiating weddings.

Her refusal to treat LGBTQ+ people equally cast “doubt on her capacity to act impartially to persons appearing before her as a judge due to the person’s sexual orientation,” the commission wrote.

Hensley claimed that no one’s rights were denied since a same-sex couple could have found another judge to marry them, despite the fact that she was the only justice of the peace performing marriages in Waco at the time.

Hensley filed a lawsuit against the commission with help from the First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based anti-LGBTQ+ legal organization, arguing for protections under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The commission eventually dismissed its sanction a few months after the Texas Supreme Court allowed Hensley’s case to proceed.

That decision from the Texas high court earned Hensley a supportive concurring opinion from the chief justice, who publicly supported the Waco judge before his appointment.

“Judge Hensley treated them respectfully,” Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote of the couples she refused to marry. “They got married nearby. They went about their lives. Judge Hensley went back to work, her Christian conscience clean, her knees bent only to her God. Sounds like a win-win.”

Jason Mazzone, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who’s familiar with both cases, said the Texas Supreme Court’s code of conduct workaround still leaves open the possibility for a gay couple with standing to challenge a judge’s decision not to marry them on constitutional equal protection grounds.

“One of the claims that I think will be made in response to litigation that is likely is that, ‘Well, there are other people who can perform the wedding ceremony, so you can’t insist that a particular judge do it,’” Mazzone said. “But that, of course, is not how equal protection works, and it’s not how we expect government officials to operate.”

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Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes have risen around the world since 2020: report

Read more at The Advocate.

Hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people are rising around the world as politicians target them through legislation and rhetoric.

Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes have increased in the past five years across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, according to a new report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, with transgender and gender nonconforming people particularly affected. The spike may in part be attributed to world governments passing anti-LGBTQ+ policies, which has “escalated internationally in tandem with political rhetoric.”

Some of the high profile incidents cited in the report include the mass shooting at the LGBTQ+ bar Club Q in Colorado that left five dead, the 2023 murder of a woman in California who was not LGBTQ+ because she flew a rainbow flag in her store, and the arrests of 20 members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front in 2023 who intended to riot at a Pride event in Idaho.

“These threats come from across the spectrum of ideological extremism, but frequently from groups that also pose a threat to the state and are openly opposed to democratic norms,” the report notes.

In the U.S., hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people remained high despite an overall decrease in violent crime. Out of 11,323 single-bias incidents the FBI reported in 2024, 2,278 (17.2 percent) were based on sexual orientation and 527 (4.1 percent) were based on gender identity. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation were the third-largest category, with crimes based on race, ethnicity, or ancestry being first and religiously motivated crimes second. Gender identity bias was the fourth-largest category.

Threats and harassment against school board officials in the U.S. also increased by 170 percent from the previous year in November, 2024 to April, 2025, the ISD report notes. Many of these threats were explicitly motivated by an anti-LGBTQ+ bias, with the perpetrators objecting to age appropriate queer books or content in public schools.

“LGBTQ+ individuals, who gained unprecedented civil rights in previous decades, are now increasingly targeted by online and offline hate, political rhetoric, censorship and legislation,” the report states. “A series of actions have sought to exclude LGBTQ+ people and culture from public life, ranging from book bans to a spread of legislation restricting trans people. In tandem, terror attacks (or the threat of terror attacks), violent extremist activity, and hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ individuals have increased or remained consistently high since 2020.”

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Trans medical tourism is booming in Iran, while transitions are forced on locals

In Iran, where being gay can carry the death penalty and the idea of marriage equality is an abomination, gender transition-related medical care has long been a booming business serving locals and foreigners alike.

Part of the Islamic Republic’s expertise in the field comes from 40 years of forcing gay people to choose between transitioning and death.

But now, in a desperate search for currency in the cash-strapped country, the government is luring patients from around the world with steep discounts and luxury lodging, The New York Times reports.

Crippled by war and economic sanctions, Iran has launched a PR blitz promoting its expertise to a global audience, luring foreigners with trans-themed packages including budget-conscious surgeries, luxury hotel stays, and sightseeing tours.

Iran’s theocratic government has set a goal of generating more than $7 billion from medical tourism annually, according to Iranian state news media, a seven-fold increase over a year ago. 

In addition to nose jobs and hair transplants, glossy brochures and a social media campaign are offering vaginoplasties, mastectomies, and penis constructions for a song.

“We handle everything from start to finish, providing the best medical services to ensure a stress-free experience,” said Farideh Najafi, the manager of two medical tourism companies. “This includes booking hotels, hospitals, transportation, and more.”

According to one operator, while the cost of comprehensive surgery in the U.S. could be “around $45,000, and in Thailand, it’s approximately $30,000,” patients can pay “less than $12,000” in Iran. A government hospital stay can go for as low as $4,500.

The cut-rate prices are luring patients from wealthier countries like Australia, the United States, and Europe, according to medical tour operators and surgeons, despite the dark backdrop to the country’s transgender expertise.

Many gay and lesbian Iranians who are not trans are “pressured into undergoing gender reassignment surgery without their free consent,” according to a United Nations Human Rights Council report issued in March, and the alternative can be execution.

Amnesty International says more than 5000 gay people have been put to death in the Islamic Republic since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Public flogging is even more common.

A British Home Office report in 2022 found that roughly 4,000 people underwent transition surgery each year in Iran, compared to just under 13,000 in the U.S. in 2020, which has a population four times greater. The vast majority of patients come from inside Iran, experts say.

The extraordinary number has its basis in a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founding supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. He declared in the 1980s that transgender individuals could gain legal recognition of their identifying gender on the condition that they underwent transition surgery.

The volume of surgeries has come with a questionable safety record. A 2015 U.N. report described botched procedures like “abnormally shaped or located sexual organs.” Some activists have likened the country’s gender clinics to “butcher” shops.

Raha Ajoudani, a 20-year-old trans woman and activist, fled Iran rather than submit to a forced transition.

“I never wanted to undergo gender reassignment surgery,” she said. “I’ve defined myself outside of this binary. I didn’t want to live according to the governmental definition of cultural expectations of being a woman or a man, nor did I submit to Khomeini’s fatwa.”

Eric, a 45-year-old trans man living in Canada, did take advantage of Iran’s expertise in the field, but acknowledged competing feelings over his choice and the plight of gay people in the country.

“I have heard a lot, especially among trans women, that because they are gay, and they cannot be gay in Iran, they try to do the surgery,” he said. “I’m really sad that gays and lesbians are not recognized in Iran, but on the other hand, I’m happy for trans people because they can do what they’re willing to do.”

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Philly to open LGBTQ+ visitor center in the Gayborhood ahead of 2026 events

Read more at the Philly Voice.

Philadelphia’s tourism agencies are planning to have a queer-friendly information center that will highlight LGBTQ+ events, restaurants and businesses to visitors coming to the city during a busy 2026. 

The Philly Pride Visitor Center, operated by the Philadelphia Visitor Center and Visit Philadelphia, will open at 12th and Locust streets in the Gayborhood in January. Organizers said it will help travelers who are here for the World Cup, MLB All-Star Game and numerous celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

The center will offer itinerary planning, ticketing, travel advice and souvenirs from queer-owned businesses. It will also feature exhibits on some of the city’s queer history, including the first LGBTQ+ sit-in at Dewey’s restaurant in 1965 and the Annual Reminders demonstrations outside Independence Hall from 1965 to 1969. The historical content was curated with community input in partnership with Mark Segal, founder of Philadelphia Gay News. 

“Our city helped launch the fight for representation in media, shaped national policy, and created safe, visible spaces for our community,” Segal said in a statement. “Now, with the opening of the Philly Pride Visitor Center, Philadelphia proudly honors that legacy and reaffirms its commitment to those who call this community home.” 

Visit Philadelphia said it was one of the first supporters for creating the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center in New York City, which was the first queer institution of its kind in the National Park System. Leaders said they’re eager to bring this support back home. 

“For more than 20 years, Visit Philadelphia has worked to show LGBTQ+ travelers that they belong here,” said Angela Val, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia. “This new center gives visitors and residents a place to connect with Philadelphia’s LGBTQ+ history, discover affirming businesses and see how this city helped shape a national movement. It is both a resource hub and a testament to Philadelphia’s role in advancing LGBTQ+ rights.” 

Visit Philadelphia and the Visitor Center said that the move is both an investment in its values and reflective of the strong support from queer tourists.

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Antifa expert at Rutgers University flees US amid death threats

Read more at The Hill.

Mark Bray, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University who was nicknamed “Dr. Antifa” by students, left the U.S. for Spain Thursday night due to death threats he has received after he was accused of antifa membership.  

The campus chapter of Turning Point USA and other conservative groups accused Bray of involvement with antifa and started a petition to get him fired, The Associated Press reported.  

Bray has studied the history of the left and is considered an expert in anti-fascist movements but denies any involvement with antifa, which the Trump administration has labeled as a terrorist organization 

“I am not now, nor have I ever been, part of any kind of antifascist or anti-racist organization – I just haven’t. I’m a professor,” Bray told The Guardian. 

He took off on Thursday for Spain from Newark Liberty International Airport with his family, according to his social media, after initially being told his reservation had been canceled.

Conservative students labeled Bray a danger to campus.

“You have a teacher that so often promotes political violence, especially in his book ‘Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,’ which talks about militant fascism, which is on term with political violence,” student Megyn Doyle told Fox News. 

The Hill has reached out to Rutgers for comment.  

Conservatives said Bray donated to antifa when he committed 50 percent “of the author’s proceeds would go to the International Anti-Fascist Defense fund” from his 2017 book.

He countered those funds go “to help with the legal or medical costs of people facing charges for organizing pertaining to anti-fascism or anti-racism” and that the antifa group referenced does not have a centralized committee or leader, according to The Guardian.  

Bray said the threats to him picked up with the petition and President Trump’s executive order to designate antifa as a terrorist group, prompting him to leave the country.  

In his order, Trump said antifa is a “domestic terrorist organization” and gave the government authority to investigate anyone who provides “material support” to the group. 

“Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence and suppressing lawful political speech,” the order states. “This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.” 

When Bray first tried to leave the country with his family on Wednesday, they were not allowed on the plane and their reservation was canceled.  

“‘Someone’ cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second,” Bray posted on Bluesky. “We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’” 

The news he was trying to leave the country was first reported by NJ.com. The airline rescheduled them for the Thursday flight, which they successfully boarded.

Turning Point says it doesn’t support threats or doxing to any person, but students who have rallied in support of Bray are calling for its Rutgers chapter to be shut down.  

“The Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) has been continuously promoting hate speech and inciting violence against our community. This disturbing behavior has created a toxic environment that has already led to tragic consequences,” a petition against the chapter reads.

The Hill has reached out to Turning Point for comment. 

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Japan expands protections for same-sex couples

Read more at Gay Times.

The Japanese government has expanded legal protections to same-sex couples.

According to The Japan Times, the government has decided to recognise same-sex couples as being in “de facto marriages” under nine additional laws, including the Disaster Condolence Grant law.

This follows a decision earlier this year to extend 24 existing laws – including the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, Land and House Lease Act, Child Abuse Prevention Act, and Public Housing Act – to same-sex couples.

Japan’s LGBTQIA+ community has long been engaged in a battle for marriage equality.

Currently, the country’s constitution defines marriage as “mutual consent between both sexes” and does not recognise marriage equality.

In March 2021, the Sapporo District Court ruled that the government’s refusal to recognise same-sex marriage was unconstitutional under Article 14 of the Japanese constitution, which bans discrimination based on “race, creed, sex, social status, or family origin.”

While the historic ruling offered a sign of hope for LGBTQIA+ equality, the community was hit with a major setback the following year.

In June 2022, a district court in Osaka ruled against three LGBTQIA+ couples and their call for same-sex marriage.

“From the perspective of individual dignity, it can be said that it is necessary to realise the benefits of same-sex couples being publicly recognised through official recognition,” the court said on 20 June.

“Public debate on what kind of system is appropriate for this has not been thoroughly carried out.”

A few months later, a Tokyo court upheld the ruling.

However, despite the court doubling down on its stance, the presiding judge also stated that the lack of a legal system and protections for same-sex couples infringes on their human rights (per CNN).

While the marriage equality movement in Japan has suffered a handful of setbacks, it has also seen a few notable wins over the last three years.

In May 2023, the Japanese government faced renewed pressure when the Nagoya District Court ruled the country’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.

In 2024, the Tokyo High Court and the Sapporo High Court issued separate rulings marking the ban as unconstitutional.

Most recently, Japan’s Osaka High Court and Nagoya High Court delivered similar decisions in March 2025.

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Slovakia Enshrines Only Two Sexes in Constitution, Restricting Adoption and Surrogacy for LGBTQ People

Read more at Gayety.

Slovakia’s parliament, has approved a sweeping constitutional amendment that legally recognizes only two sexes—male and female, and imposes new limits on adoption and surrogacy, sparking alarm from human rights groups and LGBTQ+ advocates.

The amendment, passed in a narrow 90‑vote majority in the 150‑seat National Council, also restricts adoption to married heterosexual couples and bans surrogate pregnancies. It was framed by Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government as a defense of “sovereignty in cultural and ethical matters” and traditional values. Fico heralded the vote as “a great dam against progressivism.”

The constitutional change marks one of the most significant curbs yet on LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights in the country, critics say, aligning Slovakia more closely with Hungary’s conservative trajectory, and raising concerns about violations of international commitments and human rights.

What the Law Does

  • Defining Sex and Gender: The amendment states explicitly that only two sexes—male and female—are recognized under Slovak law. Legal definitions of gender identity beyond that framework are excluded.
  • Adoption Restrictions: Only married heterosexual couples will now be able to adopt children. Same‑sex couples are excluded from adoption rights under the new wording.
  • Ban on Surrogacy: The law prohibits surrogate pregnancies.
  • Assertion of “National Identity”: The amendment declares that Slovakia retains sovereignty over issues of national identity, culture, and state ethics, even potentially above European Union law in certain areas.

Passage and Political Dynamics

The vote was precariously close. Fico’s coalition controls fewer than the 90 votes required for constitutional amendments, but 12 opposition lawmakers from conservative parties defected last minute, providing the margin required for passage.

Some opposition figures expressed outrage, describing defectors as traitors, alleging the vote was a political maneuver to distract from declining public approval and other unpopular measures.

President Peter Pellegrini said he would sign the amendment into law, framing the constitutional majority as a signal of political consensus in deeply polarized times.

Responses and Broader Implications

Human rights organizations were quick to condemn the change. Critics warn it will lengthen the legal limbo for trans, non‑binary, and intersex people, reduce access to gender recognition, and further institutionalize discrimination.

There are also worries it will lead to clashes with EU law, which guarantees certain protections for minority and LGBTQ+ populations. Legal scholars suggest the amendments may violate international treaties and could become the subject of legal challenges.

For Slovak LGBTQ+ individuals, the change is deeply personal. It removes recognition for anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into “male” or “female,” and restricts family formation for non‑heterosexual parents.

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